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1) Two biases have really warped our Covid response - the action bias and the illusion of control. The action bias is our tendency to prefer doing something to doing nothing, and the illusion of control is our tendency to believe we have control over random events.
2) In a fascinating study, an analysis of soccer penalty kicks showed the optimal strategy was for goalies to stay in the middle of the goal. But that's not what they do. A goal looks worse if they just stand there - so they jump to one side. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167487006001048
3) Similarly, politicians can't stomach not having a complex action plan against Covid. Folks like @GavinNewsom and @andrewcuomo are the goalies diving to the corner as the ball goes down the middle - simply because they don't have the gumption to not make a bad situation worse.
4) The illusion of control is especially pernicious - especially because many can't accept how much randomness is in the world. Craps players throw harder for high numbers and softer for low numbers. https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/illusion_of_control.htm
5) In my opinion, a lot of this illusion - especially in medicine - stems from how advanced our civilization has become. We have conquered so many problems, cured so many diseases, that it feels like we can thwart any threat. Especially in "can-do" America. But this is a fallacy.
6) There's just a lot of randomness in the world. Bad things happen all the time. It's unfortunate. But we have a bad habit as a species of taking unfortunate (and not really preventable) situations and making them worse (which was preventable).
