Home
> Uncategorized > Quantifying Dread
Quantifying Dread
July 10, 2020
You guys might have been wondering what happened to me! Well the answer is I moved to Somerville, MA temporarily, and it takes a TON of work to move, especially when you haven’t moved in 15 years!
Side note: I discovered I am a major hoarder in the categories of clothing, shoes, and yarn. This is something that is easy to deny when you don’t have to empty out large closets but is impossible to deny when you do.
OK so, and this is dark, I wrote a Bloomberg piece about my definition of quantified dread, which loosely speaking when things are getting worse and the rate at which they’re getting worse is getting worse:
America Is Being Way Too Calm About Covid-19
This is a case where optimism may be an existential threat.
You can read more of my Bloomberg columns here.
Categories: Uncategorized
mathbabe 
I don’t have subscription to walk St journal. Can you in future place articles into email. Congrats on the move David
Get Outlook for Android
________________________________
LikeLike
Good column. I wholeheartedly agree with the basic argument.
Two nit-picks: “existential threat” is going overboard.
“It’s just a matter of time before the disease again seeps into nursing homes, rehabs and prisons.” Actually, the situation in prisons is already bad and getting worse. The government is actively spreading it. In California from Chino to San Quentin to Susanville:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/watch/covid-19-outbreak-hits-california-prisons/vp-BB16xrvv
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-07-01/rural-lassen-county-prison-coronavirus-outbreak
This is not known because there is woefully inadequate testing and little press coverage.
LikeLike
See also: California’s San Quentin prison declined free coronavirus tests and urgent advice — now it has a massive outbreak.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02042-9
LikeLike
Writers don’t get to choose their headlines! My title was “quantifying dread”.
LikeLike
https://slate.com/business/1996/10/economic-culture-wars.html
Krugman, somewhat famously, demanded the right to write his own headlines, when he inked his deal with the New York Times, after having gotten fed up with editors putting stupid titles on his work.
LikeLike
So if dread is related to the rate that things are getting worse, and the rate at which dread is increasing is increasing, would this make it a second order dreadivitive?
Sorry, just a little math-oriented gallows humor to brighten up your Monday.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Small omission: California. Otherwise a great article.
LikeLike
Yeah wtf is happening in California?! Crazy!!
LikeLike
California and its cities depend on income taxes, sales taxes, alcohol taxes, hotel taxes — all stuff relating to economic activity. Property taxes are suppressed by Prop 13. So in the absence of federal aid to states, there was HUGE pressure to re-open.
https://prospect.org/coronavirus/unsanitized-cares-act-really-did-induce-premature-state-reopenings/
LikeLike
Brutal. Thanks Auros.
LikeLike