[ExI] the science might be wrong

[Dave Sill]

On Wed, Jan 20, 2021 at 6:00 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

>
>
> >…Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus…
>
>
>
> How much more dangerous and how much more contagious?
>

We know at first, of course.


> >… that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other
> would help…
>
>
>
> How much does it help?  Does it help more than it harms?
>

We won't know that, either.

>… Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of
> millions will die?
>
>
>
> We don’t know that hundreds of millions would die.  That’s the problem.
> We are asked to do these things but no one really knows how these pandemics
> will play out.  There have been over 2 million covid deaths.  How can we
> know something else will cause hundreds of millions?  How many died because
> of lockdowns?  We don’t know.
>

Right, so not knowing the answers in advance, seems like we have to err on
the side of caution. We did that with covid, but we were slow to back off
once it became clear that covid wasn't so bad.

Stathis this question cannot be simplified.  After all this, we still don’t
> know the answers to some very fundamental questions.
>

Yea, but after we've digested this a few years, hopefully we'll be better
prepared for the next pandemic.

-Dave
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