“Trust the science” has always bothered me for two reasons: 1) science is frequently not black and white and anyone who has done hard science research knows there are plenty of competing opinions among scientists and 2) while scientific facts are facts, we still need to decide on how to act on those facts and that decision making process is most certainly political and subjective in nature.
> “If you’re a public-health person and you’re trying to make a decision, you have this very narrow view of what the right decision is.” “So you attach infinite value to stopping the disease and saving a life. You attach zero value to whether this actually totally disrupts people’s lives, ruins the economy, and has many kids kept out of school in a way that they never quite recover from.”
I don't expect public health officials to have a utilitarian function that maximizes global health considering second order effects. This should have been stated more clearly at the beginning of the epidemic.
Why not? It sounds to me that is the ideal scenario. If I go to the doctor I want them to maximize for health, it's up to me to make health concessions
In the same way, we have an entire political class who should be able to look at the health of the population and gauge which measures are worth taking and which aren't, no?
In practice, we instead have centers that focus on first-order effects and who advocate for their position (from an authority based on scientific knowledge, and preparation for emergencies) which are then evaluated and mixed with other centers by political leaders to incorporate the best attempt at considering second and further effects.
Everybody has a different utilitarian model and we don't have enough data or algorithms to predict second or third order effects (we usually fall back on "wisdom" from prior experience).