bibs wrote: "It all boils down to control. Republicans tend to be bi-polar control freaks and anti regulation as well as anti big government. [...] Democrats tend to regulate until you can't do anything and love social programs. Having both sides meet some where in the middle usually produces the best legislation."
bibs is correct .. compromise is the essence of practicable politics. But with ideologues stirring the pot, and the media hysterically dramatizing every event for their profit, we have polarization. Add to that a typical lack of technical knowledge and/or nuance among politicos, and you have a recipe for disaster that oscillates among polarized political "positions", ad nauseam.
Dealing with SARS-CoV-2 virus and its symptoms/sequelae is a tradeoff limited primarily by the number of available hospital/ICU beds and the number of available healthcare workers. The number of infected cases, the number of deaths, and the economic impact of various Government-mandated measures are lagging indicators. Policy determination and "law" enforcement based on lagging indicators is a sort-of leadership-like activity that somewhat resembles driving a car by looking in the rear-view mirror. How does that accurately predict future hazards? Or does that merely support the illusion of political apparatchiks "doing something" to "beat the virus"?
Who is asking about the underlying technical models -- and who is publishing or evaluating these models and their analytical critiques in a publicly-accessible manner? How accurate are such predictive models, given known error profiles of testing procedures [[e.g., accuracy in laboratory tests vs. field testing practice)? To what extent is the polarized political apparatus consulting or employing such models? Where are these questions being addressed substantively in publicly accessible fora?
Answers to the above questions might provide insight into whether or not our politicians are leading from the perspective of forward analysis, or by keeping their eyes and minds fixated on the rear-view mirror -- or some "compromise" in-between. Quid putas? - or should we ask: Quo vadis?
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