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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#781

Post by dmitryminkovsky »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #772
dmitryminkovsky wrote: post #768

I've got a sort of morbid fascination with the COVID denial scene on Twitter. Every few days I check out this guy Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii, 500k+ followers), and it's been interesting to see how he's adapted. This tweet captures it well: https://twitter.com/classiclib3ral/status/124681200696072601... Not sure if Paul is looking at this kind of thing, but from this essay I'm not sure he really grasps how fractured…

You'd probably like this. Compare. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio on Mar 2nd. https://twitter.com/germanrlopez/status/1247210000155643904/... San Francisco Mayor London Breed on Mar 2nd. https://twitter.com/germanrlopez/status/1247210000155643904/...

Wow I'm based in New York so I've been on the Bill de Blasio beat and totally missed London Breed. She nailed it. Holy moly. Big ups to London Breed!

(Were those supposed to be two different links?)

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#782

Post by spangry »

kingaillas wrote: post #641
jcadam wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The video appears that it was put together by the folks at The Daily Show. You really think they went looking for clips from the "other side?"

Is the a similar video with other news stations and their similarly incorrect reporting?

Here's one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVDPVBZF2Xg

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#783

Post by leereeves »

nl wrote: post #723
leereeves wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, journalists and politicians are misrepresenting what the IPCC says. The IPCC are not alarmists, and they aren't predicting "The world is going to end in 12 years." The actual report is far more balanced. Yes, they are predicting some negative consequences, alongside potential benefits and measures for adapation and mitigation. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar5_wgII_spm...

Why would you link to the fifth edition of the report instead of the (complete) sixth edition or the in progress work now?[1] Of course the IPCC doesn't predict the world is going to end in 12 years. That's a strawman - I'm sure you can find someone who has predicted the world will end in 12 years, but that isn't the disaster people are concerned about. Instead, they collect five key "reasons for concern" by "using t…

I don't think the sixth edition of the assessment report is complete. It's "AR6 Climate Change 2021" so I assume it will be released next year. But if it's available somewhere, let me know.

"The world is going to end in 12 years..." is a recent famous quote by a prominent Democrat. I'm surprised you haven't heard it.

Personally, I bought into the climate alarmism about 30 years ago, and my skepticism is based on seeing so many things I've heard and read (even from scientists) turn out to be exaggerated.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#784

Post by AmericanChopper »

kazinator wrote: post #761
RonanTheGrey wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvotes on your post demonstrate the left-leaning nature of this site. It's discouraging frankly. The thousands of conversations that occur daily on this site, without emotion or incident; but insult "the other side"'s politicians or news outlets as being biased? Downvote hell Yes, CNN and the like are just as bad as Fox news. The sooner you folks recognize that, the sooner we can have decent conversations abou…

> The downvotes on your post demonstrate the left-leaning nature of this site. Not really. If you post something that certain people dislike for whatever reason, but which is unremarkable to others, the votes will never break even; you will not get enough upvotes from the latter group to make up for the former. (Even given the fact that not everyone can downvote.) Whichever group's buttons you push then makes it seem…

Criticizing the impact of political tribalism (as I have done above) is likely to irritate anybody with politically tribal views. When it comes to things like Fox News vs CNN (or MSNBC, or whoever else...), I’d consider them all to be on approximately even footing in regards to journalistic integrity (as in, a rather low footing). It’s easy to see how an opinion like that would trigger anybody who had strong tribal affiliation with any of those organisations (whether they viewed it as tribalism or not, people don’t tend to scrutinize their own views in that way, as far as I can tell).

That said, you can just read the thread and come up with a rather decent guess as to which side of that paradigm I likely upset.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#785

Post by taipan100 »

kgwgk wrote: post #638
lbeltrame wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we don't know the actual amount of people which were infected in Italy, because some of these (a sizable percentage) only reported fevers, and perhaps didn't even think about having SARS-CoV-2 in their bodies. An acquaintance's partner suspects having got it, because after two days (two days, not weeks) of very mild fever (~37.5C) he was hit by anosmia. An ex-coworker also mentioned "a horribly strong fever" with…

You’re missing the point. We know for sure that in Lombardy the hospitalisation rate was higher than 1 in 1000 people infected.

