Coronavirus and Credibility • Hacker News Board

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#391

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

endorphone wrote: post #210

INGELRII wrote: post #82

> They didn't realize there was any danger in making false predictions. Is there any danger for them? PG seems to have very idealistic view of politics. As far as I know, any amount of fact checking in politics don't change political views. Will Fox News lose any viewers over this? Politicians may lose jobs because bad economy, but will they lose votes because they were wrong and ignorant? H. L. Mencken wrote: > No o…

"Is there any danger for them?" Fox news dumped Laura Ingraham and Trish Regan. Both were at the forefront of claiming it was all a hoax. Dr. Drew has gone on a reputation rehabilitation tour apologizing for his prior claims. But those dismissals are a canary in a coal mine. They demonstrate that even Fox News has limits. It is outrageous that anyone -- outside of scam prosperity preachers -- advertise on Fox News.

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#392

Post by pdonis » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

MattRix wrote: post #383

pdonis wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening None of these "experts" have a track record of correct predictions that justifies taking their current predictions seriously. Remember we are not talking about the fact that the climate changes: yes, it does, it always has, and it always will (unless at some point in the distant future we learn how to control it accurately). We are talking about the dir…

>A prediction that "this will happen, some time in the future" is not very useful Yes it is, if taken seriously.

What does "taken seriously" mean? We don't even know that from a prediction that vague.

If the prediction is "we can expect a serious epidemic once every 10 years", then we have something definite that we can plan for, or at least discuss the costs of planning for. There's no way to discuss the costs of planning for "this will happen, some time in the future" without more detail.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#393

Post by s_y_n_t_a_x » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

jshevek wrote: post #243

maest wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not "western", but "American". Both your sources are US based (and cite the CDC). The WHO has been warning about the coronavirus for ages.

The WHO emphasized the lack of evidence for human-human transmission on Jan 14.

And didn't confirm transmission until Jan 25th.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#394

Post by ksec » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

nxp wrote: post #276

Yes Minister , on how to respond to a crisis: Sir Richard Wharton: “In stage one, we say nothing is going to happen.” Sir Humphrey Appleby: “Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.” Sir Richard Wharton: “In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we can do.” Sir Humphrey Appleby: “Stage four, we say maybe there was something we…

Video Link Below.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/cor...

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#395

Post by watwut » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

chvid wrote: post #346

"No worse than the flu." How could they feel safe saying such things? Because in most health scares historically this has been correct. That the danger had been wildly overestimated. And even now, it is not clear that "we" have a correct estimation of the danger. Recently I read an estimate that 50% of the infected have no symptons. I even read another estimate that 90% have no symptons. Should the latter be correct…

I think that I would want to see source for "most health scares are exaggerated". Because I don't recall that many health scares touted by scientists as much as this one and I am not young.

The 50% of cases being asymptomatic is what makes it spread so easily and overwhelm our healthcare system. It is good news with regards to mortality, but the asymptomatic cases were predicted to be there by scientists already when it was in China only. If you read the reports, the models suggested the asymptomatic cases must be there long time ago.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#396

Post by 2bitencryption » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

One thing I've had trouble reconciling is the fact that the CDC estimates 24k-63k deaths from the flu this flu season[0]

We just passed 10k from covid-19. Only last week a "low" estimation of covid deaths this year was 200k. So it seems the expectation is there will be many, many more, and we're just at the start of all this.

On the other hand, it also seems this week like the infamous curve is beginning to flatten, and the epidemic is slowing down. Does this contradict the "low" 200k number? Or does the 200k number factor this in, and indicates that the "long tail" of the disease will be very long and damaging indeed?

Some of the clips show in the video referenced in the article actually seem pretty "sane" to me - the one guy saying "I'm not worried about getting this illness", another saying for most people it will seem just like the flu. Those two statements, as far as we know, are not that outlandish, right? I'm certainly not worried about myself, and for many people it does seem to be mild or asymptomatic?

I don't want to have an "opinion" on this matter, I want to interpret the data and understand the truth, Fauci-style.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e...

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#397

Post by pengaru » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:51 PM UTC

drocer88 wrote: post #275

If you're getting your "news" from CNN/Fox/MSNBC, or "gathering evidence" to promote one the two permitted narratives, that's your problem. This is stuff is low effort "Presidential Level Politics" 24x7. Real news died when reporters stopped having to craft a story so that the Associated Press or United Press International picked it up and made it available to the varied local newspapers of America, both liberal and…

Relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUDP6e5N9gw

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#398

Post by jonnycoder » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:52 PM UTC

rayuela wrote: post #295

smsm42 wrote: post #235

I agree that we have huge amount of talking heads around with zero skin in the game and zero consequences when they are wrong, but I disagree covid-19 pandemics changed anything. There are literally dozens of politicians who have been disastrously wrong and gave advice in public which is diametrically opposite to what should have been, and suffered absolutely no consequences. And everybody's reaction to this is as tr…

Totally agree with this. This is something you can clearly see in Trump's approval rating, which just reached the highest levels of his entire tenure [1]. Things are only getting more polarizing, but the really scary thing is that this admin's approval rating climbs the worse things get and it is worrying to see this incentive structure :(

I don't agree with you that it's scary that the admin's approval rating climbs. If anything it's positive news. People close to me, particularly females, who previously were anti-Trump have been changing their tune and some are considering voting for him in upcoming election for the level of leadership and openness since the covid19 stuff started. That's the opposite of polarization, at least anecdotally.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#399

Post by dewy » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

AndrewBissell wrote: post #316

garraeth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Unfortunately now it's more like picking a sport team ("Team CNN" or "Team Fox"), or Apple vs/ Google vs/ Microsoft than actually finding, or learning about, facts. Tribalism at it's finest. The only alternative I've found (I'm open to helpful suggestions) is to ignore that noise and read actual briefings and original sources. But, that defeats the point of news being an honest and straight forward source of…

I've found a well-curated Twitter feed of smart sources from various ideological and media camps helps to find interesting and informative info which would otherwise take a great deal of time to find. You do get misinfo and bad takes sometimes, but if you set it up right it's no worse than mainstream sources. Lists are useful as well to avoid Twitter's feed curation algos. Just specifically for COVID-19, this led me…

I've resisted Twitter for a long time, but this would be the only reason I could see myself becoming a user.

In the past I've had a hard time finding people to follow with a high enough signal to noise ratio (or who don't flood my feed with a new tweet about their cat every 5 mins). Do you have any tips for picking sources? Or choosing when to fill them? And how do you stay on top of the flood of information?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#400

Post by dekhn » Mon, Apr 06, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

I'm a biologist and I have no trouble saying with a straight face that, as of yet, COVID-19's true health impact has been lower than that of a bad year of flu. I don't care about TV commenters- by the metric of # of deaths (not potential number of deaths, or total cost to the medical system, or impact on economy), COVID-19 has been less than a bad year of flu.

This isn't to say COVID-19 isn't bad, or doesn't have the potential to become worse. Instead it's saying that i'm shocked we don't take a preventable disease like annual flu more seriously, and that we've internalized the cost of all those deaths.

(I know people get really riled up when I say the above. If it makes you angry, please take the time to write a cogent, reasoned response based on data, not anecdotes or emotions. We know that people's anecdotal experience has a strong effect on their personal feelings, and that this is an emotionally charged time.)