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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

41–50 of 968 posts

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#41
post #22

Even “reputable” sources like the Financial Times have been putting out utter rubbish: https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea0557... My current theory is that we are seeing denial on a mass scale as a coping mechanism.

Why is that rubbish? It was created by a team just as credible as that at Imperial College.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#42

From what I'm reading, I think there are still a significant minority of people who think this isn't an issue. I've had to learn to just walk away from comments on a variety of media where comments such as 'psychosomatic', 'less dangerous than the flu that kills 50,000 each year', 'patented by the illuminati', 'caused by 5G masts', and so on. I ended up deleting my twitter account as I dared try to engage with one UK…

What's amusing to be is how anyone can look at the incompetence of governments across the world, and conclude they'd be capable of any kind of organized conspiracy against the general population.

Yes exactly. Most people don’t know or care about how Governments and Corporations really work. All they see are memes and conspiracy theories and latch on to them.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#43
post #22

Even “reputable” sources like the Financial Times have been putting out utter rubbish: https://www.ft.com/content/5ff6469a-6dd8-11ea-89df-41bea0557... My current theory is that we are seeing denial on a mass scale as a coping mechanism.

The problem is that the WHO was lying multiple times, and other organizations parroted those lies as they were afraid of confronting the WHO.

Now we are in a stage where there's no good information source (except HN comments, though even there we must be selective).

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#44
post #29

But both sides are irrationally being confident. The doomsdayers at least as much as the "flu-bros". I think it's fair to challenge the massive interventions being taken and the economic damage.

That would be ignoring the extent of the economic/societal damage that is caused by the disease itself, would there not be any intervention to try to control the spread and its consequences on the medical infrastructure as well as all the other ones.

The problem with this kind of situation is that, unless you take action when it feels too early, all you will have at the end are your tears and saying "it was too late".

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#45
post #3

Most humans have a really hard time with exponential processes. They are hard for them to spot and truly understand. So when something goes 1, 2, 4, 8 they see it as linear and when it's doubling with larger numbers they suddenly get it. And then it's too late.

1, 2, 4, 8 isn’t that different from 1, 3, 5, 7.

You need more sample points, larger multipliers, or prior expectation of seeing an exponential curve to see that as exponential growth.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#46
post #10

From what I'm reading, I think there are still a significant minority of people who think this isn't an issue. I've had to learn to just walk away from comments on a variety of media where comments such as 'psychosomatic', 'less dangerous than the flu that kills 50,000 each year', 'patented by the illuminati', 'caused by 5G masts', and so on. I ended up deleting my twitter account as I dared try to engage with one UK…

i've been saying "not more dangerous than the flu" before it started really going to shxt in europe, because to be honest, the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health, just by looking at the numbers from a distance. The fact that most people seem to not have anything worse than a few days of fever (some having even nothing at all), while at the same time others simply die very quickly to…

The part of that most people, including you, seen to miss is that this goes way beyond those sick with the virus. The strain this virus is putting on healthcare is unlike anything the flu does in any given year, even during epidemics in the past several decades. That means it will kill people who are sick with something else. Pray you don't have a need for an ICU bed any time soon.

In the US, the flu kills between 12,000 and 61,000 people each year depending on the season. COVID-19 will almost certainly reach the low end of that range in between two and three days. It went from 100 to more than 9,000 deaths in only three weeks.

It's not the flu.

P.S. everyone who can get a flu shot should, every year, regardless of age. Herd immunity assists in protecting the entire population.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#47
If it was not Paul Graham this would never has made it to HN front page, but ok... One of his point is that people should not talk about things they don't know about. So maybe he should start applying that to himself first (and maybe this to myself right now). The question is, how do you define the threshold of expertise require before you start talking about a subject?

The concepts of truth, credibility, ethics, deontology that he vaguely puts the finger onto. Those are complex topics, still being studied and will be forever.

Blaming journalist and politics, why not, I guess some of them deserve it, but my neighbour could have done the same analysis after couple of pints at the pub.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#48
More worringly, this epidemic is also destroying the layer of benevolent hypocrisy that kept globalisation together among young people worldwide: the Chinese virus, the Italian siesta, the Northern stinginess, the British take it on the chin, the American insurance or die, and so on are the latent prejudices now rubbing salt into wounds and adding insults to injuries. It will be extremely difficult to have that utopian, dreamy benevolence back soon.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#49
post #33
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i've been saying "not more dangerous than the flu" before it started really going to shxt in europe, because to be honest, the epidemic doesn't look that dangerous if you're in general good health, just by looking at the numbers from a distance. The fact that most people seem to not have anything worse than a few days of fever (some having even nothing at all), while at the same time others simply die very quickly to…

The flu, even with vaccines, does not overwhelm medical personel, facilities and logistics as this does. And the total death toll, given the current dynamics, is already going way way worse than the flu.

Agreed, and that's why i changed my mind since i saw what's going on in europe.

I just wanted to explain my initial reaction, based on what happened in china and by reading various medical people give their opinion.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#50
post #29

But both sides are irrationally being confident. The doomsdayers at least as much as the "flu-bros". I think it's fair to challenge the massive interventions being taken and the economic damage.

> But both sides are irrationally being confident.

Being "doomsdayer" does not necessarily mean confidence in the situation. It's more about accepting that overreacting is much more desirable than underreacting when facing something exponential where you're constantly 2 weeks behind knowing what the reality is

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