Dear non-hysterical Ladies,
Everyone is saying "
don't panic", but nobody is explaining what "
panic" even means.
So far the only example of
"panic" the average person has witnessed is people buying more toilet paper than they will use. So what? After the pandemic is over, we will celebrate with a bunch of epic Halloween pranks.
But panic also has a dark side.
Doing things thoughtlessly, breaking the law, scaring other people stupid with rumors, these are bad enough. But some forms of panic are outright ugly - I won't say where I found these comments, but they'll give you an idea of how bad panic can get:
"Confirmed cases" is a terrible statistic, it's like talking about "confirmed iceberg size".
The actual numbers turn out to be something like 10 times the confirmed rate. Doubling every 4-5 days. That may not sound scary and it isn't, until it suddenly is. Then you'd wish you did the stitch in time, instead of having to do 9, make that 18, make that 36, 72, 142...
That means ALL the damage is doubled by every 4-5 days we spend waiting and seeing and telling each other not to panic. Twice as much damage to small businesses (in the long run). Twice as much racism. Twice as many people going crazy with fear. Twice as many stores pillaged for their toilet paper.
From another dark corner of the internet:
I think people are "fighting the last war" here, in this case, they are behaving the way we learned to fight the War On Terror - by refusing to be terrorized, by "Keeping Calm and Carrying On", by telling each other that if we change our ways, we are letting the terrorists win.
But that was World War T, and this is World War C.
Shutting down travel with Europe, even though there might be more cases here than there? That's the new Maginot Line, and "Just don't touch your face" is the new "Machine guns can be beaten with More Elan!".Then there's "Coronavirus won't stop us from partying!", the new "Once we win all the battles, the Viet Kong will surrender". Wrong war, dummies.
Moments like this are why leadership, and the character of a leader, actually matter.
Imagine what would happen if we had Ronald Reagan, or Roosevelt, or JFK, or Churchill, or anyone other than a science-denying sociopath.
We would get a calm but honest explanation of the facts. A grim statement that in the coming months our courage will be tested. Explain what courage is - admit that fear is real, and we will have to keep going despite it. Praise for the front-line heroes who are stepping up, and of whom many will die. At very least promise them a medal when this is over.
Remind people of our brave traditions. Admit that every time we start a massive global struggle, we are caught flat-footed and display stunning incompetence. But then we admit our mistakes, get back up, switch from peacetime-thinking to wartime-thinking, and do great achievements that were previously thought impossible.
Some leaders are doing this. Ours are not.
Another example:
We built a system where resilience was considered inefficiency, where local self-reliance was considered parochial, where communal action was considered illiberal - all because doing that boosted quarterly profits/the 24-hour news cycle/political polls, and so made the managers look good to other managers. Now, when the obvious consequence of systematizing every risk bites us in the ass, like it did in 2008, the narrative response will still be "those damn greedy Kulaks!" and "we better find a way to pretend this never happened!". The establishment is constitutionally incapable of taking responsibility for anything...
Also, g
oing nuts with math and graphs means you are possessed by the devil. God makes us speak in tongues, the devil makes people speak in math.
Anyone else have examples of panic so our ladies can see and understand?