Coronavirus Hysteria

[eliquid]

Ally Bank Saver, who saves 100% of net income and does not pay Estimated Taxes
Deposits	$ 100,000	$ 100,000	$ 100,000	$ 100,000
Ending Account Balance	$ 100,000	$ 200,000	$ 300,000	$ 400,000
Interes Earned Per Quarter	$ 373	$ 746	$ 1,119	$ 1,492
Total interest earned for year				$ 3,729

I actually sat down and did the Year 1 calculation for you. Let's assume that the $100,000 future value of $100,000 deposited for 12 months, 9 months, 6 months, and 3 months in a 1.5% savings account. It earns a total of $3,729 in interest on April 1st of the following year. After paying the 3% penalty ($3,600), this scenario will make a profit of $129.



This assumes that you save 100% of your income, which I doubt you do.

I've already covered this and mentioned it and you resorted to cherry picking too though.

The point you're missing is, Johnny isn't "smart" for sending in his estimates on time, like you mentioned before which is what I countered. He gave up money he could have used elsewhere, with no penalty or fee.

At this point, you are trying to poke specific holes into my example that I already mentioned the what ifs in and bypassing the larger picture.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

I've already covered this and mentioned it and you resorted to cherry picking too though.

The point you're missing is, Johnny isn't "smart" for sending in his estimates on time, like you mentioned before which is what I countered. He gave up money he could have used elsewhere, with no penalty or fee.

At this point, you are trying to poke specific holes into my example that I already mentioned the what ifs in and bypassing the larger picture.

No. I was still editing the post.

 

[eliquid]

There are many risks you are overlooking here though.

That being said, for any other bills, I'd agree with you, Jason.

For taxes, I do not. Once you make the money, the taxes have to be paid, the government will forgive waive interest/fees but never the original amount owed. Sure you can hold onto the money to try to make other things happen and just pay the fees, but if shit goes wrong you WILL have to pay that money someday. It's not a bank or credit loan you can actually never pay and go bankrupt.

A friend of mine has a 2018 tax bill he has been slow-paying. "I can use the money so much better for this other stuff why it's better just to pay the extra interest/fees" - now he cannot get the SBA money because he owes some back taxes while my company is getting a free 6 figures out of this.

There are a few creditors I don't fuck around with; the government, merchant accounts, and Paypal. Owing any of those 3 money can seriously fuck you.

Not sure where you are missing here Mike.

The estimates are just that, estimates. If you are wrong on your estimates, you either pay more or get back the next year on tax filing. The tax you owe is on the entire year, not the per quarter performance.

If at the end of the quarter 1 I figure up I made $100k and need to send in $30k. OK
Let say q2 and q3 and q4 is all the same.
Same for q2, q3, and q4 ( numbers ) I send in all my money which is $120k total in tax.

If I don't send anything in for tax paymnt at all for Q1 and Q2 ( $60k = $30k each Q ) and then have a ton more expenses in Q3 and Q4 that offset it, you reduced down your tax liability for year. Those expenses could be opportunities or investments that came up later in the year ( q3 and q4 ) that otherwise you wouldn't have had the money for potentially.

This isn't about NOT paying tax or being back taxed or skipping taxes and just paying the back tax fee.. this is about spending more later in the year because you opted to not send in Q1 and Q2 estimates. That spending offsets the tax liability you have for the year.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Not sure where you are missing here Mike.

The estimates are just that, estimates. If you are wrong on your estimates, you either pay more or get back the next year on tax filing. The tax you owe is on the entire year, not the per quarter performance.

If at the end of the quarter 1 I figure up I made $100k and need to send in $30k. OK
Let say q2 and q3 and q4 is all the same.
Same for q2, q3, and q4 ( numbers ) I send in all my money which is $120k total in tax.

If I don't send anything in for tax paymnt at all for Q1 and Q2 ( $60k = $30k each Q ) and then have a ton more expenses in Q3 and Q4 that offset it, you reduced down your tax liability for year.

This isn't about NOT paying tax or being back taxed or skipping taxes and just paying the back tax fee.. this is about spending more later in the year because you opted to not send in Q1 and Q2 estimates.

