Originally Posted by
DarkSideMoon
Covid was a Grey Rhino, not a Black Swan. Scientists have been screaming about the economic and health dangers of a novel zoonotic disease for years, mostly to deaf ears and heads stuck firmly in the sand.
In fact, a Netflix series, “Explained”, postulated about the impacts of a zoonotic disease originating in a wet market in China in November 2019.....
Season 2 episode 7 if you want a great watch.
it’s a small distinction, but black swan implies this was something we couldn’t see coming. Grey rhino describes something we saw coming and chose to ignore.
There's kind of a fuzzy transition between Grey Rhino and Black Swan, and covid was probably right in the middle of that.
Obvious, likely, and realistic timeline play into that. We know there will be 500 year floods and earthquakes, but our building codes are typically for 100 year events despite the fact that there's a 20% chance of a 500-year event this century.
Politicians typically pay minimal lip service to those kinds of hypothetical threats because there's little political appetite in most places to spend money on responsible long-term considerations when you can be doling out social largess to various voting blocks. And they can usually play the odds that it won't happen on their watch. You'd almost need a benign dictatorship to adequately prepare for ALL eventualities... that's not going to be a popular fiscal platform.