Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.
If you're about to comment here, could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html first and make sure what you're about to do is in keeping with the intended spirit of this place? Note this one: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
In the face of both, Alameda County is likely to be put in a position where it may feel the need to reconsider the lockdown orders in the face of both an expensive lawsuit and losing jobs, when relaxing restrictions on Tesla can potentially save the county both jobs and money.
Thank you for being a diamond in the rough, Dan. Your tireless work keeping Hacker News a safe haven for free thinkers and polite politic is essential during times like these.
There is another meaning, akin to "needle in the haystack". This is the only meaning I was aware of until I used the phrase to describe my then-girlfriend. She was only aware of the meaning you reference. It was awkward, but we're now married.
Over the years I have asked many other people about this phrase when it came up in conversation. Most of my acquaintances only knew of the "needle in a haystack" meaning. These people went to Berkeley, Stanford, etc. and worked at FAANG or are doctors/lawyers.
I have wondered if it's a geographic thing — most of these people have spent most of their lives in California. Perhaps the east coast is different?
I think we need to do more in this space. As HackerNews had become more popular, it has begun the inevitable transformation from a place of analysis to a place of advocacy.
...which inevitably results in a drop in quality and substance and a rise in partisanship.
HackerNews thrived for a long time by keeping under the radar, but what we really need now is a new mechanic that rewards dispationate analytic content and substance over partisanship meetoo content.
Behavioral guidelines and moderation don't work long term and don't scale.
That's not to say there isn't a decline, just that it's hard to discuss objectively. The dominant factor in such perceptions is randomness; more precisely, the streaks that occur in randomness that feel like they can't possibly be random. That explains why people have been saying the same things in identical language for so long. You could even make one of those guessing-game sites out of such comments. For example: 2010 or 2020?
The community is full of ideologues to the point where the comments are most often just predictable talking points being regurgitated ad nauseum. Everyone talks about the intelligent conversation, and it does happen, but far more times it’s just the same clichés repeated over and over.
(2010, of course, or the question wouldn't have made sense, but you see the point.) A decade is a lifetime in internet dog years, so HN already has survived these concerns long-term. If there is a downward trend, it's a slow one. Some of the things we've done to stave it off (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...) must have done something.
If I argue the point using that analogy, someone is bound to take it the wrong way.
If people keep seeing signs of apocalypse for 30 years, they always say the same things, the apocalypse never comes, and there's a simple alternative explanation, that weakens the case for apocalypse, no? At a minimum the burden is on 2020 to show how the same perception now is more objective than it was in 2010, or 2008 for that matter, when people were also saying this. The simple explanation is that internet users always perceive things this way.
>Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.
I think the problem is the audience that's been cultivated on here. Not the topics.
You have a topic that's has real world effects. Reality demands us to act contrary to a particular narrative, and this forum can't handle it.
Apathetic, intellectual sophistry only works when you don't have any actual problems to worry about. The celebrity and this forum have the same personality. And people don't want to admit they're wrong.
If all you have to say about what you're saying is that the government can't arrest you for it, maybe you should rethink what you're saying.
I'm not sure I follow all of this? Also, it's a bit strange to have this discussion in the context of the Nth outrage of the Musk Sequence, where the dominant factor is obviously internet drama. But I'll give replying a try.
This is one of those cases where it's super helpful to have one thing you're optimizing for, i.e. to know what kind of site this is and what it is not. In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It's not the only kind of website, nor the best kind, certainly not the most important kind, maybe not even a good kind—that depends on what you like. But it's this kind. You can call it "apathetic sophistry" if you want, but that just means you don't like it. No problem—there are other places to like.
Since HN is a specific kind of website and that's what the community comes here for, we need to preserve it for its focus. There are always strong winds and flames blowing about, and it takes work and care to withstand those and keep this place itself. What good would it do to let it burn?
p.s. Would you please stop making accounts with trollish usernames? We ban those, because such accounts end up trolling every thread that they post to (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Doubly so when there's a prior history of abusing the site and getting banned here.
> In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity
That's not what's happening on this particular topic. Submissions of higher quality articles which present both sides of the issue are getting marked as duplicates of low quality, one sided tweets from Musk.
Can you please define for us intellectual curiosity so that we can recognize it and its distinction from apathetic sophistry? Note that the oft-quoted rules aren't descriptive but prescriptive/normative.
Also telling people that disagree with the ethos of the website to go away isn't very productive don't you think? For better or worse we dissenters are part of the tech community and we're entitled to advocate for what we feel a commons like hn should be like.
This site is hosted at yc.com not commons.tech. While the pursuit of intellectual curiosity demands dang and crew work to be inclusive to a point, the final trump card remains “this isn’t actually a tech commons and they do properly ask some people to leave if the pain of their dissent is consistently and significantly greater than their contributions.”
In that limited sense, telling people to leave who unproductively disagree with their position is quite productive.
>Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.
I take issue with this line. That is your opinion and you're injecting a negative motive into this thread. Your warning would have the same effect with this removed.
I’d like to know what Tesla factory workers think. It’s seeming clear to me from various polls that at most 20% of Americans think ‘oh everything is fine let’s go back to work and school tomorrow.’ So opinions on social distancing are not as polarized as you would think from the media.
This does not necessarily follow. Car companies in Germany are heavily unionised and they’re not exactly struggling (at least no more than the entire industry).
Unions have a very different culture in the US as compared to Germany. American unions are in a highly adversarial relationship with their employers. This is compounded by a further adversarial relationship between certain political constituencies in the public and unions.
A lot of this can be attributed to the history of the 20th century and the different effects of communism in these respective countries. This may even be reflected in the differing attitudes towards tertiary education and vocational school.
It’s a very complicated issue with a lot of history.
Worth noting regarding VAT: if one has a VAT number, it is not a cost. It simply gets passed on and the business claims it back. Different story for an end consumer.
this is at best an incomplete assessment and at worst ahistorical
others [1] would argue that it was american auto manufacturers' anti-union zealotry (and the decisions they made in the production process to combat the unions) that lead them to shoot themselves in their own foot.
[1] Schwartz, Michael, and Joshua Murray. Wrecked: How the American Automobile Industry Destroyed Its Capacity to Compete. Russell Sage Foundation, 2019.
As always, the devil is in the details. I'd imagine a heavily automated car factory is actually one of the safer places to work, compared to (say) a hog slaughterhouse or a massage parlor.
In a sane world, we'd let workers choose between going to work and staying home without undue penalties either way, but that's not going to happen in 'Murica.
Your second link is an interesting read. Even though the virus was found on the floor and >6 ft away in a Chinese hospital, fortunately no staff were infected. I am not a scientist but I think they just tested for viral fragments versus active infectable viral particles. It’s reassuring but caution is still warranted.
Yes, I’m curious about this as well even though its an imperfect world where there probably isn’t an ideal, free environment for expressing their opinions. But if the alternative is staying furloughed then their opinions are of interest regardless. After all, they’re witnesses to how the place operates.
What Elon is pushing for seems...no different than what Germany has been doing for at least two weeks? If I’m to understand, people are saying they’re gonna cancel their orders because the company is arguing for a response that is in line with a country (even praised by the American media[0]) that has done a decent job with its pandemic response? This doesn’t seem to be the hill to die on just yet.
Reminds me—not being from there—I’m always amazed how warm southern California is in the winter compared to say, many parts of the mediterranean. I mean Los Angeles in January is warmer than Tehran. Too bad the factory isn’t down there.
The play should be to avoid a shutdown when the second wave hits, no? You look at the warm far eastern asian countries: Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia. They have a combined population of 580 million with less than 2000 combined deaths. 7 times the population of Germany with a fourth of the deaths of Germany. If they had four times the deaths it would still be impressive, considering they’re mostly dealing with it with less healthcare infrastructure.
I do think warmer places would fair better when the second wave hits in the fall. Southern California would be better for a factory. But Texas in that regard would work as well.
What they think is about as relevant as opinion polls from a misinformed public. People largely have their mind made up about it about the covid because it's more of a religion now than anything else.
Nevermind the numerous serology studies from multiple different countries which show exposure to the virus is highly prevalent with most individuals being asymptomatic. Nevermind the multiple recent studies in the U.S. which show the same. Nevermind the numerous prison facilities, ships or other confined areas which show it being highly contagious yet most asymptomatic. Nevermind studies that show Unless you have multiple co morbidities, if you're under 60 you probably at a greater risk of heart disease than the covid. Nevermind that numerous studies site that transmission from children to adults is low and risk to kids themselves has been pretty low.
No no.. Let's close the schools to keep the children safe. Let's close houses of worship and other sociologically important places. Let's close small businesses but let's keep big businesses open. Let's allow the ppl to continue to take public transportation to their big box store as well. Let's indiscriminately quarantine everyone, we most certainly can't have them going to the beach or other outside areas where it's well known UV-C kills the virus and transmission risk outdoors is tiny. Let's jail salon owners operating at home and surfers in the ocean but let's release criminals for politically relevant taking points. Let's make sure we don't quarantine or even test anyone in nursing homes even though they are begging the NY governor to allow it (gotta get to 100k somehow).
Yeh no. Every time i see someone outside exercising in mask and gloves i know exactly how and why we get a 2 trillion dollar stimulus package that gives 86k to politicians per month for childcare during this crisis. They're essentially the droid army from clone wars series, just wearing masks.
I get why the govt is doing it. It's about power and control. I can say that i never thought scientism would get such a hold on the people though. If i were musk i would've already been gone from California. And if i were the governors in Texas I'd perma-ban any emigrants from NY or CA.
Most of this is not supported by the evidence, and there’s far more uncertainty in the data and studies than you’re portraying here.
But putting that aside, it sounds like you think that politicians are making this seem way worse than it is, in order to exercise more power and control over people’s lives. OK, not the most ridiculous idea I’ve ever heard, even if there are some huge glaring holes in the logic there.
What about the scientific and medical community? Are they in on this too? Because I certainly haven’t heard an outcry from epidemiologists and virologists and physicians that we’re grossly overreacting and that the virus isn’t that big of a deal. Why not?
It’s ironic, because to my mind, your first paragraph perfectly captures my impression of your position: misinformed but fervently clinging to a religious position that doesn’t seem to match the view of the actual experts.
