The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe

“If you torture data long enough, it will confess to anything.’’—Ronald CoaseThis is a world famous economist. He would know.Why good motive so dangerous? Only want to help!“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their conscience. —C. S. LewisMoral arrogance is oppressive. Human free-will gives dignity. Therefore, more authority removes personal choice, the more destructive.Why? Ignorance is infinite. Knowledge is scarce.If ignorance so vast, what should be required?“Highlighting unintended consequences is perhaps the greatest gift economics has given to humanity.’’Why so rare to assume unintended results?“There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one,” wrote French economist Frédéric Bastiat.Only one?“The bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.”He explains: “Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.” Alas, the good economist has limited use in politics. Politicians tend to focus on the visible—the seen—since the unseen does little to help their prospects for reelection.’’Bastiat still almost unknown. Not because proven wrong, but, because painfully correct!What happened?“The World Health Organization (WHO) favored a single, untested, apocalyptic model from Imperial College London. The United States government took its cues from the Institute for Health Metrics & Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington. We now know these models were so wrong they were like shots in the dark. After a few months, even the press admitted as much. But by then vast damage had been done.’’Models now known as painfully, sadly, completely wrong! Change decisions? Nope!“As we’ll see, that’s not true. Whether we compare countries or U.S. states, the virus seemed indifferent to government-mandated lockdowns. Not only did the models exaggerate the danger, but our response to that danger, both voluntary and coerced, exacted great pain for little or no gain. That may sound baffling. How could a nationwide shutdown not stop or at least greatly slow a contagious virus? But as we’ll see, there is no evidence it did.’’Evidence not same as conclusions. Observation must always be interpreted. Honestly. Sincerely. Carefully. Who does that?Models are not data. Spreadsheets are not facts. Computers are not wise.“But what of those experts? They treated predictive models—which are at best complex conjectures about future events—as if they were data. And then, when the models flopped, they began to massage the data. To get past this catastrophe we will need to forgive, but we should never forget. We should do whatever we can to dismantle such experts’ unchecked power over public policy.’’Forgive. Never forget.“These experts, however, could never have done so much damage without a gullible, self-righteous, and weaponized media that spread their projections far and wide. The press carpet-bombed the world with stories about impending shortages of hospital beds, ventilators, and emergency room capacity. They served up apocalyptic clickbait by the hour and the ton.’’Social media important?“In 2009, Twitter claimed 23.5 million users.8 By 2020, the platform had 330 million monthly and 145 million daily users. Instagram started in 2010, just after the swine flu pandemic. It quickly garnered 30 million users. By 2020, it had 1 billion monthly and 500 million daily users. Facebook had 350 million global users by the end of 2009, and by 2020 this had leapt to 1.69 billion. YouTube grew to more than 2 billion monthly users and 1 billion hours of content viewed daily by 2020.”Yep, it’s overwhelming!Fascinating example . . .“History shows that you will rarely lose your job making predictions if you’re wrong in the right direction. On the other hand, you may well lose it if you’re right in the wrong direction. Neither rulers nor subjects welcome the bearer of bad, but true, news. (Especially if it’s bad news for power-grabbing elites.)“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the people of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thy altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”“So complained the Prophet Elijah to God, when he was fleeing for his life from power-couple Ahab and Jezebel. Elijah predicted a drought: “Now Elijah said ‘As the Lord the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.’ ”Well . . . can prepare. Right?“However right he was, no one wanted to hear what Elijah had to say. No one thanked him when the prophesied drought came to pass. Being wrong in the right direction, though, often reaps reward. Early pandemic models indicated that only prompt and massive state action could save us. The models were wrong—way off—but they were wrong in the right direction.’’What’s the preferred way?“They gave politicians justification for taking over almost every aspect of citizens’ lives. They gave the press clickbait galore. We’re not assuming malice here. We assume that many of these folks were moved by concern and even love for others. The issue is one of incentives and human nature, not bad intentions.’’Authors even handed, but clear and persuasive.Careful is good. Well . . . Who should be careful?“Here’s where the precautionary principle gets twisted from “Don’t play God” to “trust me—I’m a god.” By sleight of hand, the experts become oracles: to doubt their advice is to take foolish risks. The experts become gods, and any mere mortal who questions them is therefore playing god. Only in this light could lockdowns cease to be risks that carry a burden of proof. Instead, the skeptics who doubt them must bear that burden. This inverted precautionary principle gives the experts license to imagine the worst-case scenario and then to agitate the government and the public to safeguard against this worst case. The mere chance that a disaster might happen is enough to justify any and all recommendations from the divine experts.’’The loss of biblical trust replaced with trust in spreadsheets.Writing tastes like good solid meal. Not hard to chew. But, may require some to adjust to new flavors. Some sweet, some spicy, some tart, some smooth, some crunchy — all nutritious!Numerous charts and graphs. Persuasive and convincing.Not an angry rant, nevertheless, a clear analytical presentation of multiple arguments. Confident without arrogance.Hundreds and hundreds of notes with references (linked)Tremendous scholarship!Detailed index (linked)Recommended!(See also - “ Models.Behaving.Badly.: Why Confusing Illusion with Reality Can Lead to Disaster, on Wall Street and in Life’’ by Emanuel Derman; “Escape from Democracy: The Role of Experts and the Public in Economic Policy” by David M. Levy, Sandra J. Pearl; “The Stupidity Paradox: The Power and Pitfalls of Functional Stupidity at Work” by Mats Alvesson; “The Tyranny of Metrics” by Jerry Z. Muller; “How Fear Works: Culture of Fear in the Twenty-First Century” by Frank Furedi)

