David ex Machina

via  Flickr For: Individuals and Society Prescription for COVID-19 (3 Refill s): Science is important, math is important, and nature is real. Continue to learn, think for yourself, and innovate. Critical thinking will help you take better precautions, prepare adequately, reduce panic, and help gauge risk more effectively. Build better safety nets. COVID-19 is the textbook definition of an exogenous shock to the system that even travel insurance does not cover . No one caused it, yet billions will suffer.  The value of a well-run healthcare system has never been more clear. Accessible facilities, plentiful testing, and a coordinated response would have greatly reduced the spread in the U.S.  The merits of Universal Basic Income are becoming more evident. As Twitter aptly put, “ maybe we should rethink a global system that collapses if people stop eating out for a week ” and put more resiliency into the system. Understand your needs and build your own safety net. Vote. E...

How did COVID-19 get this bad? People underestimate exponential growth . Taleb and Graham have touted this for a long time for risk taking and startup growth respectively. The data is there, but it is not in our nature to extrapolate nonlinear growth, so it’s hard to believe and we don’t want it to be true. But the truth is that COVID-19 is an incredibly infectious and lethal virus . A related factor at play is the psychology of proximity; people discount the effects of non-localized events . Even once the exponential growth factor was established in December of 2019, the COVID-19 threat was downplayed since it occurred in China, very far from the U.S., then the epicenter moved to Italy where it was still far enough away, and so on. This continues to play out, country-by-country, state-by-state, no government acts, let alone acts effectively , until it hits home (at the time of writing it is irrational and irresponsible to not enact shelter-in-place for any U.S. municipality ). Unfo...