A large issue is that people have very poor risk evaluation skills. I learned this a long time ago in computer security. Faced with systems that most people do not understand but are able to interact with and do their jobs with, they by and large fail to behave in a secure way. See the by now very old paper, "Why Johnny can't encrypt". That has led to what I consider 'draconian' rules of thumb about computer security. (your password must have one each of the following sets of characters, and be N characters long. You must change your password every 6 months, etc.) This is also true in many other areas of daily life, many studies have been done that show that people have a very poor understanding of the relative risk factors of different sets of behavior. The knowledge that people could not tell snake oil computer security from real computer security not only led to lots of corporate snake oil product, but also led to lots of governmental policy that had ulterior motives.
We now find ourselves in a epochal public health crisis where peoples behavior directly impacts on their neighbors, if not the world. But, people are unable to make the risk evaluations and tradeoffs. Lots of public health officials undertook to deal with the situation by making rules like the above mentioned password rules. This pandemic reminds me a lot of the issues around climate change, in that by the time we fully understand the long term implications, it may very well be too late to mediate cost effectively or even rationally.
Right now, 38% of my local hospital are Covid patients, a month and a half ago, it was 2%. The city of Orlando, Florida has asked it's residents to curtail water use by 20-25% so that Oxygen used to treat water can be diverted to local hospitals. I think only a fringe of people would believe that so many disparate institutions are involved in some kind of Covid conspiracy, yet that does not change the behavior (be it vaccines, masking or just plain staying home and out of each others air space) of over 60% of the population. This is clearly very poor risk assessment combined with lack of adequate institutional resiliency. I say resilience, because a year and half into a Pandemic and we still can't get a range of groceries to computer based products. This is not mere supply chain disruption.
To quote the neo-cons of previous decade, our way of life will not be compromised ... but it has.....
I am all in favor of vaccination, in principle. But, keeping in mind that the COVID vaccine was rushed into acceptance, combined with no small amount of political pressure to get approval, I can see why humans didn't want to beta test this particular shot.
A large issue is that people have very poor risk evaluation skills. I learned this a long time ago in computer security. Faced with systems that most people do not understand but are able to interact with and do their jobs with, they by and large fail to behave in a secure way. See the by now very old paper, "Why Johnny can't encrypt". That has led to what I consider 'draconian' rules of thumb about computer security. (your password must have one each of the following sets of characters, and be N characters long. You must change your password every 6 months, etc.) This is also true in many other areas of daily life, many studies have been done that show that people have a very poor understanding of the relative risk factors of different sets of behavior. The knowledge that people could not tell snake oil computer security from real computer security not only led to lots of corporate snake oil product, but also led to lots of governmental policy that had ulterior motives.
We now find ourselves in a epochal public health crisis where peoples behavior directly impacts on their neighbors, if not the world. But, people are unable to make the risk evaluations and tradeoffs. Lots of public health officials undertook to deal with the situation by making rules like the above mentioned password rules. This pandemic reminds me a lot of the issues around climate change, in that by the time we fully understand the long term implications, it may very well be too late to mediate cost effectively or even rationally.
Right now, 38% of my local hospital are Covid patients, a month and a half ago, it was 2%. The city of Orlando, Florida has asked it's residents to curtail water use by 20-25% so that Oxygen used to treat water can be diverted to local hospitals. I think only a fringe of people would believe that so many disparate institutions are involved in some kind of Covid conspiracy, yet that does not change the behavior (be it vaccines, masking or just plain staying home and out of each others air space) of over 60% of the population. This is clearly very poor risk assessment combined with lack of adequate institutional resiliency. I say resilience, because a year and half into a Pandemic and we still can't get a range of groceries to computer based products. This is not mere supply chain disruption.
To quote the neo-cons of previous decade, our way of life will not be compromised ... but it has.....
Well, duh.
I am all in favor of vaccination, in principle. But, keeping in mind that the COVID vaccine was rushed into acceptance, combined with no small amount of political pressure to get approval, I can see why humans didn't want to beta test this particular shot.