On: Coronavirus, Crisis, and Creative Opportunity
Transmission Series Ep. 3
Episode: 29
Date: April 21, 2020
Evolutionary biologist.
Review of 5 Transmission Essays.
- Bill Miller on Investment Strategies in Times of Crisis
- Santiago Elena on a Complex Systems Perspective of Viruses
- Manfred Laublichler on How Every Crisis is an Opportunity
- Mirta Galesica & Henrik Olsson on Opportunities for Science Communicators
- Doug Erwin on Not Letting A Good Crisis Go To Waste
Key Takeaways:
- Critical point.
- The border of chaos and stability.
- The right mix of rigidness and adaptability.
- Internal and external constraints.
- Regulatory or energetic constraints limit possible outcomes.
- External environmental constraints select fittest from possible outcomes.
- Change in external constraints: explore previously unfit outcomes.
- Change in external constraints: may change regulatory constraints.
Key Concepts
Santiago Elena on a Complex Systems Perspective of Viruses
- Viruses need to mutate to evolve in order to:
- Continue to infect new cells.
- Evade host immune system.
- Mutation creates a population of new virus variants.
- Some are viable, some are not.
- Viruses are a “cloud” of variants (quasi-species), rather than a single category (species).
- More mutations = more (replication) errors.
- More errors -> higher chance of non-viable viruses.
- Higher proportion of non-viable viruses -> slower transmission.
- Errors lead to opportunity.
- Above a certain error threshold (critical point), replication may end.
- Implication for corona virus:
- Introduce defective interfering particles (DIP) as a cure.
- Use non-viable viruses as a “decoy”.
- Critical point.
- Mutation rate exceeds critical point = bad.
- Too chaotic.
- System becomes unstable, breaks down.
- In case of a virus, this is actually a good thing…
- Mutation rate below critical point = good.
- Not too chaotic, not too rigid.
- System is adaptive, able to evolve and learn.
- [See “At Home in the Universe” on why systems on the border of chaos and stability have the right mix of rigidness and adaptability.]
- Mutation rate exceeds critical point = bad.
Doug Erwin on Not Letting A Good Crisis Go To Waste
- Cataclysmic events …
- Drastic changes in the environment.
- … can have a variety of outcomes …
- Destruction.
- Survival.
- Innovation.
- … by changing the existing competitive landscape and constraints.
- Schumpeter’s creative destruction.
Manfred Laublichler on How Every Crisis is an Opportunity
- Two sources of system constraints.
- External: fitness landscape.
- Natural selection.
- Peak = well-adapted species.
- Trough = mal-adapted species.
- As landscape shifts, different species prosper at different times.
- Natural selection.
- Internal: epigenetic landscape.
- Regulatory or structural contraints that limit the number of possible outcomes.
- See also “The Vital Question“, which suggests that energetic constraints limit the number of possible outcomes.
- Constraints operate at different time scales.
- Internal constraints operate on a shorter time scale.
- [See also “Life’s Information Hierarchy” and “The Information Theory of Individuality” on slow variables.]
- Cataclysmic event = drastic change in external constraints.
- Appears to allow for a change in internal constraints.
- It seems that more possible outcomes are explored (innovation).
- We don’t know why.
- Unclear why a change in the fitness landscape leads to a change in the epigenetic landscape.
- Possible explanations.
- Change in fitness landscape increases fitness of already existing, but previously unfit variants.
- Change in fitness landscape drives change in regulatory system, changing the internal constraints.
- Appears to allow for a change in internal constraints.
- External: fitness landscape.
Mirta Galesica & Henrik Olsson on Opportunities for Science Communicators
- People are influenced by formal and informal sources of information.
- Formal: reputable centralized sources of discovery.
- Informal: neighbors, friends, family and community.
- Likely prefer informal over formal sources.
- In every day life, the cost of disagreeing with a newspaper is lower than cost of disagreeing with a neighbor: prefer informal over formal.
- In a crisis, the cost of disagreeing with a newspaper may increase: prefer formal over informal.
Bill Miller on Investment Strategies in Times of Crisis
- Stock markets.
- In times of crisis: high uncertainty -> high volatility.
- Rapid downturns (first assume the worst).
- Rapid recoveries (as new information becomes available).
- In times of crisis: high uncertainty -> high volatility.
- High beta stocks.
- Stock volatility > market volatility.
- May do badly during crisis.
- May do extremely well following crisis.
- Stock volatility > market volatility.
- Buy at the point of maximum pessimism.
- Extend time horizon beyond short-term crisis.
- [This type of investment approach may suffer from survivorship bias. How do you determine the best time to catch a falling knife…]
- [See “Ergodicity Economics” on a different investment approach involving the reduction of volatility, rather than seeking it out.]