Arguments by analogy always break; the point is to decide if the breaking point of the analogy is before or after the useful lesson. This one seems like a stretch, traversing both the distance between infectious disease and warfare on the one hand, and the fiction/true-life distinction on the other. Wretchard is one of the smartest people out there, though, so I'm going to give him leeway to make his argument.
2 comments:
It was a solid point, how it takes so much more force to address a threat when you have almost no idea where to attack. I liked the image of dropping depth-charges every few feet over the entire ocean, hoping to get lucky.
Or as they said in "Aliens," "I think we should dust off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
If the virus is analogous to a collection of enemy submarine, then what is the equivalent of sonar?
I'd suggest it is *testing*. If improved tests has allowed people to get tested regularly at home, conveniently and painlessly, then there would have been a lot more self-quaranting and early treatment, and less spread and fewer.
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