{"id":274,"date":"2020-05-03T16:18:48","date_gmt":"2020-05-03T16:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/?p=274"},"modified":"2020-05-06T09:08:24","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T09:08:24","slug":"the-boy-scouts-marching-song","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/05\/03\/the-boy-scouts-marching-song\/","title":{"rendered":"The Boy Scout’s Marching Song"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I would like to state at this time that I am not now and
Have never been… a member of the Boy Scouts of America.<\/p>Tom Lehrer<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Like many smarter and more informed than me, I’ve been struggling to come to grips with how the western world could have been caught so flat-footed by SARS-CoV-2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not surprised that some governments have responded <\/em>more successfully than others – though the underlying mechanics there certainly seem fertile ground for discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m also not particularly surprised that America both failed to prepare and has presented what could charitably be called an “uneven” response. [You may be tempted to dismiss this as post-facto cynicism, but in my adult lifetime American federal institutions – under both parties – have shown a pattern of failing to adequately prepare for plausible disasters and struggling to coordinate response when they occur.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I keep coming back to is that no western government<\/em> was adequately prepared<\/a>. None of them. Not a sausage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That suggests the failure was, and likely is, something fundamental. And that gets my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my search for answers, I stumbled upon The Ostrich Paradox<\/a>, by Meyer and Kunreuther. It’s short. You should read it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Building on the (much longer) work of Daniel Kahneman<\/a>, they explain the common failure of individuals to prepare for disasters as the output of six biases: myopia<\/em> (overly focusing on the short-term), amnesia<\/em> (quickly forgeting the pain of the past), optimism<\/em> (underestimating the likelihood of loss), inertia<\/em> (maintaining the status quo in the face of choices), simplification<\/em> (considering only a select set of factors when deciding) and herding<\/em> (basing decisions on the behavior of others). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They sketch an outline of how we might acknowledge and incorporate these biases into our planning to encourage better outcomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frustratingly, but maybe not completely unreasonably, they largely talk about the role of government as being part of the solution.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What’s to be done when it isn’t?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would like to state at this time that I am not now andHave never been… a member of the Boy Scouts of America. Tom Lehrer Like many smarter and more informed than me, I’ve been struggling to come to grips with how the western world could have been caught so flat-footed by SARS-CoV-2. I’m … Continue reading “The Boy Scout’s Marching Song”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-the-universe-and-everything"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":279,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oubliette.org\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}