The problem seems to be our recent successes with Ebola, SARS, MERS and H1N1 lulled us into a false sense of security. The main risk of under-reacting to a future pandemic is probably a couple of generations out.
How do you build a “No More Pandemics” movement today that will still be seen as relevant after most of us are gone?
Annual events and permanent monuments such as Remembrance Day, the Vietnam War Memorial and Holocaust Memorials can remind future generations of the horrors of the past. But would a “No More Pandemics” day or monuments to the lives lost be enough to convince future generations to question their own false sense of security?
How long until the world risks under-reacting to a pandemic?
There’s an uncertainty over how long we’ll remain well-prepared for a future pandemic. For example, this study (conducted by my organisation SoGive) surveyed some biorisk orgs. To see the answers, I suggest looking at this comment, and reviewing the answers to the first question:
“Do you think that the world will handle future pandemics and bio risks better as a result of having gone through the current coronavirus pandemic?”
As can be seen, there were several pessimistic answers. I think we should expect there to be some selection effects and biases in these answers, but the concerns around overindexing do strike me as reasonable.
In any case, I agree that a lasting impact sounds valuable.
How to have a lasting impact?
Some of the policy proposals are designed to have a longer-term impact. For example, strengthening the BWC would hopefully last some decades (assuming that institutional inertia has the effect I’m hoping for, although I’m unclear how likely this is). Also, the funding commitment (similar to the 0.7% ODA commitment) is also intended to last a long time.
However it’s far from clear that this would last for generations.
Your idea of remembrance days and memorials is really interesting, and something I hadn’t thought of.
And it does strike me that the 1918 pandemic had huge societal impacts, but most of the world was oblivious to this pre-COVID.
Gradual changes in institutional norms and traditions in other domains can provide transferrable lessons. For example, economists and politicians handled the 2008 Financial Crisis far better than the 1930s Great Depression. Perhaps if they hadn’t disregarded the lessons from the depression they could have prevented the financial crisis altogether. I’ve been reading Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman and the long-term challenges with “No More Pandemics” (great branding, btw) sound similar.
Scott Alexander nicely summarizes this tension between tradition and rationality in his review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success :
Rationalists always wonder: how come people aren’t more rational? How come you can prove a thousand times, using Facts and Logic, that something is stupid, and yet people will still keep doing it?
Henrich hints at an answer: for basically all of history, using reason would get you killed.
Excellent idea!
The problem seems to be our recent successes with Ebola, SARS, MERS and H1N1 lulled us into a false sense of security. The main risk of under-reacting to a future pandemic is probably a couple of generations out.
How do you build a “No More Pandemics” movement today that will still be seen as relevant after most of us are gone?
Annual events and permanent monuments such as Remembrance Day, the Vietnam War Memorial and Holocaust Memorials can remind future generations of the horrors of the past. But would a “No More Pandemics” day or monuments to the lives lost be enough to convince future generations to question their own false sense of security?
Thank you!
How long until the world risks under-reacting to a pandemic?
There’s an uncertainty over how long we’ll remain well-prepared for a future pandemic. For example, this study (conducted by my organisation SoGive) surveyed some biorisk orgs. To see the answers, I suggest looking at this comment, and reviewing the answers to the first question:
“Do you think that the world will handle future pandemics and bio risks better as a result of having gone through the current coronavirus pandemic?”
As can be seen, there were several pessimistic answers. I think we should expect there to be some selection effects and biases in these answers, but the concerns around overindexing do strike me as reasonable.
In any case, I agree that a lasting impact sounds valuable.
How to have a lasting impact?
Some of the policy proposals are designed to have a longer-term impact. For example, strengthening the BWC would hopefully last some decades (assuming that institutional inertia has the effect I’m hoping for, although I’m unclear how likely this is). Also, the funding commitment (similar to the 0.7% ODA commitment) is also intended to last a long time.
However it’s far from clear that this would last for generations.
Your idea of remembrance days and memorials is really interesting, and something I hadn’t thought of.
And it does strike me that the 1918 pandemic had huge societal impacts, but most of the world was oblivious to this pre-COVID.
Gradual changes in institutional norms and traditions in other domains can provide transferrable lessons. For example, economists and politicians handled the 2008 Financial Crisis far better than the 1930s Great Depression. Perhaps if they hadn’t disregarded the lessons from the depression they could have prevented the financial crisis altogether. I’ve been reading Arguing with Zombies by Paul Krugman and the long-term challenges with “No More Pandemics” (great branding, btw) sound similar.
Scott Alexander nicely summarizes this tension between tradition and rationality in his review of Joseph Henrich’s The Secret of Our Success :