3 ms·

Is it being treated any better or worse than the dozens of other "big problems" we collectively have to deal with? Are we moving heaven and earth to stop sexual

Is it being treated any better or worse than the dozens of other "big problems" we collectively have to deal with? Are we moving heaven and earth to stop sexual assaults? Or Fentanyl overdoses? Or cardiac deaths? Or youth suicide? Or mass shootings? It seems like there is only a finite amount of friction we can endure en masse to mitigate the problems that plague our health and well-being. If anything, I see several other issues in more urgent need of greater sacrifices on all our parts than long COVID.

399215728 4y ago
I think there are different people working on each issue. There's no collective "they" that has to split their focus. The microbiologists and epidemiologists that could be studying long COVID aren't the same people that would be working on preventing youth suicide.
- standardUser 4y ago
  The collective "they" I was referring to was society at large. The general public. But even among researchers working on solutions to these problems there certainly is a limited amount of resources to fund their research.
  - 399215728 4y ago
    I totally agree that the "general public" has "limited focus," especially since public health campaigns are hard! However, my claim is that a lot of progress on these issues doesn't need to be very public. Telling the public to do a thing sounds like the last step of the process, after researchers have already found a definitive solution. I also agree that researchers have a limited amount of resources! But I don't think that funding a research area is necessarily zero-sum. If a company or government decides to throw extra money to start researching a thing, research on other things doesn't stop. As an example, when the NSF provides more funding for research, the number of PhD students goes up, since there are more research grants to go around.
deleted 4y ago
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399215728 4y ago

I think there are different people working on each issue. There's no collective "they" that has to split their focus. The microbiologists and epidemiologists that could be studying long COVID aren't the same people that would be working on preventing youth suicide.

standardUser 4y ago
The collective "they" I was referring to was society at large. The general public. But even among researchers working on solutions to these problems there certainly is a limited amount of resources to fund their research.
- 399215728 4y ago
  I totally agree that the "general public" has "limited focus," especially since public health campaigns are hard! However, my claim is that a lot of progress on these issues doesn't need to be very public. Telling the public to do a thing sounds like the last step of the process, after researchers have already found a definitive solution. I also agree that researchers have a limited amount of resources! But I don't think that funding a research area is necessarily zero-sum. If a company or government decides to throw extra money to start researching a thing, research on other things doesn't stop. As an example, when the NSF provides more funding for research, the number of PhD students goes up, since there are more research grants to go around.

deleted 4y ago

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