If you want to not pay Estimated Taxes so that you have some money you can invest and you believe that the ROI will occur before tax day, the ROI will be positive, and the ROI will be worth the additional 3% underpayment fee, that's crazy, but go ahead.

 

[eliquid]

I think were both of you are getting lost is thinking the estimates where spent elsewhere.

They are not.

You're banking them in a savings account, so even if nothing happens at all you still have the tax to pay to the Gov. just with a 3% penalty, which gets covered pretty much.

With that in mind, you're allowing yourself to now potentially use that bank of money for larger purchases later in the year. Purchases that are legit expenses that are tax write offs. Liquidity and money you might not have had before IF you sent your estimates in.

These expenses then lower your tax liability for the year, its just that you did them in q3 or q4.

When you do your taxes in April, you report on the entire year now. Not what happened in Q1 or Q2 specifically.

Since this is a corona thread and not a tax thread, I'll just leave this as is.

If the concept doesn't stick, it just doesn't stick.

 

[miketpowell]

Since this is a corona thread and not a tax thread, I'll just leave this as is.

If the concept doesn't stick, it just doesn't stick.

Ok since you think I didn't get what you said but you just cannot think an example here is an easy one.

I knew plenty of people that banked hard on rebills in 2010, I know of multiple that got hit by the FTC for it as well. One guy that got hit by the FTC had not paid his estimated taxes yet, he had the cash sitting in his bank. FTC froze his assets and took it. He still has not been able to get out from under that back tax bill. Then another guy had actually OVERPAID it, the FTC took everything both of them had. One of them was also left with 1mm+ tax debt while the other was left at zero AND with a huge prepayment to the IRS. Having more cash on hand simply made the amount he had to pay bigger.

Can tell you similar stories with the Dr. Oz/Oprah lawsuits that went down at that time and with MIDs vs keeping the cash in your own account.

It only took one lawsuit to make me realize how easy it is for the plaintive to ask the court for an asset freeze and put you in a situation where you have no control over your own money until the lawsuit is over. Some search tool competitor could get a shady lawyer and sue you for a BS reason and based on my experience would have no problem getting a court to freeze your assets until the lawsuit is resolved, which even if complete BS could take over a year no problem.

So again, in short, there is risk to keeping cash laying around. Everyone should know their situation.

I fully understand what you are saying, I love always having plenty of cash to take advantage of deals. But it's not money that I likely will be needing to pay to the government, I prepay that above and beyond as an asset protection strategy. I had the IRS way prepaid back in those rebill days just hoping the FTC didn't come after me.

If a deal came up that I wouldn't have been able to purchase without cash I had paid on estimated taxes, that is definitely not a deal for me. I do not leverage myself anywhere close to that level. I'm no giant corporation after all!

But my risk profile is different, I have significant health problems and am very low risk because of it. I don't even have a mortgage for example while plenty of people would say, "But the interest is so low you can make more in the market!".

 

[darkzerothree]

Location in the world and were they both actually tested for AND verified as Covid-19? I don't mean to question it, but I have to make sure I at least ask for record keeping.

I was sick a while ago for a full week but it was Flu-A and it hit me pretty hard as well.

Whoops.. I have not been on here much lately.

My parents live in Germany.

In the meantime, the family of my brother in law got it, too.
He is a prison guard, so only a matter of time.

They got quarantined and are now also over it.

 

[harrytwatter]

So it seems many states are peaking. I expect a lot of national "breathing a sigh of relief" messaging in coming weeks.

But from my understanding, we've painfully, and in a very expensive fashion, just kicked the can down the road in terms of facing this virus head-on:

https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b

The countries that are in control of things have two things in common: widespread and rapid testing & effective contact tracing and subsequent isolation of positive contacts. South Korea is a shining example of this.

The U.S has effectively done nothing, just hoarded and sheltered in place, quarantined indefinitely, scared as officials scramble just to ensure basic necessities are met.

My question is, how will we finally face the music and allow people out of their homes so we can resume some semblance of normality without fully implementing the measures taken with success in places like South Korea?

