I remember Y2K all too well, being tangentially involved in upgrading legacy systems back in the day. I have to agree with your entire post and your observation about the wane and failure of public health protections for COVID-19, mainly through a lack of resolve, is particularly on point.
Thanks, Mark! Yeah, the COVID response was really disheartening in so many ways. The biggest thing now may be restoring trust enough that a COVID "hangover" doesn't doom other public health / climate / infrastructure / security endeavors.
Good post. Climate change is much more than a problem. It's the system itself and not a problem in the system. People need to be made aware about it. Not just told. A virus is bad. Yes people know that. But climate change is what? Governments will need to make people understand what it means and how dangerous it is.
The BeyondHarm SubStack blog post, "Climate, confidence, and cost", touches on some of the issues you bring. Protection systems, invoked through liability costs or regulation, necessarily have the objective to produce no data. On the other hand, the state of knowledge may or may not support future scenarios. In the case of climate change, the precautionary principle has been applied as a reasonable response to the risk. On the other hand, engineering efficacious solutions is the subject of risk management -- such solutions are not readily at hand but should be approached deliberately, not franticly.
I'd argue that stronger reaction at the outset (which might have felt like overreaction) could have spared most of the world from ever having to deal with Covid. Near the beginning--after something is observed and confirmed to be unusual and appearing in small clusters, but while it's still relatively ignored or dismissed--is the time to react strongly, because that's when it can make the most difference.
This isn't just about viruses; The Big Short movie focused on people who were early to identify a surprisingly large number of poorly performing individual mortgages. They did pretty well because they were willing to look silly in the short term. Looked like an overreaction but wasn't.
Once something is hugely widespread and likely not containable, even a strong reaction can't necessarily change the trajectory enough--and that can make things feel futile if results are disappointing. Just my thoughts anyway.
I remember Y2K all too well, being tangentially involved in upgrading legacy systems back in the day. I have to agree with your entire post and your observation about the wane and failure of public health protections for COVID-19, mainly through a lack of resolve, is particularly on point.
Thanks, Mark! Yeah, the COVID response was really disheartening in so many ways. The biggest thing now may be restoring trust enough that a COVID "hangover" doesn't doom other public health / climate / infrastructure / security endeavors.
Good post. Climate change is much more than a problem. It's the system itself and not a problem in the system. People need to be made aware about it. Not just told. A virus is bad. Yes people know that. But climate change is what? Governments will need to make people understand what it means and how dangerous it is.
Nevertheless, an encouraging post.
Also known as <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox>
The BeyondHarm SubStack blog post, "Climate, confidence, and cost", touches on some of the issues you bring. Protection systems, invoked through liability costs or regulation, necessarily have the objective to produce no data. On the other hand, the state of knowledge may or may not support future scenarios. In the case of climate change, the precautionary principle has been applied as a reasonable response to the risk. On the other hand, engineering efficacious solutions is the subject of risk management -- such solutions are not readily at hand but should be approached deliberately, not franticly.
Overreaction is sometimes worse than no reaction at all.
We've seen what mass hysteria can do to us with covid.
I'd argue that stronger reaction at the outset (which might have felt like overreaction) could have spared most of the world from ever having to deal with Covid. Near the beginning--after something is observed and confirmed to be unusual and appearing in small clusters, but while it's still relatively ignored or dismissed--is the time to react strongly, because that's when it can make the most difference.
This isn't just about viruses; The Big Short movie focused on people who were early to identify a surprisingly large number of poorly performing individual mortgages. They did pretty well because they were willing to look silly in the short term. Looked like an overreaction but wasn't.
Once something is hugely widespread and likely not containable, even a strong reaction can't necessarily change the trajectory enough--and that can make things feel futile if results are disappointing. Just my thoughts anyway.