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

Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 361 posts

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#321

Post by zamadatix »

jgalt212 wrote: post #244
zamadatix wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 93% of people the only cost is the $15 test kit to verify "yep, don't need to even think about it". For the other 7% that then need to really do a cost-benefit the data is out there but you do need to go through your specific circumstances to get a meaningful number. The risk levels vary vastly (orders of magnitudes) between both the radon level and your life choices/situation, so it's relatively meaningless to s…

Has anyone ever done a meaningful cost benefit analysis for less than $15?

This is bang on why you're best off to just always start by paying the $15 to do the test and then let that drive whether there will actually be a need to cost-benefit analysis around mitigation costs.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#322

Post by 1718627440 »

infecto wrote: post #296
kensai wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you have proven my point. There is no strong evidence and IT WILL NEVER BE cause it's like trying to make a new study for a drug that has its patent expired. Are you willing to sponsor studies with your own money? Cause nobody else will. Unfortunately, we are stuck with the little evidence there is from the last century when it was the heyday of balneological applications. However, these little studies we have, e…

And yet it’s still all an unproven hypothesis. Glad you believe in it, placebos can be strong.

What? Is gravity an unproven hypothesis, because Newton had the idea some centuries ago and now nobody bothers to prove it, because nobody expect it not to?

I have no stance on radon, but rejection studies solely because they're 30years old is dumb.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#323

Post by zamadatix »

dathinab wrote: post #232
zamadatix wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For 93% of people the only cost is the $15 test kit to verify "yep, don't need to even think about it". For the other 7% that then need to really do a cost-benefit the data is out there but you do need to go through your specific circumstances to get a meaningful number. The risk levels vary vastly (orders of magnitudes) between both the radon level and your life choices/situation, so it's relatively meaningless to s…

> so it's relatively meaningless to share individual cost-benefit analyses. yes 1. it's very affordable to fix 2. long term exposure always adds a non negligible risk so just fix it I'm confused why people get hung up on a cost-benefit analysis which is pretty much always guaranteed to be a net positive. Either slightly or majorly. And if it's a rented apartment in many countries you can force your land lord to fix i…

What you quoted doesn't really agree with what you're stating, which is really "it's meaningful to share the cost-benefit analyses because they'll all say it's worth it".

The reason they will not all say it's worth it is because there is nothing "magical" that happens at 4.0 pCi/L. Whether that is the sensible threshold vs doing something else with your money is a very different answer for a non smoker who makes 35k/y vs a smoker who makes 250k/y.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#324

Post by dinfinity »

blueflow wrote: post #316
dinfinity wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, pretty much this. More information found by searching for "base rate fallacy" or just the Wikipedia page for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy

Cool. I didn't know the effect of the vaccine is so poor, that you now need to account for statistical biases to see its effect at all. That's less than what i was told, and I'm not happy. Honestly what a shit vaccine. Measles and Tetanus vax did better.

Cool, so your question was in bad faith, you were not at all prepared to learn, have wasted our time, and you still don't understand anything about the base rate fallacy.

Honestly, what a shit comment.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#325

Post by zamadatix »

maxbond wrote: post #116
zamadatix wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess that depends how old you are when you install it and how long you plan to live but ~$7 per month is not at all an unrealistic electricity usage estimate for the system. 7*12*35 = $2,940. Edit: E.g. the numbers from this site suggest, for 15 out of the 16 listed fan models, the lifetime electricity cost is likely to be significantly larger than the install cost unless you are already much older at the time you…

The present value of $7 in 35 years is $1.45, assuming a risk free rate of 4.5%. Paying $2940 over 35 years is much more affordable than paying $2940 up front. If the goal is to be rational about risk, let's right-size the numbers. Otherwise our figures will be misleading.

I agree it's best to consider the capex/opex separately but I strongly disagree taking this approach will right-size the number. Here you're taking lifetime opex in nominal dollars but still devaluing it based on inflation anyways, which will not give you a meaningful result.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#326

Post by dinfinity »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #312
dinfinity wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is incorrect and misleading. It is a meaningful statistic when interpreted right. See sibling comment.

In and of itself own, as quoted by OP, it’s not meaningful. Sibling comment is thoughtful and helpful but adds information not present in OP’s statement (base rate). Edit: ah, you are OP. Just swap “OP” for “you” :)

> In and of itself own, as quoted by OP, it’s not meaningful.

This is an overly literal, pedantic, and ungenerous interpretation of what I said.

Clearly the actual numbers as well as the base rates for the relevant groups are necessary to meaningfully interpret the statistic, but I was hinting at a similar case after describing the logic for the original case, not exhaustively describing the similar case.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#327

Post by [deleted] »

zamadatix wrote: post #325
maxbond wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The present value of $7 in 35 years is $1.45, assuming a risk free rate of 4.5%. Paying $2940 over 35 years is much more affordable than paying $2940 up front. If the goal is to be rational about risk, let's right-size the numbers. Otherwise our figures will be misleading.

I agree it's best to consider the capex/opex separately but I strongly disagree taking this approach will right-size the number. Here you're taking lifetime opex in nominal dollars but still devaluing it based on inflation anyways, which will not give you a meaningful result.

[deleted]

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#328

Post by d1sxeyes »

dinfinity wrote: post #326
d1sxeyes wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In and of itself own, as quoted by OP, it’s not meaningful. Sibling comment is thoughtful and helpful but adds information not present in OP’s statement (base rate). Edit: ah, you are OP. Just swap “OP” for “you” :)

> In and of itself own, as quoted by OP, it’s not meaningful. This is an overly literal, pedantic, and ungenerous interpretation of what I said. Clearly the actual numbers as well as the base rates for the relevant groups are necessary to meaningfully interpret the statistic, but I was hinting at a similar case after describing the logic for the original case, not exhaustively describing the similar case.

Wasn’t my intention to be overly pedantic and certainly not ungenerous. I’m sorry.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#329

Post by xnorswap »

owenversteeg wrote: post #298
xnorswap wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN can be infuriating sometimes. Imagine if there was an environmental science forum that sat around pontificating with mistrust about software performance. Chances are people would mock it and marvel at their ignorance. But here we have a forum of (largely) software developers looking at the experts on environmental health and going, "Why are they so stupid? It's obviously ". It's not limited to environmental health…

Perhaps you are just a simple software developer, but there are plenty of people here who are genuine experts in every field imaginable: I have had intelligent discussions here with everyone from neuroscientists to microbiologists to carpenters to machinists. More to your point, I think the modern idea that people must stay confined to their specialty is ridiculous. Not long ago it was common to have intelligent disc…

I note that you picked two hard sciences as markers of respect, "neuroscientists and microbiologists", not social sciences.

Secondly my point I'm trying to make, is that these aren't "intelligent discussions" nor "serious discussion".

Shunning swathes of social science, often treating their conclusions as either illegitimate ( if they go counter to their preferred narrative ), or as obvious ( if they aren't ).

It's demeaning to "just ask questions" as if they hadn't been considered by the experts of the field.

Re: Many lung cancers are now in nonsmokers

#330

Post by 1718627440 »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #312
dinfinity wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, this is incorrect and misleading. It is a meaningful statistic when interpreted right. See sibling comment.

In and of itself own, as quoted by OP, it’s not meaningful. Sibling comment is thoughtful and helpful but adds information not present in OP’s statement (base rate). Edit: ah, you are OP. Just swap “OP” for “you” :)

You need to drink water to still be alive. You need to be alive to die from covid. Voila drinking water causes covid deaths.
Post reply on HN