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Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
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Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#22Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
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#24Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
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It really did trip me up, in the first sentence mostly. Because that’s a commonplace counter argument on HN in general. Any thread with even mild controversy I expect to see multiple comments leading the way GP did.
Green accounts nowadays make me wary as well. At one point I put show dead on to help vouch for green accounts that started in shadowban mode, but now it feels like a 50% a new account was created very recently and used to fling shit on flamebait threads.
Around the middle though I picked up, at that point it was a little closer to caricature.
Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#26Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't read this and suddenly think "oh my god- the whole establishment is wrong! How thankful I am that some rational person has done the hard math for me to explain why ivermectin is a magic cure". The current medical opinion is that ivermectin only appears to have an effect when it's actually treating an underlying condition (parasitic infection). I don't see that changing any time soon; certainly nobody has sho…
As far as I know Scott was the first person to suggest the "worm theory" (parasites) and no study has shown that to be the case. Unless some new body of Ivermectin research has come out that I'm unaware of, then you're misrepresenting current medical opinion by a long shot.
> As far as I know Scott was the first person to suggest the "worm theory" (parasites) and no study has shown that to be the case.
I don't know if he is the first person to suggest it, but you are incorrect that there is no published research supporting it.
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle....
Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#28The "rationalist community" is morbidly fascinating in their tendency to be so self-important while also having a deficit of self-awareness. The author of this piece can't understand why an internet-famous blogger/Substack writer that he follows doesn't have time to drop everything and debate the minutia of a blog post he wrong last year on a topic that has long since been settled. Note that Scott did listen to him,…
There was a lesswrong thread warning people about Leverage (a 100% literal Bay Area Scientology-like therapy cult, as opposed to the general LW community which is just a self-organized kind-of-a-sex-cult). I thought it was notable because it's written as if actually having an emotion or trying to look like it believed anything would be a deadly sin.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Kz9zMgWB5C27Pmdkh/common-kno...
Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#29I guess 'rationalism', as a name, calls a certain kind of person out of the ether: 1. They like rationality, and feel it's opposed by 'irrationality'. 2. They want to be part of some 'rational group'. 3. They're ignorant enough not to know the name is already taken. 4. They're ignorant enough not to know that the name means pretty much the opposite of what they believe. (A real rationalist, for instance, probably wou…
Words and meanings change over time and depending on the context. Strangely you claim it's ignorance but then give supporting reasons why someone might label this "rationalism".
Rationalism is an important term in exactly the field they are supposed to be interested in. And they're using it in more or less the opposite of its conventional sense.
I guess it could be just really perverse usage, but I figure it's more like 'objectivism', or 'scientology', words that sound big and impressive to people who are either dumb, or just not very well informed.
You can't really change a term like rationalism, since it's really one of the biggest terms in philosophy, and philosophers are the kind of people who get upset when people use stuff like 'begging the question' wrong, which everybody does. So even if the 'rationalists' ended up having loads of great insights despite their inauspicious start, it would almost certainly never change the meaning of the word.
Re: Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I didn't read this and suddenly think "oh my god- the whole establishment is wrong! How thankful I am that some rational person has done the hard math for me to explain why ivermectin is a magic cure". The current medical opinion is that ivermectin only appears to have an effect when it's actually treating an underlying condition (parasitic infection). I don't see that changing any time soon; certainly nobody has sho…
As far as I know Scott was the first person to suggest the "worm theory" (parasites) and no study has shown that to be the case. Unless some new body of Ivermectin research has come out that I'm unaware of, then you're misrepresenting current medical opinion by a long shot.
If it bothers you that Scott was the first person you saw raise that, you can ignore that part. However, I work at a biotech and regularly consult with scientists and doctors about COVID treatments, and several of them mentioned that possibility as being a potential explanation some time ago.
Is it really important for you to be "right" here? I am not attempting to misreprent medical opinion, just give an insight into their current thinking.