The estimated fatality rate with everything taken into account is around 0.5%. That's covering asymptomatic people, etc, etc. Assuming 200 million Americans get infected the result is 1 million additional deaths. That's a lot.
Among what age group, though? Using an average morbidity across the entire population is misleading. Everything I've read indicates that the morbidity scales very highly with age so that it would be something like (making this up here) 0.05% for people under 40, scaling up very quickly as you get to the elderly population. The question then becomes can we effectively quarantine at-risk groups instead of the entire population? I don't know the answer, but I do know that continuing to pursue current policies until some indefinite point in the future is untenable.
Serious question: can you show me the metrics for california with concrete targets that will trigger reopening? The last plan I saw wasn't a plan at all, it was just guidelines.
Targets for early reopening (ie before the state at large):
- 1.5 tests per 1000 people per day
- No deaths in the past 14 days
- Some max number of cases per day that's really low
- Stockpile of PPE (I forget the exact numbers)
- A minimum number of contact tracers (I think also 1.5 per 1000 people, although it may be an order of magnitude lower)
The bay area has a more stringent set of guidelines (minus the number of deaths that another person linked to).
I don't see the difference between plan and guidelines from any practical point of view.
There is a statewide timeline and counties can open slower/faster. There's a list of criteria for counties to consider. This is a slide deck summarizing things at a state level, it notes a variety of metrics that are being looked at:
Here's a plan: when we get to X new cases per day, we will reopen. Here's a guideline: we'll reopen when we think it's safe. The former has concrete goals that you can measure against and take action on. The latter has no clarity whatsoever. If I presented a project plan the way California has presented its Covid reopening "plans" I would be fired.
Except "the population feeling safe" is the only metric that really matters. Everything else is a proxy. If the population doesn't feel safe then they will protest and not resume activities. The other metrics can be golden but if the population disagree you will have trouble in a democracy.
At least in Illinois, opening targets are based on agent-based simulations of disease spread. Specifically, the simulations predicted that if Illinois had reopened on May 1, we would have seen a larger peak than the initial one in June. You can read about it here:
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/greg-hinz-politics/look-insi...
Thanks, it's really confusing because there are multiple conflicting sources with different guidelines and the governor's statements have indicated Phase 2 is still case-by-case and phases 3 and 4 are "sometime soonish". In addition to the metrics that SF Chronicle page is tracking for Bay Area counties, there's also [1], [2], and [3] in addition to the original governor's slides a few weeks ago. I can't find any concrete goals from official sources for completely reopening the state (phase 4).
Yes, the death rates scale with age. However, the permanent damage persists even in younger folks. It’s not as cut and dry as “x number are asymptomatic, and that mean 1 million will die. But those are mainly older folks so we act accordingly.”
The problem is:
1. The virus causes permanent damage in people. Even if they live and survive they’ll be dealing with the damage for a long period of time. Some lung damage can take months to heal.
2. The virus immunity exists in the short term immunity of the body. Which means depending on the person in 6 months to a year - Surprise theyre reinfected. We haven’t seen reinfections yet, but we have proven immunity is short term and not life long.
3. This effectively means the risk of this virus becoming a yearly thing is exceptionally high. Not to mention herd immunity isn’t as useful. Due to the fact we’ll always have people losing immunity and becoming sick.
What this essentially means is that 0.5% number (which I think is wrong, but I digress) is a yearly number and will compound over time.
And yes - After a few cycles the percentage (should) drop due to our older folks dying off. However, we’re also going to see people with organ damage 6 months on being reinfected which could result in a higher mortality in itself.
I have shared this opinion before (in person) and it went poorly, but I’ll try again here.
If one of my 75 year old parents (whom I love dearly) dies from COVID-19, that is less of a tragedy than if a random teenager in my city does. My parent would have lost fewer years or “years of quality life” than the teen.
For the same reason, IMO, if there was only 1 kidney available, an 18 year old should get it before a 50 year old who should get it before an 82 year old, if all else is equal.
In that limited way, I do think the lives of the young have more value than those of middle age or the elderly.
Is age the only measure? What about the contribution or potential contributions to society? Is the life of an 18 year old unmotivated ne'er do well worth more than a 50 year old with children or a 6o yr old who has made great contributions to society and wants to enjoy their last 30-40 years?
There's just no way we can assume that age is the great qualifier.
Yes, but the goal of social distancing and everything has not been to drastically change the number of people that are ultimately infected, just to slow down the rate of spread. The disease is out there now. If you haven't gotten it already, you very likely will eventually.
That depends on how much we slow it down; after a vaccine (in a year), we DO drastically change the number infected. Other countries (South Korea, NZ, Taiwan) have changed the number infected, and will probably end up with much fewer infected.
For now, we want to drastically change the outcomes; for example, a month ago, you would have been given chloroquine, which doesn’t help but has side effects; maybe in a month we would know about therapies that reduce mortality and long term effects by a significant percent (or maybe not :)
Tons of testing and contact tracing would probably let the US end up with fewer people infected.
They've drastically changed the number of infected for now, during a continuing lockdown. Once planes start flying again, and people start travelling again, infections will continue.
I agree we want to change outcomes, and flattening the curve is part of that. Delaying infections until better treatments is part of that. But we can't commit to waiting for a vaccine, and we can't commit to waiting for a good treatment. We may never get either.
Why can’t we wait? I’m not arguing we should, but I’m not sure we can’t.
What I think is that we sorta can and sorta should; we need to figure out the trade-offs, as best as we can, and decide what measures we want to keep for another year (will vary by country/state/city).
Exactly. I have the luxury of some patience here (married and can WFH) and even I’m not excited about forfeiting 1 of my ~50 years of “healthy, active adult lifespan” for limited gain.
If you estimate that the lockdown takes 50% of life enjoyment away and each of us gets 50 healthy years of self-directed adult life, a year of lockdown is equivalent to sapping 1% of total life enjoyment. That’s not exactly the same as 1% increase in population deaths in a year, but it’s comparable IMO.
Most probably but a non-trivial percentage would rather wait indefinitely. I'm seeing many liberals who equate opening things up to literal human sacrifice for corporate profit.
Of course Tesla factory workers would not be excited about it. With or without pandemic, working in factory is not something most people want to do if they have option to stay home.
The factory worker opinion is largely irrelevant, in this context.
The positive is that Washington state acted early and the Bay Area followed quickly which resulted in lower hospitalization and deaths. Tech’s quick move to WFH probably helped slow the spread. This was driven by the Washington state health officials who worked with Microsoft. Bay Area tech companies quickly copied WFH.
The negative is that health officials manipulated the public like they were children: “ Constantine told me, “Jeff recognized what he was asking for was impractical. He said if we advised social distancing right away there would be zero acceptance. And so the question was: What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?” In e-mails and phone calls, the men began playing a game: What was the most extreme advice they could give that people wouldn’t scoff at? Considering what would likely be happening four days from then, what would they regret not having said?”
Since the initial lockdown, it’s been more of the same. Slogans have changed: flatten the curve turns into prevent the health care system from being overrun which turns into driven by data. Lockdowns get extended: May 4 turns into June 1st and maybe beyond.
Takeaways:
1. Health care officials were right to initially lock down.
2. Health care officials and government don’t respect the public.
3. This dynamic is coming home to roost.
4. Health care officials think this is going to last a long time.
I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very open about doing this.
Announcing a short lockdown then extending it (when it was clear from the beginning) is more problematic - basically, giving people false hope because they know that telling people to lock down for 3+ months would lead to a large number of people either rioting or ignoring the rules. Conversely, I suspect that some of the reductions in lockdown strictness are there to reduce the risk of dissatisfaction/loss of compliance, not based on what is safe.
The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). This may have helped alleviate the shortage, but at what cost? The next time authorities say "you don't need X", people will remember and depending on other evidence, fewer or more will take it as "I definitely need X".
As a specific example, schools in Switzerland will reopen tomorrow, with the government claiming that this is safe because children don't spread it much. This may or may not be based on science (there are contradicting studies supporting either side), but because I know that I cannot trust the official statements, I am assuming that the motivation is letting more people get back to work, and expect a spike in cases. Thus, I'm restricting myself less now than I would be willing to if I could reasonably expect the situation in three weeks to be better, not worse, than the situation now, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
> The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping).
The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie.
Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc.
It took until the middle of the 20th century for randomised trials to become the gold standard of medicine. And even today, "evidence-based medicine" is still distinct enough from just "medicine" to require that term.
If you're not in medicine/biology you probably consider some logically sound idea based on your understanding of a system a useful tool (i. e. "people are interested in dogs, so I'll start a podcast on dogs and people will listen"). In medicine, this is crazy-talk! Unless you have meaningful statistical data, you do nothing except try to somehow get data!
This instinct can, very rarely, go overboard. And that's possibly part of the answer here: there really wasn't any meaningful data on mask use for this sort of purpose. Therefore, the standard instinct kicked in, just as it would have for suggestions to eat lots of Garlic. Or, you know, Hydroxychloroquine.
The second issue is that for N95 masks, it is actually true that laypeople are extremely unlikely to get them to fit correctly to be useful. In a healthcare setting, this involves a mandatory training/fitting that includes a special chamber with high concentrations of some odourant or fog to find leaks.
Then, I'm not 100% sure if this idea of a lie intended to preserve masks for healthcare workers originated with the medical establishment, with politics, the media, or the public. But I'm almost certain that this narrative ("they are saying masks don't work to protect supplies...") was "out there" at the time. Even if somebody was trying to manipulate the public in such a way, somebody else along the route seems to have exposed this strategy at the same time. I wouldn't even be surprised if it turns out the same person/group was the source of both, basically telling us "masks don't work very well, one might even say not at all (winkwink), please let them go to those that can make the best use of them".
The thing that changed was the realization that there were significant numbers of asymptomatic carriers. This was not something that was fully appreciated at the initial stages of the pandemic response (in the US at least).
Masks really don't help protect you as an individual. There isn't a lot of data available, but it has been studied (Ars has a good overview here [0]). The main take home message from most of the studies was that infection rates were largely unchanged or worse when people wore masks -- one theory being that there was a false sense of security. Contaminated air will simply get past any non-medical grade N95 mask (and N95 masks that aren't properly fit won't protect from viruses). So telling people that masks didn't help was completely accurate.
