Re: SARS: Strategies

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Apr 24 2003 - 11:43:19 MDT

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    Just some stray thoughts: SARS is not a civilization-killer or anything,
    just a *potential* pandemic. But it has a huge impact beyond the number
    of infected cases in terms of economic loss, political turmoil (the
    Economist had some interesting kremlology on how China has handled it)
    and widespread fear - these memetic effects are likely far more
    expensive and troublesome than the disease itself would ever be (in an
    economic sense; every lost life is of course a tragedy without compare).
    Hence "addressing SARS" would involve more than just making a vaccine or
    a good treatment, it would have to deal with how people handle the
    risks.

    Are the current actions rational? I would guess a significant amount of
    economic loss is simply caused by pre-rational fears - people choosing
    not to invest in Asian stock because of imagined contagion through the
    transaction. It might not be the strongest factor in a decision, but
    even a slight discouragement like this can influence a trade. It seems
    to me that the fear is greater than the true risk, and this is what is
    causing real damage. Hence I think one thing we need to address is how
    to handle fear epidemics in addition to viral epidemics.

    -- 
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
    asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
    GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
    


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