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Decision Making (Startups and Patients)

With decisions come opportunities for unintended consequences, especially when when success and failure are radically different. How do we make a decision in a high-risk environment? What advice do we take in, how do our desires affect us, and what happens if this is a one-time game versus a multi-time game?

Here I’m going to look at two very different decisions that people make: how to run a startup and how to choose between options for a serious health issues. Continue reading “Decision Making (Startups and Patients)”

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Is the World Getting Safer?

It’s common to hear that the world has become safer. Likewise, a common criticism of those who disagree is that they are ignorant of the facts. According to some measures, we have seen decades or even centuries of improvement in the form or lower violence, with instances of war or homicides per capita often presented as relevant factors.

Let’s look at how this relates to studying systems and unintended consequences.

From a talk by Steven Pinker on the topic:

“Homicide rates plunge whenever anarchy and the code of vendetta are replaced by the rule of law. It happened when feudal Europe was brought under the control of centralized kingdoms… It happened again in colonial New England, in the American Wild West when the sheriffs moved to town, and in Mexico…. Continue reading “Is the World Getting Safer?”

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Modeling Epidemics (Parrot Fever, 1918 Flu, Plague)

I’ve written about high-profile diseases already (here, here, here, and many more). There’s something timeless about studying the way diseases spread and impact systems, especially when it comes to second-order effects. So let’s map out a few disease scares from the past century. Here’s a systems map look at parrot fever, 1918 flu, and modern-day bubonic plague.

I’m not including COVID-19 in the bunch since I’ve written about it frequently and there’s still a lot we don’t know about the system that led to its spread. Then again, there is also a lot we don’t know about the spread of the diseases below, but the perspectives on them are more static.

I decided to write this piece after seeing how hidden the pathways to illness can be and how straightforward the solutions can seem after the system is understood.

Psittacosis (Parrot Fever)

You’ve probably never heard of it, but in 1929, deaths from the then unknown disease psittacosis (also called “parrot fever”) scared a lot of people who thought it might be a new epidemic.

It took some sleuthing, but the commonality between people affected by this disease was their proximity to imported birds such as parrots and parakeets.

Keeping birds in the home as pets was a relatively new fashion. Salesmen sold birds door to door.

But even with importation of infected birds, we might have avoided the local spread of psittacosis if not for crowded conditions in pet stores and the easier spread of psittacosis among the birds, asymptomatic healthy seeming birds, and then close conditions between birds and human owners in the home.

Here’s a map of psittacosis flowing from wild populations to the pet owners.

Continue reading “Modeling Epidemics (Parrot Fever, 1918 Flu, Plague)”

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Disinformation and Disease (Coronavirus Edition)

I’ve already written two earlier posts (one and two) on second-order effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Let’s now take the coronavirus situation to think through unintended consequences in a different way. For this post, I’m focusing on disinformation as related to the spread of disease.

What are some of the tactics used to spread disinformation, what are some cases of disease-related disinformation in history, and how will things possibly change over time and place?

What are some of the second-order effects coming from the different ways we communicate today, information’s ability to spread widely and cheaply, and even the surprising longevity of digital information?

And unlike many of the other posts on this site, is there more benefit from centralized best practices than in keeping different healthcare practices? Continue reading “Disinformation and Disease (Coronavirus Edition)”

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Coronavirus Consequences

As a rule, I don’t cover breaking news on this site. Plenty of other sources do that. Instead, when I do write about current events I focus on looking at the effects that systems have generating unintended consequences. That’s why I’m only writing about the Wuhan novel coronavirus now, almost at the end of the declared 14-day lockdown period.

And what a story of systems.

While the novel coronavirus fatality rate is estimated at 2.2% versus 9.6% for SARS, some other qualities of this outbreak may make the illness more difficult to contain, namely the long period of incubation (14 day estimate) and the increased amount of travel, including international and domestic Lunar New Year travel shortly before the lockdown period.

If you want an example of how times have changed since earlier epidemics, watch this video from the English publication of China’s People’s Daily. Continue reading “Coronavirus Consequences”

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Prester John and the Long History of Disinformation

In his novel Baudolino, Umberto Eco writes of a medieval letter forging exercise. For their own political purposes, a group of friends write a realistic, but fake, letter addressed to Frederick I, Holy Roman Emperor. The fake letter is from Prester John.

Surely you know Prester John?

Let’s look at the tacit tradition of disinformation and what will change in the future. What is changing about the nature of truth? Will it be harder to tell what is true? Or was it always hard? What are the unintended consequences?

Continue reading “Prester John and the Long History of Disinformation”

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Systems for Spreading (Diseases and Religions)

How do things spread? How fast can something spread? To how many people can one “infected” person transmit a condition?

Let’s look at some of the unintended consequences of systems for spreading in diseases and religions. And I’m not saying that diseases are religions or religions are diseases, just that they have similarities in the way they spread. Understanding that helps us understand our history. Continue reading “Systems for Spreading (Diseases and Religions)”

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A City Too Familiar (the Spread of Disease)

The impact of diseases and epidemics on human life is as old as humanity. Disease is mentioned in texts thousands of years old, its presence changed political and economic history, cultural habits, and even morality. But often we think of disease as a stranger. It’s something that comes from somewhere else. But the systems that are in place affect how easily disease moves among us.

Let’s look into how disease impacts us with unintended consequences. First, a view from fiction.  Continue reading “A City Too Familiar (the Spread of Disease)”