Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

In what universe is a homeless guy curing cancer? Sure, it's possible, but unlikely is an understatement.

Does it matter how I got there if it turns out I was correct?

That's a pretty huge if. For the here and now, I'd love to know how you got there. If it's just gut feeling, well, good luck with that.

OK, I have to expand on that...

I don't care how you got there if the result is favorable. I'd rather have a result than a credential or process.

But in the absence of outcomes, you're using feeling to predict the future. I'm more manager than maker now. Do you think I should hire experienced people to do the work I'm charged with, or just people I have a good feeling about?

It is objectively true that the credentialed experts are more likely to be right than some random person who Googled something and made a YouTube video. It doesn't mean than experts are infallible, but you wouldn't be asking the homeless guy to litigate a lawsuit or perform brain surgery.

But then, this is how we elected our chief executive, so here we are.

Jeff said:

But in the absence of outcomes, you're using feeling to predict the future.

More like instinct, really. Maybe instinct is the better term to be using here. And yes, absolutely, I trust my instincts. But I'm defining instinct (or feeling, if we must) as, in the absence of a definitively proven answer, taking in the available info, processing it as I see fit and making a call.

Especially in something like this pandemic because we don't have the answers or outcomes. In fact, we're watching the experts try to sort it out in the same way. They look at the info and make a judgement call based on their abilities, experience, insight, intuition, etc. That's why there's are degrees of expertise and experts can and do disagree. We're just processing information. I don't believe there's a 'right' or 'wrong' way to process. I absolutely believe there are 'right' and 'wrong' results. The result matters.

I'm more manager than maker now. Do you think I should hire experienced people to do the work I'm charged with, or just people I have a good feeling about?

I'm not sure this is quite what I'm talking about. I mean, I guess it's making a decision, but not really in the spirit of what I was talking. I think Andy said it well, I'm thinking more philosophically than directly here. However, if I had to answer...

Ideally both. But let's look at it a different way.

You find people with experience and then trust your instincts/feeling to choose the best one from among those.

Because, as a manager, I hope your job isn't just to find resumes that match needs and pair them up. That's entry level HR stuff. It's up to you to know your team, who will fit, what strengths and weaknesses you're facing and how an applicant might be complimentary to that. How this person would fit in. What kind of work ethic they have and how it jives with what you expect. Countless intangibles that you have to trust yourself to read correctly. I'd even argue that a really great manager is the one that has mastered that intangible - that unmeasurable ability to find and pick the right people. To get the result. That's not something you can get a credential for, but it makes you a hiring expert. And if I choose you to do that for me, I have to trust your ability based on results you've gotten.

It is objectively true that the credentialed experts are more likely to be right than some random person who Googled something and made a YouTube video.

Tell that to every self-taught anybody everywhere. 😉

As you present it (expert vs random selection)? Sure. Obviously, a random person off the street won't be as likely to get a specific result. That'd be hitting the lottery. But if you seek a specific result, it doesn't mean an expert is the only one that can get you there. If my car needs fixed, I don't need a trained mechanic necessarily. I need a guy that can fix my car. I need a result, not a credential.

In what universe is a homeless guy curing cancer? Sure, it's possible, but unlikely is an understatement.

Literally, it's beyond unlikely. But obviously, it's metaphor. The point is you'd want the result. To me the best skill one can acquire is the innate abilty to find the result. I don't know how to express it any differently than that.

Your fear of action (or "lack of trust in the actions" might be more accurate) without qualified information or logic seems as broken to me as my willingness to trust in my feelings or instincts seems to you.

I'm reminded of the discussions about the process for doing the CoasterBuzz Top 100. We had basically the same debate. You got what I'd call "hung up" on the statistic relevance of the data insisting the results be relevant - even if incomplete. To me, that's just a broken list. You have to work with the data you have. The complete list with incomplete data (even if invalid by whatever scientific standards) is a better list to me. You see it differently and would rather have an incomplete list until you can have a valid one.

It's one of those fun little complete fundamental differences in our approaches to pretty much everything. I'm willing to fudge my way through the shady spots...and I'm pretty damn good at it, if I do say so myself. I don't have a credential or provable expertise, but I get my desired results an uncanny amount of the time. And that's all I'm after.

It's not a call to defy logic and expertise, it's a belief that in the absence of definitive logic or expertise, one can still achieve a necessary result. If you get the desired result, you're not magically wrong because an expert disagreed or the necessary information to create the result without question didn't exist.

But if you seek a specific result, it doesn't mean an expert is the only one that can get you there.

This seems to be the point your entire argument hinges on, and in fact the argument everyone makes about everything with regard to things they're not experts in: Sometimes laypeople get things right. While that is true, it's a rare exception that a layperson knows better than experts. I've said that over and over again, because it's fundamentally true.

