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Comment by guscost | Hacker News Reader

Surely you must see that now we're having a moral/ethical/political/religious argument, very far removed from anything resembling science?

This is exactly my point. You may believe that you have identified all of "the real nonsense" perfectly well, and your suggestions might be better or worse than mine. But good luck becoming any more certain than you are right now, or proving your case to anyone else.

Put another way: If you believe that X is a "serious enough" risk and I do not, but I believe that Y is a "serious enough" risk and you do not, how do we resolve that disagreement? Who gets the money?

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> Put another way: If you believe that X is a "serious enough" risk and I do not, but I believe that Y is a "serious enough" risk and you do not, how do we resolve that disagreement? Who gets the money?

Worst possible outcome for overreacting could be severe economic hardship and domestic unrest.

Worst possible outcome for under-reacting could be millions dead, leading to severe economic hardship and domestic unrest.

If the evidence isn't beyond all doubt I would hope the choice is clear which worst outcome is worth paying to avoid.

EDIT: "paying to avoid" not "paying for"

Let's not be naive here, the worst possible consequence of overreaction is a war.

In that case, why wouldn't the same hold for underreaction?

It would. But the correct choice is not obvious anymore, don't you see? Both worst-case outcomes lead to millions of deaths, and you're not able to prove which is more likely.

I don't buy that. Judging from the actions of governments around the world, many of which made drastic course corrections based on recent findings, the consensus is that the risk of millions of deaths due to underreaction is far greater than the risk of millions of deaths due to overreaction. Of course, it will be important to continuously reassess the situation and make course corrections in either direction based on new findings. In the meantime, governments should do everything they can to mitigate financial hardship and keep the economy alive. Unfortunately, there is no way out of this that won't cause significant pain.

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