
Compaq and Coronavirus - ingve
https://stratechery.com/2020/compaq-and-coronavirus/
======
btilly
The underlying message is simple. Willingness to do the work, make hard
decisions, and be productive, leads to success. A history of success without
that underlying willingness, leads to failure. The West got where it was by
being on the winning side of that equation, but has lost it. Taiwan is on the
winning side of that equation.

The first example was the rise of Compaq (in the West) when it had that
willingness, followed by its fall when it didn't. And the rise of other
companies in Taiwan that were willing to do the actual work.

The second example is coronavirus, where Taiwan's current success stands in
stark contrast with the unwillingness of western countries to even consider
taking effective action. Taiwan shows what it is possible. The USA can only
consider which tragedy to choose. And has gone about it so badly that it is
effectively choosing both.

~~~
rob74
I guess Taiwan's inherent mistrust of China helped in making the right
decisions - while the thoughts of politicians in the West were something along
the lines of "China is saying it has things under control, the WHO is saying
the same, so there is no need for drastic actions right now - and if it turns
out later that we were wrong, we can shift the blame to China and the WHO".

~~~
robocat
Even after China’s (self?)deception became uncovered, most countries still
didn’t act effectively, or (even more bizarre) performed their own form of
denial.

Wasting many weeks of runway, then suddenly discovering an emergency due to
lack of foresight.

Many citizens knew what was happening, yet somehow our political organisations
failed us.

------
glaive123
I was in S. Korea from around Feb 1 - 20. US and S. Korea had the first case
of COVID at the same time, Jan 20.

As of the first week of February, emergency SMS alerts in S. Korea were sent
out daily, sometimes several times per day. These alerts told everyone to wear
masks, stay inside, wash hands, and exercise caution. S. Korea was already
mobilizing government resources when there were very few cases. I remember
there were only 20 cases at this point and all the efforts seemed overkill,
but now we know they were necessary.

Meanwhile in the US none of this was taking place and the president is
publicly saying everything is under control, when it was not.

It's comically easy to see why the US is failing to contain COVID if you have
been watching how governments in Asia have been handling the outbreak.

~~~
mercer
we received one single sms in NL via our fancy alert system that gave a
warning I don't even remember. we're definitely not doing all that much
altogether, other than slowly ramping up the quarantining as things get worse
(with a 2+ week lag that we don't seem to take into account, I guess?).

------
endorphone
This article feels like what you get when you feel obligated to write
_something_ , drawing grand meanings out of disjointed realities.

Taiwan was relatively recently an autocracy. It still can resort to its
historical behavior overnight. In the West the sort of actions that Taiwan
took _absent an emergency_ are politically unpalatable.

This is a political/ideological reality. Comparing that with empires that have
lost their way is intellectually devoid of any basis and just seems incredibly
lazy.

From a purely functional perspective it's worth noting that much of the West
has a much closer intertwining with China than Taiwan does. This seems
counter-intuitive -- China is right beside it, after all -- but multiples more
Chinese nationals live in _Canada_ than Taiwan. There were magnitudes more
flights between the US and China (purely from a flight # perspective, and
certainly much larger from a passenger perspective) than between China and
Taiwan. That Taiwan has been somewhat spared thus far is partly explained by
this reality.

~~~
majormajor
> Taiwan was relatively recently an autocracy. It still can resort to its
> historical behavior overnight. In the West the sort of actions that Taiwan
> took absent an emergency are politically unpalatable.

The difference is that Taiwan saw the emergency coming and decided to make a
decision early instead of dithering.

Falling back on "we just can't do stuff like that BECAUSE DEMOCRACY" is
intellectually lazy and self-sabotaging.

Arguing about principles instead of considering specific circumstances is
exactly how organizations lose their way.

~~~
Ididntdothis
Giving up on some principles can also be a starting point for erosion of more
principles. It’s a very slippery slope that needs to constantly be
reconsidered. See the slow building up of surveillance states where the
principle of privacy is slowly being eroded because of profit and safety.

------
Insanity
I feel like this would have been perfectly suitable as two posts. (Taiwan and
the coronavirus, and the analogy with compaq).

But the latter part, about how Taiwan is handling the situation, I thought was
pretty interesting.

~~~
greendave
I also found it difficult to suss out the general point connecting the two
events, but I suppose broadly speaking the outsized role of largely unspoken
(and undiscussed) choices in both seems significant.

~~~
hacknat
The point is that we outsourced everything. Being on the top of a hollowed out
value chain, while efficient, is a precarious place to be, because the bottom
of the chain can just flip you on your head. A good brand will allow you to
release one flop, but not three. The name of Compaq’s supplier in Taiwan?
Asus.

------
nategri
When all you have is a hammer everything looks like an IBM clone, I guess.

------
brian_herman
I don't see the argument here. It is too disjoint.

~~~
agumonkey
my best attempt:

\- too much compromising and not enough dynamic effort leads to death

~~~
mcguire
"Taiwan is good in the same way that Compaq was good"?

------
kbutler
TLDR: He advocates more government control to do what needs to be done.

Unfortunately, the government doesn't always know what needs to be done, and
some of his examples (e.g., response of local businesses) don't actually
require government control, but a societal attitude shift. Add in the desire
of some parties to use the crisis to further their agendas, and government
control gets worrisome.

Article summary:

The analogy: "the West feels like Compaq in the 1990s, relying on its brand
name and partnerships with other entities to do the actual work, forgetting
that it was hard work and determination that made it great in the first
place."

Important points:

""" look more closely at what Taiwan has done to contain SARS-CoV-2 to-date —
you can reframe everything in a far more problematic way:

Restrict international movement and close borders (including banning all non-
resident foreigners this week) Integrate and share private data across
government agencies and with hospitals. Track private individual movements via
their smartphones. Even the mask production I praised required requisitioning
private property by the government, and the refusal of local businesses to
serve customers without masks or insist on taking their temperature """

------
fatjokes
This article feels like it was written out of panic and anxiety. The analogy
feels pretty weak.

------
c-smile
TL;DR: Korea, Taiwan, China are fighting COVID effectively avoiding country-
locked-at-home mode.

Major tool for that is the total control on population, e.g. using smartphones
and other technical means.

The fact: people and society in general there have different mentality
historically. Population density was significantly more high there in
thousands of years.

And so, in these thousands of years, population agreed on far smaller "privacy
radius" by giving up personal privacy, generation by generation.

As of "privacy radius", consider population of Korea - 52 mln and population
of Canada - 38 mln. While territory of Canada is 100,000 times larger.

So in East Asia you can _technically_ implement total control of each person.
Countries have infrastructure and acceptance of population already.

Therefore they can fight such problems effectively.

But on other hand high density of the population is a breeding bullion for
next such COVIDs ...