Sure, the U.S is constantly "ramping up" testing, although we're still woefully short of the coverage we need, but we haven't talked AT ALL about contact tracing outside of local municipalities (close this small school in this small town, the school administration emails parents, case closed) and it seems without effective contact tracing and selective isolation of positive contacts we won't be able to effectively contain this thing.

If you can't effectively contain something then you can't control it and your only option is to again revert to self-destructive quarantine.

Ultimately I fear like "politics" will dictate our fate. Koreans collectively valued the health and safety of the public over individual privacy so they changed their laws to allow the Korean government, in times of crisis, to trace phones and report travel patterns anonymously to more efficiently trace, test and isolate.

Does the U.S/NSA have this capability? Of course. Snowden proved as much. The PROBLEM is can the federal government looks the camera in the eye and tell Americans "hey, we're going to change the law to allow us to track your every movement"?

I feel like, even if they could, they'd be too scared to try it. I envision states going berzerk, conservatives going berzerk, libertarians (if they still exist) going berzerk, and ultimately, courts going berzerk on whoever had the cajones to support/sign the bill.

In short, I fear we may be too caught up in the sanctity of a historical document (constitution) and our "fuck em all I got mine!" American individualism that we will never be able to get a total handle on COVID-19 like other countries and that, because of this stubborn individuality we're resigned to long and painful "herd immunity" outcome..

Please someone tell me that I've just got a terrible case of the Monday blues and surely this won't become a reality...

 

[Samwise89]

Please someone tell me that I've just got a terrible case of the Monday blues and surely this won't become a reality...

You're having a huge case of the Mondays.

The US as a whole has already reached the peak and is on the downward trend of new cases (and half of this is contained inside NY). Within 2-3 weeks a huge chunk of these cases will be resolved with around 99% of them being "recovered." Within 4-5 weeks we'll probably re-open the economy and start doing "contact tracing" for simple isolating and have far more testing readily available too. And by next year, hopefully before flu season there will be a vaccine.

The idea that we'll never recover, we'll only recover by Christmas of 2021, and other crazy stuff I've read on this forum is exactly that: crazy. We have so much data globally about this that says every bit of that apocalyptic hysteria is hysterical. Turns out even the data we have now that proves it wrong is over-zealous too. Things are going way better than we could have hoped, with a fraction of the deaths anticipated.

People not looking at this data makes me wonder if you guys even look at your website analytics before making decisions.

 

[harrytwatter]

I'm hopeful. Did you read the Medium article I linked? Its whole crux kind of blows a massive hole in the short-term graphs like the one you shared. Curious if you have any specific thoughts on why his modelling is incorrect.

 

[Samwise89]

@harrytwatter, I did. It has the answers in it. His entire premise is "we're just delaying the true peak," which makes sense on the surface. But even he himself goes into some of the solutions and I'm adding more:

• We're flattening the curve to help hospitals cope
• We're buying time to test and develop medicines
• We're buying time to develop a vaccine
• We're buying time to mass develop non-faulty testing
• We're pushing the virus into the Summer where it has less a chance to spread on surfaces
• We're reducing the number of infections so we can return to contact tracing (where we find and isolate the fewer infected and those they've interacted with)
• We're moving towards herd immunity (and likely have had way more infections than anyone realizes that caused few symptoms, far sooner than we realize. Studies are occurring now on this.

His entire premise depends on none of the above occurring, which they all are. His doom and gloom is "we're pushing the peak back at which time we'll just let it spread with zero intervention."

It's clickbait as far as I'm concerned. One that looks smart and sounds smart until even it itself is forced to undermine its own story. Which is pretty much how all journalistic stuff operates these days.

 

[harrytwatter]

Maybe you skimmed it a bit too fast, if at all. He very clearly said, and illustrated with a picture, that the 2 month social distancing we're pushing the true peak into the winter, where it will be much worse. He also said the short term drop off isn't a win because we've simply delayed the next, much larger wave, which will inevitably come when we all resume our lives.