But, when you have asymptomatic carriers, the masks help protect other people from you. They do this by limiting the distance contaminated air travels from your mouth/nose. So, masks are only effective when they are used by everyone -- and in the context of asymptomatic carriers. Also when people are able to be distant from each other, masks really don't help much more. It's when people can't be distant that they help -- but again, they aren't meant to protect the wearer.
The health authorities (and the media) in my Midwestern city have been very clear about the motivations for masks. Unfortunately, communicating this reasoning has not been as effective. People tend to be more concerned about protecting themselves than the others. (Which is understandable)
There was an immediate and massive run on n95 masks. Those do protect you much better. I think it was mostly to protect the supply for medical providers.
Also my understanding is that even cloth masks somewhat protect against droplets.
I'm sorry, but your understanding in this regard is mistaken. Non-N95 masks are simply not designed for this purpose. They will always let in outside (contaminated) air.
> Wearing cloth masks resulted in significantly higher rates of infection, the authors found. They also noted that in their test, the cloth masks were only 3 percent effective at blocking particles.
Ask yourself this question -- why do surgeons wear masks when operating on patients? It isn't to protect themselves from the patient... it's to protect that patient from the surgeon. If the patient is infectious, then a surgeon wears a completely different set of protective gear to protect themselves.
And N95 masks only work when properly fit. I haven't been fit for an N95 mask, so I don't know what size would be right for me. If you don't have the right size/type of mask, it can be more dangerous for you than if you didn't have a mask. Why? Because when you have a mask, people can feel completely protected and stop taking other precautions. If you are keeping isolated from others, there is no need for a mask.
There were plenty of n95 masks sold for industrial use. Some of those were the plain dust mask style masks. Just search Home Depot. Are you saying that those will be more dangerous than no mask? Also it is a bad argument to argue that people will behave more foolishly with protection therefore they should not have protection. Just educate people.
This is cut and pasted from the CDC. Read about what surgical masks do "protects the wearer's nose and mouth from contact with droplets, splashes and sprays that may contain germs".
Surgical masks
Also called a medical mask, a surgical mask is a loose-fitting disposable mask that protects the wearer's nose and mouth from contact with droplets, splashes and sprays that may contain germs. A surgical mask also filters out large particles in the air. Surgical masks may protect others by reducing exposure to the saliva and respiratory secretions of the mask wearer.
At this time, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not approved any type of surgical mask specifically for protection against the COVID-19 virus, but these masks may provide some protection when N95 masks are not available.
N95 masks
Actually a type of respirator, an N95 mask offers more protection than a surgical mask does because it can filter out both large and small particles. The name indicates that the mask is designed to block 95% of very small particles. Like surgical masks, N95 masks are intended to be disposable. However, researchers are testing ways to disinfect N95 masks so they can be reused.
Cloth masks
While surgical and N95 masks are in short supply, cloth masks are more accessible and reusable. Although cloth masks and N95 masks have different purposes, both are intended to slow the spread of COVID-19. A cloth mask is worn to help protect others in case the wearer has the virus. An N95 mask helps protect the wearer from getting the virus from others.
> It is also unknown whether the rates of infection observed in the cloth mask arm are the same or higher than in HCWs who do not wear a mask, as almost all participants in the control arm used a mask.
from the referenced study. The study doesn't say that cloth masks do nothing, they just say medical masks work better, they don't compare them to N95 masks either. There's other variables not controlled, the specific kind of virus etc.
The problem of getting a lay audience to understand policy based off of specialized knowledge is non-trivial (as any engineer knows very well). "What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?" sounds less like manipulation and more like acknowledging that getting buy-in isn't merely a process of dumping factual knowledge, something that seems pretty well borne out by the public conversation that's played out over the last 2-3 months.
Some people do seem to feel like accepting social authority of any kind is too parental, whether it's expertise or civil order. That may be more behaving like children than being treated like them, though.
An obvious problem with the general populace understanding specialized knowledge is that we need a trustworthy source to explain it.
Every major news outlet has become blatently partisan in recent years (many long before). NYT eliminated their ombudsman years ago (3 years ago I think), and television media has always been even worse. Is it really that surprising when people don't trust what they hear and gravitate towards conspiracies and bullshit?
The public has become hyper allergic to expertise. The repurcussions of this is pretty scary.
Had the US (at all govt levels) actually treated this seriously, as a health problem and not economic/political problem, we could be in a situation like Taiwan/NZ.
The US is large, but mostly insulated, so this was feasible. But it would have required EVERYONE wearing masks, and no delays in locking things down (one day of delay in an exponential situation is like 4 more days of lockdown at the other end)
What's more is that since Taiwan published their email they sent to the WHO in December about the severeness of the threat and given the fact that the US is basically considered their only real ally, they almost certainly directly warned the US. Of course I doubt that they would ever say that in public given that they don't want to piss off their only big military ally with a vengeful president.
Manipulation whether in good or bad faith is one is the biggest problems in the US. It’s is coming from both sides. Don’t vote for those who will manipulate you.
I would have to say that lack of Critical Thinking and latching to Group Think are the biggest problems in the US. These lead to the inability to criticize whom one voted for or people with-in their own groups.
Saying something direct often will change the outcome and have the opposite of the wanted response. For example:
Two men both buy flowers for women they like. The first man tells her the truth, "I bought them hoping it would increase my chance for sex". The other says, "I thought you might like these", while actually thinking I want to have sex. Which person was better at marketing themselves and have a higher probability of a better outcome?
I think the most extreme version of your point #2 was when health officials and scientists made public statements that masks were ineffective - despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, in order to reserve mask supplies for healthcare works.
Spreading misinformation in the name of good.
The most clearcut evidence of this was a world renouned epidiamologist admitting exactly this on the podcast This Week In Virology a few weeks ago. I will add the source (also in my comment history) when I get home.
Do you actually disagree with what Constantine is quoted as saying? Do you believe that the "if [they] advised social distancing right away" that it would have been accepted?
I think the point "Health care officials and government don't respect the public" is worth some deeper consideration.
As a thought exercise, I'd like to put myself in the shoes of that public health official and see what my responsibilities are. I'd know for a fact that, without extreme measures, there will be a huge death toll. And I'd have working experience to know for a fact that, if I come right out and advocate directly for those extreme measures, the public will revolt against them.
So here's the question to answer under this thought exercise: how do I respect the public? It is my role to mitigate this public health disaster. How do I do it?
There's a libertarian or anarchistic streak in US society that views anyone exercising the kinds of roles considered in that thought exercise as an illegitimate use of power over the individual. I have a hard time with that, because it seems to me like it precludes all the tools we use to answer crises like COVID, all of which require people to play those kinds of roles.
What I didn't see mentioned that concerns me (although I admit it might be a concern born purely out of ignorance): No mention of whether employees would be provided with a minimum of 2 weeks paid sick leave should they show symptoms of COVID-19. Any employee who has a reasonable chance of becoming ill with COVID-19 at their work, and who does not also have a minimum of 2 weeks paid leave, should, by all logic I can think of, refuse to return to work. In a situation with no paid sick leave or less than 2 weeks of paid sick leave, the options are mostly reduced to 2: First, return to work, get sick, then get fired for absence while off sick. Or, second, remain home and get fired for absence while remaining healthy. I suppose there is the third options, the danger-face economic kamikaze model that most Americans will likely be expected to endure - go to work, hope you don't get sick, get sick anyway, get fired for absence. Then you can't even file for unemployment. There is no winning play.
Fundamental flaws in US health care and worker protection exposed. That's what this is.
Compare to the system in my native Belgium:
- a month of 100% paid sick leave, paid by the employer
- followed by five months 60% of wage in sick leave, paid by social security
- protected from redundancy within this 6 month period
- if made redundant afterwards while still ill after 6 months, obligation for the employer to pay (significant) damages
- 60% of last wage sick pay afterwards, capped to a generous maximum, unlimited in time as long as the illness lasts, paid by social security
- high quality healthcare regardless of employment status
- jobless benefits when healthy without a job, unlimited in time, recently made somewhat degressive
This makes for less of a power imbalance between employers and employees. Huge short and medium term social stabiliser. Certainly not without its flaws, but great to have in place during these times of severe economic crisis.
I'm happy to live in a country with such a strong social safety net as well, compared to the US (even though I don't profit from it at all being young, self-employed and unmarried...), but on the other hand I'm really concerned about our future. Someone has to pay for this and it's not like the government is encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and to learn some personal responsibility, with all the benefits they're giving for not working.
This is spot on. For all the praise of Belgian welfare I believe there is a 'dark' side to it. It is not doing well in motivating people to perform and there is a lot of systemic slack and abuse, like people claiming they're sick for a ridiculous amount of time every year.
*Note that firing an employee for not performing is quite difficult and the tax bracket at the top is outrageously high.
The thing is, people everywhere want to work, with extraordinarily few exceptions. A government doesn't really need to incentivize work in general, only some specific kinds of work which are underperformed.
Citation? I find it funny that no matter how many times history, and even contemporary events, have taught us otherwise, people still believe "People don't need strong incentives to work!"
You can look at employment rates in countries with generous social welfare and unemployment benefits, and notice that the percentage of the population sitting idle who are not sick is minuscule, and not significantly different format the idle population in countries with weak unemployment benefits.
It is true that there are systematic exceptions - especially people born rich.
According to the OECD, productivity per hour worked [0] in Scandinavia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland is comparable to the US, and in some cases significantly higher. All of these countries have much more generous social safety nets.
The average hours worked are significantly less for those small upticks in PPH. If you factor in hours worked, the US comes out far ahead of most if not all.
What does productivity have to do with people's choice of working or not? We were discussing whether people need encouraging to go to work or not. Productivity is a completely different metric, impacted by many other things.
Productivity is a part of the metric which you base that decision on. Do people need encouragement == will we produce 'enough' with less encouragement || is the long term reduction in production, and it's effect on future generations worth the increase in leisure time now.
That's by design. There's no winning play for the line worker, because providing one reduces the returns for the investors. If it wasn't already obvious before this, the corona response by the US has thrown into sharp relief how stacked the deck is - from top to bottom - against the common worker.
I mean, the name of the economic system is pretty blatant. "Capitalism" is exactly what it says on the tin, and it's pretty unbridled in the US, to its own detriment (long-term), IMO.
