[OutsiderFan]

When you can't win arguments with facts because people refuse to follow logical behavior based on them, it helps to use analogies and metaphors based on history.

The two most apt analogies we have to define the pandemic challenge and what is needed to defeat it, is to compare it to what must be done to win wars or team sports competition. You can use war to illustrate the complexity or you can use team sports to illustrate the simplicity of the comparison. In either case, everyone knows neither can be won without five things:

1. Strong leadership from the top
2. Resources to buy assets needed to compete
3. Talented and well trained competitors
4. Coordination of said resources and trained competitors 
5. Trained competitors trusting leadership and each other to execute

Right now, we only have some #3, but not enough to win, like maybe a good OL, a QB who doesn't watch game video, and terrible skill players. We don't have any leadership at all from the top. We are refusing to acquire the assets we need to compete. We have no effective coordination. We don't have enough people trusting those trying to coordinate, or other competitors, to effectively execute a winning strategy. It's a complete recipe for failure and not even the slightest bit surprising that we are failing so spectacularly.

Imagine Stanford's football team trying to beat Washington yesterday if on heels of SCC sports shutdown:

1. Stanford's President put out a statement saying he wasn't sure if Stanford teams should play elsewhere, and never spoke to David Shaw.
2. David Shaw told the defensive players they would have to pay for their own hotel rooms and meals during the Northwest trip.
3. Lance Anderson stayed home because Stanford's President likes him and Anderson wanted to make sure he was OK playing Washington. 
4. The defensive players didn't like Anderson staying home, and there was no clear game plan as a result. 

Stanford would have lost the game 56-24 because the offense was prepared and executed, but the defense was a disaster. This is a metaphor for how the United States is dealing with the pandemic. Covid 56 USA 24.

As someone who has studied leadership and strategy in sports, war, and business, it is just appalling and embarrassing to me how grossly incompetent and terribly led this country is. If only the punishment for failing on this level was the fate of football coaches who can't win games, generals who lose wars, and CEOs who oversee losses in company value. The fact this shit show is even allowed to happen is a demonstration of how we need to setup different incentives for ourselves as a country or we may be on a path to being a failed state.

As for the pandemic specifically. The people in charge are those in charge. Do what they say and if you don't like it, vote out the people who are making decisions you don't like. You'll never get a clear idea of the ability of the person in charge unless they are allowed to set goals and are given what they say they need to succeed. You may get a boss you don't like, but that doesn't mean you stop working, or you get fired. Find another job if you must, but you don't take down the company. Similarly, if you don't like the policies where you are, move somewhere else with different ones.

This brings me to the incentive issue. We right now have a political system that has too many incentives for politicians that aren't aligned with those of the American people and certainly not country as whole. We have media companies with economic incentives to sew division. We have a Congress that has incentives to undermine the POTUS. And we have a POTUS who lost an election, with economic incentives to undermine the country's democracy on his way out the door, and part of that is ignoring the invasion of enemy forces invading the country in the form of billions of little viruses.

It's literally like watching a massive enemy force invade the entire country, the Commander in Chief not even pretending to care, and generals (like Dr. Cody) trying to rally troops to fight in each state being invaded, as buildings and bridges are blown up, and then having citizens claim the buildings aren't being blown up, even though there is smoke in the air and rubble everywhere they go, because they believe the CiC saying nothing is happening, instead of their own eyes.

We simply must do better than this.

[OutsiderFan]

When you can't win arguments with facts because people refuse to follow logical behavior based on them, it helps to use analogies and metaphors based on history.

The two most apt analogies we have to define the pandemic challenge and what is needed to defeat it, is to compare it to what must be done to win wars or team sports competition. You can use war to illustrate the complexity or you can use team sports to illustrate the simplicity of the comparison. In either case, everyone knows neither can be won without five things:

1. Strong leadership from the top
2. Resources to buy assets needed to compete
3. Talented and well trained competitors
4. Coordination of said resources and trained competitors 
5. Trained competitors trusting leadership and each other to execute

Right now, we only have some #3, but not enough to win, like maybe a good OL, a QB who doesn't watch game video, and terrible skill players. We don't have any leadership at all from the top. We are refusing to acquire the assets we need to compete. We have no effective coordination. We don't have enough people trusting those trying to coordinate, or other competitors, to effectively execute a winning strategy. It's a complete recipe for failure and not even the slightest bit surprising that we are failing so spectacularly.

Imagine Stanford's football team trying to beat Washington yesterday if on heels of SCC sports shutdown:

1. Stanford's President put out a statement saying he wasn't sure if Stanford teams should play elsewhere, and never spoke to David Shaw.
2. David Shaw told the defensive players they would have to pay for their own hotel rooms and meals during the Northwest trip.
3. Lance Anderson stayed home because Stanford's President likes him and Anderson wanted to make sure he was OK playing Washington. 
4. The defensive players didn't like Anderson staying home, and there was no clear game plan as a result. 

Stanford would have lost the game 56-24 because the offense was prepared and executed, but the defense was a disaster. This is a metaphor for how the United States is dealing with the pandemic. Covid 56 USA 24.

As someone who has studied leadership and strategy in sports, war, and business, it is just appalling and embarrassing to me how grossly incompetent and terribly led this country is. If only the punishment for failing on this level was the fate of football coaches who can't win games, generals who lose wars, and CEOs who oversee losses in company value. The fact this shit show is even allowed to happen is a demonstration of how we need to setup different incentives for ourselves as a country or we may be on a path to being a failed state.

As for the pandemic specifically. The people in charge are those in charge. Do what they say and if you don't like it, vote out the people who are making decisions you don't like. You'll never get a clear idea of the ability of the person in charge unless they are allowed to set goals and are given what they say they need to succeed. You may get a boss you don't like, but that doesn't mean you stop working, or you get fired. Find another job if you must, but you don't take down the company. Similarly, if you don't like the policies where you are, move somewhere else with different ones.

This brings me to the incentive issue. We right now have a political system that has too many incentives for politicians that aren't aligned with those of the American people and certainly not country as whole. We have media companies with economic incentives to sew division. We have a Congress that has incentives to undermine the POTUS. And we have a POTUS who lost an election, with economic incentives to undermine the country's democracy on his way out the door, and part of that is ignoring the invasion of enemy forces invading the country in the form of billions of little viruses.

It's literally like watching a massive enemy force invade the entire country, the Commander in Chief not even pretending to care, and generals (like Dr. Cody) trying to rally troops to fight in each state being invaded, as buildings and bridges are blown up, and then having citizens claim the buildings aren't being blown up, even though there is smoke in the air and rubble everywhere they go, because they believe the CiC saying nothing is happening, instead of their own eyes.

We simply must do better than this.