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Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

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Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#111

Post by umvi »

vharuck wrote: post #93
umvi wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot". I still think "I'll believe it when I see it". Scientists are very good at making apocalyptic predictions based on theoretical worst case scenarios, but reality just never seems to match said predictions. In reality, stuff happens more slowly on much longer timescales. Just look at covid - back in March, the predictions were pretty dire - it was p…

At the end of March, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted between 100,000 and 200,000 US residents would die of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic[0]. Now, only at mid-September, we're closer to his upper limit. Not to mention flu season's coming, and we're seeing outbreaks as schools and universities reopen. So that prediction was probably too conservative. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020…

Dr. Fauci was just one voice in many at the time. It's easy to pick out the most accurate voice in retrospect.

Take a look at this HN thread from 6 months ago. People in the comments were extrapolating CDC/WHO statements and predicting millions of Americans were going to die.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552137

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548715

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548952

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#112

Post by umvi »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #109
umvi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200K+ dead in 6 months is pretty damn dire Disagree. At least 450k die per year of preventable health conditions (lung cancer + obesity) and nobody bats an eye (that's 4.5M deaths per decade). The flu alone kills orders of magnitude more than covid over longer timelines. A once-in-a-lifetime virus kills medically compromised people at elevated rates for 6 months and people lose their minds? It's not rational.

The spanish Flu killed about 600k Americans. We're on target to hit 400k+ by January. So, it's a safe bet we'll beat the Spanish Flu by next spring. These are people who didn't need to die, who wouldn't have died for another reason. Do you really place such a low price tag on people's lives? What if it were your life, would you gladly sacrifice it?

> The spanish Flu killed about 600k Americans.

USA population was also only 100M in 1918. So 600k back then was .6% of the total population. So far covid has killed .06% of the total population, or one order of magnitude less.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#113

Post by leto_ii »

derefr wrote: post #88
leto_ii wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “sliding” the definitions of all existing countries further away from the equator and toward the poles There is absolutely no way I can think of in which this could be done diplomatically. In the recent refugee crisis [1] a few million people moving in almost caused the EU to collapse. It's mindbogglingly naive to imagine that hundreds of millions of people from the most affected areas will just be able to resettle…

> recent refugee crisis This and that are very different things. A refugee crisis involves people from country A becoming forcefully intermingled with people from country B: moving into their cities, sharing their resources, voting in their elections, etc. What I’m talking about here, is effectively a series of land purchases made by every country from its bordering neighbours — like the Louisiana Purchase, or the Ga…

Your idea simply doesn't chime in with anything I know about the nature of modern nation states or how the world works in general.

> a series of land purchases made by every country from its bordering neighbours

Which nation state would allow for this to happen? The US, which is now trying to build a wall along its Southern border? The Europeans who almost cancelled the Schengen agreement over the wave of refugees? Australia that houses refugees on an island prison[1]?

Nobody would sell their land to foreigners. No nation state would give up resources out of humanitarian concern.

> The people affected would be resettling in newly-developed cities within newly-purchased territory of their own country

Who would even pay for this? We're talking about tens of trillions of dollars.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_immigration_detenti...

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#114

Post by nemo44x »

andrew_ wrote: post #85
nemo44x wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It's what really concerns me about slogan's like "language is violence". How many steps removed are we from someone then rationalizing that it's acceptable to respond to "violent language" with actual, physical violence? "Silence is violence" takes it even further and could justify rounding up, "reeducating", and ultimately killing people who didn't say anything in support of a moral cause. Discourses do mat…

It'll be interesting to see if postmodernism dooms us or if another (or previous) philosophy becomes popular to rid us of it.

No idea but it mainly appears to be nonnegotiable. It's not really pure post modernism that is the problem. In fact, many of the derivatives of it we see being reified today use it as a base (deconstruct everything) but are not pure in that they create their own meta-narrative, which post modernism was explicitly against.

Regardless, the backlash to it is potentially so much more damaging and I hope these people understand the type of fire they're playing with. Identity politics plays both ways and mixed in with classic conflict theory, well it doesn't tend to end well.

I'm optimistic that as these frameworks for how the world works are (easily) exposed as the frauds they are and how they are hurtful to a society versus other methods (like universalism and liberal-science approaches) which have worked and will continue to, we'll taper down a bit the discourses. There's some good bits in these philosophies too, to be sure and hopefully they survive.

In the end they'll fail because they have no way of constructing a coherent, functional world, much less a peaceful multicultural one. It's just a matter of how many people die to get to that realization.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#115

Post by umvi »

ciarannolan wrote: post #110
umvi wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 200K+ dead in 6 months is pretty damn dire Disagree. At least 450k die per year of preventable health conditions (lung cancer + obesity) and nobody bats an eye (that's 4.5M deaths per decade). The flu alone kills orders of magnitude more than covid over longer timelines. A once-in-a-lifetime virus kills medically compromised people at elevated rates for 6 months and people lose their minds? It's not rational.