Yes, if a vaccine is created in an impossibly short time or our local governments pull millions of test kits out of their asses in the next couple of weeks maybe it is a bit hyperbole but I've yet to see any hard data modelling to contradict the authors claims.

Clickbait requires two components. One is an attention grabbing title or theme to get the click. I could admit that Medium article does as much. But the second equation is monetization. With that post being the authors only, the low follower count and low interaction metrics, it seems highly unlikely he's doing this for personal gain.

Ultimately you could be right, although for the time being, until presented with evidence to the contrary, I'm inclined to go with the mathematical sciences professor.

 

[Jared]

First results of the Corona study in Heinsberg - tagesschau.de

For around two weeks now, research has been carried out in the Heinsberg district on how far the corona virus has already spread. Virologist Hendrik Streeck presented the first interim results on Thursday (April 9th, 2020). According to this, in the particularly affected community of Gangelt, 15 percent of the more than 500 test subjects had a current or already survived infection.

Lower mortality?

The study also makes new statements on the coronavirus mortality rate. So far, the renowned Johns Hopkins University assumes that 1.98 percent of those infected die in Germany. Due to the fact that the Heinsberger study now also includes previously undiscovered infections and the total number of corona sufferers is higher, the death rate for Gangelt is only 0.37 percent.

A total of around 1,000 people took part in the study. The interim results now available come from around half of the subjects.

The pattern continues. Everywhere either randomized or thorough testing is done, the results come back the same: a high infection rate, and a dramatically lowered fatality rate.

• We see it in Germany (15%).
• We saw it in Chicago (30-50% antibodies presence).
• We saw it in Italy (3%, in early March).
• We saw it with the Diamond Princess (19.2% infection rate)

All of the below is calculated from data from Worldometer:

• Iceland (5.9% infection rate)
• Luxembourg (11.8% infection rate)
• Norway (5.3% infection rate)
• Sweden (13.3% infection rate)
• South Korea (2.2% infection rate)

Interestingly, the two countries from the list with the lowest infection rates were both Middle Eastern countries: the United Arab Emirates (0.8%), and Bahrain (1.54%). It very well could be that the warmer climate of those countries are limiting the virus. Great news for Northern Hemisphere countries.

The current official number of U.S. infections is 582,594 -- about 0.18% of the country. If you think that number's even close to the actual number of infections, it's probably time to block CNN and MSNBC. In fact, just turn off your TV altogether.

Based on the above figures, the likely true number of infections in the U.S. is more than 10x the official number -- 6 million, bare minimum. Even 50x wouldn't be crazy; it works out to an 9% infection rate, which is entirely plausible based on what we're seeing elsewhere.

So, what does this all mean?

• It means the virus is far more widespread than most realize.
• It means the virus has likely been in the U.S. longer than most realize -- since January, at least, and possibly late fall.
• Most importantly, it means the virus is far, far less potent than most realize. One-tenth as potent. Maybe less.

The projected death toll in the U.S. went from the millions, to the hundreds of thousands, down to the tens of thousands. We're currently sitting on less than 24,000 deaths, and it looks like we may have already peaked. We're light years from what the so-called experts predicted, even in a best-case scenario. We might not even hit the annual flu death totals (around 60,000).

At this point, I think it's likely we're being had. The usual suspects have taken a legitimate health crisis, and co-opted it into a political stunt.

This is why no one in the MSM is addressing the things I've said above. They want to create the illusion the pandemic is far worse than it actually is. They want people locked up inside. They want the economy in ruins. Anything they believe hinders Trump's re-election chances, they want. They're that sick.

It's also why they clutch their pearls whenever the hydroxychloroquine treatment is brought up. We can't be giving people hope, no sir. Just stay locked up inside until we tell you to come out in 6-12 months.

Ain't happening.

America returns May 1st. Be ready.

 

[CCarter]

Clickbait requires two components. One is an attention grabbing title or theme to get the click. I could admit that Medium article does as much. But the second equation is monetization. With that post being the authors only, the low follower count and low interaction metrics, it seems highly unlikely he's doing this for personal gain.

No - monetization does not have to be direct. If he wasn't doing it for personal gain he wouldn't have published it - especially on Medium.

