if you donate masks today I expect them to be used much more quickly than if you wait and donate them when things are worse.
But this (strategically timing your donation because you don’t expect the recipient to use the gift intelligently if you just straightforwardly gave when you noticed the opportunity) is kind of a horrifying situation to be in, right? If you can see the logic of the argument, why can’t hospital administrators see it, too?—at least once it’s been pointed out?
The idea that hospital administrators can use logic to decide about how resources will get used seems to me very utopian. There’s a lot of legal issues that come from reusing masks when not forced to reuse masks in that moment.
Yeah, I agree, it’s saying that whatever forces are at play in creating and storing supplies, are unable to do basic calculations. Or else are acting deontologically (“We must throw everything we can at this crisis immediately”) and expect their governments to make sure things never get too bad such that they need to personally plan for such terrible situations. Avoiding thinking about things getting too bad and not thinking through taboo tradeoffs seem closely related.
But this (strategically timing your donation because you don’t expect the recipient to use the gift intelligently if you just straightforwardly gave when you noticed the opportunity) is kind of a horrifying situation to be in, right? If you can see the logic of the argument, why can’t hospital administrators see it, too?—at least once it’s been pointed out?
The idea that hospital administrators can use logic to decide about how resources will get used seems to me very utopian. There’s a lot of legal issues that come from reusing masks when not forced to reuse masks in that moment.
Yeah, I agree, it’s saying that whatever forces are at play in creating and storing supplies, are unable to do basic calculations. Or else are acting deontologically (“We must throw everything we can at this crisis immediately”) and expect their governments to make sure things never get too bad such that they need to personally plan for such terrible situations. Avoiding thinking about things getting too bad and not thinking through taboo tradeoffs seem closely related.