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Coronavirus and Credibility

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#521

Post by gamblor956 »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #491
dragonwriter wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The China travel ban was ordered on Jan 28th and active on Feb 3rd. The WHO didn't confirm human transmission until Jan 25th... Some of many examples of the media in Jan and Feb: https://twitter.com/LizRNC/status/1245478539018805251?s=20 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/31/how-our-br... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/europe/coronavirus-... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/the-flu-has-already-ki…

If you would have actually read those articles, you would see that the WaPo opinion piece does not actually downplay the coronavirus threat at all; it discusses the psychology of social panic. The NYT piece discusses how fear of coronavirus spread faster than the virus itself without any comment on the seriousness of the disease.

The CNBC article does compare the flu to the coronavirus and does note the flu has already killed more across the US on an absolute basis, but also notes that the coronavirus is significantly deadlier than the flu on a relative basis. Lenny Bernstein, the opinionist behind the second WaPo opinion piece you linked, apologized for his cavalier dismissal of the coronavirus in a followup opinion piece.

To date, only one person in the entire Fox News organization has apologized for getting it wrong on coronavirus. Every single other talking head has doubled down on downplaying coranavirus, and Fox and Friends is still implying that it's all just a second impeachment effort.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#522

Post by robomartin »

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…

> In the background global warming is a much greater threat to human life and has the exact same dynamic with the exact same players

Oh, please, enough already!

Global warming is nowhere near to what a virus can do. This thing could have killed half the population of this planet in weeks had nobody done a thing about it.

The comparison is nonsensical on many fronts. Perhaps the most significant of them is the reality of climate change: We cannot do a thing about it. Period. We cannot change it. We cannot reverse it. We cannot magically fix it in fifty years.

This is already well understand by the scientific community. Researchers don't get out there and expose it because they would instantly destroy their careers, lose grants and generally ruin their lives. It's a truly dishonest and damaging feedback loop driven by ideology, money and politics.

All you need to do in order to understand this reality is analyze ice core atmospheric sample data. That's it. It's that simple. Calculate the rate of change with CO2 increasing and decreasing. Write down those numbers.

Then realize this is what would happen if humanity left earth next Monday. It would take somewhere around 50,000 years for CO2 to decrease by 100 ppm.

We cannot accelerate this rate of change by 1000x without likely killing all life on earth. We can't. It would require such vast amounts of energy and resources that it might even be beyond what's available on this planet.

In other words, everyone is lying: Climate change deniers are nuts and those who claim we can fix it within even a few generations and just as crazy. The entire thing has become politicized beyond all comprehension. Science has left the building.

So, no. Let's focus on pandemics, they are far more likely to wipe us out than the entire "save the planet" fantasy.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#523

Post by endorphone »

fourmyle wrote: post #512
dragonwriter wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Looks someone else already found a few great examples.

You claimed that there were countless videos of "MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu." Which of course isn't accurate.

You seek your redemption in some guy[1] listing a tiny selection of articles, having nothing to do with the partial travel restriction, arguing about the social effects. He links either contrarian articles, or articles talking about the psychology/sociology.

That you think this proves the case is astonishing. I am going to say again that you are either so profoundly partisan that the truth doesn't matter, or you are logically broken.

It's the classic deflection, and it's absolutely amazing. Fox was literally at war with what they saw as the "mainstream media hoax" (in lockstep with Trump, of course, because they are his state media), claiming that they were fear-mongering about the virus. Oh but now, the mainstream media actually wasn't at all. They were understating it. The cognitive deficiency to seriously argue this...

[1] That guy whose post history is littered with claims that the response to SARS-CoV-2 is "fear-mongering", and who a month ago seriously said that the US response was and is the best, of anyone. Their single example being that Trump limited air travel from a single region...for non-Americans...long after the horse was out of the barn.

Then again, your history has continual COVID denial, such as your claim that no hospitals are over capacity. You guys are really trying to argue everything simultaneously and it must be exhausting.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#524

Post by pdonis »

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…

> the IPCC report from 1990

Which overpredicted the warming that has occurred from 1990 to now (though its predictions overall were certainly much milder than the catastrophic ones that are being trumpeted as reasons to spend trillions of dollars on CO2 mitigation).

Not to mention that there have been four more assessment reports since then (and the sixth is in the works now), and the more alarmist ones (in particular the third and fourth) are the ones that climate change alarmists are basing their predictions of catastrophe on. (Even though the fifth report actually backed off in some respects, particularly in admitting--though as obliquely as possible--that the climate model predictions were not matching the data.)

