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The island where people forget to die

nytimes.com

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Re: The island where people forget to die

#141

Post by beagle3 »

reinhardt wrote: post #69
tambourine_man wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always possible of course, but from the article: As he recalls, nine other doctors confirmed the diagnosis. So if true, chances of a misdiagnosis are pretty slim.

The verdicts of 10 doctors of the same field, in the same era about the same patient are not exactly independent variables.

This cannot be stressed strongly enough, and yet is completely ignored (or worse, actively contested) by just about everyone.

Most people assume that something that has passed a "peer review" process has been reviewed independently by several people, and is thus more likely to be true. While the people do not collaborate, this is NOT independence in the statistical sense, and thus the likelihood of being is not as high as one would expect.

And the many examples of 50-year old accepted wisdom being utterly wrong (e.g. about eggs, cholesterol, salt, monetary easing, saturated fat, ...) seem to fall on deaf ears. At least from my experience.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#142

Post by seacond »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #93
pg wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one thing I wish I could do to improve HN, it would be to detect this sort of middlebrow dismissal algorithmically. Unsophisticated people read an article like this and think: Gosh, I better eat honey for breakfast! People a little more sophisticated think: Hey, this is anecdotal evidence! Yeah, we know that. But is that the most interesting thing one can say about this article? Is it not at least a source…

I've noticed this too. It's a vicious hit-and-run attack on a thread's discussion that presumes only the empirical viewpoint is worth considering. It often trainwrecks the thread into intellectual pissing contests, rather than discussing subjects with fellow human beings. Removing karma entirely might help. Too many people treat it as a vanity metric, and game it.

And the way to game it is by posting "middlebrow dismissals".

As a poster I am often surprised by what gets upvoted. Everyone surely can see this: negativity is rewarded. It only reinforces in my mind that "karma" means little anymore.

You can get karma just by being dismissive. Look at the tone of some of the posters who consistently jump into the top spot, thanks to their "karma". I get tired of seeing those same monikers over and over^1; the comments are often rubbish. No matter how articulate and cogent their commetns may have been in the past, no one is 100% consistent; we should not have to read _everything_ they say. But it doesn't matter if they are on the mark from day to day because they get a top spot no matter what they contribute, based on accumulated karma. You are forced to read what they've said, no matter how silly it is.

1. Unless you need to contact someone, I find usernames and profiles to be about as useful as karma (=not very), but I doubt many others would share my view. My interest is in quality comments that offer useful information, not "reputations". People with great "reputations" often make some very dumb comments. Judging the quality of a comment by the author's username instead of its content is a fool's game. It's also a basis for the HN algorithm.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#143

Post by illuminate »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #114
derleth wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> only the empirical viewpoint is worth considering So what other viewpoints are there?

I would be far more interested in a discussion about how we could identify the factors that lead to a community that doesn't appear to be following the aging and health norms of other communities rather than just saying "the article is stupid and isn't worth reading".

"how we could identify the factors that lead to a community that doesn't appear to be following the aging and health norms of other communities"

How do you propose to do this while avoiding empirical evidence?

Re: The island where people forget to die

#144

Post by illuminate »

StacyC wrote: post #27
CWuestefeld wrote: post #7

I hate this kind of reporting. I read through the entire first page without the slightest clue as to what the article is actually about -- I'm pretty sure it's not all just for one guy's life story. But by that point I was tired of reading, and quit. Cut it out with the pathos and human interest, and get some of the real point in there quicker.

Cut it out with the pathos and human interest, and get some of the real point in there quicker. Maybe you could slow down and read the part about how slowing down is good for you.