I’ve had a tendency to go against the grain and not go with the crowd. I remember when I first heard about the Coronavirus and what I heard did not frightened me. Then all around me, people were going into a panic. Businesses were being shut down and schools were being closed. Church services were cancelled.On the positive side, so were professional sports. Then when churches opened, greeting time was cancelled as well and still is at churches. That’s one change I can live with.Never had I seen anything like this. People I knew were in an absolute panic. It was like death was waiting right outside the door if you dared step out.This book has been written to deal with what happened. The bad news is that we did indeed panic and that panic cost us greatly. Now the moment I mention this, someone will say “Well, I guess those people who had family members who died shouldn’t have panicked then!” The reality is, any disease that comes across will kill some people. Flu season comes every year and kills some. We don’t shut down for that. We realize this happens.Anything being said here then is not to diminish the loss of those who did die and their family members who are left behind, but it is a call to look soberly at the issue. Are we letting our fear drive us and are the experts leading us really aware of what they’re talking about?Now I am not one to downplay experts, but this problem is multi-faceted. Someone who is a doctor is not an expert in every area of medicine. Doctors are also not normally experts in economics and what effect a lockdown will have on society. There is also the question of what happens to people like farmers and others who supply our food for businesses.What were factors that caused the Coronavirus scare to be greater than others? Many possibilities are mentioned. One is that it was the Trump administration and some people could have wanted this to be on his head. Another is that social media was extremely active and panic spreads on social media.What constantly amazed the authors of the book is that not only were Americans told to give up their freedoms, they did so willingly and easily. Not only that, they were willing often to snitch on their neighbors. Many people who were doing regular activities could often be arrested.The authors look at where the virus started. They do not hold to any theories that the virus was intentionally engineered to be used as a sort of weapon. (Having said that, I don’t see any reason why an enemy nation might not try the same thing on us.) However, what happened next was a number of experts spoke on what would happen based on their models.Not only were these models extremely off, but they had a history of being extremely off. Hundreds of thousands could be predicted to die from diseases that kill, well, hundreds. Despite that, we still listened to these experts and took advice that devastated our economy.That’s the economy so that’s no big deal. Right? You can’t replace human lives with money. Right? No one is saying that, but people faced extreme financial hardship that resulted in mental health crises and in some cases, suicide. Not only that, some people with diseases that were serious did not go to the hospital to get treatment because they feared getting the virus and so they died from treatable, though serious, problems.Let’s look at those numbers as well. The writers say that the numbers were being played with in that if someone died from a condition that might have possibly been Covid, it was listed as a Covid death. The doctors would rarely do an autopsy as that is timely and expensive. Some of these people might not have even had Covid. This would also help with funding for the hospitals.We can also question if the lockdowns themselves worked. We could compare to nations like Sweden, Taiwan, and Japan that did not have lockdowns and did not see the mass death that was expected. Again, sometimes, reporters played with the numbers to make it sound worse than it was, but it was never consistent.What about masks? Odds are, the masks we often get don’t really work and could actually be helping to spread the virus. Why? People could go out who have it thinking that they are safe and some people could take riskier behavior wearing one.Why do we need to know all of this? Because there will be another pandemic and we don’t need to panic over that one most likely either. The cost to this has been too great and we don’t need to see a new normal. We need to return to normal.Anyone who is scared of the Coronavirus needs to read this book. It is extensively researched and well-argued. If more people could read this, perhaps we could return to sanity.In Christ,Nick Peters(And I affirm the virgin birth)

In response to the covid-19 pandemic, the three authors have done a great job of explaining what is really at issue in the choices to be made by citizens and their political leaders. You may disagree with the writers, but you cannot say that they have not made their meaning clear. This is a book that an intelligent member of the public would enjoy. As it was intended to be timely, there had to be a cut-off date and in retrospect one could say that the authors, by finishing in the summer of 2020, only told the first half of the story: I should emphasize that I am writing from England, where the politics of covid now (October 2020) looks like it is turning into a soap-opera that will run and run.There is also a question of context : the covid story is I believe merely the latest chapter in a narrative that spans decades, starting maybe in the 1930s, with the first risk-assessments of workplace safety, or maybe the post-WW2 period, with the rise of consumer-safety campaigning. More accurate testing technology has enabled the detection of ever-tinier risk factors, whose management and elimination have consequently been legally mandated. In a rich society, perhaps some overkill in this pursuit of the zero-risk product/ environment can be tolerated and absorbed. But what happens when this pursuit attacks the economy as a whole, not to mention the social and intellectual capital of society ---- as Axe, Briggs and Richards suggest could be happening with covid? [This history --- up to about 1990 --- is well -presented in the late Aaron Wildavsky (et al.)'s 'But Is It True? A Citizen's Guide to Environmental Health and Safety Issues' (with the caveat that the particular environmental issues he discusses may appear dated to today's reader, eg. the hole in the ozone layer).]Highly recommended.

Arrived on time and only dipped in so I can't really comment on the content yet. Looks good though.

This book looks at the response to covid with a cold and clinical eye. This book is essential ammunition against a steady diet of corporate media.

The authors take the reader through the main issues of the coronavirus crisis in a straightforward, balanced and readable question and answer approach. The arguments and analysis take a common sense, non-technical form, which helps strip the baloney experts so often use to camouflage faulty thinking. Being familiar with one of the authors' (Briggs) blog writings for years, I was surprised at how moderate much of the text is in its criticism of the handling of the crisis by so many governments. Even in moderation however, the facts laid out in this excellent book, damn the actions of most governments' attempts to stifle the virus. I look forward to a follow-up book in a few years when the follow-on government actions and long term consequences are more visible.

I’m glad I’m not the only person who can look at data and see a different narrative of events, one more closely hewing to reality than the panic and fear Monge ring of the MSM, social media and craven politicians.If you have the courage to peer outside of your thought bubble read this book. It will hopefully open your eyes to just how bad we collectively handled this.