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Flat As A Pancake - The Flattening of Pandemic Drift, Part III
Others In This Series:
The Flattening Of Pandemic Drift | Covid-19 Fanfic | The Flattening of Pandemic Drift – Part II, Now Flatter | Flat As A Pancake - Part III
In which the author sets down his characters gently, pours enough iced tea to keep Echo 18 happy (momentarily), and lets fly.
To misquote David Gerrold, I am about to break the rules of writing. Flagrantly.
Your host is callously ignorant of many, many things. He flunked out of a doctoral program, so the question of whether to use Dr. as a prefix or Ph.D. as a suffix is likely to never arise.
But I cut my eyeteeth on complex adaptive systems theory. I also eat where the big trucks are parked, consistently.
I can no more teach a class on complex adaptive systems theory than I can teach a class on disaster management. But I've _taken_ the classes, read intelligently, and studied quite a lot of history - a lot of how-to, and a lot more of how-the-fuck-not-to.
I am also painfully familiar with the idea that one steps up into the lifeboat.
If nothing changes - if the status quo holds - we are going to be OK with respect to Covid-19.
Nothing is less likely. Nothing.
One of the few things we can say with any accuracy about complex systems is that increasing system complexity requires an increase in resources devoted to systems management. An economist would call this 'guard labor' in the hoary original sense of labor that makes sure that other labor gets done.
Now add that lovely word 'adaptive.' All systems have some degree of adaptation, otherwise they wouldn't be systems. Excessive adaptation is in some ways more dangerous to inadequate adaptation.
The basic problem, and it is a problem so basic that the world can be divided into the educated minority that grasp it, and the large majority who either haven't been told or didn't understand it, is this:
Different complex systems change (i.e. mutate) on different time scales.
Biological complex systems mutate faster than artificially constructed human complex systems.
Microbiology is one of the faster biological systems to mutate.
Law and regulation is one of the slowest human complex systems to mutate.
So we have a fast mover colliding with a slow crawler.
So let's kick around, at the kindergarten level, how exactly Covid-19 could change - mutate - to be a greater challenge to humanity.
Playing a couple hundred games of "Pandemic" would help the discussion. Or even a couple hundred games of the much cruder ASCII-based simulation "Life." Or knowing how to graph non-linear differential equations and knowing the implications of a negative root, an imaginary term, in terms of creating inflection points.
The obvious is lethality. A change that dials up the ability of Covid-19 to kill people.
Less obvious is persistence. Or spread. Or vector. Or resistance. Or immunity. Or half a dozen other factors. Or some artistic combination of the above.
The honest answer is that we just don't know yet. The world scientific community has been digging at the spot marked X for nearly a year now. A lot of interesting findings are popping up. Not all of them are useful, basic science rarely is. But they are ... interesting.
Vaccines are great. They really are. At the world shaking, earth saving level.
A science fiction author, well read in pandemics, proposed recently that everyone should be forced to take the vaccine at gunpoint if necessary. He is probably correct in his belief that this will save a lot of lives, even after subtracting the losses on both sides of the guns.
That's the gap between microbiological systems and human systems in a nutshell. His proposal is shocking, too fast, too revolting, and met with responses ranging from "Will you be first in the stack?" to "Let the adults handle this."
Covid-19 and its descendants don't care about our Constitutional, civil or human rights. Introduced into the complex system we call the human body, Covid-19 does its thing - nothing to most, mild illness to some, life altering damage amounting to disability to others, and about 2% (with modern medical care) an ugly early death.
America is currently having a leadership crisis. This is likely to continue. This puts a ball and chain around humanity's ankles precisely when a swift, decisive response is required.
One of my instructors asserted categorically that complex adaptive systems theory is not, repeat not a science and therefore should be thrown out into the academic darkness to wail and knash its teeth. (In retrospect, I should not have had him on my committee.) But every scientific doctorate is a doctorate first and foremost in philosophy - the science of reason. CAS is just a quarter step ahead of philosophy, in its attempt to put logical relationships and numbers on problems much as some people put spice on their food.