Out of morbid curiosity, how would you describe 200K+ dead from a contagious disease in 6 months? I'm sticking with "pretty damn dire".

It's not like covid can continue at this rate... there are only so many people with comorbidity or otherwise compromised health. In the year 2030 we will look back and say:

"Over the past 10 years, covid killed (on average) X people per year, and the flu killed (on average) Y people per year"

Do you predict X or Y will be the higher number? Because I predict Y will be the higher number. And if not in the decade timeframe, certainly Y would be higher in the century timeframe.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#116

Post by CalRobert »

umvi wrote: post #82
CalRobert wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm stunned how even when I agree with other people about climate breakdown happening, they think "Miami flooding" and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot". Though people seem to be finally understanding that sea level rise is a minor concern all things considered.

> and I think "my kids dying horribly in a resource war or food riot". I still think "I'll believe it when I see it". Scientists are very good at making apocalyptic predictions based on theoretical worst case scenarios, but reality just never seems to match said predictions. In reality, stuff happens more slowly on much longer timescales. Just look at covid - back in March, the predictions were pretty dire - it was p…

Yes, for covid.

For climate, we seem to be moving along faster than expected for many measures. Ice loss is trending with worst-case predictions to give the most recent example I can think of. https://www.sciencealert.com/ice-sheet-melting-is-perfectly-....

IPCC reports explicitly _do not_ consider self-sustaining positive feedback mechanisms, which seems concerning.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#117

Post by nharada »

umvi wrote: post #111
vharuck wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of March, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted between 100,000 and 200,000 US residents would die of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic[0]. Now, only at mid-September, we're closer to his upper limit. Not to mention flu season's coming, and we're seeing outbreaks as schools and universities reopen. So that prediction was probably too conservative. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020…

Dr. Fauci was just one voice in many at the time. It's easy to pick out the most accurate voice in retrospect. Take a look at this HN thread from 6 months ago. People in the comments were extrapolating CDC/WHO statements and predicting millions of Americans were going to die. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548952

Random HN commenters vs a leading expert on infectious diseases?

Assuming everyone has the same expertise is also one way climate change deniers sow doubt about the science behind carbon emissions.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#118

Post by ciarannolan »

umvi wrote: post #115
ciarannolan wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of morbid curiosity, how would you describe 200K+ dead from a contagious disease in 6 months? I'm sticking with "pretty damn dire".

It's not like covid can continue at this rate... there are only so many people with comorbidity or otherwise compromised health. In the year 2030 we will look back and say: "Over the past 10 years, covid killed (on average) X people per year, and the flu killed (on average) Y people per year" Do you predict X or Y will be the higher number? Because I predict Y will be the higher number. And if not in the decade timef…

So, "it's just fat and sick people that are dead, and they'll all be gone soon enough, who cares"?

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#119

Post by vharuck »

umvi wrote: post #111
vharuck wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of March, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted between 100,000 and 200,000 US residents would die of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic[0]. Now, only at mid-September, we're closer to his upper limit. Not to mention flu season's coming, and we're seeing outbreaks as schools and universities reopen. So that prediction was probably too conservative. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020…

Dr. Fauci was just one voice in many at the time. It's easy to pick out the most accurate voice in retrospect. Take a look at this HN thread from 6 months ago. People in the comments were extrapolating CDC/WHO statements and predicting millions of Americans were going to die. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548952

Let's start by clarifying something. There are two uses for predictions: making decisions based on the knowledge that something will be X units by a specific date (e.g. buying stocks), or making decisions to avoid something becoming X by that date (e.g. planning interventions). Nearly all predictions of COVID-19 death tolls are the latter. They're meant to predict the outcome if all things remain the same so we can decide if something more needs done. If we respond to predictions by changing behavior, and the eventual number is lower, that's a good thing. The prediction worked. The model assumed no change, so you can't use reality after a change to dismiss the model.

Your link is a discussion about a news report from March 11th, before the US and state governments started taking drastic actions. I'm not surprised the model predicted dire results and was followed by drastic action.

Re: Advocates want to name heatwaves like hurricanes to raise awareness of dangers

#120

Post by klyrs »

umvi wrote: post #111
vharuck wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of March, Dr. Anthony Fauci predicted between 100,000 and 200,000 US residents would die of COVID-19 over the course of the pandemic[0]. Now, only at mid-September, we're closer to his upper limit. Not to mention flu season's coming, and we're seeing outbreaks as schools and universities reopen. So that prediction was probably too conservative. [0] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020…

Dr. Fauci was just one voice in many at the time. It's easy to pick out the most accurate voice in retrospect. Take a look at this HN thread from 6 months ago. People in the comments were extrapolating CDC/WHO statements and predicting millions of Americans were going to die. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22552137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548715 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22548952

He's not just the most accurate, he's also the designated official responsible for coordinating the nationwide covid response. You're comparing him to randos on HN making armchair extrapolations.
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