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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#141

Post by GistNoesis »

bsaul wrote: post #10
djaychela wrote: post #5

From what I'm reading, I think there are still a significant minority of people who think this isn't an issue. I've had to learn to just walk away from comments on a variety of media where comments such as 'psychosomatic', 'less dangerous than the flu that kills 50,000 each year', 'patented by the illuminati', 'caused by 5G masts', and so on. I ended up deleting my twitter account as I dared try to engage with one UK…

i've been saying "not more dangerous than the flu" before it started really going to shxt in europe, because to be honest, the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health, just by looking at the numbers from a distance. The fact that most people seem to not have anything worse than a few days of fever (some having even nothing at all), while at the same time others simply die very quickly to…

>the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health

I'm not so confident yet. What is still worrying me, is that it is not clear about the importance of the initial dose with respect to the severity of the outcome.

The disease having a quite slow progression, may mean that if you let it spread wildly, suddenly there is a large percentage of the population exposed, and this mean that when people gets contaminated they receive a high inoculum which may bring down even healthy individuals.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#142

Post by ShorsHammer »

Juliate wrote: post #33
bsaul wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've been saying "not more dangerous than the flu" before it started really going to shxt in europe, because to be honest, the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health, just by looking at the numbers from a distance. The fact that most people seem to not have anything worse than a few days of fever (some having even nothing at all), while at the same time others simply die very quickly to…

The flu, even with vaccines, does not overwhelm medical personel, facilities and logistics as this does. And the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu.

> the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu

Fully aware of the types that will come out of the woodwork for simply saying this, however: no, it's currently still not on track for even a mild flu year yet alone a bad one.

A bad year for influenza is about 650,000 deaths worldwide, pneumonia deaths are often an aftereffect of the flu and it kills 2.5 million on average each year.

SARS-COV-2 has killed 60,000 in 5 months despite having no vaccine or known medicinal treatment, mainly due to locally overstretched medical resources more than anything else.

It's not even close to being equivalent to a bad flu year yet, and that's ignoring the secondary deaths.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#143

Post by lazyjones »

mehrdadn wrote: post #112
lazyjones wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should look at the video again. Her tone is calming and reassuring and she is saying it's scary because it is NEW. Are you deliberately trying to misinterpret it?

No, I'm trying to point out everything you're ignoring, which fundamentally affects the meaning of the message coming across. Like right now when you just ignored the rest of my comment. I'm not gonna put more effort into this though, since it's clear you're not going to see what you don't intend to see.

I'm only ignoring the fact that you're more obsessed with Fox News' well-known snarkiness and presentation than with the fact that at the time, considering Coronavirus relatively harmless was not a lie or even uncommon opinion among most media, all along the spectrum.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#144

Post by Kaiyou »

smolder wrote: post #132
TechBro8615 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's amusing to be is how anyone can look at the incompetence of governments across the world, and conclude they'd be capable of any kind of organized conspiracy against the general population.

The sorts of incentives for organized conspiracy would naturally be bigger than the incentives for competence in executing ordinary matters of government. However the rareness of uncovering organized conspiracies suggests they are rarely attempted more than it suggests some hypercompetent class of conspirators.

Define "rare". Based on the ones I know were admitted alone, I'd think they are rather common.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#145

Post by matthewaveryusa »

This implies that the general population cares to know who is swimming naked. The post truth era is the very idea that the general public no longer cares about truth. PG is not embracing reality if he frames this around Warren Buffet's quote. Basically PG is like "hey look at all those naked folks there!!" not knowing that he's at a nudist beach.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#146

Post by paulgb »

atomashpolskiy wrote: post #133
paulgb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or do you believe that there are 1.3 million people in hospitals or cemeteries right now? No, but I believe that in contrast to the flu, there are millions of healthy people (rightly) staying home right now. Are you saying that the lockdowns are unwarranted?

I'm not in the position to make such statements, but there is quite a number of medical professionals, who say exactly this: massive lockdowns of general population aren't necessary. As for me, I personally believe that the medicine is worse than the disease in this case. We can be quite certain at this point that there will be lots of casualties from the economical disruption, and whether the unconstrained virus cou…

> but there is quite a number of medical professionals, who say exactly this: massive lockdowns of general population aren't necessary

Who?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#147

Post by nullc »

atomashpolskiy wrote: post #137
nullc wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it literally is a strain of flu. No, it literally is not. The flu is caused by influenza. Covid19 is caused by sars-cov-2, a relative of SARS-CoV which caused SARS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr... ). It is also a (more distant) relative of HCoV-OC43 which is one of the many viruses that cause the cold. The problems that influenza and sars-cov-2 cause for us are pretty different:…

I was saying that this is yet another virus strain that causes flu-like illness, i.e. cold with fever, etc. Leave your pedantry for someone else.

I tend to reserve it for people who use "x is literally y" as the totality of their argument. :P

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#148

Post by BaronSamedi »

Lewton wrote: post #50
s9w wrote: post #29

But both sides are irrationally being confident. The doomsdayers at least as much as the "flu-bros". I think it's fair to challenge the massive interventions being taken and the economic damage.

> But both sides are irrationally being confident. Being "doomsdayer" does not necessarily mean confidence in the situation. It's more about accepting that overreacting is much more desirable than underreacting when facing something exponential where you're constantly 2 weeks behind knowing what the reality is

> accepting that overreacting is much more desirable

I wish that were true but it is not. It is entirely possible to take actions that make a bad situation worse. The consequences of an economic shutdown, for example, are unknown. The worst case of global depression and supply chain disruption is just as bad as the virus itself, if not more so. I do not know how one makes good decisions in a situation of highly uncertain knowledge and severe consequences.

I think we are in "less bad" territory, i.e. how do we balance multiple considerations such that while not leading to any outcome that could be considered "good", is at least not catastrophic. I don't envy those who have to make such decisions.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#149

Post by nullc »

ShorsHammer wrote: post #142
Juliate wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flu, even with vaccines, does not overwhelm medical personel, facilities and logistics as this does. And the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu.

> the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu Fully aware of the types that will come out of the woodwork for simply saying this, however: no, it's currently still not on track for even a mild flu year yet alone a bad one. A bad year for influenza is about 650,000 deaths worldwide, pneumonia deaths are often an aftereffect of the flu and it kills 2.5 million on averag…

> A bad year for influenza is about

Maybe about tenth your figure, once you exclude non-flu pneumonia-- which is about where we are now for covid19. Flu death figures are Flu+Pneumonia because they usually don't check. Efforts to separate flu from flu + pneumonia all result in flu being a small fraction of the total ( https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3827586/ ).

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#150

Post by thereyougo »

If everyone talks only based on facts on TV, the world will be a better place, but they're also won't be that many different news channels.

You see... This shows care about the rating, and keep us informed. In times like this, when people are watching the news 24/7 they must find people who can talk and give their opinion. In many cases, the information appear to be wrong.

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