I can't speak about California specifically, but in Canada, if it can be reasonably be proven that the illness was obtained at the workplace, the employer is required to pay for the sick leave by the local health benefits service (State/Provincial/Federal level), which in this case would be two weeks.
The employer can fight the filing, but in the situation of COVID-19, it's reasonably easy to prove it was a workplace based infection (multiple people will get sick).
Side note, when you get payments from the local health benefits service, there's a %90 chance it's being paid by the employer to the health benefits service, which then transfers it to the employee
> Meaning, setting up a picture — it’s called anti-politics — the picture — but a very specific kind of anti-politics — you have to establish the image, you know, get into people’s heads, that the Government is the enemy- the Federal Government. State Governments are okay, because they can be sort of controlled by business anyway, so it doesn’t matter. But the Federal Government is sometimes a little too big to be pushed around, so it’s the enemy. And it cannot be, nobody can dream of the possibility, that the Government is of, by, and for the people. That’s impossible. It’s an enemy to be hated and feared.
While I don't necessarily disagree with it being the state's role to decide when and how to open back up, it does have its drawbacks. Companies can and (if Tesla is any indication) will use their influence with these states to open back up. The only thing left giving them pause is public opinion.
This is a pretty broad argument, that if there exists, somewhere, any jurisdiction that would permit Tesla to operate their factory, but Alameda County does not permit it, then the Equal Protection clause has been violated.
I don’t see any mention of background testing of Tesla workers. Testing everyone combined with guaranteed paid leave and a very strong statement from executives on non-retaliation for actually taking the leave will be just about the only way that they could re-open right now. Amazon is going to do this, why can’t Tesla?
Bold move to extort public officials with threats to move a factory you're attempting to fully automate and a few hundred white collar positions to a state where your main bargaining chip is jobs when you possess less than 5% market share, a vertical monopoly and a luxury product in a crashing market. Excited to see how this one turns out.
Indeed, looking at the bigger picture I can't help seeing the absurdity of it. For all the praising of Tesla cars, which might very well be founded, it's just a freaking car in a market where demand fell off a cliff.
I have to wonder if these actions by Musk are going to hurt the brand image of Tesla.
Sure people buy the car because it has cool gimmick features and is electric, but when you buy a car for $30k+ there's a reason you spent that kind of money: the car is a form of self expression (whether one would like to admit it or not.) When one buys a Tesla, it indicates that they are with the times, both technologically and socially.
I saved up for a used Tesla this year and have decided to hold off. I asked on another HN thread whether musk believes in climate change and didn’t hear anything. But to me, the covid tweets going against science makes me think he doesn’t really care for a low carbon footprint. So I guess I don’t know now if it is really a net carbon benefit to owning a Tesla versus another sedan over the next five years.
I think I've always found myself a little skeptical that "voting with the pocketbook" can resolve climate change. It often seems to be a choice only available to those wealthy enough to spend time considering the carbon effect of the products they consume, and a way for wealthier people to flaunt their luxury green products without appearing entirely self important.
For the majority of people who can't afford a $30k Tesla, they will simply buy what they can afford and what will meet their needs.
No I think it can. There’s so many green initiatives in companies and divesting from coal. I’m not deluding myself that someone is looking at carbon emissions of their supply chains meticulously but the sentiment is there, which means something.
Didn't Tesla push the boundaries on EV, though, whereas traditional car companies were just fine with continuing production of gas based vehicles? I guess there were hybrids but it felt like Toyota was the only big player there.
Chevy was also a big EV/hybrid player in the mid to late '00s.
I think the sort of individual that buys an expensive vehicle to, at least in part, broadcast that they are an environmentally-conscious person would be turned off by a company strong-arming a county into relaxing regulations, especially when such deregulation is perceived to put that company's workers at risk.
While the facts of what public policy is best can be debated, it seems inevitable that Tesla's brand will suffer from this.
It's 10k jobs. Could easily support 50k (directly/indirectly and dependents of the workers). That's a big number especially we are talking counties not states.
Having toured multiple car plants, and knowing Tesla is more automated than many, I am of the belief that much of the line work can successfully happen at social distances.
I think so too. My concern is about Tesla's leadership:
1) Elon Musk has made many comments downplaying COVID19, and
2) In photos (even in their Tesla Return-to-Work Playbook), the Leadership Team doesn't wear face masks (only the low-level workers do).
The second issue is big. (1) They're clearly taking risks themselves (no PPE would be okay for a selfie, but these are clearly professional photoshoots with an AV team). (2) If leadership doesn't role-model safe behavior, you can't expect everyone else to follow.
In abstract, I agree Tesla should be the poster child for safely re-opening. In practice, if Laurie Shelby, their VP for health and safety, can't be bothered to even wear a cloth face mask to a photoshoot on how to reopen safely (I can't make this stuff up), I have serious reservations about Tesla having the in-house expertise to run a COVID-safe shop.
There's also the possibility of blowback. If Tesla re-opens without proper precautions -- and there's every indication they'll do that -- and those improper precautions turn out to be insufficient, that will make it that much harder for everyone else to reopen.
90% of safety is in attitudes, in being careful, and in being detail-oriented. The exact same high-level precautions can be 100% safe if executed well, and 0% safe is executed for PR or CYA. It seems Tesla is doing the latter (which is ironic, given their attention to detail everywhere else).
1). I believe that Musk is treating this as it should be. The problem is that nearly everyone is over-reacting. A year from now, I believe that the world will realize that this was one giant over-reaction.
2). Is there really a need to over-analyze a photo shoot like that? High ranking officials usually don't wear masks (See Trump or Trudeau when they are talking to the press).
What new information do you think will become available in one year's time to make it obvious that this was an over-reaction?
If it's about total number of deaths - we know that know and even if the number is lower, it means the lockdown worked, no?
If it's, for example, new information becoming available about covid virality, that will be irrelevant, as people have to make decisions now with the information available now.
Re 2) it's expected and important for leadership to set the tone. Arguably what Trump and Trudeau are doing (if what you say is true) is wrong.
> A review by Forbes found 24 investigations by California Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors from 2014 to 2018, resulting in fines for 54 violations. These include new penalties that haven't yet hit the national online OSHA database, and they nearly double Tesla's fines over the last five years, to $236,730.
I don't think this is very damning nor unexpected.
A plant with the degree of _change_ that Tesla has on its product line would likely have a very very dynamic production floor - resulting in more violations.
It also seems that the OSHA rules were not designed for Tesla's unique processes, so many of those violations, if you actually read them, are not relevant to Tesla and have nothing to do with safety.
This problem will go away as their plant process matures and as they are given the opportunity to comment on the next revision of the OSHA automotive plant rules.
Also, there have been no deaths or serious injuries, so it's hard to argue that safety was actually compromised here.
Or Tesla could design their processes in a way that doesn't violate OSHA rules... I don't understand why changing a production floor often would inherently lead to more violations. I could see an organizational bias towards speed and not caring about regulations leading to more violations, however.
Also, why should OSHA redesign it's rules to fit Tesla's "unique" processes?
And to your last point about injuries: 1. Why should a death or serious injury be the indicator? 2. You're wrong about serious injuries, as a cursory search would show:
> I don't understand why changing a production floor often would inherently lead to more violations.
One way would be if increased production floor changes increased OSHA inspections. More inspections yields more discovered violations even for a constant background amount of actual violations.
> Also, there have been no deaths or serious injuries, so it's hard to argue that safety was actually compromised here.
Safety was compromised due to the Heinrich/Bird safety pyramid, or accident triangle:
> It shows a relationship between serious accidents, minor accidents and near misses and proposes that if the number of minor accidents is reduced then there will be a corresponding fall in the number of serious accidents. […]
> The theory was developed further by Frank E Bird in 1966 based on the analysis of 1.7 million accident reports from almost 300 companies. He produced an amended triangle that showed a relationship of one serious injury accident to 10 minor injury (first aid only) accidents, to 30 damage causing accidents, to 600 near misses.[3] […] The numbers used by Bird were confirmed by a 1974 study by A. D. Swain, entitled The Human Element in Systems Safety.[3] The theory was later expanded upon by Bird and Germain in 1985's Practical Loss Control Leadership.[1]
The more minor things happening, the greater the probability of a major incident happening, leading to greater chances of a death down the road.
The whole point in going hard on the small things is to help reduces the odds of things escalating because it's easy to get sloppy in one's thinking over time, and you can get 'risk creep'.
The notion that "the more minor things happen, the greater the probability of a major incident", a common interpretation of the Heinrich-Bird pyramid, is often criticized nowadays concerning complex high-hazard systems (as in fact argued in the risk-engineering.org page that you linked to -- I know this because I wrote it).
I'm not familiar with Tesla assembly lines, but my understanding is that they are highly automated with complex robotics. This would be a typical example of a system where many safety risks are systemic and more strongly dependent on design errors than on worker safety behaviours, which is exactly the type of system in which the structuralist interpretation of the Heinrich-Bird pyramid ("reduce the small stuff at the base of the pyramid and the stuff up the top will drop down and disappear") is really inappropriate, as it can reduce attention paid to safety at a system design level.
You mocked the worst possible straw-man interpretation of your parent's comment. Smileysteve clearly meant his tour of the plant indicated relatively few workers in the plant relative to other plants, and work could probably be arranged to keep them a certain distance from each other.
Bold move, threatening to destroy local jobs (if he doesn't get what he wants), in one of the wealthiest economies in the world, when public perception of "businesses putting profit in front of human lives" is hitting an all-time low.
That's not very fair, since I could make the exact same argument about the the government's actions on this issue. Lockdowns didn't just threaten to destroy jobs -- they did destroy jobs. Calling out Elon Musk for making a decision that would do the same provides no contrast.
On top of that, Elon Musk is trying hard to get his workers back to work. If it means moving to a new state where workers are actually allowed and afforded work, it would be a net gain for the workforce.
Let’s be real. All this drama by Elon Musk has very little to do with his “concern” for workers. He just wants to resume production so the business can resume. This is the same person that refused to shut down the factory and put his workers’ health at risk. The motive behind his dangerous tweets and tantrums is pretty clear for everyone to see.
At this point with Musk it feels like he does stuff just to get attention.
That whole business with calling the diver who saved a bunch of kids’ lives a paedophile was disgusting and it amazes me that anyone has any respect for Musk as a person anymore.
> The motive behind his dangerous tweets and tantrums is pretty clear for everyone to see.