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#525

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

lliamander wrote: post #477
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's not at odds with what I wrote.

What mattered was the original description of him as "an economist at ..." which effectively neuters his very public positions on things like coordinated action w.r.t. climate change. He's absolutely entitled to his beliefs, but shouldn't be cited as if "oh wow, an ECONOMIST at SANTA CLARA says this, so ..."

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#526

Post by thoughtstheseus »

maps7 wrote: post #507
btilly wrote: post #378

There is nothing about what has happened that should surprise anyone who has read the book Superforecasting . It explains that we naturally trust people who sound smart, well-informed, and CONFIDENT. We don't want to hear uncertainty, probabilities, or the other signs of someone who thinks in a careful quantitative way. We want to accept a cognitively simple answer, then move on. This is what we find comfortable. How…

Based on your comment I went to buy Superforecasting on Audible. When I browsed to it I saw I already bought it on 29-04-19. Time to listen to it.

Great book. Also check out The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#527

Post by endorphone »

fourmyle wrote: post #509
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The China travel ban was ordered on Jan 28th and active on Feb 3rd. The WHO didn't confirm human transmission until Jan 25th... Some of many examples of the media in Jan and Feb: https://twitter.com/LizRNC/status/1245478539018805251?s=20 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/31/how-our-br... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/europe/coronavirus-... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/the-flu-has-already-ki…

It's worth pointing out that Trump gave this order the day after or during the impeachment trial when it was risky for him to do so. edit: None of this matters though because orange man bad.

Wait, wasn't your "but orange man bad" classic twitter response good enough? Why'd you edit it?

"When it was risky for him to do so."

Trump just got a get out of jail free card and absolute impunity and immunity to do anything he wanted. Since he's fired a number of people in the most brazen display of corruption in US history. Risky? There was zero risk.

Yes, orange man is bad. He's historically bad. He is a thin-skinned grifter who is positively the worst possible person to be in this position.

Oh but look he did an easy, lazy partial, regional restriction that accomplished positively nothing. What a savior.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#528

Post by Reedx »

enraged_camel wrote: post #501
Reedx wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the Red Sox are not like the Yankees? They're just different teams playing the same game. Fans always defend their team and vilify the other. Always. With every dispute they're able to convince themselves it's the other side that are the cheaters. They can't both be right, but yet each side feels equally certain of their position.

On the contrary, not only is this type of "both sideism" incredibly harmful to healthy political discourse (because it discourages engagement and breeds cynicism), both sides are not in fact equal, or even similar. There are always bad apples, but you just need to look at how they are treated (e.g. whether they are rewarded or punished).

Dismissing it as "both sideism" just allows mediocrity to thrive. On both sides, as it happens. It's an endless loop of "they're the problem, not us". Deflecting any responsibility and avoiding self-reflection. Nothing changes or improves as a result.

Why not demand better on all fronts? None of the aforementioned media are doing grade A work.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#529

Post by danans »

dekhn wrote: post #427
akiselev wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When's the last time the annual flu caused upwards of 50-80% ICU occupancy rates in several countries simultaneously? That's the difference between biology and medicine.

But given the severity and high death rate of flu, shouldn't it also have that high level of hospitalization, or perhaps covid shouldn't have such a high rate? It's unclear at this team what purpose super-intensive hospitalization for covid serves. That's something we're only going to understand in time. (note, I did my training at a hospital medical center and my biology work was health-oriented).

> But given the severity and high death rate of flu, shouldn't it also have that high level of hospitalization,

Your question is circular. It assumes that the severity and death rate of flu is the same as with COVID19. There's no reason to believe that's true at this point.

> or perhaps covid shouldn't have such a high rate?

The hospitalization rate is what it is. People aren't going to the hospital with COVID19 for the fun of it. They're terribly sick.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#530

Post by [deleted] »

gamblor956 wrote: post #521
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The China travel ban was ordered on Jan 28th and active on Feb 3rd. The WHO didn't confirm human transmission until Jan 25th... Some of many examples of the media in Jan and Feb: https://twitter.com/LizRNC/status/1245478539018805251?s=20 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/31/how-our-br... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/world/europe/coronavirus-... https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/03/the-flu-has-already-ki…

If you would have actually read those articles, you would see that the WaPo opinion piece does not actually downplay the coronavirus threat at all; it discusses the psychology of social panic. The NYT piece discusses how fear of coronavirus spread faster than the virus itself without any comment on the seriousness of the disease. The CNBC article does compare the flu to the coronavirus and does note the flu has alrea…

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