Population density will be factor, and large cities, particularly on the
coast, tend to be Democrat.
On 3/26/20 8:18 AM, ken mason wrote:
I noticed a striking similarly between the virus map of the US and the political map,I know as far as population centers but why is that?
On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 8:11 AM Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
It's as modelable as how many will die from the epidemic; it's
just that few, if any, have taken the time to do it. Certainly
it's as easy to come up with an hysterical model for it as many of
the epidemic models, with equally large error bars, given the
level of quality inputs for either.
On 3/26/20 4:58 AM, Stephen Daniel wrote:
If we do not stop this virus there are reasonable models for how
many will die, albeit with large error bars. Something on the
order of 1M people in the US.
I've seen no models for how many people the economic downturn
will kill. And the economic downturn is a reality no matter
what we do going forward. The question is not how many people
the downturn will harm, but how many fewer we can harm by trying
to get the economy restarted now. I'm not aware of any models
for that.
This downturn is unusual, in that it is caused by a situation
where people how have money do not want to consume. Even if it
were allowed, I'm not going to dine in a restaurant or fly in a
commercial plane for a long time. If lots of people are dying,
I'm even less likely to participate in our consumption driven
economy. Conventional wisdom and old economic models of business
cycles may well be poor predictors of what happens if we try to
restart our economy.
So a statement that we as a whole would be better off by letting
the virus run wild and kill a lot of people requires a lot more
modeling than I've seen anywhere. Knowing math doesn't make the
statement true, it just gives you the skill to understand the
complex models required to predict the various outcomes, if and
when such models become available.
On Thu, Mar 26, 2020 at 6:20 AM David Summers <dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:dvidsum@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
OK, well you're upset and not thinking very well. I hope you
and yours get better soon, and wish you the best.
Let's game this out. Currently, poor people are running out
of food. Maybe they can stretch it for a few months. Corona
virus will be here for 18 months even in the case of magic
level vaccines. I'll point out here that we have vaccines for
the flu, and we still lose 100,000 per year to it in the US
alone. None of the poor will survive 18 months without work.
You can say we will just give them free food - OK, now you
are enslaving the farmers, because they have to work for that
food and because no one else is allowed to work, they can't
get anything in return. In humans, this will lead to fewer
farmers, etc. We cannot shut society down for long enough to
stop the virus - even after 18 months, the virus will still
be here.
Given that, what should we do? That is the question, and it
has little to do with stock options. Social distancing while
still working is probably the best scenario. Maybe some jobs
are now gone forever - bars, dance clubs, cruise ships, etc.
But others can adapt (much larger spacing in restaurants,
more isolation of older people, etc.)
Don't assume that people that think differently than you are
evil. That will just lead to war, which you won't win. (You
think Trump is bad? Who do you think is elected after the
intellectuals keep the working poor and middle class out of a
job for 18 months? That is exactly how Hitler got elected.)
Thanks!
-David Summers
On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 10:42 PM Jake Anderson
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
It's complicated because people don't typically enjoy
being left to die in their fluids over the course of a
few weeks to protect stock options. Despite assurances by
those with said stock options that it's really better for
society this way.
I understand maths too, I also understand how at these
levels you can make statistics say pretty much anything
you want to so it's very important to see who is saying
them. Further I know enough about the science of
economics to know that it's half made up and a lot of the
rest is guesswork. Not the best basis for making life and
death predictions on IMO.
If you want a purely rational economic argument then
nobody over 60 with a net worth less than the likely cost
of treatment should be treated. When you run out of money
you die. Also insurance should be suspended for people
unlikely to recover to preserve the funds for young
healthy people and the owners of insurance companies.
Why do we even have healthcare for people over 60? Their
grand kids are typically grown enough not to need
extended family daycare. Yet these people consume the
majority of healthcare costs. They are just a burden on
the economically viable young people.
That's not the world I want to live in.
On 26/3/20 6:29 pm, David Summers wrote:
You are under no obligation to spend any money to save
my life. Society is marginally better off if you save my
life spending $100k. Society is worse off if you spend
$100m to save my life.
Why is this complicated? I am not evil because I
understand math. The reality was there before the math,
the math merely describes it. Emotive reasoning does not
change reality.
On Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 9:24 PM Jake Anderson
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I guess the equations are different in America than
the rest of the world.
So much freedom.
Should we kill you if I can prove it's good for the
economy too?
On 26/3/20 6:08 pm, David Summers wrote:
Speaking very roughly, for every $1-10 M lost
someone dies. They die because we couldn't get the
cancer treatment, or the process wasn't as safe as
it could be, etc. So by wiping out a trillion
dollars, long term you have kill 100k to 1m people
unless we dig ourselves out.
Money is life people. Technology, even medical
technology, doesn't matter without the money to
deploy it. And money is not something that can be
arbitrarily created or stolen. Theft and printing
money destroys it, rather than create it. Basic
economics.
On Wed, Mar 25, 2020, 8:58 PM Jake Anderson
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Sorry dad, trumps stockmarket portfolio is
going down so you need to die.
On 26/3/20 4:22 pm, roxanna Mason wrote:
Today one week later:
657 infections, 12 deaths, 43 recovered.
Were's the age vs deaths data? If it's
disproportionately the elderly and health
compromised then maybe its time to get back to
work and let herd immunity do its job.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
On Wed, Mar 25, 2020 at 3:23 PM Henry Spencer
<hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<mailto:hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
On Fri, Mar 20, 2020 at 10:26 AM ken mason
<laserpro1234@xxxxxxxxx
<mailto:laserpro1234@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> Observation: One of the largest
population
> country with the lowest infection
rate is India -
> Over a billion people with only
244 infected 5
> deaths 20 received. Why?
India and Pakistan are now both on
lockdown, desperately hoping to flatten
the peak enough that their limited medical
resources can more-or-less
cope. It hasn't been done particularly
skillfully in either country, and
they've got big problems with very large
numbers of poor people who don't
have enough safety margin to handle being
out of work for weeks, but
they're trying.
Henry