SXSW 2020 canceled after Austin declares local emergency

AppleInsider

City officials in Austin, Texas, on Friday issued an order that effectively cancels the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) festival over concerns that the mass gathering could help spread the novel coronavirus.

SXSW, which draws more than 70,000 per year, has been canceled due to COVID-19 concerns.

The event, which features film and music festivals, conferences and interactive media, was scheduled to kick off on March 13 and run through March 22.

"We are devastated to share this news with you," SXSW organizers said. "'The show must go on' is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place."

SXSW's cancellation comes after the City of Austin declared a local public emergency, forcing event planners to abandon this year's festival. The event itself draws more than 70,000 people from around the world and last year generated $355.9 million for the city.

The event's organizers say that they are exploring options to reschedule and are working to "provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible."

Apple pulled out of the event this week alongside companies like Twitter, Facebook and Amazon. The Cupertino tech titan was slated to debut several Apple TV+ originals there, as well as a discussion with "Little America" creators Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon.

abideworldwide

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

sflocal

abideworldwide said:

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

So you sold AAPL?

if not, it costed you nothing until you sell.  You know that right?

tmay

abideworldwide said:

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

The flu is seasonal and widespread, and already accommodated into our economies, and it's mortality rate is an order of magnitude less than the Coronavirus (SARS nCOV-19). Seniors are especially at risk and many would require hospitalization and pulmonary support such as ventilators. The problem is that at some point, beds and equipment aren't available, so a patient's mortality increases. Then there is a problem for the economy when individuals don't have healthcare, nor sick leave, and continue to work anyway because they don't have the savings to survive.

I'm 65, and since I'm self employed, and have only a few occasions during the week when I have to drop off at my customer, or have to go to the market, I'm not too much at risk. I would note that I was one of those people that was following this closely since the beginning in China, and I was berated here at AI for "fear mongering and panic".

Fuck all of those individuals that could have made a difference early in the U.S., but didn't because of "economic pain", or "secrecy", or "reelection", or just plain ignorance, and fuck those that are still dragging their asses on this and not providing the American people with accurate and timely information. The U.S. strategy of containment is just barely holding up, and mitigation, ie what happened to the Hubei Province in China, will cause some serious hardships for Americans.

This is exactly what happened during the Flu Epidemic in 1918, albeit that flu had a much higher mortality. If was covered up due to the war in Europe, and as Spain was neutral and still reporting on the flu, it became commonly known as "The Spanish Flu" even as it likely originated in China, brought into Britain by laborers for the war effort.

hexclock

tmay said:

abideworldwide said:

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

The flu is seasonal and widespread, and already accommodated into our economies, and it's mortality rate is an order of magnitude less than the Coronavirus (SARS nCOV-19). Seniors are especially at risk and many would require hospitalization and pulmonary support such as ventilators. The problem is that at some point, beds and equipment aren't available, so a patient's mortality increases. Then there is a problem for the economy when individuals don't have healthcare, nor sick leave, and continue to work anyway because they don't have the savings to survive.

I'm 65, and since I'm self employed, and have only a few occasions during the week when I have to drop off at my customer, or have to go to the market, I'm not too much at risk. I would note that I was one of those people that was following this closely since the beginning in China, and I was berated here at AI for "fear mongering and panic".

Fuck all of those individuals that could have made a difference early in the U.S., but didn't because of "economic pain", or "secrecy", or "reelection", or just plain ignorance, and fuck those that are still dragging their asses on this and not providing the American people with accurate and timely information. The U.S. strategy of containment is just barely holding up, and mitigation, ie what happened to the Hubei Province in China, will cause some serious hardships for Americans.

This is exactly what happened during the Flu Epidemic in 1918, albeit that flu had a much higher mortality. If was covered up due to the war in Europe, and as Spain was neutral and still reporting on the flu, it became commonly known as "The Spanish Flu" even as it likely originated in China, brought into Britain by laborers for the war effort.

I don’t seem to remember these types of cancellations during the H1N1 bird flu epidemic, which killed over 1000 Americans before the government declared an emergency. It’s mostly media driven, this current “panic”. 

abideworldwide

sflocal said:

abideworldwide said:

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

So you sold AAPL?

if not, it costed you nothing until you sell.  You know that right?

Good point and appreciated. I have not sold, and am planning to wait the * hopefully * year or two years it may take for the value to get back to what it was before the media whipped up panic selling.

k2kw

abideworldwide said:

sflocal said:

abideworldwide said:

This virus has cost me hundreds of thousands between the AAPL stock and lost work during SXSW. If the flu is worse, why doesn't the world panic sell as much from how many more people are affected by it?

So you sold AAPL?

if not, it costed you nothing until you sell.  You know that right?

Good point and appreciated. I have not sold, and am planning to wait the * hopefully * year or two years it may take for the value to get back to what it was before the media whipped up panic selling.

Yes, I think things will start to pickup when they have a vaccine.   

dewme

hexclock said:

 don’t seem to remember these types of cancellations during the H1N1 bird flu epidemic, which killed over 1000 Americans before the government declared an emergency. It’s mostly media driven, this current “panic”. 

It's kind of humorous. When I tried to buy some isopropyl alcohol at Walmart today for a cleaning project it was completely sold out. Shelves completely empty. Turns out that the local TV station had a story about concocting your own hand sanitizer to combat the virus using isopropyl alcohol. 

The current situation is actually the result of an ingrained cognitive bias in humans that induces hysteria and panic, regardless of the topic. Whether it's a potential health related pandemic, an approaching tropical storm, a winter snow storm, recent airline crash, welfare cheats, illegal ballots, or whatever topic, people are extremely vulnerable to overreacting (out of proportion to the actual threat probability) to anything that is repeated at a high enough frequency. Food store shelves are cleaned out, long lines form at gas stations, people quit flying, conspiracy theories get formulated, ... accused witches get burned, human sacrifice occurs, you name it. In fact, bold faced lies and false narratives that are repeated with sufficient frequency can easily be committed to the brains of highly intelligent individuals as "unquestionable facts" with little effort other than repetition of the same unsubstantiated claims and stories. This ingrained human behavior has been around since the dawn of civilization, long before the advent of Facebook, Twitter, CNN, and Fox media outlets. It's a human condition, not a media problem.

For example, one way to induce panic is to not have an effective negative feedback loop that tempers runaway hysteria and panic. In the case of the Corona Virus, the news media has actually surfaced negative feedback, i.e., the low fatality rate and a description of the vulnerable demographic groups. However, many people are either choosing to ignore this counter information (negative feedback) or are disproportionally weighting the worst-case scenario on the threat side to the point where any negative feedback of any sort no longer matters. With no effective feedback the threat processing system is open-loop and the hysteria amplifies unbounded into full blown panic. 

It's impossible to live in any connected society without being constantly bombarded with threatening data and information from many sources, including the spoken word of family members, colleagues, and social contacts to the mass media outlets. All of these feed into your cognitive weaknesses and have the potential to exploit your thought processes. What matters most is how you react and whether you apply critical thinking (including an assessment of the probabilities behind the threats), research, and reflection as negative/counter feedback to help formulate your responses. Recognizing that you are vulnerable to cognitive exploitation and recognizing that what you believe to be true or false may be the result of a manipulation campaign is probably a good first step towards taking back control of your reactions to these outside influences, while always knowing that your own brain is the most likely manipulator of your thoughts and behaviors.