Getting Back to Work • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting Back to Work

#271

Post by hyko » Sun, May 10, 2020, 6:56 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #210

hyko wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My apologies for the paywall link and for the fact that the study doesn’t really support all the points I was trying to make. I take your point about not assuming the breakdown of the deceased group is representative of the general population. Original paper is here: https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-75 The article does go on to make the claim that 20% of the deceased would be individuals in their 50s and 6…

Thank you for the link, I shall read it in a bit. EDIT: Looks like they address the point on breakdown by sex but I can't tell whether they address breakdown by type of comorbidity. They don't discuss how large a factor is the unaccounted for subpopulation traits potentially causing both decrease in life expectancy and increase in covid19 morbidity (or one, but not the other, which would bias results the other way),…

I guess one thing to point out is that the cost of social care (circa £20 billion) in the UK is not borne by the NHS, but by a mixture of local councils (70%) and private individuals (30%). Nursing home deaths will not really significantly affect the NHS budget (circa £150 billion, 10% of which is spent on people aged over 85).

The wants and needs of nursing home residents create a demand, and we fulfil that demand using some of our productivity. In fact without that demand there would be no need for that sector, and our productivity would fall to match. Perhaps the savings in tax and private wealth would be directed to other sectors, but maybe not.

The case for mere retirees is even more clear cut. They are spending accumulated wealth (or accumulated entitlements) and they account for a massive amount of aggregate demand because of a mixture of hard work and luck. They are not a loss to the economy just because they don’t need to work anymore; retirees are a massive component of the modern economy.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#272

Post by dang » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:07 PM UTC

pgsbathhouse3 wrote: post #257

dang wrote: post #44

Three threads on this already: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23126517 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23127552 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23129216 Not sure this one is going any better. Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN. If you're about to comment here, could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html first and ma…

>Celebrity frenzy multiplied by pandemic rage is producing as wild a burn as we've seen on HN. I think the problem is the audience that's been cultivated on here. Not the topics. You have a topic that's has real world effects. Reality demands us to act contrary to a particular narrative, and this forum can't handle it. Apathetic, intellectual sophistry only works when you don't have any actual problems to worry about…

I'm not sure I follow all of this? Also, it's a bit strange to have this discussion in the context of the Nth outrage of the Musk Sequence, where the dominant factor is obviously internet drama. But I'll give replying a try.

This is one of those cases where it's super helpful to have one thing you're optimizing for, i.e. to know what kind of site this is and what it is not. In HN's case that's clear: we're trying to optimize for intellectual curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...). It's not the only kind of website, nor the best kind, certainly not the most important kind, maybe not even a good kind—that depends on what you like. But it's this kind. You can call it "apathetic sophistry" if you want, but that just means you don't like it. No problem—there are other places to like.

Since HN is a specific kind of website and that's what the community comes here for, we need to preserve it for its focus. There are always strong winds and flames blowing about, and it takes work and care to withstand those and keep this place itself. What good would it do to let it burn?

p.s. Would you please stop making accounts with trollish usernames? We ban those, because such accounts end up trolling every thread that they post to (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...). Doubly so when there's a prior history of abusing the site and getting banned here.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#273

Post by mdorazio » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

pm90 wrote: post #255

mdorazio wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: can you show me the metrics for california with concrete targets that will trigger reopening? The last plan I saw wasn't a plan at all, it was just guidelines.

For California, see SF Chronicles' COVID Tracker page: https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2020/coronavirus-map/ . It even has a checklist with the targets that must be met before a county can lift quarantine.

Thanks, it's really confusing because there are multiple conflicting sources with different guidelines and the governor's statements have indicated Phase 2 is still case-by-case and phases 3 and 4 are "sometime soonish". In addition to the metrics that SF Chronicle page is tracking for Bay Area counties, there's also [1], [2], and [3] in addition to the original governor's slides a few weeks ago. I can't find any concrete goals from official sources for completely reopening the state (phase 4).

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Here-s-a-checkl...

[2] https://apnews.com/2c69fe294f73a1120c2dad4a738966e3

[3] https://www.gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/5.4-Report...

Re: Getting Back to Work

#274

Post by mike50 » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:12 PM UTC

badRNG wrote: post #165

otachack wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Tesla push the boundaries on EV, though, whereas traditional car companies were just fine with continuing production of gas based vehicles? I guess there were hybrids but it felt like Toyota was the only big player there.

