My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio • Hacker News Board

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#21

Post by resters » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

djohnston wrote: post #5

I am interested in seeing how much more effective China's current system will be at addressing the outbreak vs highly developed western democracies. If there's one thing a technologically advanced dictatorship like the CCP should excel at, it's this.

I think this is one of the more interesting questions we get the chance to observe as things play out.

China's government is more technocratic, more pragmatic, and also more authoritarian than the US. All of those are very useful characteristics when dealing with a pandemic.

So I would expect the Western approach to result in exponentially faster infection rates, and significantly more resource shortages hindering the "on the ground" response.

I would expect that baseline levels of wellness, demographics, and tangentially related factors like climate will have a larger impact on the outcome than governance, so the US might get lucky in one or more of these areas.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#22

Post by QuantumGood » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #13

QuantumGood wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Argument by "they said" should really only be used when it is the same "they" speaking now and then. Otherwise, especially when no reference is given, the "they" can be no one, a general sense the writer remembers, a low-quality they (talking points for manipulation purposes), etc.

Funnily enough, I asked about this two years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16315334

Mainly, "they" are of no significance, no matter what "they" say. The information is what matters, not the "they". If information cannot be extracted from their statements (source references / description of logical statement / premise / etc) , there is no data to analyze.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#23

Post by Apocryphon » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

justinzollars wrote: post #19

Apocryphon wrote: post #2

> this is one of those once in 100 years catastrophic events that annihilates those who provide insurance against it and those who don’t take insurance to protect themselves against it because they treat it as the exposed bet that they can take because it virtually never happens. They said 2008 was a once in a lifetime event, too. So what’s the next black swan that will unsettle the market in 2032? The Big One finall…

> So it sounds like we didn’t learn much from 2008. Will we learn from 2020? We learned a lot from 2008. This is a different ball game. There is plenty of credit today. This is a supply shock. There are not applicable lessons from a credit crunch to a panic/virus induced supply shortage.

Aren’t there at least applicable lessons for dealing with an economic crisis regardless of the direct causes? Or preventative measures to take during a boom time? Because it sounds like once again irrational exuberance has caught up with us and we’re about to reap the whirlwind of lack of protection.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#24

Post by snapetom » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:23 PM UTC

katmannthree wrote: post #20

airstrike wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-re...

Did you read the article you linked? He inferred that the media coverage is fearmongering and an attempt to hurt him. He specifically used the word hoax. He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax. From the page you linked: "During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' critici…

> He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax.

How does this differ from the person you responded to who said, "Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax"?

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#25

Post by QuantumGood » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:25 PM UTC

js8 wrote: post #3

Apocryphon wrote: post #2

> this is one of those once in 100 years catastrophic events that annihilates those who provide insurance against it and those who don’t take insurance to protect themselves against it because they treat it as the exposed bet that they can take because it virtually never happens. They said 2008 was a once in a lifetime event, too. So what’s the next black swan that will unsettle the market in 2032? The Big One finall…

> So it sounds like we didn’t learn much from 2008. Will we learn from 2020? I am busy, right now I am trying to learn that humans will never learn from history. I vaguely remember somebody mentioning that to me in the past, but I dismissed it as a nonsense. (But I am not really that pessimistic. Somebody mentioned that the Spanish flu was a big impulse for providing national health care services. I think it can have…

Propagandists and similar types learn the lessons of history excellently. They work to prevent others from learning anything, but their work is not hard: People not only adopt the characteristic customs and conventions of whatever communit(ies) they identify with, they actively seek groups to identify with.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#26

Post by yodsanklai » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

It's very hard to have an informed opinion on the virus. Different actors have different incentives. Medias try to sell ads, politicians want to be elected (or not held responsible), institutions like WHO are political (I don't really trust them after seeing their treatment of Taiwan) and have their own agendd, even experts have their own biases and are selected by medias. And we are all deeply biased, and tend to look up exactly what we want to hear.

After reading a lot of information, my bet is that the virus itself is in the same league as a bad seasonal flu (I heard that from at least two experts, and from my MD), and we'll suffer more from our bad handling of the situation, rather than from the virus itself. We should deal with this virus exactly how we deal with seasonal flu. Stay home and wear a surgical mask when we're sick, go to see our MD (wearing a mask) if we have mild symptoms, and go to hospital if we have severe symptoms. Generally, avoid close contacts, don't shake hands and so on.

That being said, better be safe than sorry. I personally will work remotely and avoid public transportations for the following month until we have more information.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#27

Post by crystaldev » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

Coronavirus has been circulating for months now. Many of us have already beaten it. That's why spread is linear and not gripping the world like it should be at this point: The "spread" is a measurement of panic and vigilant diagnosis. This is most carefully observed cold of all time.

I was stocking up on dry goods and such like everybody else. After the past few days I feel like a panicked fool. Almost every single death report: "Had underlying health conditions."

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#28

Post by ipython » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

snapetom wrote: post #24

katmannthree wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the article you linked? He inferred that the media coverage is fearmongering and an attempt to hurt him. He specifically used the word hoax. He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax. From the page you linked: "During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' critici…

> He didn't call the virus a hoax, he called the coverage and criticism of the US's handling and response to the outbreak a hoax. How does this differ from the person you responded to who said, "Trump did not call COVID-19 a hoax"?

But katmannthree didn't say "Trump called COVID-19 a hoax". So airstrike is arguing a strawman and katmannthree is simply reiterating what he originally said with quotes from the primary sources.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#29

Post by tunesmith » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #2

> this is one of those once in 100 years catastrophic events that annihilates those who provide insurance against it and those who don’t take insurance to protect themselves against it because they treat it as the exposed bet that they can take because it virtually never happens. They said 2008 was a once in a lifetime event, too. So what’s the next black swan that will unsettle the market in 2032? The Big One finall…

He used to say that 2008 was the end of the big long term debt cycle. Now he's saying it hasn't happened yet.

Re: My Thoughts About the Coronavirus: Ray Dalio

#30

Post by yulaow » Tue, Mar 03, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

katmannthree wrote: post #14

Apocryphon wrote: post #2

> this is one of those once in 100 years catastrophic events that annihilates those who provide insurance against it and those who don’t take insurance to protect themselves against it because they treat it as the exposed bet that they can take because it virtually never happens. They said 2008 was a once in a lifetime event, too. So what’s the next black swan that will unsettle the market in 2032? The Big One finall…

I think this is a terrific example of normalcy bias, a "tendency for people to believe that things will always function the way they normally have functioned and therefore to underestimate both the likelihood of a disaster and its possible effects"[0]. China has provided roughly a month's advance warning on how this virus plays out in terms of infectivity and severity (~20% of cases are serious / require medical atte…

In Italy at the moment the data is far worse.

We have a total of 2263 currently infected people of which 1000 with few symptoms, 1034 hospitalized and another 229 under emergency treatments [0]

If the number of infected keeps growing (+400 today) and the percentage of hospitalized remains the same, hospitals will have serious problems very soon

[0] https://www.ansa.it/sito/notizie/cronaca/2020/03/03/coronavi...