We do not know the Lombardy hospitalisation rate because we do not have an accurate count of how many people have been infected in Lombardy.

To get such a count we would need 100% serological testing which has not been done. We know how many were infected at the time of testing but the whole point of the Oxford model is that we do not know how many have been infected, not shown symptoms, and recovered.

Once again, the core point of the Oxford model was to emphasise the need for serological testing.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#786

Post by nyczomg »

pacomerh wrote: post #599
nyczomg wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL. I don't have time to compile the numerous examples of CNN maliciously, cynically, and shamelessly to their users, so I'll just post my favorite example: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749117502119936?lang... Chris Cuomo looking into the camera, and telling America it is illegal for them to go to wikileaks. But it's ok, the media is exempted from that and they'll make sure to tell you ALL of the importan…

I don't disagree with your CNN comment, but the severity, consistency and magnitude of F-NEWS's lies doesn't compete with anyone tbh. They're on their own category.

Fair. I should have clarified that I wasn’t nominating CNN for first place. But just because they are not the worst doesn’t mean you can let your guard down while watching CNN. In a way it’s more dangerous at least for people like me. I can watch Fox News to see what the other side is saying, but I roll my eyes enough to remind myself to take everything with a big grain of salt. It’s easier to be lulled into being less skeptical while watching CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#787

Post by xscott »

nullc wrote: post #688
xscott wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point still holds to compare Covid vs flu+pneumonia then. This is some weird No True Scotsman argument you're making where it's not the "True Flu" if they had pneumonia as well... (likely getting pneumonia because of the flu) I doubt the dead people would be comforted by such a subtle distinction.

The CDC's figure is "flu or pneumonia" (non-exclusive). The majority of the moralities included in it do not have influenza.

I really don't understand your intent. Are you trying to say more people have died so far from Covid-19 than die from a bad flu or pneumonia season?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#788

Post by dragonwriter »

jshevek wrote: post #685
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…

I'm ideologically opposed to political conservativism, but I sympathize with you. Regarding ideological bias, CNN is worse than Fox, but in left leaning communities Fox is demonized while CNN gets a pass. Hivemind mentalities are frustrating regardless of which group engages in it.

> Regarding ideological bias, CNN is worse than Fox,

No, it's not, though it's pretty bad.

> in left leaning communities Fox is demonized while CNN gets a pass.

No, CNN’s (and most of the institutional media that isn't hard right) center-right pro-corporate bias is nearly as frequently pointed to by left-leaning folks as Fox’s hard-right bias.

You may be confusing the pro-corporate center-right wing of the Democratic Party with the left, though, which would make this statement understandable.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#789

Post by LiquidSky »

Reedx wrote: post #390
enraged_camel wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> CNN/Fox/MSNBC One of those is not like the other two. CNN and MSNBC may not be as high quality as WaPo/NYTimes in terms of depth and quality of journalism, but they also don't maliciously and cynically and shamelessly lie to their viewers.

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.

>They can't both be right

But that also doesn't mean, as you and so many imply with these kind of statements, that both sides are wrong. It can be the case that one side is, in fact, correct, or less at fault than the other.

It's a fallacy that in a dispute both sides are always equally wrong, or that the answer is always exactly in the middle.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#790

Post by nl »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #710
cvlasdkv wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious as to why you think China is to blame for American politicians ignoring precautions and prioritizing their own wealth over the well-being of their citizens?

Because China covered it up and misled the experts.

China notified the WHO on December 31. Anything after that date should be blamed on China.

If you want to argue really hard, then January 23 when the Wuhan quarantine was announced is the last possible date that a country could argue that China was covering up the extent. At that date countries like Australia started screening passengers (and by 31 Jan had announced isolation requirements for travellers from China).

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