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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#471

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

torpfactory wrote: post #412
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…

Just a friendly reminder that the consensus estimates about climate change have been reasonably accurate. Not perfect but decent enough as decision making tools. See for example the IPCC report from 1990: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPCC_First_Assessment_Report There have certainly been very dramatic (all overly well reported) warnings representing a minority of researchers which have not been accurate. These sho…

Sure. And while opinion polls are lagging, almost everyone in decision-making positions is on board with the minimal predictions in this report. (Even a lot of people normally considered climate change deniers are on board - according to Wikipedia, the report doesn't rule out that climate change is largely driven by natural variability!)

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#472

Post by lliamander »

yardie wrote: post #389
lliamander wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Very nearly 100% of experts in this field agree it's happening, have agreed for quite a while, and think the impact will be dire and potentially irreversible in the timeframe of human lifetimes. The consensus regarding climate change (and human's role in it) has been exagerated[0] [0] https://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2014/02/a-climate-falseh...

You really posted a link to some random blog post, not a peer reviewed journal, not even an expert on the subject? In the year 2020? I'm not even sure where to start because there is just... not enough here to even.. oh forget it.

Here you go pal[0]

[0]https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9

edit: added missing word.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#473

Post by jnbiche »

eanzenberg wrote: post #359
throwaway5752 wrote: post #208

In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players . There is also zero introspection - the people who were wrong about covid-19 are simply denying they said what they said. The truly scary part is they are getting away with it in real time, and changing a large populations' memory of contemporary events. I realize it's hard to remember f…

And they both use the same scare statistics. (covid) 2 million Americans will die. (global warming) If we don't stop emitting CO2 the world will collapse by 2030.

Two million was at the very high end of only a very few models (one?).

That said, Italy is at the top of their curve (hopefully, apparently) with 16,000 deaths. However, their excess deaths this past month (compared to baseline for March) are extremely high, and equal almost as many deaths as the official Covid-19 death toll. According to at least some Italian demographers and epidemiologists, it's likely most of those deaths are due to Covid-19 and were uncounted. But let's say that only half of those deaths were Covid-19, and that the curve turns out to be relatively balanced, as with most epidemics that don't come in waves. If that's the case, Italy will see around 50,000 deaths from Covid-19. Spain will likely see around the same proportion of Covid deaths.

If the US were to experience a similar proportion of deaths, we'd be at around 500,000 deaths. I don't think we'll see nearly so many deaths from Covid-19 now but in early March, it just wasn't clear. It's not 2 million, but my point here is that this was a model that likely turned out high, but it was within the same order of magnitude. And again, I'm using the actual deaths that have occurred in Italy at the top of the curve to make that estimate. It's possible that both the curve will suddenly drop precipitously, and that most of those excess deaths were caused by some other phenomenon, but it's highly unlikely based on behavior of past respiratory pandemics.

Many more models people have discussed have predicted anywhere from 48,000 to (most commonly) around 200,000 deaths in the US from Covid-19. I think we'll probably end up around the 50,000 death figure, and that's with us shutting down our economy. I think it could have easily been much, much more (although probably nowhere near 2 million) if we had carried on business as usual (and could still end up like that if we're not careful).

So complain that the media latched on to the most dire model, that's OK. I agree the media sensationalizes. "If it bleeds, it leads".

But don't complain about the model itself. Those papers are always very clear about the degree of uncertainty.

I don't know of any serious scientist who is predicting global collapse by 2030 from global warming. Do you have someone specific in mind?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#474

Post by [deleted] »

nickthemagicman wrote: post #459
daveguy wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be a biologist, but you are definitely not an epidemiologist. It is at least 10x more lethal and much more contagious. We will bear the brunt of it in the US because we didn't take it seriously for so long. The only reason we aren't at 2,000+ deaths per day in the US is because now we are taking it seriously. That death rate sustained for a typical flu season (4 months) would be 240,000 deaths. This is seriou…

You're missing context. It's 10x more lethal in CERTAIN DEMOGRAPHIC GROUPS. The data so far shows that it's the same lethality or less in people under 60 y.o. with no pre-existing conditions which is a huge proportion of the world and it may even be LESS because 80% of those tested have NO OR MINOR SYMPTOMS so who knows how many have it and haven't been tested! It's not even remotely serious at all in that population…

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#475

Post by DrJones1098 »

jmull wrote: post #447
dekhn wrote: post #400

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…

Simple numbers tell us the deaths so far from covid-19 have been less than an average flu season. But so what? You're not actually suggesting anything so there's nothing to get directly angry about. But since you don't suggest anything, you leave it to people to infer what you really mean, and then there may be good reason to get angry. Are you suggesting that we should have treated covid-19 like the flu -- although…

Since there's no vaccine...what you're suggesting is a perpetual game of Covid whack-a-mole.

We come out of quarantine it blows up again, we go back into quarantine.

That's as infeasable solution as this current lockdown quarantine.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#476

Post by dragonwriter »

fourmyle wrote: post #350
dragonwriter wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but mainstream sources outside Fox News absolutely downplayed the seriousness of the virus That's true, I guess, if you consider OANN to have reached the status of “mainstream” with the boost they've gotten with their attachment to the current US administration. But, otherwise, show me some specific examples.

You can look on Youtube yourself and see countless examples o MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu.

I actually followed the coverage the first time, and where the ban was criticized it was almost entirely for being too late for that response to be useful, not unwarranted by the severity of the disease. Of course, if there really are “countless” examples supporting your characterization, it will be easy for you to cite some.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#477

Post by lliamander »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #463
lliamander wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

David Friedman is an economist at Santa Clara University. The argument relates not to climate science itself, but to the methodology on study measuring the consensus of climate scientists. It's pretty easy to follow.

David Friedman is a well known libertarian and sometime anarchocapitalist whose moral and political philosophy is notably at odds with the concepts invoked by those who call for large action to tackle climate change. The fact that he's smart doesn't change the conflict of outlooks.

He happens to believe (or accepts) the IPCC findings, he just disagrees about the economic implications, which is his prerogative.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#479

Post by raphlinus »

dewy wrote: post #399
AndrewBissell wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

For covid-19 I've curated this list:

https://twitter.com/i/lists/1239639611694911489

All the people on it are serious experts. I've also left out some people who are worth listening to, but have a political bias or express a lot of emotion (it's hard not to be angry).

I spend way too much time getting up to speed, but (a) there's a lot of stuff I find interesting (I studied molecular and cell bio a bit during my Masters), and (b) would rather err on the side of over-learning than being misinformed.

If you want secondary sources rather than primary, try STAT news. They've been excellent.

The quality of discussion in other fora (including HN) has been quite disappointing.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#480

Post by dekhn »

standardUser wrote: post #416
dekhn wrote: post #400

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…

It's an interesting point. The flu is "baked in" to our healthcare systems. Just like cancer and heart disease and a thousand other ailments that we can accommodate almost all of the time. Maybe the end game of this pandemic will be expanding our healthcare systems to accommodate the annual surge of COVID-19 cases? But in the meantime, we're stuck with a pandemic that is not baked in, so while it may be "less bad" in…

Bad flu years aren't baked into healthcare systems; hospitals have to set up tents in parking lots to handle the extra flux of patients, and tens to hundreds of thousands of people still die.
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