The reason this is so concerning to me is because this fallacy has worked its way into our democracy. Decisions about education aren't made by educators. The environment is not being monitored by scientists. Now in the worst public health crisis in a century, decisions are being made by know-nothing cronies who reject the advice of scientists and doctors. And if that's not bad enough, half the country is willing to go along with it.

All voices are not equal. It's a good idea to start with the ones most qualified to do the thing.

As much as I have disagreed with you here, everything in that last post is spot on and I agree with all of it.

But it still didn't stop me from getting breakfast and staying in the restaurant to eat it this morning. Because even with all the experts and all of their information, I still decided the risk in doing this was low enough to make the experience worth it.

Not sure its accurate to say nothing has effectively changed in 2 months. As noted, there is a lot less hand shaking, social distancing, reduced travel/interactions, etc. There are a lot of people who will continue to work remotely even when restarts happen. Less interactions/contacts will result spread.

On the medical front, we have built out capacity. More ventilators being built. Bed space has been increased. There are treatments that appear to help recovery time (nothing in the way of a cure though at this point).

On the testing front, more testing is being done. We need more though. Experts talk about there being more in a week or two but that has been the line for almost two months now. Is increasing but the rate of increase isn't what it should be. Dr. Birx said a day or two ago that they are seeing counties with spikes that level off and decrease based on testing and contact tracing. That is what we want/need on a broader level.

Issue that exists with "experts" is they don't always agree. And often they have the same issue journalists have in that they seek to influence/shape policies based on world views which are not necessarily objective. Not just politics is political.

And in the end, experts still don't set our policies. In this case, experts can predict what outcomes will be if x, y or z policies are put into place. But elected officials make the actual policy decisions based on the expert info.

In terms of other countries, its easy to pick and choose. But approaches have to be taken as a given country is not how some people may wish it to be. New Zealand would be in the middle of the pack in terms of population if it were a US state (and a little lower on the list in terms of population density). Its an island so cutting off travel is much easier. It also has a strong central government with relatively weak local governments. And from what I have read its Covid responses have been non-partisan. Very much different than the US. Though history typically shapes culture/government so I expect there will be changes.

And from what I have seen about New Zealand, plan is to open up about 75% of the economy. That is still depression levels of economic activity. Though as I have said, I think there is a lot of economic activity that will be slow to come back (and other that may never come back). We shall see.

Jeff said:

All voices are not equal. It's a good idea to start with the ones most qualified to do the thing.

Unquestionably.

If that's the summary rebuttal to what I said, I'm fine with that. I agree 100%.

Ultimately it comes down to risk management, which is something that most people are pretty awful at. We are generally terrible at accurately assessing risk, reasonably identifying consequences of hazards, and applying appropriate levels of mitigation. Our tendency is to overestimate the risk of scary hazards, apply inappropriate mitigation, and underestimate statistically more likely but somehow less scary hazards.

We see this all the time. Physically checking every self-locking lap bar four times per dispatch reduces the incredibly unlikely hazard that someone is going to come out of the train, but the additional time required also dramatically increases the risk of causing a collision by missing interval.

And sometimes we find out that the risk profile is very different from what we thought it was. Apparently in New York, the vast majority of the people who got sick with the novel coronavirus were people who stayed home; the expendable...er...essential workers actually accounted for a much smaller percentage of the new cases. I'm not sure I know what to make of that. Is it because out in the world our personal interactions are a lot less intimate and a lot less long-lasting than our personal interactions at home? Are people working just more careful than people at home? If people are staying at home, how is the infection getting in? Same question regarding prisons and nursing homes, both of which have been isolated for months and yet represent an enormous share of the known illnesses and deaths (~40% of Ohio COVID-19 deaths were in nursing homes).

What I do know is that in the absence of trustworthy data and conflicting information from 'experts', it's on us to work quite a bit harder at risk analysis and mitigation. We need to learn and understand what we can about the actual hazards we are facing, decide what level of risk we can accept, and behave ourselves accordingly. We all have different levels of risk tolerance, and in the case of the virus pandemic, we all actually face different hazards because our bodies are all different. Figuring that out is the decision making we have to do. And we need to get better at it.

(Still surprised I haven't yet seen the person out in public who has to take his mask off to smoke a cigarette...)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Nursing homes and prisons have never been totally isolated. Staff and vendors are working in/visiting both and going back home (and presumably to the grocery store, getting take out dinner, etc). So we are only totally isolating a part of the populations there. And because of the very close/person interactions in nursing homes and the percentage of residents who are high risk there and the density of prisons, the spread happens more.

A couple weeks ago while walking the dog, I saw an Amazon delivery person who had a mask down around his neck and was smoking a cigarette while driving.

I too have seen the essential worker out back take the mask off to light up.

My anecdotal story from today's outing.

It seems that with the announcement that Ohio will be opening stuff up in the next few days or weeks or whatever the timeframe is, that the floodgates have opened. Today looked like a normal Saturday in Beavercreek, Ohio. Everything was packed. It was the most traffic I've seen since this all started.

