MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns • Hacker News Board

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#171

Post by DanBC » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 11:56 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #64

CydeWeys wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet there are actually suicide clusters, with people essentially "catching it" from their friends or loved ones who've committed suicide.

This seems like equivocation on the meaning of "catching it." Isolating yourself so that you either have no close relationships or somehow never hear about any suicides among your close relationships is a fairly nonsensical proposal, and probably wouldn't in fact decrease your chances of committing suicide.

You may be interested in this discussion about a paper about suicide clusters in young people.

https://www.nationalelfservice.net/mental-health/suicide/sui...

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#172

Post by ghaff » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 12:04 PM UTC

paul_f wrote: post #168

alexgmcm wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also in BCN and everyone always says that but I'm not sure I buy it. I mean, yeah, some guys benefit from having the MWC for sure but I'm not sure most residents do - I'm not letting out flats or running venues etc. I'm trying to get to work on time and pay my rent. It reminds me of the similar arguments people make about the big cruise ships that come here - I mean sure, it massively benefits tourist attractions…

Do you understand how economics works? When money from outside your city is spent in your city, that is a huge net benefit to everyone.

That money doesn't come for free. It's perfectly rational for people who don't directly benefit from a lot of visitors--but are inconvenienced by them--to wish to forgo both the visitors and the money they spend/taxes they bring in.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#173

Post by sub7 » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 12:11 PM UTC

xchaotic wrote: post #161

core-questions wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relax and enjoy the MMT, friend. Worked for the Romans! https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5386693ce4b05d183bf2d...

Worked for hundreds of years, right?

Worked for half a century, then slow decline.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#174

Post by ghaff » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 12:19 PM UTC

Darmody wrote: post #25

merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

From what some people tell me, there's also a political reason as there's a lot happening there. The same companies that rejected to go to Barcelona are attenting ISE in Amsterdam. That makes me thing they junt needed a reason to pull out of Barcelona.

MWC is a lot higher profile. And, once Ericsson pulled out, a number of other companies felt that they wanted to be seen (both internally and externally) as doing the "responsible" thing. And that really opened to floodgates to the point where holding the show without a bunch of major companies and pared-back attendance just didn't make sense.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#175

Post by snarf21 » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 2:03 PM UTC

totalZero wrote: post #142

echelon wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people trying to get in and out before the crash to make a quick buck, or are they long and hope to buy at a position cheaper than hypothetical post-recovery prices?

I think it's both. This rally has made people think that the market will outperform in the long run, but even those who believe we're in a bubble have some confidence that we haven't gone entirely euphoric yet. I personally believe we have gotten to the brink of chaos. Foxconn has major issues getting employees back to work, and Apple has shut down stores in China, but AAPL stock is up. AMD is taking market share fro…

I agree completely. The Fed also can't keep QE programs forever. I think if the Democrats win in the fall, it could be a major trigger. There is no reason to think they won't intend to roll back the tax cuts and push for anti-trust against most FAANG seems likely too. Given how FAANG dominates the S&P, it could spiral quickly. The only question is when and how bad will it be. I think we need a real down cycle because just turning down the burner temporarily means the pop will be even worse.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#176

Post by alexgmcm » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 4:05 PM UTC

paul_f wrote: post #168

alexgmcm wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also in BCN and everyone always says that but I'm not sure I buy it. I mean, yeah, some guys benefit from having the MWC for sure but I'm not sure most residents do - I'm not letting out flats or running venues etc. I'm trying to get to work on time and pay my rent. It reminds me of the similar arguments people make about the big cruise ships that come here - I mean sure, it massively benefits tourist attractions…

Do you understand how economics works? When money from outside your city is spent in your city, that is a huge net benefit to everyone.

> that is a huge net benefit to everyone.

This isn't necessarily true though.

Honestly, the MWC doesn't bother me that much - yeah the metro always goes on strike but that's a problem with the metro unions and the Ayuntamiento not the MWC in my opinion.

But take the case of the cruise ships which do irritate me - every citizen gets to suffer worse air quality so a few can enrich themselves on the tourist money.

I understand that in theory that money might 'trickle down' to the citizenry at large, but it is far from obvious that this actually occurs sufficiently to compensate the downsides.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#177

Post by thearn4 » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 4:23 PM UTC

testfoobar wrote: post #63

justinzollars wrote: post #2

I just can't understand why the stock market keeps going up.

No clue about the stock market. But here is some interesting real-time traffic congestion data plotted with 2019 averages for cities. Gives a sense of how many people are going back to work. Scroll down and click "Last 7 days" Notice SF & London are trending with 2019 averages: SF: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/traffic-index/san-francisco-tra... London: https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/traffic-index/london-traffic Then co…

Interestingly, cities in India seem to be at a lower traffic level than 2019 too. Maybe it's related to other factors?

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#178

Post by Mmrnmhrm » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

IMHO the coronavirus was used as an excuse to kill a fair that was already producing negative ROI.

Due to the size and fame of the fair, most big companies were forced to participate to "look better" than their competitors, even if they didn't have any great novelty to show there: it was a marketing arms race where each company had to invest more than the previous year.

On the other hand, the relevance of the fair has dropped, correlated to the smaller incremental improvements that get into mobile phones year after year: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=w...

So, the Coronavirus gave an awesome opportunity to exit the race: a big company can skip the congress this year without appearing defeated.

Let's see if the fair will have an edition next year.

(of course that's only MHO)

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#179

Post by meatsalesman » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

kalipsosu wrote: post #54

merqurio wrote: post #9

It doesn't make sense from a medical point of view. China, and specifically Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, suffer an epidemic that they are trying to control with titanic efforts. 99% of cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, today more than 40,000 with a thousand deaths, have been registered in China. Of them, almost 70% in Hubei. Only 1% of cases have been registered outside China, in 24 countries (inclu…

For flu, each sick person infects 1 person. So Ro is 1. This means no quarantine needed. But for covid-19 estimated Ro is around 2.5. So containing this virus requires quarantine. Also this is a novel virus which means this strain is new and may be unpredictable. Mutations may occur. We even not sure about source of the virus. If it spreads all over the world it could logarithmicly grow in number. Especially for unde…

It's looking like the R0 is significantly higher.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v...

>The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2 to 2.7. Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity. We collected extensive individual case reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period. Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.

An upper end of 6.6 changes everything.

Re: MWC 2020 canceled over coronavirus health concerns

#180

Post by downerending » Thu, Feb 13, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #149

OldOneEye wrote: post #13

While I feel sorry for the people that put the energy to make this happen and also for the people that may lose their jobs this month over this, as a native inhabitant of Barcelona, I can only celebrate the news, even if it is for this terrible reason. When MWC is ocurring in Barcelona, public transport (subway) goes on strike (because of the maximum impact). But usually this only fucks over non MWC attending people,…

Where does that attitude towards tourism come from? I know this is politics but other places would welcome tourism and professional conferences with open arms. When I see a group of tourists cueing in front of something in Copenhagen - sure - I might get annoyed but those people are bringing in money. Not to me personally. But that tourist money gets taxed or spent again. And ultimately it ends up being spent on a ni…

Part of it is that some of the people experiencing the downsides of tourism aren't getting adequate benefits from it. Or perhaps don't see how they're benefiting even though they do.

This is what politics is all about.