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