First, Wuhan is a city in crisis. The healthcare system has crashed. You do not want that in your city, or country. This is not an illusory threat. So, a quarantine. Stop this from spreading. Free movement suddenly has externalities. But how efficient should that quarantine be? pic.twitter.com/jglPw4N5zf

It’s hard to argue that the Wuhan quarantine should be porous. Or that contagious riders should spread to drivers. That’s how the whole system crashes, as in Wuhan. Yet the potential for long-term abuse here is so obvious.

If the coronavirus goes pandemic, and it seems it may, the extreme edge case becomes the new normal. It’s every debate we’ve had on surveillance, deplatforming, centralization — accelerated. Pandemic means emergency powers for the state, even more than terrorism or crime.

Sometimes a solution creates the next problem. My rough forecast of the future: the coronavirus results in quarantines, nationalism, centralization. And this may actually work to stop the spread. But once under control, states will not cede their powers. So, we decentralize.

The coronavirus may also be to decentralized medicine what the financial crisis was to decentralized currency. It is an enormous stimulus for portable diagnostics, wearables, mobile clinics, telemedicine, right-to-try laws, accelerated approvals. For decentralizing medicine.

Ben Gurion once said “fight the war as if there were no White Paper, fight the White Paper as if there were no war” The tension between crypto & quarantine is obvious. Perhaps we fight for crypto as if there is no coronavirus, and fight the coronavirus as if there is no crypto. pic.twitter.com/M2pYj64OUm

One clarification. Looks like mechanism of digital quarantine for Wuhanese right now is the computerized ID system (NYT): nytimes.com/2020/02/03/bus… But they may lean on WeChat soon as it’s already a tool of social control (BBC): bbc.com/news/blogs-chi… twitter.com/balajis/status… twitter.com/balajis/status… pic.twitter.com/9vNXjdn7DC

Another mechanism for digital quarantine: a wearable bracelet with an app, similar to an ankle bracelet in the US for tracking parolees. twitter.com/QuickTake/stat…

😨👉 #Geek It’s every debate we’ve had on surveillance, deplatforming, centralization — accelerated. #coronavirus #WeChat Amazing thread. twitter.com/balajis/status…

i don't get what the big deal is, it's not like they had the flu

Sometimes you've got some real good ones