
We failed in our response because of widespread asystemic thinking - vo2maxer
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/03/what-really-doomed-americas-coronavirus-response/608596/
======
floatrock
When all this passes, I wonder what lessons people will take away regarding
the other huge complex system elephant-in-the-room: climate change.

With covid, we've seen the climate drama play out in a rapid 3-month microcosm
(both what's happening and what the climate doomsday-ists say will happen):
denial, dismissal of its severity, ignorance towards the science and experts,
incompetent government response until it's too late, widespread disruptions,
stock market collapse, the connected officials catching wind of this early and
hitting their personal exits, etc. The idealogical debate going on now with
covid is what's the acceptable tradeoff between economic/corporate welfare
versus literally human lives.

But we've also seen positive trends too: individuals are taking matters into
their own hands by 3D printing medical hacks around ventilator shortages, and
manufacturers are retooling and mobilizing industrial capabilities towards
those same needs.

Covid is the current systemic crisis -- we need all-hands on deck for it. And
as we've seen with the shelter-in-place orders, if it's not voluntary it's
going to be forced. Question is can we learn from it and be humbled by it
enough to seriously tackle the _existential_ systemic crisis on our doorsteps.

~~~
antisthenes
Climate change will continue to happen locally first.

Meaning you can have a state-wide localized disaster in e.g. Texas or Florida,
or France, but it won't be global for quite some time. Weather events also
tend to be much more predictable (we know that a Hurricane won't hover over 1
state for 6 weeks, for example)

Don't get me wrong, it _is_ a global phenomenon, but because it's much more
gradual than "shut everything down", it doesn't have the same effect on
people's behavior.

I'd venture to say local weather crises evoke approximately the same response
as Covid-19.

------
Legogris
> We faltered because of our failure to consider risk in its full context,
> especially when dealing with coupled risk—when multiple things can go wrong
> together. We were hampered by our inability to think about second- and
> third-order effects and by our susceptibility to scientism—the false comfort
> of assuming that numbers and percentages give us a solid empirical basis. We
> failed to understand that complex systems defy simplistic reductionism.

This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about this
issue with some of my friends and on online boards.

I haven't considered it before, but when I think about it now I realize that I
see a clear distinction among those I have been talking to between those who
have done an MSc or higher in an area such as physics, mathematics or computer
science.

(I don't mean to imply that those people are in some way more intelligent, but
it goes to show how extended practice of systemic thinking and problem solving
can prime us to better understand complex issues in general, or at least get a
better approximation for our uncertainty and how that relates to risk)

I also think there's the simple fact that the vast majority of even educated
people have a hard time understanding simple statistics.

There's been this notion that "Japan has handled the outbreak well" or, among
the conspiratoricals, "the government is hiding the real numbers" where my
take is that the data is just not there to make any kind of conclusion either
way yet.

And this is hardly a US issue - we see the same pattern most everywhere.

~~~
heavenlyblue
> This puts words on what's been frustrating me the most when talking about
> this issue with some of my friends and on online boards.

You are not the only one who is like that in my circle. What did you do with
your knowledge to prepare for this epidemic?

~~~
Legogris
Honestly, I was (perhaps part knowingly) uninformed and ignorant until the
spread outside of China started making the news, so nothing worth noting until
the past 4 weeks or so.

Yourself?

~~~
heavenlyblue
That was me too.

I have many people though being hyper-vigilant about the news however they
practically did nothing to prepare for it. So why bother?

------
svara
> We failed to understand that complex systems defy simplistic reductionism.

That reads like anti intellectual mumbo-jumbo to me. What complex system [0]
are we talking about? There aren't very many feedback loops in the dynamics of
a pathogen invading a totally susceptible population. That's the whole
problem. The main one that comes to mind is the lock downs that are being put
in place everywhere now - once you already have a big issue.

I fully agree that a lot of people don't understand the severity of a pathogen
spreading exponentially as long as the absolute numbers look low. But there
are more than enough people who do, who can give solid advice in that kind of
situation. These people have been really concerned since late January at the
very least.