You wouldn't buy something from some stranger you met on the street cause they offered to sell you some random shit.

What the author is doing is building his personal brand. He's increasing the awareness to his potential audience of himself. 6 months ago what percentage of Americans knew who Dr Fauci was? Less than 0.1%. And now - Everyone!

Now let's say 6 years from now Dr. Fauci publishes a book - he's more likely to get more sales AFTER all this than BEFORE all this - cause he built his personal brand.

That's exactly what the author is doing. You know his name know, and since you are skewing towards his ideas you might follow him on twitter, subscribe to his YouTube, follow him on media, or visit his website. You already know he's math professor from Carnegie Mellon University.

I have to say this - just because someone is a professor doesn't mean they are right. There are a ton of stupid professors. If you always assume someone with a big and loud Title or someone that it in authority has more knowledge or know how than you, then you can be duped. Now he might more about math than you cause after all he is a professor. But I would leave it at the math table. He might have 3 ex-wives cause he's complete inept at social skills - would you take his marriage advice? No.

The monetization can happen down the road - years from now. Or he's not after money - his reward is ego stroking. There are people making $200K a year and they get their high from ego stroking, so he might be reading what you wrote and this discussion right now as a lurker. The data from analytics shows we are clicking his link.

There is a marketing technique called "breadcrumbing". It's where you drop some piece of information that's curious that then has people Googling said information. Since the audience Googled the information themselves whatever they find they will believe more-so than if you linked to it directly.

This should be noted that this is an NON-SUBTLE Example: "CCarter says: I dunno about you guys but I live Sitebulbs latest update, it's clearly taking the lead in the market."

Now let's say I didn't link to Sitebulb or even state what the update included some portion of the audience might never have heard of Sitebulb so they'll google it.

Others may have used it in the past but left and now are intrigued by what the update could entail - they'll go and Google it.

Current users will also go look into what's going on in the update.

I purposely didn't give enough information to satisfy their curiosity so they'll go look for it themselves. When they arrive at the source they'll trust the information more cause THEY found it.

I talked about this technique in the past in the traffic leaking bootcamp. (<-- see what I here? If you are curious you'll go search for that breadcrumbing technique - or if you don't know what the traffic leaking bootcamp is - you'll look that up too.)

The professor might have breadcrumbed the article so you go find more information or a group of people that you now will trust more.

Building brand awareness - even if it's a personal brand, is a critical KPI to winning the Nuclear Winter.

 

[Marko]

Never tie up your money until you absolutely have to.

One rule to live by! Thank you for the great insight eliquid. It seems I got my 'like' button removed

 

[Ryuzaki]

One rule to live by! Thank you for the great insight eliquid. It seems I got my 'like' button removed

There's no like button in the entire Water Cooler section anymore:

7) Why Can't I "Like" a Post in the Water Cooler?
I turned that feature off in the Water Cooler for the time being. Likes are meant to be a measure of a members contributions to the forum on the business side of discussion, not for raking in the Likes for being funny or posting memes.

It's not anyone in particular, it's not just this corona thread. It was something we talked about early on and never got around to implementing correctly. The plan was to allow likes but not count them towards the totals. Instead, we just removed it for the reasons above, but may go with the previous implementation instead when there's time.

 

[CCarter]

All so he can sell a book in 6 years?

It was an example of personal brand awareness and of WHY YOUR author had reason to publish the Medium article. No one knew your author before and now that the medium article is exploding now people know him.

Again Dr Fauci's personal brand is an EXAMPLE of what happens when personal brand increases. I never said Dr. Fauci is going to write a book.

You might be watching too much TV and reading too many news stories. If you look for negative news you'll find it. Then when someone comes with contradicting information you'll lash out - cause you WANT the negative news.

Quarantine has some of you guys losing it.

 

[harrytwatter]

Oops, didn't finish my post and can't edit. Got timed out (past 15 minutes editing). I guess here is the entirety. Sorry Moderators...

No - monetization does not have to be direct. If he wasn't doing it for personal gain he wouldn't have published it - especially on Medium.

