
Covid-19 and Human Irrationality - rjyoungling
https://www.younglingfeynman.com/essays/covid
======
crimsonalucard
>While I’m not particularly interested in pandemics, I do find it an
interesting and unique opportunity to observe human behavior.

I too am also a robot who's so logical that I'm above any form of human bias
or irrationality. I observe these covid-19 events around the world and find it
interesting because I'm too analytical. That's my main problem, I'm so
analytical that I like to pretend I'm better than humans and pretend I find
human behavior "interesting" when really I'm just being a dumb human myself in
pretending.

~~~
rjyoungling
hahha while it's a bit of a bummer that I gave you that impression, you did
make me laugh! Thanks for your feedback though.

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Vysero
Who is the author and what are their credentials? Imho, this article bases a
lot of it's logic on if so facto statements about human behavior which could
be argued. I got a strong: "The world is either black or white" vibe from it.

~~~
nostromo
Oh, you're not familiar with startup marketing growth hacker / the world's
latest COVID-19 expert, RJ Youngling?

[https://i.imgur.com/VwgIQJZ.png](https://i.imgur.com/VwgIQJZ.png)

This is pretty clearly content marketing.

~~~
rjyoungling
I agree that it's content marketing in the sense that I try to write things
that others find worthwhile. It's not content marketing in the sense that I
whip together a quick listicle. Thanks for your feedback though. I'm sorry you
didn't enjoy it.

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SolaceQuantum
This is a very weird evaluation: It describes a post mortem on all of humanity
from a site that, from what I can see, is mostly an entrepreneurship op-ed
e-zine?

Certain points are also reflect a strange dissociation or at least
misunderstandings of the very thing the essay appears to be describing as
interesting to evaluate. For an essay describing human behavioral analysis,
the writer appears to look down on emergent human behavior like elbow-bumping.
Its analysis of individual rationality vs irrationality is incredibly silly-
it is far more rational to evaluate the circumstance to understand that a
systemic risk exists and to encourage systemic action as well as individual
action than it is to hoard-buy toilet paper.

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tunesmith
One thing that is fascinating me is where to draw the line between forgiving
an understandable delay, and really blaming leadership for an unforgivable
delay. Like, I am seeing blame for the us administration not preparing or
responding more quickly to public knowledge in mid-february, but... what
percentage of us had the forethought to divest our retirement accounts at that
time? (I'm not looking for bragging anecdotes here, my point is that most
people didn't.) There's a point at which anyone is _somewhat_ certain that
_something_ bad is happening or about to happen, without having any sense of
intensity or speed, where there's a certain level of human reaction delay. So
is there a good standard for when it is no longer forgivable human/societal
behavior, and becomes truly egregious cruelty, willful ignorance, and blame-
worthy incompetence?

~~~
rjyoungling
That's indeed fascinating. Any such line will always have an element of
arbitrariness. I.e. Pick duration Y. Then why not Y+1 or Y-1.

That being said. Pandemics are highly predictable and where I live (Europe) we
had the benefit of seeing different approaches being used by different
countries with varying degrees of success (Taiwan v. Italy).

There are measures (such as air travel restriction) where we know they're not
that effective (although they do buy you some time). There are measures (such
as social distancing and being early and aggressive in closing schools and
other facilities) that are known to be more effective.

I think the line can be drawn where one has sufficient information to act
quickly and still refuses to do so.

In government's (limited) defense. Exponentials are highly counterintuitive,
so it's understandable the right thing feels strange.

The right time to implement measures is precisely when everything 'feels
fine'. That, coupled with political blowback and economical impact serves as a
constraint to quick action IMO. [1]

I'm by no means an expert in this field. I merely study human behavior in the
context of business. So with a little luck, an epidemiologist will chime in.

[1] I suspect that there's 1 other bias that plays a role. Namely, what
doesn't occur is harder to quantify than that which does. E.g. The FDA might
pull a drug and save lives as a result. On the flip side, the lives that are
lost because certain drugs take years and years to market are hard to measure.
There are virtually no consequences for The FDA regarding the lives that are
lost by being slow. There are massive consequences for the lives that are lost
by approving a bad drug. Now imagine that the harder to quantify lives lost
due to slowness exceeds those due to bad drugs. That would mean The FDA had a
negative net-effect yet it would feel positive due to this bias.

~~~
tunesmith
Regarding your footnote, I think that also applies to our state Governors. I
don't think they have the advantage of federally classified briefings, so
they're reacting to public analysis and the situation on the ground.

For instance, Oregon has implemented distancing and stay-in-place fairly early
(apparently) in the state's outbreak. But Oregon is also surrounded by WA and
CA, which maybe made it easier to do so.

A landlocked state in the south surrounded by other states that aren't taking
it seriously might find it much more difficult to get buy-in for making those
decisions.

Then you have states like Florida where it seems incredibly obvious they
should have taken steps before now.

~~~
rjyoungling
''so they're reacting to public analysis and the situation on the ground.''

Your analysis describes (more eloquently than mine) what I think is going on
as well.

It would appear to me that that public buy-in specifically is what makes
acting early challenging.

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throwaway_USD
I did an HN post this morning about Disney having the best day in company
history yesterday...there is no rationality or reason for this, and sorry to
every HNer I already mentioned the Keynes quote about the market remaining
irrational longer than investors remaining liquid.

But seriously we have so much in the way of resources, but instead the
millionaires and billionaires are investing in a cartoon mouse and company
that runs theme parks, hotels and cruise ships that will not only remain
closed for the foreseeable future, but when they do open people will not risk
going.

Its not just the public companies either, look at the university systems.
Between just the top 10 schools with the largest endowments and they have
collectively over $250B stashed away. 10 non-profits have $250B, they have
labs and they have researchers at the ready...but how much of that money are
they spending to combat this? How many of these brilliant minds are at work in
the labs?

I won't even get into the government response...all you need to do it look at
the President of the US who accepts and promotes medication based on his
feelings and hopes and shuts down actual medical experts. It is all so
ridiculous believing this is a manufactured conspiracy would almost be easier
to accept than what is actually happening right now. But when you are dead,
you will be glad you bought that Disney stock for under $100/share, it is
after all a once in a lifetime opportunity.

~~~
rjyoungling
The most fascinating thing to me is to see how diametrically opposed reactions
from different countries are. Especially those that have experienced SARS v.
those that didn't.