Does his motive necessarily matter? Or more specifically, is his motive reason enough to essentially spite him?
If Elon wanted to cure all disease in every single on of his workers (because that would mean they would never take sick days, and thus produce more) does that mean you would oppose the curing of disease in Elon's workers? After all, Elon's motivations are purely selfish in this case as well
Now maybe you want to argue that curing disease in workers and allowing them to work are two different things and don't match up at all. Are they though? Jobs ensure quality healthcare, pay for the roof over your head, the food on your table, the pain killers you take for your bad back, etc. A lot of being 'healthy' and having a job (in the US) are intimately related.
I'm sure there are plenty of holes in my example above that can be quibbled over; however, my question still stands: is someone's motivation reason enough to spite something that could be a net good? I do not think so.
You may wish to argue that "the workers don't want to go back to work, it's worse for them to do so": are you one of these workers; do you know what the consequences are of them not being able to work versus the consequences of going into work?
You've gone on a veritable expedition to make this argument, and somewhat wrapped two ideas into one.
Someone's motivation is enough to lose respect for them, especially if it's under the guise of something else. It's conniving to deceive in order to get your way.
So lets say we consider the action a net good, we can totally support the action, recognize the bad sides, and still lose respect for the person for the way they have conducted themselves.
Did I say that you could not lose respect for that person? I simply pointed out that because a single person's motivations are selfish does not mean we should work to spite that person.
If I have made the argument that we must respect Elon (or someone who's motivations are selfish) that was not my intention and I will need to reflect on how I present my ideas in the future.
> So lets say we consider the action a net good, we can totally support the action, recognize the bad sides, and still lose respect for the person for the way they have conducted themselves.
> Does his motive necessarily matter? ...If Elon wanted to cure all disease in every single on of his workers ...does that mean you would oppose the curing of disease in Elon's workers?
The way I see it is this:
Forming beliefs is not a morally neutral activity.
It's likely that for some definitions of "belief", Elon Musk does really "believe" that COVID-19 isn't that serious, that closing his factory wasn't and isn't necessary, that it will be a net benefit his workers and society to have the factory opened up.
The question is, when he was forming his beliefs, what was his goal? Was his primary motivation to find the truth? Was one of his primary motivations to safeguard the wellbeing of his employees?
Let us suppose hypothetical universe A, where Musk genuinely came to the question with a concern for his employees, fully intending to keep his factory closed if that's where the data pointed; and that in this universe, after looking extensively into the data and the arguments, he came to the conclusion that no, the experts are wrong: the virus was not actually dangerous, and/or that it would be safe to open his factory.
In such a universe, we can forgive him, even if he's wrong, because he came to his beliefs in a laudable manner.
EDIT: Furthermore, in this universe, if an intelligent person such as Musk has taken a genuine look at the data and concluded that opening is safe, then -- well, maybe we should consider the idea that it actually is safe.
Now let us suppose hypothetical universe B, where Musk is annoyed with the setback: First of all, it sets back his timeline for Tesla taking over the (automotive) world, advancing EV technology, and so on; second of all, it's far from clear that Tesla as a business is "out of the woods" in terms of sustainability. He wants to believe that opening the factory is safe, and he allows this desire to filter out any evidence that disagrees with this belief.
In such a universe, we can blame him, because the act of allowing your desires to twist your belief -- particularly when the lives of so many people are at stake -- is morally wrong.
Furthermore, in such a universe, Elon's actions are actually hypocritical: He claims to care about the welfare of workers, but in fact his actions have been controlled by a disregard for their health and safety.
EDIT: And along with the above edit -- if Musk's primary motivation was not finding the truth or protecting worker safety, but finding a justification for what he wants to believe, then we don't need to think as hard about his arguments.
Now the question is: Given what we know of Musks past actions, what he's said in the current debate, and what we know about the evidence available to him in general, which of those hypothetical universes is closest to the truth?
I don't know Musk personally, and haven't even followed him that closely as a celebrity; but from what I have seen, I tend to find universe B more plausible than universe A.
Is there any reason to believe that taking temperature is going to effectively curb virus transmissions? I would assume you’d be well into spreading by the point you started running a fever.
I’ve been planning to get a Tesla, but I can’t buy one anymore. Between this and all the crazy, and sometimes illegal, shit Elon says, I just cant do it.
Yeah, watching his attitude regarding the entire COVID situation on his recent appearance of the Joe Rogan show really ended the lifelong bout of respect I had for the man. He's paradoxically so brilliant yet so misinformed. His idea that we should all just exit quarantine tomorrow because it's unconstitutional is not only dangerous but also now seems to come from a place of selfishness after this statement. Economists and epidemiologists are in agreement about what the current plan of action should be in the US. Why does he think he knows better?
Not only that, but these types of "normal people vs the evil government" statements only add fuel to the trumpian narrative that corruption and misinformation are everywhere; and all of our institutions are worthless. This is such a consequential position to take and yet he seems to do it without even thinking about the repercussions of his words. Shame on him!
Different states are in different situations, so opening up his Fremont factory is its own situation. California is already opening up and the state and Fremont has approved Tesla's operation as critical, but Tesla is engaged in an ad hoc struggle with Alameda County.
With Texas reopening the race is on to control the national narrative of COVID. If Texas successfully reopens without being forced to retreat later, it will only strengthen the WH narrative that much of the economic damage has been self-inflicted by blue states, and that further aid would be unfair to red states.
Probably he's just rich enough so that his lived everyday experience suggests that everything is fine. I mean if you had assured access to excellent health care, easy access to testing, a large private garden to spend time outdoors in, and staff who take care of all the chores where normal people might get sick, then there's a good chance you also would feel more relaxed about this pandemic because it's likely to not inconvenience you personally.
Of course, he's still a acting ignorant / stupid, but I'd guess that a certain lack of social skills - empathy in particular - is quite common among startup founders.
I think there's some truth in this, I don't know. We don't see other billionaires being so inappropriately outspoken on these matters. Further, he has a cult-like following that's rare even for billionaires; because of this, the burden should fall on him even further to be more circumspect with his words.
Just think about his public tweet ejaculations which frequently decimate his investor's 401k portfolios. Part of his appeal is how he's so forthcoming about his thoughts; but this is proving to be a double edged sword. As days continue to pass his words feel more and more like an instance of Hanlon's razor, he's not actually trying to project a world view that makes sense; it simply doesn't matter to him. And these externalities which are laying in his wake also don't matter. You will be hard pressed to find a billionaire that's that careless.
> He's paradoxically so brilliant yet so misinformed.
He's not very brilliant though. He may be good at his niche (although I'm not sure what that is judging by the quality of Tesla vehicles), but if you are a subject matter expert in a field that he pretends to know, it becomes very obvious that his knowledge is extremely surface-level and the equivalent of "I read Wikipedia on the plane".
Actually I think his brilliance is in convincing the eager Silicon Valley masses that he's brilliant and that they should invest in his companies - regardless of how poorly they continue to do.
although I'm not sure what that is judging by the quality of Tesla vehicles
The quality of Tesla's cars are fine, much better than before. Unless what you are talking about is from 3-2 years ago? If so, you're out of date.
Actually I think his brilliance is in convincing the eager Silicon Valley masses that he's brilliant and that they should invest in his companies - regardless of how poorly they continue to do.
Poorly continue to do by what metric? As far as I know as an interested follower, Tesla and SpaceX are doing fine.
I don't understand your dig on Tesla EVs. Do you not agree they are the best EV on the market? I doubt Elon has had much to do with their quality, he's one person and his companies pull great talent, it's all about his ability to underpay great workers who want to build personal brands around his visionary company missions. I'm not saying he's a great CEO, but he does pull great talent for cheap.
Sweden's has basically said the costs of shutting down until a vaccine is found (or until the numbers are low enough you can test-and-track and impose quaruntine or testing on all visitors to the country) are worse than just letting it run its course.
Bare in mind that all government decisions are heavily biased by the optics of that decision, as seen by the average voter when passed through a media filter. If it genuinely cost more QALYs to implement shutdown+exit strategy than just "attempt mitigation with focus on elderly and delay things until you've got enough equipment", it would still be very hard to argue that viewpoint in front of the media.
Arguing "The economy is more important than grandma!" is very difficult, requiring a dive into life expectancy, quality of life metrics, isolation side effects, economic depression side effects, QALYs and what exactly an "economy" even is (and, importantly, what it isn't, like all the non-captured-by-gdp utility gained by just hanging out with friends in the park). Can you imagine a politician trying to argue that grandma is a necessary sacrifice in front of the cameras?
Sweden has a rather different welfare system, typical population density, income distribution, typical household demographic, urban planning and culture regarding social interactions, compared to many places that would use it as an example for what to do in this crisis. I think following the available evidence, interpreted by experts is the way to go. Ultimately the argument for Sweden's policy seems to be less based on cost saving than general wellbeing. A good bit of insight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfN2JWifLCY
Sweden's strategy is also unique in the world and failing badly at protecting some of their most vulnerable citizens. It's also based on unproven ideas, like immunity from Covid19 after you get it once.
I don't know that any ideas are "proven". Evidence based medicine works on just that:evidence. The hypothesis that you do not get immunity, given the evidence from all previously observed cases of coronaviruses is the least likely. Why would you then act as if it were true?
If immunity after getting it isn't viable, then surely a vaccine isn't either?
Stamping out COVID19 worldwide simply isn't practical, so isn't the omly option to just live with it? We manage to live with far worse things, like ageing.
Aging is not killing hundreds of people in short succession in the same hospital. The only option to avoid much more significant disturbances in our daily life then we see now is to isolate for as long as possible, and then work tirelessly to perform contact tracing of the newly infected and catch outbreaks while they are small.
And I believe that a vaccine can succeed where natural immunity doesn't. For example, there are viruses where you only gain partial immunity from contacting the disease, but can end up with a worse form of the disease if exposed again, like with chicken pox (varicella) leaving the door open to shingles (zoster).
He's a deluded SV billionaire. These people have no grounding in commoners lives, he has been worshipped and lived a ridiculous lifestyle for over a decade. However brilliant or visionary his ideas, it's clear he has been sipping the same libertarian, SV mumbo jumbo that so many other SV techies have fallen into.
I find his heterodoxy refreshing, not selfish. We don't know how much worse things would have gotten without lockdown, but the negative consequences of lockdown are pretty bad too.
