Anyone following the social media and the news would’ve called the pandemic weeks ago.
I hope this will make people realize that we need to abolish centralized institutions in our highly complex world. They are single points of failure which introduce significant systemic risks.
CDC also dropped the ball on this one. In Washington state local authorities discovered the outbreak only because they defied federal regulators.
We need better organization at the local level, and we need it now.
Why is this evidence that “we need to abolish centralized institutions”? It’s not like every local organization can marshal expertise on every issue. Perhaps the WHO misjudged the coronavirus, but I’m confused about how this is suddenly a referendum on large institutions and the superiority of local ones.
Running the WHO seems hard. Alarm people too often and they will tune you out. Miss an alarm once and they will call you incompetent (“you had one job!”).
There's nothing wrong with having large-scale institutions. The problem is when local organizations can't act without a single centralized institution giving the OK. National health departments listen to the WHO but can take action as needed without WHO signoff; local health departments in the US often literally could not test for the coronavirus, even though they had the tools and the capacity and the desire to make tests, because they didn't have federal approval.
> local health departments in the US often literally could not test for the coronavirus, even though they had the tools and the capacity and the desire to make tests, because they didn't have federal approval
But that’s a judgement against the United States’ federal government, not the WHO. The WHO does not actively constrain governments, they just offer guidance (as far as I know!).
In principle, that's true, and certainly a point in the WHO's favor. In practice, it sounds like a lot of things are happening only conditional on the WHO's statement that it's a pandemic, which if true reflects a lack of local adaptability. I don't think it's the WHO's fault, necessarily, but local authorities need to have the capacity and skills to feel they don't have to rely on the WHO's judgment of such things.
> It’s not like every local organization can marshal expertise on every issue.
In order to be efficient decision makers, local organizations should be concerned with acquiring expertise related to local issues, and then, through cooperation, global expertise becomes an emergent property. It's not like every central institution can marshal expertise on every local issue.
One reason you want to avoid centralization is due to the fact that decision making occurs under imperfect and incomplete knowledge, or bounded-rationality as Herbert Simon called it.
By decentralizing the process of decision making, you mitigate the risks, since you are allowing entities to tackle a problem in parallel, and if one of them turns out to be wrong, the fallout is localized. Whereas in a centralized system, one bad decision can spell trouble for everyone.
> It's not like every central institution can marshal expertise on every local issue.
True, but maybe we disagree on how easy it is for every locality to acquire expertise. Plenty of local governments in the United States are already stretched thin fulfilling the simpler functions of policing, schooling, and basic infrastructure. Adding a staff epidemiologist seems very hard for such places. The same proviso applies to many poorer states and nations. That is why I think it makes most sense to direct effort toward having a competent central authority.
> By decentralizing the process of decision making, you mitigate the risks, since you are allowing entities to tackle a problem in parallel, and if one of them turns out to be wrong, the fallout is localized. Whereas in a centralized system, one bad decision can spell trouble for everyone.
On the flip side, decentralizing makes coordination harder. In coarse terms, there are game-theoretic considerations in an epidemic. For example, if localities are purely self-interested, an unaffected region may attempt to quarantine and keep all of its medical infrastructure ready for itself rather than lend it to nearby affected regions. In such cases a coordinating mechanism can be extremely helpful.
I'm not arguing that one kind of organization is always better or worse. To me it just seems complicated.
> For example, if localities are purely self-interested, an unaffected region may attempt to quarantine and keep all of its medical infrastructure ready for itself rather than lend it to nearby affected regions. In such cases a coordinating mechanism can be extremely helpful.
Reality is already ahead of you. [1] Switzerland is currently having trouble receiving masks and other medical supplies that were commissioned out of state:
Being landlocked, goods bound for Switzerland necessarily have to pass through a different country first, in this case Germany. Germany has a decree by which Corona-related medical supplies must not leave the country - and right now, this even applies to goods destined to Switzerland that are just arriving at a german port.
