I don't ignore it. In fact, I have frequently cited it.
I was addressing the SPECIFIC comment that Empirical makes over and over again, about "wanting to get back to football".
But, yes, there is a MUCH larger impact that will be felt. For the moment, on this thread, we SEEMED to be talking only about the athletic events, but in the larger context, this is going to be bad.
I've used this comparison before, but here goes. In "hurricane prep" if the "horrible media" chooses to "overhype" the problem, and people go out and buy "too much" bottled water and toilet paper, no businesses really benefit. The "news stations" lose ad revenue while the storm is happening, and the stores lose revenue from water/TP sales after the storm, because people are stocked up. In that situation, you have times of higher-than-normal revenue followed by lower-than-normal revenue.
But what is happening now will not be "replaced". People are not going to take two vacations next year to make up for this one that they missed. Corporate groups are not going to hold two conventions to make up for the one that had to be cancelled.
The economic impact will be substantial. And while you make a good point, I would simply ask, when are we going to learn the lesson that it is better to spend money ahead of the problem, it is cheaper to PREVENT the problem than it is to try to "manage" the problem or "fix" the problem once it has manifested.
That's all.
You may think that Empirical is just benignly stating facts, you are entitled to your opinion. So I only ask, what is his purpose, what is his intent. He doesn't engage in any thoughtful debate over how we value human life, he just bemoans that we are cancelling sporting events. His citation of other "more deadly" diseases may not, on its own, be the cause of thousands of people failing to take greater precautions, but when you add up all of the similar "perspective-urging/smarter-than-the-rest-of-us/the-media-is-overhyping-this" commenters, then you have a cumulative impact.
I don't have any personal animus towards Empirical. But I will continue to critique this whole "hey, this isn't a big deal" approach. Yes, losing all of these sporting events is terrible. And, yes, the overall economic damage will be massive. But what is the ALTERNATIVE? In that regard, and that regard alone, I do not believe the "this is not as bad as breast cancer" argument is the proper approach to take.
This thing is going to have "hurricane-like" damage to the economy, but for the whole country, not just one city. That's what we need to manage, without "blaming the media" for selling ads during the news broadcasts.
