[guscost]

> I have not yet seen an adequate response to critics such as Nassim Taleb or Yaneer Bar-Yam.

Is that even necessary? Taleb's school argues that empiricism has fundamental shortcomings because it must be "incomplete" in a world of imperfect (read: statistical) evidence. I agree it's a big problem, one that we are not likely to solve. But they go on to say "therefore, we must apply the precautionary principle to XYZ" which is frankly nonsense. Instinct might be important in Taleb's world of non-ergodic black swans, but that absolutely does not prove that his instinct is better than mine or yours!

[acqq]

Taleb's point is that high uncertainties which can result in catastrophic loss are worth of spending money to protect against.

In our present case, the real nonsense is US allocating funds for a 1.5 trillion dollar plane, but totally avoiding investing in the response of pandemics... before it can be too late.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-long-will-it-ta...

"science can meet the challenges, but there is lots of attrition” before any vaccine gets to the point of licensure. The problem is twofold. First, there may never be a market for a vaccine at the end of the development process, because the epidemic is contained, or never comes to pass. Then, traditionally, if there is an epidemic, it may take hold in a developing country where the costs of research and development cannot be recouped. “The resources and expertise sit in biotech and pharma, and they’ve got their business model,” Grant said. “They’re not charities. They can’t do this stuff for free."

Were there early enough proper funding (surely insignificant compared to 1.5 trillion dollar) this pandemic could have been avoided and, additionally, in the case it couldn't have, the vaccine produced faster. (Bill and Melinda Gates tried to motivate others to do something about that, for years).

Once the virus spreads, it is totally irrelevant where it started.

Edit: and to answer to the message below: I don't have to prove anything. The exponential spread will do its work, independently of all of us. That exponential spread is not something that happens just with coronavirus, it was for decades a known fact. That's the nature of pandemics. The humans in charge ignored the fact at the humanity's peril. There's nothing that can disappear because your political beliefs are different. Even more directly, we're where we are exactly because the political beliefs resulted in the ignorance of the facts.

[guscost]

Surely you must see that now we're having a moral/ethical/political/religious argument, very far removed from anything resembling science?

This is exactly my point. You may believe that you have identified all of "the real nonsense" perfectly well, and your suggestions might be better or worse than mine. But good luck becoming any more certain than you are right now, or proving your case to anyone else.

Put another way: If you believe that X is a "serious enough" risk and I do not, but I believe that Y is a "serious enough" risk and you do not, how do we resolve that disagreement? Who gets the money?

[paulryanrogers]

> Put another way: If you believe that X is a "serious enough" risk and I do not, but I believe that Y is a "serious enough" risk and you do not, how do we resolve that disagreement? Who gets the money?

Worst possible outcome for overreacting could be severe economic hardship and domestic unrest.

Worst possible outcome for under-reacting could be millions dead, leading to severe economic hardship and domestic unrest.

If the evidence isn't beyond all doubt I would hope the choice is clear which worst outcome is worth paying to avoid.

EDIT: "paying to avoid" not "paying for"

[guscost]

Let's not be naive here, the worst possible consequence of overreaction is a war.

[fcurts]

In that case, why wouldn't the same hold for underreaction?

[guscost]

It would. But the correct choice is not obvious anymore, don't you see? Both worst-case outcomes lead to millions of deaths, and you're not able to prove which is more likely.

[__s]

Pascal's Wager

[cma]

Non-ergodic means the virus isn’t randomly bouncing around with the same parameters on the way down. It has very different dynamics on the way down than on the way up, due to contact tracing and more, as seen in China and S Korea etc.

The UK was using a model that said after suppression it would just immediately rise, as if other measures wouldn’t be taken to hold it down.