The Good, The Bad, And The Naive

Why ideas generated by fear are always bad ideas

Image credit: Variety

I read an article today on Medium that was inevitably about the current coronavirus scare. As such, it was merely following the norm of single-issue elaboration which, of course, I’m also doing here.

The article basically argued that any economic hardship and all social disruption is absolutely worth it in order to spare human lives. Who cares about money when lives are at stake?

If we don’t think about it at all, this seems a reasonable proposition.

But if we do stop for a moment to think about it, we may discover that it’s naïve and in fact deeply wrong in many ways.

To see why, let’s examine the impact that would happen if we took this naïve perspective and applied it to all kinds of risk.

As mortality rates for covid-19 vary wildly by country, from as little as 0.2% risk to as high as 3.8% risk, let’s play Devil’s Advocate and assume that the risk is actually higher at 4%. If our citizens have a lifetime risk of dying from covid-19 that’s as high as 4% then of course we should shut down the world in order to save lives, even if those lives “saved” are the very old and the sick who’ll die anyway a few weeks or months later, virus or no virus. Because in the end, we all die. But we’ll ignore this unpleasant fact and focus instead on “saving” lives. Because a 4% risk is absolutely intolerable.

But if a 4% lifetime risk of death from something is intolerable, then we need to apply this metric to all kinds of risk. If we want to be safe, it would make no sense to spend trillions to reduce one kind of risk but leave ourselves exposed to similar or worse risks, would it? That would be like padding the walls and floors of our homes so we don’t injure ourselves from an accidental fall but then driving around in cars that have no brakes.

If we are going to address one significant risk, it’s only logical that we should address all risks in a similar way. Because life is life, right? If life is precious beyond any monetary value and beyond any inconvenience, then the nature of the risk is irrelevant. What matters is protecting lives.

Which means we must immediately ban, on a permanent basis, all motor vehicles electric…