During the stay-at-home portion of the program, I estimated pretty consistently that, among those of us out and about, mask use was at about a third of people. (glove use was a thing for a short period of time, but that's long gone)

Today, while it was much more crowded, I'd say the mask use roughly doubled. I'd call it 2-in-3 wearing masks now. However, the varying materials, designs and sheer number of noses I didn't see covered, makes me wonder how much of that was just going through the motions.

I'm also realizing people are not coughing or sneezing in public like they used to. I know that sounds weird, but it's something I've always latched on to - not because I'm a germaphobe, but because it's a pet peeve. (The sound of people eating drives my nuts too)

It seems like people are hyper aware right now and stifling the coughs and sneezes. I imagine a loud cough or sneeze or burst of coughs would draw the same attention now as whipping your dick out in the middle of the store would under normal circumstances. So if you plan on whipping your dick out at Target, be sure to sneeze or cough loudly and no one will even notice.

It still surprises me that the vibe out and about is totally different than the vibe the screens in my life send me. I actually feel better about things when I get out. It's sitting inside looking at it all through the filter of websites, tv news articles on my phone and stuff that wears on me - and I don't mean the process of being holed up either - I mean the worldview as seen on the screens in my life. It's like night and day.

Also, while out and about today, I learned that someone thought Pink Watermelon Sherbert with Chocolate Chips was a good idea. So now I have to process that.

Here in NYC I routinely see people smoking cigs with masks around their chins or necks. I am waiting to read about the person admitted to the hospital with second-degree burns from setting their mask on fire.

I have noticed the same thing all week in Central Florida. People are out. Businesses are reopening. But people are aware and making a conscious effort to "do their part", whatever that currently is.

That's why when amusement parks open I'll feel comfortable going. People are very aware and doing what they need to do. We'll be outside in the fresh air. To modify a frequently used quote here, there is no world where a trip to an amusement park poses any more or less risk than a trip to Target.

Good to hear that some people are being careful. I wonder what percentage has to do it to be effective.

It's pretty telling that WDW isn't targeting anything earlier than July now. Maybe low contact retail can work, but it doesn't sound like they're in a hurry to open the parks.

At work, they cancelled all travel the rest of the year. The office (in lower Manhattan), may be open in September, but no one is required to use it when it does open.

I'm our resident "go out and get stuff" person of the house, and ventured out to our local Giant Eagle. I've been doing this off an on for the past few weeks, and have observed the store getting quieter and quieter as the days rolled on. (for reference, I'm in NE Ohio)

Then I got there today. Holy Fuel Perks Batman.

The entire lot was full...like day before Thanksgiving full. I was prepared for Armageddon.

But as I ventured around the store, I would have to agree that the population up here has been successfully conditioned. No one was up in my business, everyone was keeping their distance, I would venture a guess that at least 8/10 had some kind of face-thingy on, and people were even following the "one way aisle" rules. To a tee.

Maybe it was an outlier experience, or maybe people around here really are taking the precautions pretty seriously.

Visited my local grocer today (Big Bird), a little earlier than usual because I wanted to get dinner started (a foreign concept to me...I prefer to go to the grocery AFTER dinner, but shortened hours make that impractical). Use of face coverings is up a bit, especially misuse of same. I'm not sure about the people wearing respirators, though; I thought the point was to keep from spreading *your* droplets around; a respirator mask will concentrate that and accelerate it right out through the exhaust valve. More important, though, people are keeping their distance and being unusually courteous when they can't. I hope they're washing their hands, too. Most have stopped following the one-way arrows in the aisles, and that has actually reduced congestion in the store; I consider that to be a failed experiment, at least in the two locations I visit most often.
I do wish the store would put a hand sanitizer dispenser near the store exit, but for me it's almost more convenient to just walk across the parking lot to the gas station after I load up my purchases and use the dispenser there.
I think people are figuring out the things they can do to reduce their risks, and for that reason I am not really afraid of the State no longer telling them what they can't do. I think in hindsight we are going to ultimately realize that the actions the State took back in March were probably appropriate, but that continuing through the entire month of April and well into May was probably excessive. But we won't know until the new numbers start coming in a couple of weeks.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Around here, we never got the one-way aisles.

We haven't been inside a store in two months. It's all been curbside pickup or delivery. Mind you, we were half way there before this started.

Grocery shopping this morning, the level of courtesy is something I have never experienced. I know the Karens and "but the constitution!" folks are all over the internet, but I fortunately have not yet experienced that. The kindness between fellow shoppers and store staff is very noticeable.

Also, people were back out in groups. I can't believe I forgot this in my post. My wife and I went together for the first time in a while and in the store there were lots of couples, parents with kids and family groups.

For a while there during the peak of the stay at home order, it was like singles night at the grocery store. It would have been odd to see people shopping together.