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Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

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Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#631

Post by philosopher1234 »

iszomer wrote: post #549
philosopher1234 wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The viewpoint you're responding to is the GOP strategy, not a viewpoint derived from facts. The strategy being, pretend both sides are equal and that any suggestion of difference in respect to valuing science or democracy is actually a bias. Pretending both sides are the same when their differences are plain as day is both foolish and damaging.

> The viewpoint you're responding to is the GOP strategy, not a viewpoint derived from facts. I wondered about this too but wasn't aware this is a "GOP strategy". In contrast, I only responded because I'm still wrapping my head around a Michael Malice quote: "Conservatism is progressivism with speed limits."

This is GOP strategy in practice, I’m not sure if there’s a party document anywhere that outlines it though.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#632

Post by darkerside »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #597
jacquesm wrote: post #560

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A doctor I know described it like this: "Doctors are like monkeys with hammers trying to fix computers. We bang against stuff and will try a lot of things if we don't know what you've got. We may even get it right. But if you have a broken leg, an appendix that needs removal, a clear case of something that can be treated with anti-biotics, then we can perform small miracles." I don't know enough of the profession to…

Anecdotally this rings very true. Actually I'd be even more cynical than it. I know two people that were facing serious chronic health issues that were not readily diagnosed. They were treated like a hot potato between specialists. In one case it took nearly 2 year to arrive at a correct diagnosis and corrective action, which involved both medication and surgery. In the other case the person was moving into liver fai…

Terrifying that the liver transplant feels like a "let's try clearing your cache and cookies".

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#633

Post by ayngg »

istinetz wrote: post #265
ayngg wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think like he said, it is all trust. Without trust, people are wary of your motivations. When you are in that position, having the people you don't trust do things like promote the narrative of "trust science" just looks like they are using scientists as mouthpieces to co-opt their trust to push a narrative. Moderating misinformation looks like censorship, mandates look like coercion, etc. Overall it was just a col…

>Moderating misinformation looks like censorship Not to be adversarial, but there have definitely been a few instances which are just censorship and not moderating misinformation. And there are definitely some hot topics on which I will flat out ignore research, because I know only some conclusions are allowed and publishable. I think it's pointless to discuss specific examples - my point is, it's not only an issue o…

No you are absolutely correct, I was just illustrating the disconnect between what people think they are communicating and what it actually comes across as.

There is a degree of nuance that is definitely lost when people say to trust the science, which is to say that the rigorous process is what is generally trusted, but that isn't how it is communicated which is why "trusting the science" is probably a slogan that does more harm than benefit. For example it is sort of tone deaf to say that now, after how science experts have handled the first part of the pandemic, or how science has been used to justify things like the oversubscribing of opioids, or what they have said regarding nutrition (sugars vs fats), or carbon emissions and even smoking in the past. Politicizing science taints science more than it benefits politicians, but since they don't bear the costs of that erosion of trust, they will continue to politicize it.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#634

Post by darkerside »

marcodiego wrote: post #602
csee wrote: post #183

While reading this piece I got a little depressed that most journalism is just such utter trash compared to it. I've read so many articles on ivermectin and none of them gave me even ten percent of the clarity that this article gave me. Can you imagine if writing and journalism of this calibre was commonplace among practising "journalists"? And look at how this piece compares to the CDC's and WHO's science communicat…

No no... You can't expect a journalist to carefully make a very detailed and informed article like this carefully evaluating 30 scientific articles of meta-anilisys sites wich favored a specific view. They are not spcialists in most things and this was published long after the peak of of the pandemic. What they should do is to query specialists to obtain better information, instead of opinions. Consult different view…

And what if you don't understand enough of the topic to pick the right specialist? (Answer: you go with the person who sounds the most confident)

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#635

Post by deell223 »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #345
Shank wrote: post #49

This is worth reading purely for the writing alone. Scott Alexander is a treasure: > As best I can tell, this is some kind of Egyptian trial. It might or might not be an RCT; it says stuff like “Patients were self-allocated to the treatment groups; the first 3 days of the week for the intervention arm while the other 3 days for symptomatic treatment”. Were they self-allocated in the sense that they got to choose? Doe…

Spoilers ahead, but I loved this pun: > The fraud-hunters have examined this paper closely and are unable to find any signs of fraud. I think this paper is legitimate and that its findings need to be seriously considered. ... And there’s always the chance it was a fluke, right? Can something have a p-value less than 0.001 and still be a fluke? ... > And it was! It was a fluke! A literal, physical, fluke! Edit: If you…

Small correction: you can very much enjoy and love Unsong without understanding of Judaism and Kabbalah.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#636

Post by pdonis »

jacquesm wrote: post #627
pdonis wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel like your underlying assumption here is that the average human has a similar level of intelligence and critical thinking skills as the average HN community member. No. My underlying assumption is that my country (the US) is supposed to be a free country, where people are expected to make their own decisions and manage their own lives. If a significant fraction of people aren't capable of doing that, then, as…

> is supposed to be a free country That's highly dependent on a bunch of stuff that you can not choose at birth. For some variations of those you are going to find yourself decidedly less free than others. Agreed that blind trust in experts makes the problem worse - in principle. But with hysteria just around the corner (of which the wishful thinking that a cheap and common cure exists is one exponent) I can see why…

> That's highly dependent on a bunch of stuff that you can not choose at birth.