If they weren't heard, that's the problem.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system)

~~~
gdubs
The entire article is about the various cascading effects, from an overwhelmed
healthcare system with reduced capacity to handle normal emergencies and
elective procedures (which will have a long term effect on people’s health),
to manufactures not making certain items because they have to respond quickly
to more pressing concerns (and the delayed crisis that may cause in other
areas).

------
tunesmith
This is a spectacular article, spelling out something that I've been
struggling to identify and communicate. Just the combination of asymptomatic
transmission, R0 (2 - 2.4 is NOT "low"), and hospitalization rates should have
been enough to freak people out more than they were. I particularly appreciate
the first half of the argument and the review of how there was a collective
inability to grasp implications.

------
stareatgoats
Yes, systemic thinking might have helped to a degree. Plus the imagination and
pandemic know-how to understand the likely consequences. Like understanding
that a virus even more lethal and contagious can spread from one part of the
globe to another within a year, again. Or that a nuclear war could be
triggered by mistake any time. Or a combined terrorist attack could be
launched on all nuclear power plants and other centralized nodes in the highly
electrified backbone, after which a collapse of society would be close to
instant. Not to mention climate change. Etc.

There are a myriad of disasters that could or will happen, at some point. But
the most important reason that we are not prepared is AFAICS because
governments and people generally simply hope that such things won't happen,
and if they do, not on their watch, due to the path of least resistance.

Understandable, but for one who long has had the ability to envision all sorts
of mayhem, I sure wish people would take this opportunity to wake up, not only
to virus threats but to all of the gravest risks that confront us, and start
chipping away at those that are actually possible to mitigate.

------
jellicle
The US failed because very few - nearly zero - people in the political
leadership of the US are interested in working for the general public,
thinking about the interests of the general public, etc. It's a failure of
power - the interests of the general public have no _power_ in running the US
government.

To put it another way: if you laid out a ten-page paper describing exactly the
right course of action (you're omniscient, you know these things) on the desk
of every federal leader, it _still_ wouldn't happen. If you did it on the
first day of the outbreak, it wouldn't happen. If you did it today, it
wouldn't happen.

It's a power failure, not a knowledge failure or a "we think wrong" failure.
Nobody is sitting at their desk right now saying "damnit, we tried our hardest
and just didn't THINK of the solution! If only we were better thinkers!".

~~~
jfengel
I'd say that they are very interested in the very large part of the public who
voted for them. Their actions so far have been very popular. And they may
continue to be so, all the way through, even if the death toll is in the
millions. They have blamed the virus on the Chinese, the closures on
overreaction by their opponents, and even the death toll is seen as
unfortunate but necessary for the economy.

Perhaps personal acquaintance with victims will change that, but I have
suspicion that it won't. Certainly it hasn't so far.

They win elections because they know how to care for enough of the people to
win. If it angers you, as it does me, the only way to combat it is to win. No
amount of complaining or message sending changes that basic fact.

~~~
snowwrestler
The demographic with the highest percentage of people who voted for Trump is
older white men. Older men are also the demographic with the highest risk of
death from COVID-19. The worse that the Trump administration does at managing
the outbreak, the more of their voters will die before they can vote in
November.

Considering Trump's slim vote margin of victory in 2016, this could matter.

Talk of re-opening the economy early instead serves a different constituency:
the people who _fund_ much of the recent Republican political program. These
are mostly rich individuals who can make idiosyncratic, self-centered
decisions. The result is a Republican political machine that pursues the
interests of these individuals, even when it means coming into conflict with
the interests of their voters.

The reason politicians want to make these funders happy is that, if the
politician loses office, these funders are the same people who can set them up
with a well-paid gig in the broader political machine. See for example Sarah
Palin, who made this work so well that she quit her political job early.

~~~
jfengel
They may well support it up to the point that it kills them. I expect it to be
popular to tell them there is nothing to worry about and they'll probably be
fine.

------
toohotatopic
>And if we hope to blunt the impact of others like it, let’s not forget,
again, that all of our lives are, together, embedded in highly complex
systems.

Isn't that the reason for the end of systemic thinking? If it is highly
complex, what good is it to focus on managing the system? Why not manage the
perception and let evolution run its course?

------
nostromo
It's interesting to see our desire for blame kick in.

If Earth was hit by an meteor two weeks ago, or if there was a major
earthquake in California, I'm sure we'd see similar blame coming from the
media.

Someone that has been warning of meteors or earthquakes for two decades would
get on TV and talk about how negligent everyone in power is for ignoring their
warnings. Agencies would argue that with more funding they could have
responded earlier.

Everyone who already hates Xi Jinping or Trump or Johnson or Pelosi will
attach new narratives to their favorite villain blaming them for the event and
the response.

Maybe sometimes shit just happens, and we should skip the blame game and focus
on improving our response.

The best thing about this story was that it's was self-reflective on the
media's 180 on this issue. That's something I don't see often in media. Just
four weeks ago all the major media outlets were downplaying everything, and
now those same outlets are placing blame for not taking things seriously on
everyone but themselves.

~~~
madhadron
Note that this is an op-ed by a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, not something by
a journalist.