Of course it doesn't have to be direct, but it has to exist. Also, you know, it IS possible to publish without wanting personal gain, particularly regarding subjects like "pandemics", where it is entirely feasible the author simply doesn't want the world to implode so he's warning as many people as he can?

6 months ago what percentage of Americans knew who Dr Fauci was? Less than 0.1%. And now - Everyone!

Now let's say 6 years from now Dr. Fauci publishes a book - he's more likely to get more sales AFTER all this than BEFORE all this - cause he built his personal brand.

Not that I was sharing his article, but do you honestly think profit is why Dr. Fauci is doing all of this? All of these painful press conferences, probably, eventually, being publicly fired by Trump? All so he can sell a book in 6 years? That's one hell of a slow burner...

You know his name know, and since you are skewing towards his ideas you might follow him on twitter, subscribe to his YouTube, follow him on media, or visit his website. You already know he's math professor from Carnegie Mellon University.

Actually I don't! It's been quite frustrating for me, having to re-search every time I want to share this article. There's so much news on COVID-19 you will not find this at the top of page 1 for generic virus related queries. I have to type extremely long modifiers like "honest covid reporting curve data medium" to find it. I do not know his name and ONLY went back to identify his credentials because I thought perhaps that would be impetus enough for someone on this forum to take the article at face value instead of reverse-psychoanalyze it 20 times over..

I have to say this - just because someone is a professor doesn't mean they are right.

Really, I don't think you have to say that. I'm also aware water is wet and fire is hot. Yes, professors can be wrong, yes they are human and yes they error. He is however much smarter than me and so I'll defer. If you have better credentials and can poke holes in the actual data within the story I'm all ears.

The monetization can happen down the road - years from now. Or he's not after money - his reward is ego stroking. There are people making $200K a year and they get their high from ego stroking, so he might be reading what you wrote and this discussion right now as a lurker. The data from analytics shows we are clicking his link.

There is a marketing technique called "breadcrumbing". It's where you drop some piece of information that's curious that then has people Googling said information. Since the audience Googled the information themselves whatever they find they will believe more-so than if you linked to it directly.

And sometimes people just want to share things they think are interesting or will help someone. I will default to Occam's Razor in this instance and all of the above quoted instances.

I honestly was hoping to just present and interesting take on the data available. Since it seems like nobody is actually bothering to read the article itself let me summarize in a BoSu friendly succinct manner:

Quarantine is only a way to delay infections. Once the quarantine is done what is to stop the virus from spreading exponentially when 1) testing and contact tracing won't be at parity with countries who have had success containing infection and 2) there is no cure, no vaccine ?

Orrrrrrrrr maybe the author is launching a Master Course on virus paranoia in 6 months, he'll re-target me with YouTube ads with a thumbnail of him in front of his sweet Associate Professor Lamborghini, for a low coaching offer of $999/month but if I sign up in the next 10hrs I'll get the introductory price of JUST $679/month and I'm just a big idiot and will buy it immediately because of his genius guerrilla marketing tactics...

......or I'm actually working with the Medium author as an inside man, signing up for BoSu years ago to prime the pump for the stealthiest and subtlest online marketing campaign known to man!

In all seriousness, I don't have a stance either way, I just thought the data, presented in this new way, was quite eye opening and was hoping to discuss just that, the data presented.

 

[GNews]

US may have to keep social distancing until 2022, scientists predict

https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-intl-04-14-20/index.html

I don't find this too be bad honestly. I think this will help people find the importance of self-dependence. The thing with Russia tracking all the citizens of Moscow however is scary. This needs to be addressed and stopped immediately.

My online busineses are booming. i'm enjoying this down time financially.

 

[DanielS]

US may have to keep social distancing until 2022, scientists predict

It'll never happen. These scientists sitting inside their castles making $200,000+ a year can say whatever they want, but I can assure you that the general population will not live like they've had to for the past month for the next 2 years- there would legitimately be riots.

Also, CNN (and NBC, and MSNBC, etc.) is a bad source- if you find an unbiased source without a 4-year history of trying to topple the US president, feel free to share it though. These same people will be saying "vote for Biden and he'll make everything better so you can leave your houses again like normal" in a month or two, they're just setting the stage.

