Comments on: Pigs replace economics

By: MikeThompson

MikeThompson — Thu, 13 May 2010 13:00:03 +0000

great post as usual!

By: Îòåëè Ãðåöèè. Êðèò

Îòåëè Ãðåöèè. Êðèò — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 23:42:42 +0000

Êðèò – ñàìûé áîëüøîé îñòðîâ Ãðåöèè…

Îñòðîâ Êðèò – ýòî äðàãîöåííàÿ ÷àñòü èñòèííî ãðå÷åñêîé çåìëè…

By: BananasParks

BananasParks — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 22:25:17 +0000

В этом что-то есть. Теперь всё получается, большое спасибо за помощь в этом вопросе.

By: passerby

passerby — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:38:43 +0000

http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2009/04/swine_flu_i_beat_a_dead_horse.php

Here is alternate view that the situation can be serious.

By: Mu

Mu — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:30:40 +0000

A question — While heart disease, automobile accidents and other ill-fates take many more lives each year, could the source of concern be that they don’t possess the same ability to grow exponentially in a short amount of time?

By: MJR

MJR — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:53:49 +0000

Speaking of irrational over reactions, we launched a $1 trillion “war on terror” after a terrorist attack that killed

By: Augustus Semper

Augustus Semper — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:04:28 +0000

I work in public health and I find what’s going on, esp. by WHO, unbelievable. Everyone is reinventing the wheel in terms of creating their own fact sheets, etc. just so they can say they’re doing something. We tried to apply common sense but because of what everyone else is doing out executives expect us to do the same. It’s either CYA or make it look like we care more than the other guys. This outbreak could turn out to be serious, or it may not. More likely, it will fade away and then return in a couple of months. Either way, the hypsters are in control.

By: KtD

KtD — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 21:26:46 +0000

I would agree with your three points–people certainly tend to think in the ‘here and now’ far more than in the long-term. Ironically, the publicity of this H1N1, or swine flu, or whatever-it-is virus is generating more reaction than the multitudes of dollars being spent overseas, on the economy, etc. simply because it is less repetitive than ongoing stories that span the course of months and years. The whole name thing is even more ridiculous. To those that argue “swine flu” is too offensive to religious leaders and swine-raising businesses/farms, there are many who disagree. And, even if there is some credit to this, why don’t we work on finding the cure and stop the angry backlashes from all around? I watched an interesting video that pretty sums up this whole name ordeal at newsy.com. It’s worth looking at:

http://www.newsy.com/videos/swine_flu_gets_a_makeover/

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:50:48 +0000

I’ve had the same thoughts lately but you have articulated them SO WELL. Well over 500,000 people die each year from heart disease according to the CDC and yet the media is going ape over the Swine Flu which has taken the life of just ONE person in the U.S. But then again, these heart disease stats are dry and old…

By: dWj

dWj — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 17:37:56 +0000

I don’t know whether this is the same thing as point 3 above (or a facet to it), but we tend to overestimate small probabilities (perhaps because they’re anecdotally supportable or vivid).

I think it’s reasonable here to worry about tail risk; I rather wish some folks in the financial world had worried a bit more about tail risk than they did. In any case, I feel the same way as I did about bird flu, in that we should take any steps to prevent this that can generally be leveraged for generic disaster response. The odds of this being a disaster are low; the odds of something, at some point, becoming a disaster are high. Very specific responses are likely to fail a cool cost-benefit analysis, but if this is a proxy for “something that could go bad”, and we work out generic responses, all the better.