Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Making Vaccine

lesswrong.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 378 posts

Re: Making Vaccine

#311

Post by danpalmer »

concordDance wrote: post #287
hardwaregeek wrote: post #231

This is an impressive amount of hubris. Does the author assume that all the certifications and testing stages were for show? I don't hold the highest view of LessWrong and the whole rationalist shtick. This post exemplifies why. Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make…

Um... are you reading the same post as the rest of us? He's just trying out something an actual expert has made to see if it works when he tries to do it. So far it hasn't worked, as he admits, but it certainly could. Sure, it's probably with greater cost, higher risk and less effectiveness than the mass produced vaccines I expect (and the author would likely agree). But it's certainly not the case thay a layman can…

The hubris is to expect that someone at home can manufacture something worthy of being called a vaccine if they're just smart enough to follow the science.

Theoretically this might be true, but in practice it seems obvious that this will fail. I can think of so many ways in which this could be subtly invalid and I am in no way an expert. I would expect someone with commercial lab experience or vaccine production experience to be able to point out a hundred ways in which this won't work.

Maybe the more obvious problem though is that we can't know if it works either. Without a valid scientific study on the effectiveness it's all just a guess. To call it a vaccine is hubris because it is precisely this study that deems a concoction of ingredients to actually be a vaccine. I'd expect Less Wrong to be the first place to point out all the flaws in the idea of just getting an antibody test to decide if it's working.

Re: Making Vaccine

#312

Post by SuoDuanDao »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #291
austinjp wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this domain, in an ideal world, things "get made" through transparency, collaboration and scrutiny. Expertise is earned, not declared. You don't have to "wait", but you do need to trust. These people exist, and nearly anyone can join their ranks. It is indeed hubris to suggest expert-level ability is possible without the experience to back it up. Expertise in one domain does not confer expertise in another. Side n…

In this context he was simply following a protocol developed by established experts. No hubris involved, unless you think the experts also have hubris.

I would go so far as to say it's precisely the ability to have a protocol designed by an expert in science work for a layman who follows it that separates scientists from which doctors.

Re: Making Vaccine

#313

Post by moonbug »

xirbeosbwo1234 wrote: post #115
ChuckMcM wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The science is in the whitepaper: https://radvac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/White-Paper-SA... That said, the interesting bits are: #1) Vaccine design at home. This is an application of what is known colloquially as "bio-hacking" and as a topic group is no less impactful than "computer hacking." #2) You can do something for Interesting stuff indeed.

>as a topic group is no less impactful than "computer hacking." It's way less impactful. An amateur playing with computers might not achieve what a pro can, but it obviously has some effect. Computer programs are rarely a placebo. Little these so-called bio-hackers do is known to be effective. That's almost by definition.

>Little these so-called bio-hackers do is known to be effective

quite effective at getting themselves on FBI watchlists

Re: Making Vaccine

#314

Post by mattmaroon »

eyko wrote: post #305
mattmaroon wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you’re talking homemade vaccines, depending on your age and underlying conditions it could easily be that.

Homemade vaccines are not contagious (just stating the obvious).

So? I’m not worried about the effects on others if I squirt peptides and chitosan up my nose. I’m worried about the effect on me.

A homemade vaccine is both unlikely to be effective (and therefore do nothing for others) and probably more likely to harm me personally than covid. It’s certainly the greater harm for most people.

Re: Making Vaccine

#315

Post by amelius »

concordDance wrote: post #287
hardwaregeek wrote: post #231

This is an impressive amount of hubris. Does the author assume that all the certifications and testing stages were for show? I don't hold the highest view of LessWrong and the whole rationalist shtick. This post exemplifies why. Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make…

Um... are you reading the same post as the rest of us? He's just trying out something an actual expert has made to see if it works when he tries to do it. So far it hasn't worked, as he admits, but it certainly could. Sure, it's probably with greater cost, higher risk and less effectiveness than the mass produced vaccines I expect (and the author would likely agree). But it's certainly not the case thay a layman can…

The main problem is probably that as a hobbyist you can only perform "N=1 experiments", and even without a control.

Re: Making Vaccine

#316

Post by concordDance »

danpalmer wrote: post #311
concordDance wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... are you reading the same post as the rest of us? He's just trying out something an actual expert has made to see if it works when he tries to do it. So far it hasn't worked, as he admits, but it certainly could. Sure, it's probably with greater cost, higher risk and less effectiveness than the mass produced vaccines I expect (and the author would likely agree). But it's certainly not the case thay a layman can…

The hubris is to expect that someone at home can manufacture something worthy of being called a vaccine if they're just smart enough to follow the science. Theoretically this might be true, but in practice it seems obvious that this will fail. I can think of so many ways in which this could be subtly invalid and I am in no way an expert. I would expect someone with commercial lab experience or vaccine production expe…

> The hubris is to expect that someone at home can manufacture something worthy of being called a vaccine if they're just smart enough to follow the science.

Are you defining "vaccine" in a manner that makes those 19th century things called "vaccines" not actually vaccines?

Vaccines aren't magic that can only be done by a suitably blessed priest and aren't necesarily even very high tech...

Re: Making Vaccine

#317

Post by fab1an »

hardwaregeek wrote: post #231

This is an impressive amount of hubris. Does the author assume that all the certifications and testing stages were for show? I don't hold the highest view of LessWrong and the whole rationalist shtick. This post exemplifies why. Underneath this post is the assumption that the author is so much smarter than everybody else because they are Rational with a capital R and can therefore harness the power of science to make…

No offense, but you do sound a little triggered, and I completely understand why (in some sense). That being said, there are many different types of wrong/right, and the way in which the self-vaccinating Rationalist is "wrong"/"right" about the world is somewhat inverse to the way in which decorated science commitee can be wrong / right.

Re: Making Vaccine

#318

Post by moonbug »

amelius wrote: post #315
concordDance wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Um... are you reading the same post as the rest of us? He's just trying out something an actual expert has made to see if it works when he tries to do it. So far it hasn't worked, as he admits, but it certainly could. Sure, it's probably with greater cost, higher risk and less effectiveness than the mass produced vaccines I expect (and the author would likely agree). But it's certainly not the case thay a layman can…

The main problem is probably that as a hobbyist you can only perform "N=1 experiments", and even without a control.

the dude made his girlfriends take it too.

Re: Making Vaccine

#319

Post by pron »

casefields wrote: post #293
pron wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How did they become experts? Definitely not like that.

True, because you might win a Nobel prize: https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/the-doctor-who-drank...

Did you miss the part that he'd become a doctor and observed patients for years before he started experimenting on himself to treat the very condition he was already an expert on?

This is like the Galileo complex, where people think their ideas are right because they are rejected by the establishment, forgetting that by the time Galileo started promoting heliocentrism, he'd already been one of the most respected, well established scientists in Europe, and, in fact, his views were accepted by the majority of establishment scientists. It was the non-experts who rejected him.

Re: Making Vaccine

#320

Post by mattmaroon »

petre wrote: post #254
mattmaroon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only crazy people think vaccines cause autism. Nobody thinks vaccines are 100% safe. That’s a red herring. Vaccines that go through proper testing have a very high bar for safety but nothing is 100%.

> Only crazy people think vaccines cause autism. This is simply not true. I've talked to a psychologist who treated kids with autism about this. Autism is usually diagnosed at a young age when children develop and also get vaccinated. This leads to bias in some of their parents who are looking for someone or something to blame for their misfortune. Combine this with the fact that in the last two decades diagnostic fo…

Crazy is perhaps not the most accurate word but you get the point.
Post reply on HN