Myth of the Brown Recluse

The mid-Atlantic is pretty good about nature not killing you. I grew up in suburban Philly — the only wildlife really to worry about were deer (and deer ticks). Every few years there would be a bear sighting, or a tree branch falling on someone’s head while out for a run, but if you’re inland, hurricanes aren’t a problem, you don’t really get snow that can’t be dealt with, no earthquakes, volcanos, wildfires, etc.

I really wish I could tell some system who I designate as authorities for given subjects.

And then I could see the news annotated by the authorities I chose. Or by the people they acknowledge have authority over those subjects.

Linus Torvalds is an expert on Linux.

John Carmack is an expert on computer graphics.

Tiger Woods is an expert on Golf.

Al Gore is an expert on Climate Change.

I don't care what Tiger Woods thinks about computer graphics. I don't care what Linus Torvalds thinks about Golf. I don't care what John Carmack thinks about Climate Change.

But if those people that I've identified acknowledge that other people or groups get it "mostly right," and those people have annotated some news article, I desperately want to see their commentary!

And I'd also be curious to learn who I think anti-experts are. When the people I think are authorities endorse an article on that subject, I want to see who condemns that article. And I want to read their commentary for myself. If I think they're loopy, I can flag them as anti-authorities.

And yes, when there's dispute among the people I consider authorities on a given topic, I'll be especially interested to read the debate.

I want to say that I probably trust people who work at the Washington Post to cover world news. I probably trust people at MIT, Cornell, Stanford to cover science. Eventually I'll discover which economic school most agrees with my take.

Yes, this may re-enforce the bubble that I'm in. But like I said, I really do want to read the BEST arguments from people who disagree with my school of experts, too. Flame wars are a giant waste of time. I want to flag a comment, "I disagree, but this is the most persuasive point someone has made." Highlight THOSE comments. Even better are the comments where I can say, "You really turned me around on this one."

I want to flag a comment from either side as, "Hey, can people from both sides please comment on this? This seems like it's interesting."

I want to have Line Item Veto. To comment on specific parts of an article, highlighting them, to say they are for sure true, or they're for sure false, etc.

Let the media have the chance to revise and correct their article. Hell, even fixing spelling and grammar mistakes is valuable.

Note that I desperately want this same kind of annotation for research papers on arXiv, etc.

I think I'd want it to work something like Google SideWiki, or maybe Disqus?

Won't someone please implement this?

The democracy of upvotes and downvotes on Reddit and Hacker News is a signal, but it can be gamed by bots, and NOT ALL OPINIONS ARE EQUAL.

I don't want the system to TELL me who experts are. Maybe it can suggest experts. But it should damn well include Alex Jones (even though I detest him), and Fox News (even though I think they're the most incorrect major news source).

If Jon Stewart or Dan Rather have something to say about an article?! You can bet your ass I want to read it!

Hell, even linking me to a video of when Stephen Colbert talked about this topic last night adds some value.

I read a blog post from a pediatrician once that I thought was excellent. He lamented roughly, "If you don't trust me to be an authority on vaccines for your child, then I don't know what kind of relationship you think we have." I agree with that. It's not that I think my pediatrician is RIGHT. It's that I grant that they have more authority on the subject than I do, and my world view is to trust scientific authority / consensus. Even though that's ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEE OF CORRECTNESS. I get that. But of the ways to try to understand the world, I prefer to view the world through the lens of scientists. And since we have divisions of labor, and I do not have enough time to become an expert myself, I want help in understanding how the experts I place trust in, how they view the world, and news, etc.

Central Minnesota is basicaly dangerous wildlife free if you except disease-carrying ticks (and now maybe the mosquitos?) and don't consider non-predators dangerous. I imagine vast swaths of Iowa and eastern Nebraska are similar. Maybe the Dakotas too although I suspect there are a ton of coyotes there. Minnesota has two venomous snakes, black beers, grey wolves, coyotes, and the northern black widow, but none of these were part of my experience growing up. The snakes are confined to the south-eastern tip of the state. Most of the other predators are found in the north. Only one person I knew had ever even claimed to see a black widow, and it was a child and it was at her parents cabin in who-knows-where. Even when we went camping, Dad warned us about 'kitties' (read: skunks), not dangerous predators.

I live in So California, and people around here always talk about black widows, and are always surprised to learn of the existence of brown widows.

I find this odd because I never see black widows around my house, but there are easily a dozen brown widows coming out at night around the base of the outside of my house. Pointy egg-sacks everywhere...

Just going off what the doctors told me.

A friend later told me that MRSA sometimes mimics the same symptoms, but both occurred during summer, and not around other kids or in a hospital setting.