As for corruption and misinformation being everywhere - the truth of that is evident. This doesn't make our institutions worthless, but it doesn't make skepticism prudent.
Even less. Tesla is known to be an absolute slave driver and has a lingering issue that some day the media will care about enough to report. Every once in a while we get a blip[1], but then Elon destroys the life of the whistleblower (e.g. calling CPS on a mother, Swatting them, trying to get all professional licenses suspended). Then they always underreport injuries or permanently disable workers in order to not have any "reportable injuries".
Then the media quietly drops it because people just don't care about workers or the pile of corpses under Elon's "I'm saving the planet and taking us to Mars" narrative. Elon unleashes his troll army and they hammer the journalist or anyone who is even mildly curious about the work conditions at Tesla.
That's the beauty of the free market, put your dollars where you believe they hold worth. I may disagree with your analysis, but I respect your essential freedom to vote with your money.
Do you own products from companies that take part in illegal, corrupt, or morally questionable acts? My point is not to shame you, my point is to say what Tesla does is just not close to the behavior of traditional car companies, oil companies, or many Chinese manufacturers that make your favorite gadgets. It's just that Elon is a twat at times because he is obviously emotionally unstable.
Not that I’m aware of, but I’m sure I do in some cases. I try, and I’m a vegetarian because of view of factory farming for example.
Maybe Tesla is no worse or better than the other companies. That’s one issue for me, but there is another. He doesn’t appear to be in control of himself. It leaves me with very little confidence in a company that I would be spending ~70k on their product with the expectation of high quality, and good support for 5-10 years.
It beats doing nothing at all, and using some of the things you cite (oil, made in China) is close to impossible to avoid (for now at least), but that doesn’t preclude anyone from saying they disapprove of Tesla and won’t buy one of their car because of what they think of the ceo. Especially when the ceo is the brand.
I thought the point of the free market was to send signals about what factories should be built with your purchasing choices, not to limit your purchasing choices to whoever has the biggest factory today?
So me buying a non-Tesla electric car will have much the same effect as buying a Tesla with regard to the future of personal transportation? Regardless of how many cars the other manufacturer is currently producing?
I wonder what signal I’m sending by not owning a car…
> So me buying a non-Tesla electric car will have much the same effect as buying a Tesla with regard to the future of personal transportation? Regardless of how many cars the other manufacturer is currently producing?
Suing the county, really? There's hundreds of thousands, probably millions of businesses that have been shuttered by COVID-19, and yet, of course, who should it be but the constant media circus that is Tesla--whose hit is miniscule compared to the restaurants, hotels and other businesses that actually can't earn revenue--that decides to publicly take it to the courts.
I truly hate to say this, but it really smacks of a solipsistic kind of attitude: that Tesla's problems matter more than other companies', and that anything that gets in its way, whether pandemics, short-sellers or lawmakers, are just an irritant.
If those other business were classified as essential by the state and ordered to remain open, but then the county ordered them closed, they absolutely should sue the county as well. Unfortunately they probably don’t have the same legal resources as Tesla does. If Tesla wins this case it could be beneficial for other businesses as well.
Most businesses aren't in a position to sue the county. If Tesla sues and wins, those other businesses will benefit as well. I'm not sure what you're objecting to here.
If having the disease spread more widely among populations and more COVID deaths translates as "benefit" to you then yes. Tesla is concerned about only profits but what's profitable for the company may not be for people.
You're talking about whether companies should reopen. The parent was talking about whether
> There's hundreds of thousands, probably millions of businesses that have been shuttered by COVID-19, and yet, of course, who should it be but the constant media circus that is Tesla--whose hit is miniscule compared to the restaurants, hotels and other businesses that actually can't earn revenue--that decides to publicly take it to the courts.
is a fair complaint. It's clearly not. It's basically the Starving African Children argument. Throwing bad arguments around (even to support a good cause) is not conducive to quality discussion, and your criticism (via emphasizing how good the cause is, with an attack on Tesla thrown in, neither of which is pertinent) of someone pointing this out doesn't help.
I think it's important to argue precisely on Internet forums where our discussions don't directly translate into policy decisions and this is the hill I will die on.
I’m not sure you understand the position we’re in. The intent of all this intervention is to flatten the curve, not to zero, but to keep hospitals at capacity. Thus spreading the disease and causing more deaths, but preventing only those deaths that would have been preventable save lack of hospital capacity.
As a swede said, not eliminating deaths just shifting them in time.
Yes, spreading the disease is a benefit to the population.
I'd love to know what these plans to wipe out covid 19 are that everyone but me seems to have been informed about. I must clearly have missed some big news.
My point is that this is yet another case where it is Tesla who is in the news for some controversial conflict. Such as the many times it's attempted to fight the SEC, played fast and loose with health and safety regulations in its factories, attempted to manipulate markets to burn short sellers, or bricked the cars of second-hand sellers. Sure, one or two of those events could be explained. But there is a social compact here. At a certain point, it reminds me of Uber's historical attitude towards local regulations or user privacy. This is not a comparison that I am happy to make.
This, of course, is besides the highly contentious notion that anyone will "benefit" from a public health order being overturned.
Elon plays fast and loose with his opinions in public discourse, but generally when Tesla makes an official move like this it seems to be more thoroughly considered by a larger group of people than just Elon. I have the same gut feeling that you seem to have when I first hear these stories, but the associated press releases seem to consistently have concrete foundations that I don't initially expect.
In this case, they point to their experience dealing with exactly this process in Shanghai, and running the Gigafactory over there for 3 months successfully since reboot. That gave me pause - they've seen this and dealt with it firsthand already, which isn't something nearly anyone commenting on this can say. Maybe they're lying, but that feels like a pretty serious unearned accusation.
I think everyone agrees that we should restart businesses if it's reasonable to, but it doesn't seem like anyone is evaluating what "reasonable" means outside of "what the local government is saying". And then you have to wonder why we're suddenly assuming the state/city government is competent in this case.
I don't know where I stand, but I know that I'm not assuming Tesla is in the wrong here. I know far less than they do and it would take a miracle to convince me that the local government is properly thoroughly evaluating the situation and making nuanced, reasonable decisions (as opposed to simply reacting to the political environment). It's increasingly difficult to figure out how to proceed, but at some point we have to decide that we're able to open businesses back up (with safety measures that we decide are adequate). It's scary, but we can't just wait around for a vaccine forever - it could be years out.
I'd like to add that in the Joe Rogan interview, Elon's main point is not "let's open Tesla factories, I don't care that many people will die" like some seem to imply here on Hacker News. His main point was that the data is we have on covid epidemiology doesn't say much and we "need to cleanup the data", which seams totally reasonable to me.
Decisions are being taken by government (through epidemiologists) with extremely poor data. The data simply does not hold the information needed to take a proper decisions about the lock down. And when it comes to pandemics & politics this lack of information means that the only option available is to go for overly cautious. Decisions about the economy that can (prematurely) make or break the economy permanently. As in: the end of the US/Western empire forever.
It's very easy for the media and people to jump onto the "omg, you only care about money" bandwagon whenever someone argues that maybe we should think this lockdown thru. It's also unoriginal, unsubstantiated and unproductive.
As of this writing, 281,057 people have died from COVID 19. 2 months ago that number was < 8,000. Forgive me if I don't advocate for massively increasing the transmission rate during an active, uncontained, global pandemic.
The data is getting getting buried in communal graves in some parts of the world, like Italy. It's not like there is an option to quietly gather more data until we take a decision, decisions must be made today.
If I sue somebody for something that will in the end be thrown out and I know if but am only trying to cause a nuisance or maybe trying to pump up my ego then, despite my having paid taxes, I am wasting tax money. Since the tax money is pooled it is hard to say if I am wasting mine or others.
When the government is not cooperating in the good-faith manner with a business, you have no choice but the court to come to a settlement. Is it civilize way to solve disagreements, isn’t?
A handful of officials made the decision. If they overstepped--and after 7+ weeks, restrictions need to be justified and non-arbitrary--the only remedy is through the courts. I'm not saying he's right or not, just that if the county were to have the lockdown unjustifiably long, the courts would be the ones to make that call.
You do realize a bunch of other businesses affected by the county's decisions are hoping they can pile on to this lawsuit or one like it in a class action style, since they individually don't have the power or ability to sue like Tesla can?
Elon has already made it cleared he wants all businesses open. If he could make that happen he would. But there is one place he can affect and that's his own.
Elon Musk is behaving like an entitled and pampered child, did you see his irresponsible tweets a few days ago? How can someone in a position to impact millions of lives be so irresponsible?
He says what he thinks and tries to think of everything from first principles rather than assumings the consensus is correct. This sometimes leads to the right decisions ("the market and technology ia ripe for electric cars") and sometimes to the wrong ones ("humans are obsolete, we can automate a car factory"). But regardless of right or wrong, it will often lead to him having very different views from the majority of the population on important issues.
> this is an abuse of workers (more blatant than before).
I don't know if I'd personally use the word "abuse", but a post in another forum noted some OSHA statistics:
> In fact, data collected by Forbes shows that Tesla has accumulated more than three times the number of Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) violations that its top 10 competitors amassed from 2014-2018.
> A review by Forbes found 24 investigations by California Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspectors from 2014 to 2018, resulting in fines for 54 violations. These include new penalties that haven't yet hit the national online OSHA database, and they nearly double Tesla's fines over the last five years, to $236,730.
You know that the alternative is that the workers lose their jobs, and can't pay rent and feed their kids.
A lot of people in USA are living paycheck to paycheck, and it's reasonable to say blue collar workers are more likely to be in this category.
I would say that forcing people to stay home and not make money (and thus not being able to pay for rent and food) is an abuse of America's fundamental human rights.
I don't believe so. I had no trouble finding mine on the lot late last year, and there were plenty to choose from. It is possible the Y is momentarily sold out, but the other models should [or would be] easily available.
Obviously there was sarcasm there. However, I do see a large percentage of his crowd saying negative things about him now like this was their final straw. It wasn't back when he called that guy a pedo because he didn't like what he said about him, or when he was facing fraud charges from the SEC. It appears now he is is untouchable in that regard, because a lot of his activity recently whether negative or positive seems to get him media attention.
