251–260 of 279 posts
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That's an interesting quotation, but it doesn't sound like the problem with Curio's was too much nuance. If anything, very plain (albeit clear) speech has a lack of nuance.
That whole paragraph is almost exclusively about Calvus; Curio is only mentioned once, in passing.
(Hm, is that the etymology?)
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> For example, the "We don't recommend the general public wear masks at this time" was consistently misinterpreted to mean "Masks don't work", which is not what was said at all. Anthony Fauci literally said that "there's no reason for the general public to be walking around with a mask". On television. I'll link to this version, since hilariously, facebook has "fact checked" it: https://www.facebook.com/DeannaForCong…
Am I missing something? "there's no reason for the general public to be walking around with a mask". Nothing in that statement says that masks don't work. It also doesn't say there will never be a reason for the general public to walk around wearing masks. It is in the present tense and a single sentence. In a shortage, you want the masks focused where the infections are coming in, the hospitals. The virus was not wi…
The implication seems pretty clear. We don't live in a world where statements only mean their narrowest and most literal reading.
pseudalopex linked to Fauci's tweet plainly stating that masks are ineffective for the general public.
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Yes, I know. We're basically in agreement on the broader points, but I don't agree with your second sentence, and you seem to have the opposite bias in terms of how to act under uncertainty: > What I am saying is their adamant declarations of "masks don't work for the public", which note is an affirmative declaration, were false, and never had any supporting evidence. There's no such thing as an affirmative declarati…
> If you do not have evidence that X works, or the evidence is ambiguous, your conclusion is the null hypothesis (that X doesn't work) No??? This is what having a prior is for. In this case, the prior was the mechanistic model which told you with reasonable confidence that masks would work in the slices of worlds where the primary mode of transmission was one mitigated by mask-wearing. We do not in fact live in a sta…
Yes. I'm incorporating a prior. Read what I wrote at the top of the thread: every medical intervention that has ever failed a trial has had a biologically plausible justification for doing the trial. Nearly all trials fail.
In the history of medicine, literally every failed medication, surgery, treatment or intervention has had an explanation that seemed plausible at the time. Just as we're seeing with masks, the vast majority of interventions have little to no effect. Many make things worse. From bloodletting to thalidomide to failed cancer drugs, medicine is littered with examples of people who "knew" that their preferred treatment would work based on "priors" or "plausible mechanisms", and ended up doing great harm.
As a bayesian and someone who is knowledgable of science and medicine, my prior probability of any medical intervention working is almost zero.
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Yes, I know. We're basically in agreement on the broader points, but I don't agree with your second sentence, and you seem to have the opposite bias in terms of how to act under uncertainty: > What I am saying is their adamant declarations of "masks don't work for the public", which note is an affirmative declaration, were false, and never had any supporting evidence. There's no such thing as an affirmative declarati…
> There's no such thing as an affirmative declaration of the null hypothesis. I strongly disagree, epistemologically speaking. You can run repeated tests and then conclude an intervention is successful. You can also run repeated tests and conclude an intervention is not successful - as you put it, no better than the null hypothesis. Or, finally, you can have just not run tests at all . There is a difference between t…
I don't disagree. You test to reject the null hypothesis. If you do not reject, you must accept. Eventually, hopefully, you give up on the failed alternative hypothesis and move on.
> Or, finally, you can have just not run tests at all. There is a difference between the second and third states, and health authorities implied the second state when the third state was far more accurate.
We agree completely here.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For example, the "We don't recommend the general public wear masks at this time" was consistently misinterpreted to mean "Masks don't work", which is not what was said at all. Anthony Fauci literally said that "there's no reason for the general public to be walking around with a mask". On television. I'll link to this version, since hilariously, facebook has "fact checked" it: https://www.facebook.com/DeannaForCong…
Am I missing something? "there's no reason for the general public to be walking around with a mask". Nothing in that statement says that masks don't work. It also doesn't say there will never be a reason for the general public to walk around wearing masks. It is in the present tense and a single sentence. In a shortage, you want the masks focused where the infections are coming in, the hospitals. The virus was not wi…
If Dan is right (and I think he is), have a stiff drink nearby and then think about how his point applies to something complicated that is life and death, such as conveying information to the public about a rampant virus.
I agree with your point, but it's got me thinking about how the early mask guidance was so wrong. Early in the pandemic, virtually all the major health orgs spread the message "masks for the public don't work". Of course, the real issue was that there was a valid fear that there would be a run on masks and not enough for healthcare workers. There was never any significant evidence masks for the public don't work, on…
Whenever articles like this about communication crop up, I like to remind people of Wiio's Laws[0] - from 1978: 1. Communication usually fails, except by accident. 2. If a message can be interpreted in several ways, it will be interpreted in a manner that maximizes the damage. 3. There is always someone who knows better than you what you meant with your message. 4. The more we communicate, the worse communication suc…
I'm not sure they are 'valid' but they are interesting. I think its more of a negative take, to highlight difficulties. I don't think they are always true. For example "4. The more we communicate, the worse communication succeeds." seems the opposite of say televisual political messaging which relies on bombardment of essentially false information to convey meaning and proposed societal behaviour.
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> "As another example, Amazon teams communicate product launch requirements via a future press releases including..." Do you have a source for this, guide and maybe a book about Amazon things?
Working Backwards [0] is the actual name of the book on this subject. [0] https://www.workingbackwards.com/
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> “I sent an email and I’m important therefore everyone got the message” I see a similar flaw in programmers. "I said it once, and therefore everyone has it memorized", as if people are computers who store every utterance in a file system.
This is more of a response to people not paying attention. If all this time is being spent on email and chat and meetings it gets frustrating continually covering the same ground where it is obvious not much attention was paid the first time.
But I think it's also often a mistaken "theory of mind" with some nerds who can't grasp that what's obvious for them is not obvious to everyone else.
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> ...read your first bullet point, ignore the rest, and drop all the nuance? Oh hell yes, this is definitely a thing with lots of people. It's one of those WTF realizations that everyone who works in a corporate environment gets slapped in the face with really hard. There are certain people for which you MUST give 1, maybe 2 sentences at a maximum, address them by name, AND, make sure that they're the only person in…
Perhaps those people have just read too many emails in the past that ended up being a waste of their time? Over time they learned to glance at things and predict what the rest of the email is going to say. Think about those download websites where you have to find the download link in the middle of all the ads that are masquerading as download buttons. There's a lot of information on those pages, but people become re…
I am sure that's often the case but I still find it rude and dismissive.
In the end it doesn't really matter for me as long as I can get my point/request across in a sentence or two (and cover my ass with an "optional" details section).
You're absolutely right that voice or face-to-face is essential for certain communication.