THE NOBULL NEWSLETTER
Chinese Corona Virus Edition
4/4/2020
People are funny. Not funny, ha, ha but funny odd. They think of themselves as generally intelligent and well-informed. They consume media reports from their favorite media outlets, often 12 to 20 hours a day. They collect lots of information about what’s going on “out there in the world” but they tend to collect very little information about their own minds, about what’s going on “in here”. People fail to realize something that a man named George A. Kelly wrote about in the 1950’s: human beings have a very strong tendency to try to predict the future. They want to anticipate what’s going to happen next, so that they can prepare and control what happens next. Oh, yes, people have a very strong belief that they can actually prepare for and control most, if not every, aspect of their future if only they could predict what’s going to happen next. What’s particularly odd about people is that when something happens that was NOT anticipated, people tend to get pretty hostile and blame either themselves or others for not anticipating the future correctly. Never, okay rarely, do people acknowledge the actual truth: no one can accurately predict the future with any degree of certainty.
Do you need some proof of the theory? We need go no further than the game of golf for a good example. Nowhere have I heard more self-recrimination, yes even self-abuse, than on the golf course. The player anticipates that his ball will go just as he imagines it will go before he hits it. When it does not, the words “you dummy” or their more colorful equivalent often follows, sometimes with one’s own name added for emphasis. But, let us not forget those instances when one does not blame oneself but instead blames his equipment (“I hate this club”), the whispered sound of someone talking in his backswing, the sound of a lawn mower two fairways over, or simply “the golf gods” or God himself. So, yes, even in simple things, we want to predict so we can control. And we get angry when we cannot accurately predict the future.
Now, with respect to the current circumstances that face the people of the United States and most of the of the rest of the world, the information we are receiving is complex. Circumstances are changing daily. And, as a result, people are attempting to use the ever changing information to predict what to do next to take some measure of control over their lives. Some people are saying that experts and politicians “should have known” what was going to happen even though they themselves had no idea. Wishing for an omniscient someone to have predicted and controlled the future is just another way people express their anger at being unable to predict and control themselves. Some people look at the available information, compare it to their own experience in the world, and say that things are not as bad as we are being told. Meanwhile, others look at precisely the same information and predict a catastrophic scenario. Let’s simplify for now and declare the first group to be optimists and the second group to be pessimists.
The optimists and pessimists scare each other because their view does not confirm the view they hold. The pessimists blame the optimists for spreading the virus and causing a health disaster. The optimists blame the pessimists for over-reacting and causing unnecessary panic and an economic disaster. Each firmly believes that their predictions of the future are accurate based on the available information. What is funny, odd not ha ha, is that each of these people has more than likely been on the other side of the fence at some point in the process. That is, the optimists have sometimes been quite pessimistic and the pessimists have often been quite optimistic. It’s pretty much human nature to be both hopeful and scared when facing an unpredictable future. We all know that. We remember graduating from fifth to sixth grade, from high school or college and being both scared and excited about what will happen next. But we become adults and we forget what it’s like to face an uncertain future. We believe we have actually mastered this thing called life by virtue of our brilliant ability to predict and control.
Now, when we add a political agenda to the mix, the blame game becomes much more intense. If one side can blame the other side for negative outcomes, they can claim that their opponent was incompetent because they did not adequately prepare for the future, a future that was unknown to everyone. One side will say that they are being particularly negative because the other side is so wrong in not taking things seriously. The other side can say they are being particularly positive because the other side is so wrong in being so negative. But, as we know now, Democrats were not taking things seriously in the beginning and accusing Republicans of being far to serious about the virus. Now, Democrats are screaming that Republicans simply are not taking things seriously enough. Republicans cooperatively played the opposite game. What we now continually have is action and reaction but very little sound information.
The problem doesn’t lie with one political party or another. The REAL problem is with people who cannot tolerate ambiguity, they can’t stand not knowing the future. So, as the optimists predict a rosier and the pessimists will predict a much bleaker future, there is only one thing of which we can be confident: it will not be as bleak nor as rosy as people are predicting. Unfortunately, in the end, the pessimists will accuse the optimists of not taking things seriously enough and the optimists will accuse the pessimists of panicking unnecessarily. Everyone will publicly declare themselves to have been right but secretly know that they were wrong.
What, then, are we to do when the future is unpredictable. Frankly, you do what you can and do not try to do what you cannot. We know to wash our hands. We know to keep a distance from others. We know how much money we have right now. Simply put, you spend more time thinking about right now and less time thinking about the future, a future you can know very little about. You cannot know whether you or someone you love will get the virus tomorrow any more than you can know right now that you will have a heart attack tomorrow. You cannot know whether you will have enough money in the future. Trying to do what cannot be done creates frustration and anxiety. And accurately predicting the future cannot be done. Have faith in your ability to deal with circumstances when they arise. Know that you can prepare for tomorrow as best you can but you cannot control tomorrow. Finally, don’t blame yourself or anyone else for not anticipating what cannot be anticipated. You can prepare for some things but you cannot prepare for everything. And, finally, be grateful for what is rather than depressed about what is not. Today you have life. Today you have food. Today you have a home. Today you have friends. Today. You have today.