CAS is very, very clear about what happens when a problem exceeds capacity management.
The term is runaway.
An economy crashes. A government falls.
WIldfires spread, from the ridges to the beaches, and the demarcation lines are dictated by topography and winds.
People, well, die. As individuals, if it is a pathogen in a human body - c.f. septic shock. In job lots, if it is a famine or a pandemic.
Civilizations? Yeah, those too. We have historical examples, kind of because the records were trashed.
We don't have any off planet examples. Except Drake's equation. The short version of the question (with credit to Spider Robinson) is, if there are infinite worlds in a multiverse, "Where is everybody?"
Michael Williamson recently shared something rather chilling. "Maybe they all invented social media and collapsed."
Because the complex adaptive system known as social media, almost uniquely among human created systems, shares a characteristic with the biological CASes. It's fast. As in faster than mutation.
And it may be our only hope.
"Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands."
I don't know what the next one will have to be. It depends on what happens with Covid-19.
But I do know it's easier to write crap memes than to write the ones that will work, the ones that will stop a pandemic and save lives.
I sure hope it's something like "Get tested. Often. Get vaccinated. Often." Note that this implies that we'll need updates to keep up with the viruses.
I really hope it's not something more ominous. "Keep away from doors, we will always shoot." "Your final friend, carry Cheer Pills at all times, stop the spread when you're dead." "Men go first, older women go second. Save the children and the pregnant women!" "Step _up_ into the Lifeboat..." (which may be imaginary.)
So, as flat as I can be, here's the Flattening of Pandemic Drift.
Do what needs to be done.
Be ready for the next change.
Don't fall prey to "it'll be over soon" or "gethomeitis" or concerns about costs. It will be over when it's over, not a year or a day sooner, and it will cost what it will cost, in heartache and misery and lives. And also money.
($600? Really? Are you f____ kidding me? Who the f___ keeps re-electing these people?)
Because our only hope is that people can adapt faster and better than pathogens.
By weight, the little bastards are far smarter I'm afraid.
Prove me wrong. Start with you.
Others In This Series:
The Flattening Of Pandemic Drift | Covid-19 Fanfic | The Flattening of Pandemic Drift – Part II, Now Flatter | Flat As A Pancake - Part III
In which the author sets down his characters gently, pours enough iced tea to keep Echo 18 happy (momentarily), and lets fly.
To misquote David Gerrold, I am about to break the rules of writing. Flagrantly.
Your host is callously ignorant of many, many things. He flunked out of a doctoral program, so the question of whether to use Dr. as a prefix or Ph.D. as a suffix is likely to never arise.
But I cut my eyeteeth on complex adaptive systems theory. I also eat where the big trucks are parked, consistently.
I can no more teach a class on complex adaptive systems theory than I can teach a class on disaster management. But I've _taken_ the classes, read intelligently, and studied quite a lot of history - a lot of how-to, and a lot more of how-the-fuck-not-to.
I am also painfully familiar with the idea that one steps up into the lifeboat.
If nothing changes - if the status quo holds - we are going to be OK with respect to Covid-19.
Nothing is less likely. Nothing.
One of the few things we can say with any accuracy about complex systems is that increasing system complexity requires an increase in resources devoted to systems management. An economist would call this 'guard labor' in the hoary original sense of labor that makes sure that other labor gets done.
Now add that lovely word 'adaptive.' All systems have some degree of adaptation, otherwise they wouldn't be systems. Excessive adaptation is in some ways more dangerous to inadequate adaptation.
The basic problem, and it is a problem so basic that the world can be divided into the educated minority that grasp it, and the large majority who either haven't been told or didn't understand it, is this:
Different complex systems change (i.e. mutate) on different time scales.
Biological complex systems mutate faster than artificially constructed human complex systems.
Microbiology is one of the faster biological systems to mutate.
Law and regulation is one of the slowest human complex systems to mutate.
So we have a fast mover colliding with a slow crawler.
So let's kick around, at the kindergarten level, how exactly Covid-19 could change - mutate - to be a greater challenge to humanity.