A fully "decentralised" world full of self-interested microstates would see a lot more of this stuff.
> On the flip side, decentralizing makes coordination harder.
Perhaps technology could help in this regard, at least to some degree. Bitcoin has proven coordination in a low trust environment is possible. Imagine if we could make coordination easier in other industries too.
> I'm not arguing that one kind of organization is always better or worse. To me it just seems complicated.
I agree, it is indeed complicated. But we need to start seriously considering concepts such as scale, systems thinking with its centralization/decentralization paradigms, and incomplete knowledge/risks if we want to design better institutions. Then we can thinker with turning the knobs one way or the other.
The WHO knew (and told people) that this disease had the potential for a pandemic and/or widespread harm a long time ago. Here’s a two-months old article with the title “Narrowing window to contain outbreak, WHO says”: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51591091
There is a difference between a potential, or even a certain, pandemic and an actual one. You and the WHO knew what it meant when you looked at that egg. But only now has it become an actual chicken.
> Anyone following the social media and the news would’ve called the pandemic weeks ago.
I would not trust the unstoppable gushing torrent of dubious information that is Twitter over whoever may be giving the World Health Organization its information.
That's true. You also need to be sensitive about echo chambers, and that's something humans also routinely fail at. I trust credible experts, not the self-selection of Twitter accounts telling me what I already believe.
Even if you 100% trust everyone you follow, and also believe them to be entirely impartial, the nature of Twitter makes it so easy to spread misinformation (mixed in with real stuff.) Twitter is optimized for viral content, not true content.
If anything, this is evidence that we need to empower centralized institutions. China started late and fucked up early, but they dealt with it (at least for now). And we'd all be in a much different place now if WHO had actual power and could start bossing countries around a month or two ago.
Similar to how the number 1 problem with the UN is that it has absolutely zero power to do anything.
sorry but 3 months ago WHO was complaining that China is taking too strong measures that are hurting the local population and are not proven to work. WHO never recommended shutting down cities or regions, which as we can see is the only thing that works.
WHO fucked up big time IMO. thousands of employees there, most probably appointed politically by country of origin and who have nothing to do with science.
You're not wrong, but to be fair, the CDC has to fight for funding all the time. If Trump gets his way with his budget proposals, it'll only get worse.
>I hope this will make people realize that we need to abolish centralized institutions in our highly complex world.
While I too favor decentralization, what we really need to do is return merit to our institutions. We need a social climate that encourages Pattons and Churchills and the like. Unfortunately to return to such a time of competent leadership (not just in government, but society at large) would require undoing decades of propaganda that convinced some two generations of children that we all have equal ability and any of us can do anything. The dangerous downside of giving everyone a trophy across society is that now people have grown up less able to judge competence and merit in others.
It's funny how in those political discussions, comments often say more about the commenter.
For example, I would argue that the "propaganda" that anybody can do anything isn't that old yet. On the other hand, certain political groups have been sabotaging government leadership for so long - by claiming that government is always incapable - that there's just no good leadership left in many places and it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm fairly sure the quality of institutions in this day and age has almost nothing to do with participation trophies/equal ability propaganda, as this kind of thing rapidly gets torn to shreds as soon as one enters the job market.
I suspect it has a great deal to do with decades of people blaming government for their problems and increasingly less faith in government institutions, to the point of some politicians running on the idea that government doesn't work. It strikes me as difficult to get competent people for your organizations when the term "unelected bureaucrats" is used as an epithet, the pay is below equivalent work in the private sector, and the people at the top are selected for idealogical reasons instead of anything related to effectiveness, expertise or capability.
I hope this will make people realize that we need to abolish centralized institutions in our highly complex world. They are single points of failure which introduce significant systemic risks.
CDC also dropped the ball on this one. In Washington state local authorities discovered the outbreak only because they defied federal regulators.
We need better organization at the local level, and we need it now.