521–530 of 740 posts
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...and see it as merely linear. That's the problem. Exponential growth is like dynamite. It's absurdly fast, compared to anything people see in daily lives.
Dropping stuff and falling are good examples. If you're paying attention, anyway. I can still grab stuff that's fallen maybe 10-20 cm, but by 50-100 cm it's moving way too fast.
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There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February. We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored. Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it. Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and socc…
This post is exactly the essence of why I don't like politics. It's super easy to retrospectively say "they should've done something else". You might think that even you would do the right choice, but you are wrong. Such decision is hard for any authority. You may vote for any person in the whole world and the result would probably be similar. Lockdown delivered too early could send whole country into chaos. Also Chi…
Also - doing nothing until it is too late - not even educating - is not even a choice. It's not a strategy. Its dereliction of duty.
As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. It could do that because it could afford to take the economical hit and because it is an authoritarian state, which means you can get almost everyone to obey, in one way or another. Also, the Chinese Party is what caused this mess to begin with, by allowing this virus to spread all around the w…
> As an Italian, I raise my eyebrows every time China is mentioned as an example for the successful containment of this virus. China dropped the ball for a full 10 days back when the disease was nicely contained to a small part of Wuhan, and then largely to Wuhan itself and Hubei - they didn't let the population know about the danger, so for quite some time no one was thinking about protecting themselves by wearing m…
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I wonder if you'd be so absolute if this meant your job ceasing to exist.
People's jobs are going to cease to exist on account of this whether they want it or not. What anyone wants or feels has nothing to do with it. This is what is going to happen, period.
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> If it is possible, STAY HOME. People need to stay home, period. Unless you work in healthcare, a grocery store, or some essential service, or are going to one of the same, you need to stay home. I know there's lots of reasons people aren't staying home yet, like they don't have paid sick leave, but still, none of this overrides the sheer importance of stopping the pandemic. So the phrasing should be "Stay home, per…
I wonder if you'd be so absolute if this meant your job ceasing to exist.
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My point was not about whether people are incapable of understanding exponentials, it was about whether they understand them intuitively. You used the term “reflexive response” but what we’re both describing is intuitive or automatic thinking. Why is it relevant that people don’t correctly apply exponential reasoning automatically? Because when people encounter information in everyday life (outside of the specific jo…
Show someone an animation of the lily pads doubling every day and ask the same question and you’ll realise that they understand exponential growth intuitively, they’re just not good at word problems.
Relating this to the spread of the virus, people aren't carrying around an animation of this in their minds. Perhaps science communicators should do a better job of communication and produce such an animation? But then you're still not getting people to understand the concept. You're telling them "this is what it looks like, sort of, now just trust us." The problem is that people don't trust scientists (and mathematicians) as it is.
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> Go read HN comments from weeks and months ago, and see the posters encouraging prompt measures getting called paranoids. Exactly. Two weeks ago every coronavirus thread on Hacker News was full of deniers claiming this was no worse than the flu and this was all just media hysteria. Some probably still hold that opinion. I don't think they will be convinced until the hospitals start overflowing.
Yes, I've had some neighbors ask me why I didn't tell them that we had been preparing for this to potentially happen when we started about 3 weeks. I told them "because you would have thought we were crazy if I told you to do it 3 weeks ago".
I've seen comments here trying to play down the message or discredit the signatories of this letter. Don't. Please take it seriously. This is not sensationalism. What the letter means is that if your country is not there yet, you might be DAYS away from widespread panic and total lock down. I'm writing this from Barcelona, Spain. This last Sunday, 6 days ago, I went on a walk with my girlfriend, had a nice lunch, too…
There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February. We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored. Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it. Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and socc…
People will grasp at any excuse to convince themselves "it'll be fine, it won't happen to me". The fact it started in China made it easy - the Chinese government must be overreacting because it's authoritarian, it's halfway across the world, my government must have gotten this figured out, my health care system must be better than China's, etc etc. And of course the classic "it's just a flu".
It's sad that so many will suffer and die because of this.
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There is really no excuse for this happening in Europe. There was ample warning and no, not just from China. The math was very clear by early/mid February. We have to face the truth that the quality of people we vote for government is not where it needs to be and that science has too long been discredited and ignored. Some of asia learned from SARS but that's it. Madrid was hosting marches, political rallies and socc…
This post is exactly the essence of why I don't like politics. It's super easy to retrospectively say "they should've done something else". You might think that even you would do the right choice, but you are wrong. Such decision is hard for any authority. You may vote for any person in the whole world and the result would probably be similar. Lockdown delivered too early could send whole country into chaos. Also Chi…
It is by observing others and judging their decisions and actions that we can learn and avoid other people's mistakes.
Is it not?
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> "you know that promises to the largest loss of life on US soil ever" From what I'm aware, if hospitals are able to handle the patients, it shouldn't be up to that level. And the "slow it down" plan is primarily about not overwhelming hospitals.
>>From what I'm aware, if hospitals are able to handle the patients, it shouldn't be up to that level. With an absolute best case CFR of 0.6%, that's near 2 Million dead. I struggle to think of a larger loss of life on US soil. Assuming hospitals reach saturation fairly early, yielding a 5% CFR, and we're looking at 16.5 Million dead. That is... a lot. Like we have nothing here to compare that to. To put it into pers…