Playing a couple hundred games of "Pandemic" would help the discussion. Or even a couple hundred games of the much cruder ASCII-based simulation "Life." Or knowing how to graph non-linear differential equations and knowing the implications of a negative root, an imaginary term, in terms of creating inflection points.
The obvious is lethality. A change that dials up the ability of Covid-19 to kill people.
Less obvious is persistence. Or spread. Or vector. Or resistance. Or immunity. Or half a dozen other factors. Or some artistic combination of the above.
The honest answer is that we just don't know yet. The world scientific community has been digging at the spot marked X for nearly a year now. A lot of interesting findings are popping up. Not all of them are useful, basic science rarely is. But they are ... interesting.
Vaccines are great. They really are. At the world shaking, earth saving level.
A science fiction author, well read in pandemics, proposed recently that everyone should be forced to take the vaccine at gunpoint if necessary. He is probably correct in his belief that this will save a lot of lives, even after subtracting the losses on both sides of the guns.
That's the gap between microbiological systems and human systems in a nutshell. His proposal is shocking, too fast, too revolting, and met with responses ranging from "Will you be first in the stack?" to "Let the adults handle this."
Covid-19 and its descendants don't care about our Constitutional, civil or human rights. Introduced into the complex system we call the human body, Covid-19 does its thing - nothing to most, mild illness to some, life altering damage amounting to disability to others, and about 2% (with modern medical care) an ugly early death.
America is currently having a leadership crisis. This is likely to continue. This puts a ball and chain around humanity's ankles precisely when a swift, decisive response is required.
One of my instructors asserted categorically that complex adaptive systems theory is not, repeat not a science and therefore should be thrown out into the academic darkness to wail and knash its teeth. (In retrospect, I should not have had him on my committee.) But every scientific doctorate is a doctorate first and foremost in philosophy - the science of reason. CAS is just a quarter step ahead of philosophy, in its attempt to put logical relationships and numbers on problems much as some people put spice on their food.
CAS is very, very clear about what happens when a problem exceeds capacity management.
The term is runaway.
An economy crashes. A government falls.
WIldfires spread, from the ridges to the beaches, and the demarcation lines are dictated by topography and winds.
People, well, die. As individuals, if it is a pathogen in a human body - c.f. septic shock. In job lots, if it is a famine or a pandemic.
Civilizations? Yeah, those too. We have historical examples, kind of because the records were trashed.
We don't have any off planet examples. Except Drake's equation. The short version of the question (with credit to Spider Robinson) is, if there are infinite worlds in a multiverse, "Where is everybody?"
Michael Williamson recently shared something rather chilling. "Maybe they all invented social media and collapsed."
Because the complex adaptive system known as social media, almost uniquely among human created systems, shares a characteristic with the biological CASes. It's fast. As in faster than mutation.
And it may be our only hope.
"Wear a mask. Social distance. Wash your hands."
I don't know what the next one will have to be. It depends on what happens with Covid-19.
But I do know it's easier to write crap memes than to write the ones that will work, the ones that will stop a pandemic and save lives.
I sure hope it's something like "Get tested. Often. Get vaccinated. Often." Note that this implies that we'll need updates to keep up with the viruses.
I really hope it's not something more ominous. "Keep away from doors, we will always shoot." "Your final friend, carry Cheer Pills at all times, stop the spread when you're dead." "Men go first, older women go second. Save the children and the pregnant women!" "Step _up_ into the Lifeboat..." (which may be imaginary.)
So, as flat as I can be, here's the Flattening of Pandemic Drift.
Do what needs to be done.
Be ready for the next change.
Don't fall prey to "it'll be over soon" or "gethomeitis" or concerns about costs. It will be over when it's over, not a year or a day sooner, and it will cost what it will cost, in heartache and misery and lives. And also money.
($600? Really? Are you f____ kidding me? Who the f___ keeps re-electing these people?)
Because our only hope is that people can adapt faster and better than pathogens.
By weight, the little bastards are far smarter I'm afraid.
Prove me wrong. Start with you.
