COVID-19 and the Tyranny of Now

A very quick note.

My August “Behavior & Belief” column for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, “COVID-19 and the Tyranny of Now,” is about how short-term thinking has not served us well in the coronavirus epidemic. After it appeared, I was happy to see that it was picked up by RealClearScience.com. This is the second coronavirus-related piece of mine to be circulated by the science aggregator.

After the “Tyranny of Now” article went up, I was contacted by “Chicago’s Morning Answer,” an AM morning drive show. The station is very conservative (they carry Sean Hannity in the afternoons), but I did my best to find some common ground on concerns about the pandemic. I will let you decide how well I did. The entire segment was posted on the station’s YouTube channel and can be heard below. The title of the video is “on secondhand deaths caused by COVID-19,” but that was more the host’s topic than mine. Nonetheless, I was happy to have the opportunity to go on air in Chicago.

That’s all for now. I hope you are making the best use of what’s left of the summer and that the weather is good where you are.

SV