A plea to the instant pundits clogging up my inbox

Judging by my inbox, Covid-19 has miraculously injected undistilled medical and economic expertise into many members of the Biznews community. At least half a dozen times a day, I’m accused of losing the plot. As you might imagine, President Ramaphosa exponentially more so.

This is nothing new. We are a passionate nation. And an opinionated one. But right now South Africans might be better served by swallowing a large dollop of humility. Because with Covid-19, we really still don’t know what we don’t know. Plus, our world has become more complex than any single sapien can possibly imagine. That includes the army of instant pundits.

The global and local economies are massively complicated ecosystems where even the seemingly best ideas deliver unintended consequences. As for the health field – even the best minds on earth admit they’re far away understanding this latest disease. Coronaviruses, which jump from animals to humans, are rare (Covid-19 is only the 7th) and fiendishly complicated.

So a plea to those overnight experts who love lecturing the rest of us after scanning their latest Facebook-derived thesis: Please don’t. Because like the rest of humanity, you’re shooting in the dark. As a number of my recent interviewees explained, science doesn’t move at anything like the speed of the news cycle. Let’s have more open minds and less opinions. For the sake of our collective sanity.

To receive Biznews founder Alec Hogg’s Daily Insider every weekday at 6am in your inbox click here. You can also sign up to the Weekender for a wrap of the best content Biznews has to offer, for a leisurely Saturday read.


Comment from Biznews community member Raoul Coscia:

Only half a dozen times a day?

You’re doing well, Alec.

Best


Comment from Biznews community member Andrew Blaine:

Good day Alec,

They say that “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” but I would suggest that “too much knowledge is even more dangerous”. The availability of information lends, to all of us, the illusion of greater knowledge. However Knowledge should rather be based on the ability to select and interpret the information under which we try to survive.

Unfortunately, you are in the direct line of fire, resulting from your efforts in sharing information. The nature of your work cries out for comment and criticism, some laudatory but most negatively critical.

Please remember that, all the commentary means is that you are successfully “pushing buttons”, although most of them are irritant by nature. The response indicates you are having an effect.

Thicken your skin and crack on, please. We need your efforts.


Comment from Biznews community member David Bawden:

Good day Alec.

You seem a little rattled my friend, too many contrary to the party line opinions or what?

Here’s a FACT for you and minister Cele you remember him of course? The guy who was involved in those nasty Police HQ questionable activities from the Zuma era. I think he was eventually removed.

At the moment there are scientists in a Paris hospital carrying out statistical studies as to the POSITIVE help that Nicotine has in combating the new SARS Virus, they are actually contemplating the use of NICOTINE patches to further their studies in this regard.

Source?  BBC news from 04:20am SA time 2020-04-23

Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge neither Cele nor Ramaphosa have cited any scientific evidence at all to back up their, to put it kindly, most odd compulsion to deny the treasury billions of Rand in excise duty on cigarettes.

I will of course be contacting BAT with this new pro Nicotine study as soon as I find their offices are open.

Cheers.


Comment from Biznews community member Jim Devlin:

Hi Alec – I really enjoy your daily missives, and your sense of balance helps to keep me grounded at these times.

I do agree that there are many people who have become overnight “experts” regarding CV and that does tend to grate a little.

Having said that, I thought you were perhaps a bit self-righteous in  yesterday’s dispatch when you gave an economic appraisal of what Cyril and the boys should do. I felt it was overly focused on getting the economy up and running, and I thought perhaps you were pandering to your constituency. I don’t think there’s anyone on this earth has the answer, and on that basis, my plea would be to come from a place of “first do no harm”

Hopefully I misinterpreted your words.

Onwards and upwards.


Comment from Biznews community member Simon Porteous:

Hi Alec,

As you say everyone is shooting in the dark, so why should we give up all our liberties, once these politicians see how easy it is to curtail our lives do you think they won’t continue this behaviour into the future.

If you can show me facts, that this virus is going to exponentially kill millions of people then I will go along with you.

What we know now that we have had a few months of this is that the models that the panic was based on were totally off.

Another thing I’ve been perplexed by is how are they choosing who to test, they started with all the sick people, then moved into areas where they should be sick. They are still only coming up with 3% infection rate. Why not do proper sampling of the population, you wouldn’t only ask Ferrari owners what their favourite car is?

We know how many people cancer, heart disease, car accidents etc. kill and what are we doing about them, there is not hysterical panic, just because we have gotten used to them.

Maybe this is nature’s way of saying we are breeding too much? Do we think we can control nature? I think we must be very careful of what we wish for!!

Cheer for now, and have a good day.

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