WHAT ABOUT THOSE CORONA VIRUS MODELS?
Because, as human beings, we want to know the future, when we ourselves do not know, when there is a great deal of ambiguity, we want SOMEBODY to know. It is during these times when we turn to our experts. Experts are supposed to be so skilled that they can tell us what is going to happen. But any REAL expert is aware that they cannot predict the future any more than anyone else can. But when people in need turn to you for your expertise, there is a great deal of pressure to, at the very least, give them comfort a sense that you are in control. So, while the expert can’t tell you about the future, they bring out the tools of their expertise in order to give you a sense that while you not be in control, someone is.
Today, we have turned to Dr. Tony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx as our experts. And their tools of the trade involve computer modeling of how previous pandemics have developed and how this pandemic MAY develop. They are doing nothing more than applying mathematics to the human desire to predict and control.
However, in trying to reduce the ambiguity about the future, they have, with their models created even more confusion. We are supposed to listen to the science. But what if the science is as imperfect as the human beings using it. For example, originally their models predicted 2.5 million deaths. Being intelligent, modern people who have determined to follow the science, we made decisions based on that model’s predictions. But, oops, the model was wrong. With more data, the new prediction is 100 to 200 thousand deaths. That’s one tenth of the original prediction. That makes us distrust the expertise but also makes us second guess the decisions we made based on the earlier predictions. Why can’t these models tell us what we want to know with some assurance and certainty?
The answer lies in the very trite but very true computer saying: “garbage in, garbage out.” Now, to be fair, these people are smart enough to not put “garbage” into their models. But they probably are not smart enough to put everything into their models that need to be there and consequently, though what they put in is not garbage, it is insufficient to make accurate predictions.
For example, they have said that they have based their models on two important things: first, how previous pandemics proceeded. Some of those pandemics include, MERS. H1N1, the 1908 Spanish flu, and AIDS. The second input into the models has been how this specific Chinese Corona virus has evolved in China, Italy, Spain in particular. They then track and compare how the virus is evolving and developing in the United States to these two major inputs. Sounds good. What could go wrong. Well, lots!
How does one account for the differences in time and technology that existed during prior pandemics and now? How does one account for demographic and cultural differences between the U.S.A. and Italy, Spain and China? How does one account for poor or inadequate testing that may have happened either here or in other countries? How does one account for misinformation or corrupt information coming from other countries for purely political purposes? How does one account for differences in the quality of healthcare, medicines, and other treatments between then and now, here and there? These are simply numbers and how do you put numbers on those sorts of qualitative issues?
Finally, models always provide a range of outcomes that are statistically probable. It might say that the model predicts between 100 and 200 thousand deaths with a 1% certainty, give or take 50 thousand deaths. The models do NOT give us definitive answers. They do not describe improbable outcomes. And yet, the pandemic itself was improbable regardless of how many politicians you hear telling you that it was a predictable certainty. When you hear that in 2015, Bill Gates was warning that the United States was unprepared for a viral pandemic, it appears that he was prescient. But the fact is that the United States is also unprepared for a meteor hitting the earth, an invasion from outer space, an attack on our electrical grid, an EMP bomb that knocks out all our electronics. Hell, I doubt we are even prepared for a massive strike by our garbage collectors. And if you want to see things become desperate in the US, just think about trash and garbage building up in every home in America for two or three months. My point here is that sometimes s**t happens. No one, not experts, not really brilliant rich guys, no one can predict when it happens much as we might wish that it were so. I guess that’s why stocking up on toilet paper is always a good move.
Learn to depend on yourself. Not government. Not experts. Not models. Learn to take responsibility for yourself. Prepare, as best you can, for the worst and hope for the best.
Learn to tolerate ambiguity. Learn to tolerate not knowing the future. It’s not like you’re the only one who doesn’t know.
Learn that politicians and media are just as odd about knowing the future as you but they make crap up to make you think they knew. And they lie.
How is Trump doing during the virus pandemic?
People are saying that Trump is doing very badly. They want him to submit his authority to the likes of Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci. Look folks, Fauci and Birx are experts in one thing and responsible for one thing. But Trump is responsible and actively performing dozens of tasks. He is dealing with the oil crisis, dealing with foreign powers, dealing with economic issues, continuing negotiation with recalcitrant and immature Democrats. He gets asked about all of them by media attempting to trap and discredit him and he stands there for 1-2 hours answering their gotcha questions and confronting their lack of honesty and integrity. Name me a Democrat who can do all these things. Certainly not Biden who can’t last 10 minutes in front of cameras. Not Cuomo who is doing ok but barely keeping his head above water with one state to be responsible for. And certainly not Barack Obama who depleted resources during the H1N1 epidemic and failed to replace them leaving the nation vulnerable and scrambling.
And Trump can still deliver quotes like this: “I’m familiar with models, just not these kinds of models.”
