Why I should have predicted COVID-19

This is something of a two-parter, to be followed up with "How I missed COVID-19". Trust me, the second is the heftier entry that's weighing more on my mind.

I'm a casual observer of the effective altruist movement, a group of mostly younger people trying to figure out how to do the most good in the world. One of their strongest focus areas is the very long-term future and existential risks (there's a lot of philosophy defending this choice, but that's another post). So I've listened to multiple podcasts breaking down the risks of pandemics and their effects for years. I've read lots of lists breaking this down as one of the big risks to consider, and even at one point wondered if I could direct my own career closer to this direction. I can't say this comes out of the blue.

And a lot of people I deeply respect were worried about this virus far ahead of the curve. I think I only really clued in with Sam Harris's first podcast on COVID-19, which I listened to last Tuesday. He's been about a week ahead of everyone else here, which isn't even as early as he should be, perhaps, but it would have made things so much better if the politicians could have been there as well. Hearing it on Tuesday still put be a couple of days (read, an eternity) ahead of many people I had to talk to that day, which even still led to some awkward conversations.

And finally, I had been ready for the next big economic downturn for a long time now. Partly that's a misplaced intuition born from living through the financial crisis, but I also think it was well-informed by various economists that I've been plugged into. For years I even predicted it would come in the months ahead of the U.S. election, although I new it would need some form of trigger and I was just waiting to see what that would be. Even so, I didn't sell my one and only stock when I could have.

All in all, I feel like I should have been taking this more seriously ahead of time. I don't know that I could have done much (other than sell one stock), but my pride hurts a bit regardless.