While slowing down IS great, I do sympathize with the desire to get my information without "human interest" and the infotainment slant that tends to skew pertinent facts.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#145

Post by mattgreenrocks »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #131
derleth wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be far more interested in a discussion about how we could identify the factors that lead to a community that doesn't appear to be following the aging and health norms of other communities rather than just saying "the article is stupid and isn't worth reading". OK, I don't think we're using 'empirical' in the same way, then. 'Empirical', the way I've always seen it used, just means 'evidence-based' or, more…

No, we aren't using the word empirically differently. I'm just saying that the interesting conversations revolve around where to look, not whether to look or not. "Empirically" there is something interesting on that island. I'd love to hear ideas of what it could be, along with ways to test those ideas. The former without the latter is how snake-oil gets sold, but shutting down all conversation because snake-oil coul…

Really, it's intellectual pedanticism at it's finest.

It's amusing that people are so worried about being correct (and others being correct) on the Internet. Insisting on only talking about empirically measurable things is not a fail-safe way to raise the S/N ratio of a site; it just dulls the topics to those we already know well.

Meanwhile, it potentially rules out threads on things that we're still trying to discover the inner workings of: nutrition, aging, sleep, and many others. Those topics are extremely interesting because they can veer into uncharted intellectual territory. And we may only have anecdotes to go on. Quelle horreur!

Re: The island where people forget to die

#146

Post by nasmorn »

bitwize wrote: post #46
wisty wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other problem with blue zones is, they could just be a statistical blip. It's especially bad when you try to identify things like centurions, or spontaneous remission of cancer - things which are rare are the most prone to statistical blips.

I think you mean centenarians . Centurions were Roman foot soldiers.

Centurions were the petty officers of the legion. There was one for every manipel or about 80 legionaires.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#147

Post by julnepht »

While reading the story of this man that cures his cancer without resorting to modern medecine is endearing. I cannot stop thinking about Steve Jobs that tried to cure himself of cancer without modern medicine and of the fatal consequences of his actions.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#148

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

pmelendez wrote: post #98
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to statistics/data science/machine learning. The hardest part is always getting the data into usable form. Its not as much fun as fitting models, but its definitely the majority of any role where people pay you to do this kind of stuff. There's a lot of good research on forums (pm me if you want a bibliography i collected for a previous role), and short texts have become a bigger deal post Twitter. I complete…

Hey... Thanks for the offer! How can I contact you? I didn't know we can pm users over here. I did have worked with ML before but mostly with images which are (IMHO) way easier to put in a format depending on the problem.

My email is obsfuscated in my profile. Should be pretty clear, conditional on your humanity.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#149

Post by derleth »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #145
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we aren't using the word empirically differently. I'm just saying that the interesting conversations revolve around where to look, not whether to look or not. "Empirically" there is something interesting on that island. I'd love to hear ideas of what it could be, along with ways to test those ideas. The former without the latter is how snake-oil gets sold, but shutting down all conversation because snake-oil coul…

Really, it's intellectual pedanticism at it's finest. It's amusing that people are so worried about being correct (and others being correct) on the Internet. Insisting on only talking about empirically measurable things is not a fail-safe way to raise the S/N ratio of a site; it just dulls the topics to those we already know well. Meanwhile, it potentially rules out threads on things that we're still trying to discov…

We use empirical evidence to talk about things we don't fully understand all the time. That's what theoretical physics is, in fact.

Re: The island where people forget to die

#150

Post by derleth »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #131
derleth wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would be far more interested in a discussion about how we could identify the factors that lead to a community that doesn't appear to be following the aging and health norms of other communities rather than just saying "the article is stupid and isn't worth reading". OK, I don't think we're using 'empirical' in the same way, then. 'Empirical', the way I've always seen it used, just means 'evidence-based' or, more…

No, we aren't using the word empirically differently. I'm just saying that the interesting conversations revolve around where to look, not whether to look or not. "Empirically" there is something interesting on that island. I'd love to hear ideas of what it could be, along with ways to test those ideas. The former without the latter is how snake-oil gets sold, but shutting down all conversation because snake-oil coul…

> I'm just saying that the interesting conversations revolve around where to look, not whether to look or not.

And we find out where to look based on empirical evidence most of the time.

> shutting down all conversation because snake-oil could be sold

This has nothing to do with empirical evidence.

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