Regressing to the Mean

The following post isn't really related to the post immediately predating it, but it was inspired by a tweet from Nate Silver:

I hesitate to describe a complicated term that I don't fully understand, but mean reversion essentially explains that extremes are likely to revert to mediocrity all by themselves. For example: you go to the doctor because you're sick, she gives you medicine and then you get better. We often think of two options: 1. The medicine worked in healing you. 2. It was a placebo effect that made you better. The very obvious option that we often forget is that most people go to the doctor when their symptoms are at their worst, and of course they'll feel better later just due to reversion.

With that in mind, I've had a lot of relatively strong reactions to recent events. Here's me walking back some of those reactions to the mean:

1. I don't know how strongly I've said that the coronavirus will change everything, but I know there was a time when I felt that way. Even then I knew it was hard to trust my gut. The truth is, I think a lot of things will be permanently changed in a few years, but the world will probably be remarkably similar to four years ago. It's not even clear that we'll sink the cruise industry off the back of this.

2. I've reacted strongly to some of the statements out of China recently. The truth is, I get really frustrated watching a doctor answer a question about Taiwan in a way so insulting to the listener's intelligence that it makes politicians feel good. I think I quickly just fall back to my default position on China, though, as that of a dangerous superpower with mixed potential for good and ill and a blemished human right's record. The same opinion most people could have had for the last fifty years.

Anyway, just remember, everything HAS changed, but probably not as much as we might think.