Another possibility, if you believe the Chinese numbers, is that group quarantine has a huge effect, as opposed to self-isolation. In that case, you’d have to concede that the cost of liberal democratic civil liberties is a 10x-100x higher naive fatality rate.
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Korea is an outlier due to much higher tech use for testing. So more tech can offset the disadvantage of more civil liberties.
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Pick 2 of 3: civil liberties, low tech use, low fatality rate.
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People like to compare China and the west in very abstract, ideological terms, but really I think it boils down to the political feasibility of a *single* tactic: group quarantine. Everything else is pretty much legitimately available within all political systems.
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It would be interesting to apply Dictator’s Handbook lens to this and determine actual extent of power. For example India is nominally a liberal democracy, but Modi probably has tactics available to him that democratically elected leaders generally don’t.
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Venkatesh Rao Retweeted David Steven
This is a good point. I wonder how internal connectivity of China compares to Europe. https://twitter.com/davidsteven/status/1248120867823005696?s=21 …https://twitter.com/davidsteven/status/1248120867823005696 …
Venkatesh Rao added,
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Venkatesh Rao Retweeted Sijan Khan
Another good point. https://twitter.com/sijank524/status/1248123379762298881?s=21 …https://twitter.com/sijank524/status/1248123379762298881 …
Venkatesh Rao added,
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One of the difficult questions is: assuming there really is a “cost of democracy” holding tech-level constant, should you be personally willing to pay it? Can’t honestly answer that without normalizing for your relative safety as a function of class/wealth.
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Replying to @vgr
I think it's the opposite - there is not a cost for democracy, democracy is part of what keeps people safe. Safety comes from things like good public health systems, politicians responsive to people enough to not cause a famine, embarrassing information available and flowing.
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Replying to @strangeattracto @vgr
I think South Korea is not an example to dismiss as an outlier.
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Only for holding tech constant. Otherwise it’s an aspirational state
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