Chevy was also a big EV/hybrid player in the mid to late '00s. I think the sort of individual that buys an expensive vehicle to, at least in part, broadcast that they are an environmentally-conscious person would be turned off by a company strong-arming a county into relaxing regulations, especially when such deregulation is perceived to put that company's workers at risk. While the facts of what public policy is bes…

General Motors is the company. Chevrolet is a band.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#275

Post by babesh » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #263

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be as critical when it comes to making only demands that will be accepted. That's not really manipulative IMO, and Swiss authorities were also very open about doing this. Announcing a short lockdown then extending it (when it was clear from the beginning) is more problematic - basically, giving people false hope because they know that telling people to lock down for 3+ months would lead to a large number o…

> The biggest problem are the outright lies (e.g. about masks not helping). The issue of masks is/was more complicated than just an intentional lie. Medicine has a rather well-known history of really bad ideas that, at their time, were perfectly reasonable ideas within the knowledge and commonly accepted paradigms of their time. Bloodletting, arsenic, later high-dose Vitamin C (and after that, D), Resveratrol etc. It…

Nothing changed in the science between when they were saying that masks were not useful and when they said it was mandatory.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#276

Post by babesh » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:22 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #258

babesh wrote: post #218

This is the very best article I have read on the lockdown: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/04/seattles-leade... The positive is that Washington state acted early and the Bay Area followed quickly which resulted in lower hospitalization and deaths. Tech’s quick move to WFH probably helped slow the spread. This was driven by the Washington state health officials who worked with Microsoft. Bay Area tech compa…

The problem of getting a lay audience to understand policy based off of specialized knowledge is non-trivial (as any engineer knows very well). "What can we say today so that people will be ready to hear what we need to say tomorrow?" sounds less like manipulation and more like acknowledging that getting buy-in isn't merely a process of dumping factual knowledge, something that seems pretty well borne out by the publ…

You have to try first and oftentimes if you can’t explain it clearly then your understanding of the subject isn’t keen enough.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#277

Post by samsonradu » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

vekker wrote: post #126

markvdb wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamental flaws in US health care and worker protection exposed. That's what this is. Compare to the system in my native Belgium: - a month of 100% paid sick leave, paid by the employer - followed by five months 60% of wage in sick leave, paid by social security - protected from redundancy within this 6 month period - if made redundant afterwards while still ill after 6 months, obligation for the employer to pay (s…

I'm happy to live in a country with such a strong social safety net as well, compared to the US (even though I don't profit from it at all being young, self-employed and unmarried...), but on the other hand I'm really concerned about our future. Someone has to pay for this and it's not like the government is encouraging people to roll up their sleeves and to learn some personal responsibility, with all the benefits t…

This is spot on. For all the praise of Belgian welfare I believe there is a 'dark' side to it. It is not doing well in motivating people to perform and there is a lot of systemic slack and abuse, like people claiming they're sick for a ridiculous amount of time every year.

*Note that firing an employee for not performing is quite difficult and the tax bracket at the top is outrageously high.

Re: Getting Back to Work

#278

Post by jmichelz » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #103

louis_pasteur wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If having the disease spread more widely among populations and more COVID deaths translates as "benefit" to you then yes. Tesla is concerned about only profits but what's profitable for the company may not be for people.

I'd love to know what these plans to wipe out covid 19 are that everyone but me seems to have been informed about. I must clearly have missed some big news.

Here's a plan to wipe out covid 19 with a version that's proven to be safe. https://www.tillett.info/2020/04/05/a-solution-to-covid-19/

Re: Getting Back to Work

#279

Post by okaram » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #259

okaram wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That depends on how much we slow it down; after a vaccine (in a year), we DO drastically change the number infected. Other countries (South Korea, NZ, Taiwan) have changed the number infected, and will probably end up with much fewer infected. For now, we want to drastically change the outcomes; for example, a month ago, you would have been given chloroquine, which doesn’t help but has side effects; maybe in a month…

They've drastically changed the number of infected for now, during a continuing lockdown. Once planes start flying again, and people start travelling again, infections will continue. I agree we want to change outcomes, and flattening the curve is part of that. Delaying infections until better treatments is part of that. But we can't commit to waiting for a vaccine, and we can't commit to waiting for a good treatment.…

Why can’t we wait? I’m not arguing we should, but I’m not sure we can’t.

What I think is that we sorta can and sorta should; we need to figure out the trade-offs, as best as we can, and decide what measures we want to keep for another year (will vary by country/state/city).

Re: Getting Back to Work

#280

Post by tsimionescu » Sun, May 10, 2020, 7:59 PM UTC

concordDance wrote: post #178

tsimionescu wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden's strategy is also unique in the world and failing badly at protecting some of their most vulnerable citizens. It's also based on unproven ideas, like immunity from Covid19 after you get it once.

If immunity after getting it isn't viable, then surely a vaccine isn't either? Stamping out COVID19 worldwide simply isn't practical, so isn't the omly option to just live with it? We manage to live with far worse things, like ageing.

Aging is not killing hundreds of people in short succession in the same hospital. The only option to avoid much more significant disturbances in our daily life then we see now is to isolate for as long as possible, and then work tirelessly to perform contact tracing of the newly infected and catch outbreaks while they are small.

And I believe that a vaccine can succeed where natural immunity doesn't. For example, there are viruses where you only gain partial immunity from contacting the disease, but can end up with a worse form of the disease if exposed again, like with chicken pox (varicella) leaving the door open to shingles (zoster).