 

[GNews]

It'll never happen. These scientists sitting inside their castles making $200,000+ a year can say whatever they want, but I can assure you that the general population will not live like they've had to for the past month for the next 2 years- there would legitimately be riots.

Also, CNN (and NBC, and MSNBC, etc.) is a bad source- if you find an unbiased source without a 4-year history of trying to topple the US president, feel free to share it though. These same people will be saying "vote for Biden and he'll make everything better so you can leave your houses again like normal" in a month or two, they're just setting the stage.

It wouldn't be the first time in history ............

 

[DanielS]

It wouldn't be the first time in history

How so? Did people live in quarantine during the Spanish Flu Pandemic in 1918?

 

[CCarter]

@harrytwatter - Your case of the Mondays is turning into a case of the Tuesdays.

I honestly was hoping to just present and interesting take on the data available. Since it seems like nobody is actually bothering to read the article itself let me summarize in a BoSu friendly succinct manner:

But than how did I know he's a professor at Carnegie Mellon?

^^ Remove "mad" for "scared/fearful" and you got a whole section of society right now.

 

[harrytwatter]

Fair point, I don't know with 100% certainty that he isn't an impostor. I guess I would have to contact Carnegie Mellon and confirm.

But if I go down this line of reasoning, then life will become untenable as I'd have do do that for every single piece of content I read.

At some point we have to let up on the reigns and set a threshold of trust. For example if a handsome Nigerian prince in distress reaches out to me via a hotmail.com account looking to offload some Bitcoin, I'm going to fervently distrust.

If some guy on the street is shouting something incoherently, I will likewise blanket distrust.

If a co-worker tells me something, I will consider it, but not immediately trust it entirely, maybe 60/40 if 60 is the % level of trust and 40% is distrust.

If my father tells me something, maybe this moves to 90% confidence.

If CCarter tells me something, maybe it moves to full 110% confidence

In terms of things used to evaluate trust, in regards to the Medium article specifically, the fact that the account is A) unpopular B) doesn't have a clear CTA C) places emphasis on publicly available data modelling over personal opinion and finally D) is written by someone with credentials, at face value, more qualified than my own, all in aggregate lead me to at least seriously ponder the authors hypothesis with a healthy level of seriousness.

My thought now is how do we expect different results if we didn't change any variables, in regards to letting people out of quarantine and resuming life, without contact tracing, without universal testing, and without a viable vaccine in hand?

I hope he's wrong and I don't want to be mad, I simply want honesty in reporting..transparency in what has been done and what is likely to come..so that I can better prepare.

 

[CCarter]

I hope he's wrong and I don't want to be mad, I simply want honesty in reporting..transparency in what has been done and what is likely to come..so that I can better prepare.

The reality is no one can predict the future, everyone is literally as lost as everyone else. We can only go off of our own knowledge, that author’s knowledge is math. Mathematical he might be right, but doesn’t meant that’s what’s going to happen. Right now I am betting a ton of money on the stock market rebounding, it might tank.

There is a saying “everyone is faking it at some level.” Since we don’t have crystal balls we try to make sense out of chaos. It’s scary, dreadful, and crippling. But you have 3 choices in life, do nothing (wait for some outside force to fix your problems), do the wrong move, or do the right move.

You probably have a online business at some level, instead of putting energy towards dreading the future and panicking by reading all potential negative outcomes you can work on improving your business and pivot or get ready for the rebound.

The above eliminates the inaction option.

Next you have to figure out the wrong moves versus right moves. Hindsight is always 20/20. The authorities putting put people in quarantine don’t even know if this is going to work. But they are at least doing “something”.

At least with the last two options you can pivot if you are making a very wrong move cause you have momentum and aren’t waiting to get clobbered by the future.

Instead of worrying about the future, do something that prepares you for it. Create momentum instead of dreading “what if we all die.” Do things which YOU have control over, don’t rely on unknown forces with unknown knowledge to get you out of your problems.

Basically stop reading and watching the news and get to work.