The fact that HN would rather downvote this comment and is OK with people getting killed is absolutely disgusting. I've literally had both friends and family die because of bad actors like Elon.
HN you disappoint me, but I guess it's comes as no shock when you're obsessed with VCs and making a buck, instead of trying to help others.
Please don't take HN threads into ideological flamewar. Not what this site is for.
There are plenty of critical comments (in the four threads HN has had about this topic) which have not been downvoted. Ranty flamebait, on the other hand, should certainly be downvoted and flagged.
I accept your decision, my apologies - but could you please let me know in some more detail why this was flagged so that I can get a chance to understand and correct my mistake(s)?
Because I can only conclude „don’t try to discuss side effects of capitalism” right now. Is there a heated debate I’m unaware of, that my comment might have been attributed to? What is the flamewar bit? I did not read the other threads.
It has to do with the thread going in generic ideological directions [1]. Generic discussion is predictable [2] and, in the case of divisive topics like ideology, gets increasingly nasty as well, as the partisans of each side show up to fight each other in the same ways that they always fight each other. All this is the enemy of curious conversation, which is what this site is for [3], and which has to be unpredictable in order to be interesting. If it helps at all, we moderate the opposite side the same way (an example I've used sometimes is [4]).
If you look at the links below and still have a question that isn't answered there, I'd be interested to know what it is. I'm afraid it's a bit of a slog to scroll back to the interesting explanations, though, since there's a lot of routine moderation mixed in there as well—but then it can sometimes be helpful to see past cases also.
It's not a question of truth, but of rantiness and flamebaitness. The mere fact that what you're saying is true doesn't absolve you of your responsibility to phrase it in a discourse-preserving way.
If you're European like me, tell me where did they shut down factories with the numbers California is seeing? They have much more strict restrictions than Europe that is considered the epicenter right now.
The current 280k death toll would be higher and and heading towards 1918 Influence deaths with many hospitals being overwhelmed. That's what the lock downs are preventing, and that's why things aren't as bad as the models predicted, because we took action to slow the spread of the virus.
But maybe you think 50 million deaths are worth keeping the economy rolling along (and that millions dying and health care failing wouldn't effect it), while the epidemiologists of the world don't know what they're talking about.
I compared it to 1918 Influenza's global death count/estimate. 50 million people worldwide is a lot, even with the 7.8 billion we have. And 2 million US deaths would be a lot as well. I think it's worth some inconvenience and economic slowdown to prevent millions of deaths.
Depends how big the "inconvenience" and slowdown is (both economic losses and isolation and routine disruption cause death and quality of life decreases). Poverty is on average much much worse than covid19 for life expectancy (though there are a lot of caveats here).
This isn't a taboo trade-off, both sides of the trade-off contain things we really don't want to sacrifice.
The evidence from Sweden and from serological data everywhere doesn’t suggest that to be the case. It’s looking more and more like the lockdowns are actually accomplishing approximately nothing. But I can tell you didn’t consider/understand my point about why it’s stupid to just optimize for “number of deaths”, which is the relevant part.
Predicting the future is notoriously difficult and reviewing the past can only show what happened from a single course of action. There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened.
There aren't even good examples of other countries that didn't lock down since basically everyone did.
So, since I'm no an epidemiologist, I'll defer the expertise to those that are.
It's not over yet. Sweden's idea is the deaths under the curve are likely to be the same everywhere for the next 12-18 months, so they are frontloading them without crashing the domestic industries while trying to keep hospitals from being overloaded.
“Lives” are not fungible. Covid almost exclusively kills people who were very close to death anyway - look at the age and comorbidity data. It’s very clear. If anything, the numbers are absurdly inflated because people are dying with covid rather than from covid.
It’s abundantly clear that the US’s approach will cause more net long term suffering than Sweden’s approach. It looks like the increase in overdose and suicide deaths among younger people is already on track to destroy way more life-years than the most generous attributions to covid.
> There's literally no way to know what would have happened if no lock down happened.
Actually, we do have data.
The SF Bay Area has very close ties to China, and corona likely arrived here via air travel in mid-Dec.
So anybody who actually wants to make the effort can compare before and after lockdown effects.
Also, it's common in large organizations for one dept. to not communicate to another dept. in a meaningful way, so relying on epidemiologists alone for analysis is not wise. There has to be daily, open conversation with local govt. and economists.
Are you intentionally being simplistic or do you really think that’s a reasonable statement? Are you literally trying to claim that any given life is a fungible economic unit?
According to the NHS, over half of deaths attributed to covid in the UK were going to die within a year anyway, from other causes. Over half of deaths are from nursing homes in many places. We’re sacrificing the economic livelihoods of our children to buy a few months for a small fraction of the sickest, oldest people.
I think it’s a reasonable statement, in fact I’d say it represents orthodox economic thinking. Permanently removing hundreds of thousands of people from the economy (as well as temporarily removing millions) will depress both aggregate demand and productivity for decades to come.
The government and the central bank should support people of working age with fiscal and monetary policy for as long as they are kept safely on the bench.
Another point that’s worth making is that even someone in a nursing home is way more economically active than someone who is six feet underground.
In short, there’s no tension between protecting “the economy” and protecting people’s health. We avoid fighting a war that we cannot win, we bide our time, and then confidently return to full output when the medical crisis has been fixed.
> Results: Using the standard WHO life tables, YLL (Years of Life Lost) per COVID-19 death was 14 for men and 12 for women. After adjustment for number and type of LTCs, the mean YLL was slightly lower, but remained high (13 and 11 years for men and women, respectively). The number and type of LTCs led to wide variability in the estimated YLL at a given age (e.g. at ≥80 years, YLL was >10 years for people with 0 LTCs, and <3 years for people with ≥6).
> Conclusions: Deaths from COVID-19 represent a substantial burden in terms of per-person YLL, more than a decade, even after adjusting for the typical number and type of LTCs found in people dying of COVID-19. The extent of multimorbidity heavily influences the estimated YLL at a given age. More comprehensive and standardised collection of data on LTCs is needed to better understand and quantify the global burden of COVID-19 and to guide policy-making and interventions.
> “This new analysis found that death from COVID-19 results in over 10 years of life lost per person, even after taking account of the typical number and type of chronic conditions found in people dying of COVID-19. Among people dying of COVID-19, the number of years of life lost PER PERSON appear similar to diseases such as coronary heart disease. Information such as this is important to ensure governments and the public do not wrongly underestimate the effects of COVID-19 on individuals,” he added.
The lives involved are mostly not economically productive. (This is not to say they aren't very valuable and worth living, just that your quip is incorrect)
In my view, lives are for living. A rampant covid 19 (which we'll probably get any way) would cost a few months of life expectancy. I'm unconvinced preventing many from living their lives to the fullest for months in the hopes that covid 19 will magically disappear is worthwhile.
We all want the lockdown to end as soon possible, but when we do it, we need to do it right or else risk magnifying the economic and human toll the pandemic is taking. The lockdown is a bridge to a world of virus suppression, which in turn is a bridge to medical solutions that will eliminate SARS-CoV-2 from the human population, everywhere on earth, for good.
I don't see how that graph supports your point. It seems to be about years of life lost per death, rather than years of life lost per infection.
It's also not correct stats to bucket data this strongly as you end up assuming that the dead are a representative sample of the population in your buckets (in this case, age and number of conditions). For example, if there are two subpopulations in each bucket, one with a much lower remaining life expectancy and much higher rate of death from covid19 (fixing age bucket and number of pre-existing conditions), then you'll end up vastly overstating the numbers. (An example subpopulation here could be men/women or people with a pre-existing condition that slightly/severely complicates a covid19 infection)
I can't read the article, so let me know if the above is addressed.
My apologies for the paywall link and for the fact that the study doesn’t really support all the points I was trying to make. I take your point about not assuming the breakdown of the deceased group is representative of the general population. Original paper is here: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75
The article does go on to make the claim that 20% of the deceased would be individuals in their 50s and 60s, a cohort willing and able to make substantial contributions to productivity. That runs counter to the notion that the virus would just run it’s scythe through people who would be on their death beds anyway.
I would say this argument sounds like a special case of the broken window fallacy, and that allowing people to die is just a poor economic policy. Just because you’re not producing, doesn’t mean you’re economically inert–removing retirees and even care home residents from the economy would represent a significant reduction in demand, with the attendant economic headaches that creates.
Thank you for the link, I shall read it in a bit. EDIT: Looks like they address the point on breakdown by sex but I can't tell whether they address breakdown by type of comorbidity. They don't discuss how large a factor is the unaccounted for subpopulation traits potentially causing both decrease in life expectancy and increase in covid19 morbidity (or one, but not the other, which would bias results the other way), but I suppose that's very difficult to estimate.
I am unconvinced that the deaths of care home residents and retirees would be bad for the economy (setting aside its more general badness).
The elderly demand for carers and other goods and services hugely exceeds the supply available at the price point they (or their NHS) can afford. The deaths of a huge number of care patients and the elderly in general would let the NHS shuffle resources around and be far less overstretched in caring for the elderly. Their consumption of other goods and services is fairly minor by comparison.
Indeed, the quality of service offered by the NHS would hugely improve (I doubt the government wpild be willing to cut its budget too much for a few years).
I don't have a good enough grasp of economics or the situation in the USA to speculate much on the effects, but find myself skeptical that the US economy is demand limited.
I guess one thing to point out is that the cost of social care (circa £20 billion) in the UK is not borne by the NHS, but by a mixture of local councils (70%) and private individuals (30%). Nursing home deaths will not really significantly affect the NHS budget (circa £150 billion, 10% of which is spent on people aged over 85).
The wants and needs of nursing home residents create a demand, and we fulfil that demand using some of our productivity. In fact without that demand there would be no need for that sector, and our productivity would fall to match. Perhaps the savings in tax and private wealth would be directed to other sectors, but maybe not.
The case for mere retirees is even more clear cut. They are spending accumulated wealth (or accumulated entitlements) and they account for a massive amount of aggregate demand because of a mixture of hard work and luck. They are not a loss to the economy just because they don’t need to work anymore; retirees are a massive component of the modern economy.
I thank you for taking the time to look up the figures and correct my misapprehensions.