Meaning, which country you are born in? Yes, of course; that's why I specified which country I was talking about.

My original comment about the poor track record humans have of actually advancing "the greater good" when they think that's what they are doing was meant to be general, however.

> If we actually had trusted the experts things would likely look a lot better.

Which experts are these? From what I can see, with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, two actions that the world could have taken to drastically reduce the impact of COVID, much more than anything anyone actually did, are:

(1) Stop all international travel, sometime around late January or early February 2020.

(2) Make the vaccines that were discovered in January 2020 available, at least to high risk people (e.g., the elderly, health care workers) in high risk areas, sometime in February or March 2020.

I'm not aware of any "expert" that ever recommended either of those things. Indeed, experts were vociferously recommending against #1.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#637

Post by pdonis »

judahmeek wrote: post #542
barbinbrad wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humility is the truth. Thus, the simple man has a higher level of intelligence and critical thinking skills than the average HN community member.

And why do you think the single man is more humble than the average HN community member?

I don't know if the HN community member "rootusrootus" is "average", but his post certainly did not seem humble to me.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#638

Post by boston_clone »

philosopher1234 wrote: post #535
boston_clone wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last twenty years gives us a few administrations from which we can asses policy making decisions: Bush; Obama; Trump; and now Biden. Of those four, I don't think it's possible to make a good-faith argument that Obama and Biden administrations have been more anti-science than either Bush's or Trump's. A single sound bite from Dan Crenshaw talking about shifting the focus of conversation towards solutions doesn't r…

The viewpoint you're responding to is the GOP strategy, not a viewpoint derived from facts. The strategy being, pretend both sides are equal and that any suggestion of difference in respect to valuing science or democracy is actually a bias. Pretending both sides are the same when their differences are plain as day is both foolish and damaging.

I'm honestly not sure what you're trying to say with your comment.

I don't think I'm creating a false equivalence between the respective parties; their differences are certainly clear - one of those differences being a closed-ears approach to scientific evidence.

Could you elaborate or clarify what you meant?

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#639

Post by s1artibartfast »

comicjk wrote: post #618
s1artibartfast wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, so it separates the people that assume that it is an example of racial profiling because there is a POC involved? Is the assumption that the person being mocked is singled out because of their Spanish last name.

Something like that, sure. Apart from the question of whether the joke is good or bad, I think it's pretty clear from the reactions here that it has a political valence.

I agree that is strong point that such comments trigger some readers.

I imagine that any politically savvy author like this one evaluates the inclusion of jokes involving POC in their editing process today.

As far as intent, I am more inclined to believe the author decided to leave it intentionally, not to endear the conservative reader, but because they believe that while some readers may be offended, that they didn't want to engage in self censorship when they personally didn't see anything objectionable. After all, I think the conservative reader would gloss over this as unremarkable, and only some liberal readers would hear it as a "dog whistle", so they aren't endearing anyone.

I think this is inline with some of the author's other writings which advocate taking responsibility for one's actions and intentions, but not necessarily catering to everyone else's possible reactions and emotions.

That said, I'm usually assume pretty charitable intentions as a reader when it comes to this sort of thing, so I have my own biases.

Re: Ivermectin: Much More Than You Wanted to Know

#640

Post by m0zg »

jacquesm wrote: post #52
m0zg wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but my point is "consensus" doesn't necessarily mean "truth", even though the vast majority of people use the terms interchangeably. "Everyone but one person is wrong" is a situation we've seen numerous times before in the history of science. And when the matters of social acceptability, prestige, politics, and just plain ability to make a living enter into the consideration, very, very few people would even be…

The consensus in the medical world is that if there is a link it is extremely weak, far weaker than you'd need to establish that 'millions died while they didn't have to' as you write, and that if it works it probably needs very high doses, higher than considered safe. At the same time, we have vaccines, which do work (though the slow roll-out and the many, many hold outs certainly don't help, as well as that it leav…

> has caused a lot of people to forego their vaccinations

Citation needed. I think people forego vaccinations due primarily to how hard they are being pushed, and due to almost 2 years of pretty much nonstop incoherence (or even outright lies sometimes) from the health authorities and the press worldwide.

Case in point: we're still being told by talking heads that "vaccines can stop covid" whereas the reality is nothing can stop it - it's endemic. And that was clear to any sane person back in February of 2020.

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