It’s in your short-term interest to keep living your life as normal, because buying a ton of food at once and isolating yourself sucks. But it’s in your long-term interest (and the world’s short-term and long-term interest) to practice social distancing. We can beat this thing if everyone acts “irrationally” and holes up for a couple weeks.
If we don’t beat this, hospitals will fill up, and people who need easily-fixable, but serious if left untreated, medical help could be in trouble.
Example: If you get shot in the leg, an ER doctor can fix you easily. But if all medical professionals are overworked because we didn’t contain the coronavirus, you’re in for a rough time.
This is similar to the issue of climate change – it’s in every country’s short-term interest to not enact environmental protection measures (because it slows the economy, among other potential negative consequences). However, it’s in every country’s long-term interest and the world’s short-term and long-term interest for every country to enact environmental protection measures. George RR Martin was trying to make this point with the White Walkers in Game of Thrones (see link below for an explanation).
Links:
Nassim Taleb (this tweet is the inspiration for this post)
vlogbrothers video on Game of Thrones and climate change
Steve's Blog 