In the case of local councils there are a huge number of improvements they could do locally. Roads, parks, community centers, etc
Now, I know this isn't really the place for a lecture on economics but I find this model of economics very unintuitive. Surely the inheritors of the estates of these elderly people will also have plenty of demand for many goods and services? I certainly could do with a cook and chauffeur. A trope of dancers wouldn't be ammiss either. If I promised to spend the savings of these deceased people on cooks and dancers, would you be happy with that money falling to me to keep demand constant?
Dunno about other countries, but here in the UK we don't seem to have a real exit strategy at all. I haven't seen any mention in the news of any other country's long term covid19 plan either.
They haven't even come out and said "we just need to wait for a vaccine"...
The UK's strategy is lockdown to counteract the initial explosion where we allowed the initial outbreak to get out of control, then gradually release the lockdown whilst keeping R under 1.
Keeping R under 1 is is to be done with a combination of social distancing, human contact tracing, an app, testing, quarantines etc. If R is under 1, your cases trend towards 0.
Eventually the outbreak ends when you get a vaccine or the measures reduce your cases to 0.
No guarantees that it'll work but I don't see why it can't work in theory. You'll probably have occasional flare ups and course corrections but it should get easier over time as total infections reduce and our understanding of the disease improves and testing improves.
But on a more serious note, it is great that we are seeing thought leaders counter-act the media propaganda frenzy regarding this situation. The "big evil businessman" know best that our economy is on shaky ground, and that continuing social distancing measures will immeasurably damage America's position as a global power (and thus its citizens security and freedom) more than a few tens of thousands of deaths will. I, for one, am proud to go back to work. Staying at home isolated is merely fomenting unnecessary chaos and social unrest.
I am fortunate to be employed too, but I work in a closed space with little contact with others. Unless you work in a meatpacking plant, hospital, factory, or front-facing office, you may be taking on less risk than Tesla workers.
In defense, Tesla did send an e-mail to the workers saying they could stay home if they are at risk, which is hats off to them. Is it legally defensible to use this if they get fired? I hope so.
Man, I really liked Elon, until he started downplaying and dismissing the risk of COVID. It just didn't come from solid scientific reasoning in my view. Taken out of context, this lawsuit would have had me in full support of Tesla. But I now really have to question his motives behind employing people at Tesla.
And so fades any chance that I’ll ever buy a Tesla vehicle. All this lunacy is rotting the brand from the inside, and nobody has the power to stop it. Especially galling because they were supposed to use technology to lead us to a better world, but instead they seem to be unable to escape one man’s hubris.
Have fun buying a car from a manufacturer that is not manufacturing, and be sure to complain about Tesla threatening to boycott California while you threaten to boycott their products!
I’m not boycotting Tesla. What I’m saying is that as a prospective customer I am
not reassured that the company won’t just try and pull a load of weird shit on me in the future (either by imploding or screwing me over) and for that reason I can’t commit to them. It’s a great pity because we have to recognise they have essentially created the modern EV space, and I was actually looking forward to adopting their tech.
A boycott is when you avoid an organisation in protest at something; I am exercising what I think is a rational consumer choice. I don’t believe that my action (or inaction) will have any impact on Tesla, nor do I want or need it to.
e.g. if you don’t like brand X Milk Chocolate and vow never to buy it, you’re not boycotting brand X but rather just exercising your right as a consumer.
“I don’t want my personal life to be [around] a bunch of guys who are living in a state of delusion, who happen occasionally to win big,” Munger told Daily Journal’s shareholders. “I want the prudent person.”
Taking this quote out of context is impressively dishonest. It would be incredibly inaccurate to describe Elon's history of winning big as "occasional", and for that same reason it would be incredibly surprising if Charlie Munger described Elon's career this way with no qualifiers.
Not surprisingly, he didn't. This quote is the end of a much more nuanced statement to conclude the point that he generally prefers to invest in operators who take less risk.
Regardless of your opinion on Elon, this sort of manipulation of reality damages the discourse. It's not helping anyone.
And to me, he is only attributing a quote to Elon, nothing else, but the audience takes it a different way. Regardless the quote above is not about Elon.
A guy who consistently founds or joins successful companies is not someone I would call “who happen occasionally to win big”. He founded Zip2 that was acquired by AltaVista, he joined PayPal that was acquired by eBay, he joined Tesla, he founded SpaceX. His record is stellar.
Of course it is understandable that Berkshire Hathaway wouldn’t hire anyone like Musk. They are as far from tech and VC as any investor could ever be. I admire Buffet and Munger, but the guys are 90 years old, I honestly couldn’t care less what they think about IT industry.
Not OP, but mid 30s and I’m getting a bit tired of folks who are out of touch because of their age believing their past experience can extrapolate a future they don’t understand (Buffett in particular has done a very poor job understanding and investing in tech).
It’s terribly ironic that they think Musk is just lucky considering Munger and Buffett were able to invest during one of the most prosperous times in American history.
Admit you’re passed your prime and move on. Make way for innovators instead of valuing reading a 10-K and preferring conservative companies you believe are undervalued, or distressed companies you’re going to try to twist their arm into a deal (as Buffett did during the GFC with banks).
Your comment and OP's comment are a bit silly given the context. Munger didn't say anything controversial here. He was asked a question about Elon and answered by saying he prefers less risk. He specifically pointed out that Elon shouldn't be underestimated while saying it.
Elon doesn't just like to take risks, he would probably agree with being described as "risk obsessed". If your investment strategy is risk aversion and stability, you should avoid Elon. That isn't an outdated perspective, nor is it arrogant in any way - Elon would probably agree with it. The last sentence was an exaggeration of his bias when evaluating any operator to drive his point home clearly.
It's fairly difficult to imagine that Charlie Munger thinks Elon Musk has just gotten lucky for his entire career, and unsurprisingly he isn't saying that in this example. I'm all for fairly criticizing out-of-touch arrogance, but I can't see it being the case here.
"Admit you’re passed your prime and move on." sounds like something a junior programmer would say before suggesting something hip but incredibly stupid.
Like reimplementing a distributed multithreaded C++ processing cluster in NodeJS to make the codebase more accessible.
Or like those fashionable people that try to replace a grep shell script with a multi-node ElasticSearch cluster in the cloud, at only 100x the operating costs.
The knowledge that novel does not equal unquestionably good ages extremely well. The "innovator" of today may well be a "debunked hype" by tomorrow.
We'll have to see how many tech companies survive the coming depression before we can determine whether the long game at Berkshire is wrong or not :)
Indeed, we'll see if Tesla survives, not only the coincidental depression, but also the multi-hundred-billion-dollar war chest being leveraged against them by the other car companies with a century more experience each, more connections, and broader reach.
Well said. I'm a huge fan of Elon and Tesla and am optimistic about their future, but Munger's approach here is incredibly reasonable. I would love to see Tesla succeed, but I also know that I'd hesitate quite a bit to bet billions of dollars on their success.
(this page seems a little more biased than I remember in favor of a conservative viewpoint)
I wonder if in 6 months opening a business quickly will seem prescient, or will it have been a disaster?
What I actually think Musk should do is do what he's done well before, "science the shit out of it". Figure out how to move forward without killing someone (in a rocket accident or a covid accident)
Warren Buffett's stance on technology companies has historically been that he doesn't understand them, and thus he doesn't invest in them. Where are you getting this idea that he thinks he knows them better than other people?
"is bold and brilliant, and he swings for the fences."
and ...
"People like that get some remarkable results,” Munger continued. “Sometimes they get some quick failures. I haven’t the faintest idea how Elon Musk will turn out, but he has a considerable chance of success and considerable chance of failure. He seems to like it that way."
Money on that scale is of a very different character to money as normal people understand it.
It’s more like being a medieval king: to the extent that you’re the shareholder, your wealth is the “nation’s” wealth; your guards are paid for out of your pocket; and you can be drawn into conflicts that lead to you losing everything.
It’s that latter part that I’d be worried about with Musk. He took a very big gamble with SpaceX, and if one more launch had failed in the early years, he would’ve become a mere footnote on someone else’s Wikipedia page. The concern is he might make similar gambles in future.
This is the same Charlie Munger who backed airline stocks when everyone else was dumping them, outside only to finally realize how terrible they were far too late and finally dump them weeks after the rest of the market did.
His opinion is absolutely valid, but it’s not like his track record is any more exceptional than Musk’s.
> It’s not like his track record is any more exceptional than Musk’s.
Everyone makes mistakes, but to conclude that Berkshire Hathaways' track record is "not ... more exceptional than Musk's" is beyond folly. Their success over decades is unparalleled.
Furthermore, Berkshire on principle plays the long game. They rarely act on short-term events.
Tesla was also badly affected by the Covid-19 measures. The Fremont plant is still closed. You would have expected Munger to dump airlines sooner; but would you also have expected Musk to dump his TSLA stock, too?
For some people, being an investor means looking at a time horizon of decades, not months.
> a bunch of guys who are living in a state of delusion
Sounds like the politicians and assorted apparatchiks who still think, or claim to think, that this virus is orders of magnitude worse than it actually is.
One important point in this discussion is that workers only have to return at their own discretion. Since no worker is being forced to work, the argument is best thought of as whether or not workers who chooses to work should be allowed to do so given Tesla's plan.
They can also stay at home if they prefer, or seek other employment if they want to work but find Tesla's safety plan unconvincing.
In the recent Joe Rogan podcast Elon Musk was talking about the need for more accurate data. The scientific facts seem blurry at the moment.
Watching the dutch news, the next steps seem to be a number of restrictions on the movements which seem sensible.
Doctors have to deal with even more virues and infections. What needs to happen is, how can people work efficiently with protective gear. There is simply no other way to work otherwise, assuming this is a serious infection.
The logical next steps would be to pass a law that forces each company to open work if they can give safety equipment to everyone and provides insurance / accurate assessments of the workers getting sick.
Cost cutting and avoiding liabilities is just pathetic at this point.
Missing the elephant in the room here. Musk is a druggie.
He's known to use at least marijuana and Ambien.[1] Sam Altman was worried about this back in 2017:
"There was Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk offering this tweet: "A little red wine, vintage record, some Ambien ... and magic!" Naturally, not everyone was moved positively by this apparent form of entertainment. Y Combinator President Sam Altman, for example, worried: 'Ambien tweeting is a dangerous game.'"
Whether it's chemical induced or not, his behavior is erratic. I don't think there's another CEO who isn't allowed to tweet without prior legal review.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23129216
Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN.
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