The theory I heard postulated (by the guy that used to record the ssc podcast) is that once people start thinking “better” in reductionist frameworks they fail to account non quantifiable metrics (e.g. death is quantifiable in qaly, being more isolated isn’t)
Sure it is. This is what I did when deciding that I would go to a concert I’d been waiting for since January that was then cancelled a couple of days later in the middle of March 2020. Guesstimate at the odds of getting it in a giant crowded outdoors venue given the background number of cases I was hearing about in Budapest. Guesstimate at the odds of dying if I got it, with another adjustment for the amount of time that I might lose from being very sick.
I then noted that the expected loss in minutes of life after doing this calculation was considerably less than the time I’d be spending at this concert, and so if I cared enough about the concert to go in the first place I should go anyways. Remembering back I think I didn’t properly quantify the risks to my wife, her other partner, and his other partner, and people outside of the group who we might have given it to, but I’m not at all sure that that would have mathematically changed the decision, and it simply points to additional factors that need to be included in the calculations, and that even taking the well being of people in your bubble as exactly as valuable as your own well being does not automatically imply that you should sit at home and never do anything.
The theory I heard postulated (by the guy that used to record the ssc podcast) is that once people start thinking “better” in reductionist frameworks they fail to account non quantifiable metrics (e.g. death is quantifiable in qaly, being more isolated isn’t)
Sure it is. This is what I did when deciding that I would go to a concert I’d been waiting for since January that was then cancelled a couple of days later in the middle of March 2020. Guesstimate at the odds of getting it in a giant crowded outdoors venue given the background number of cases I was hearing about in Budapest. Guesstimate at the odds of dying if I got it, with another adjustment for the amount of time that I might lose from being very sick.
I then noted that the expected loss in minutes of life after doing this calculation was considerably less than the time I’d be spending at this concert, and so if I cared enough about the concert to go in the first place I should go anyways. Remembering back I think I didn’t properly quantify the risks to my wife, her other partner, and his other partner, and people outside of the group who we might have given it to, but I’m not at all sure that that would have mathematically changed the decision, and it simply points to additional factors that need to be included in the calculations, and that even taking the well being of people in your bubble as exactly as valuable as your own well being does not automatically imply that you should sit at home and never do anything.