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

Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

pnas.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–66 of 66 posts

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#61

Post by thaw13579 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #60
thaw13579 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like there are several concerns: the journal, a question of whether the FB usage agreement permitted such a report from being published, and generally whether it is ethical (separate from the review board question). Some more discussion: http://ulan.mede.uic.edu/alansz/2014/07/an-open-letter-to-pn...

The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests and publish scientific papers about them. I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability of companies to run A/B tests.

And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents, since the test might have negative effect

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#62

Post by dr_dshiv »

thaw13579 wrote: post #61
dr_dshiv wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ethical question is whether to do A/B tests privately vs to do A/B tests and publish scientific papers about them. I would be interested to understand the ethical basis for removing the ability of companies to run A/B tests.

And further, whether to do A/B tests or not, and whether the subject consents, since the test might have negative effect

How should a user consent to a Google A/B test other than agreeing to use the software that has A/B tests in it? They run 10s of thousands of tests every day

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#63

Post by iateanapple »

kerkeslager wrote: post #58
iateanapple wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I'm saying, if you don't lock down, distancing doesn't happen. First - our lockdowns were mostly unenforced (except against businesses). Bars were closed but house parties raged. Second - Sweden didn’t do lockdowns and yet people did practice social distancing.

First: I don't think there's much data to make an argument here, but I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. Second: If your goal is to demonstrate that lockdowns aren't appreciably better than social distancing, Sweden is a great example of why you're wrong. "As time has gone on the numbers…

> First: I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc.

In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease.

So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing.

There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc.

> The death rate in Sweden has now risen significantly higher than many other countries in Europe, reaching more than 22 per 100,000 people

There is endless misinformation being put out over COVID.

Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented.

Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns.

Now the nice thing about Sweden is they have open data and accurate reporting of data - and so you can dive in and see that their total deaths haven’t changed significantly compared to prior years.

They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week.

It will be interesting next year to see if (as typically happens with the flu) we see significantly fewer total deaths - which would indicate for those 100/week excess deaths this year the total life lost per death was 1 year. But that’s just my speculation for now.

Edit: A clear trend is emerging that a countries deaths come down to two factors:

1) Ability to properly protect the old

See the failures in Italy and NYC as examples.

2) The overall health of your young population

See for example Singapore where the majority of infections were in young healthy men - and their corresponding tiny 26 deaths for ~45000 positive cases.

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#64

Post by kerkeslager »

iateanapple wrote: post #63
kerkeslager wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First: I don't think there's much data to make an argument here, but I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. Second: If your goal is to demonstrate that lockdowns aren't appreciably better than social distancing, Sweden is a great example of why you're wrong. "As time has gone on the numbers…

> First: I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease. So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distanc…

> So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing.

No, we are not comparing lockdowns with sensible social distancing. We aren't comparing lockdowns with doing nothing, either. We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown, which is in some cases sensible social distancing, but in other cases traveling 150 miles to wear your mask as a decorative chin strap and cough in a waiter's face.

Yes, some people sensibly social distance. But given the opportunity, many people don't.

> There are strong arguments to be made, and we will have to see how they play out over the next 12-18 months, that strict lockdowns actually resulted in more deaths because the fear they induced stopped people from doing regular health checkups etc.

Didn't you say, just one paragraph back, that "It turns out most people don't want to catch a deadly disease."? Wouldn't this cause them to not do regular health checkups, etc. as well?

I suppose it's possible that Covid itself causes just enough fear to cause people to social distance but not skip preventive care, and lockdowns just happen to tip people over into too much fear so they skip preventive care. But I don't think you have the evidence to claim that's what's happening.

That's a long way of saying, [citation needed].

> Comparing the other Nordic countries to Sweden is misleading because it was on a different trajectory before any lockdowns were implemented.

[citation needed]

> Note if you compare Sweden to the US it’s around half of the US rate per 100,000 despite lack of lockdowns.

Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading because the US doesn't have socialized medicine and is much more densely populated in the major cities where the disease spread. You can [citation needed] me on either one of those claims if you want and I'll provide links, but I think they're well known enough to not need citation.

> They have had ~100 excess deaths/week - and if you remove the older population (>65) then it’s basically 0 excess deaths/week.

Well, there it is. The age of the people dying is only relevant if you don't care about the elderly. You should be ashamed of yourself. Grow a conscience.

> 1) Ability to properly protect the old

Lockdowns protect the old.

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#65

Post by iateanapple »

kerkeslager wrote: post #64
iateanapple wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First: I think we can agree that house parties alone don't create as much social contact as house parties AND restaurants, salons, gyms, nonessential retailers, hotels, etc. In places with much lighter lockdowns (or no lockdowns at all) we still had significant social distancing. It turns out most people don’t want to catch a deadly disease. So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distanc…

> So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing. No, we are not comparing lockdowns with sensible social distancing. We aren't comparing lockdowns with doing nothing, either. We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown, which is in some cases sensible social distancing, but in other cases traveling 150 miles to wear you…

> We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown

As long as we are comparing with what people actually do when there is a lockdown.

This is what makes the data analysis so difficult - perhaps in some areas people actually followed lockdown rules - where I live basically nobody did.

Yet on paper we had similar lockdowns.

> Wouldn't this cause them to not do regular health checkups, etc. as well?

It doesn’t seem so - but it’s hard to know for sure because you are comparing different cultures and demographics.

Swedes kept going to routine checkups whereas Californians didn’t - but was that caused by the lockdowns or differences in culture?

Like I said in 12-18 months the data will be a lot clearer.

> [citation needed]

Follow Michael Levitt on Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013

> Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading

Yes, and so is comparing Sweden and Denmark - but you were happy to do that.

Latest excess deaths show Sweden is doing better than the European average - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013/status/12838142549...

> Well, there it is. The age of the people dying is only relevant if you don't care about the elderly. You should be ashamed of yourself. Grow a conscience.

Nonsense - a 5 year old dying is completely different from an 80 year old dying.

That doesn’t mean I don’t care about the elderly.

> Lockdowns protect the old.

That’s not clear.

NYC for example has had a ruinous number of deaths in nursing homes.

Maybe you meant “Lockdowns are intended to protect the old”?

Re: Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion thru social networks (2014)

#66

Post by kerkeslager »

iateanapple wrote: post #65
kerkeslager wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So we are comparing strict lockdowns compared with sensible social distancing - not with doing nothing. No, we are not comparing lockdowns with sensible social distancing. We aren't comparing lockdowns with doing nothing, either. We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown, which is in some cases sensible social distancing, but in other cases traveling 150 miles to wear you…

> We're comparing lockdowns with what people actually do when you don't have a lockdown As long as we are comparing with what people actually do when there is a lockdown. This is what makes the data analysis so difficult - perhaps in some areas people actually followed lockdown rules - where I live basically nobody did. Yet on paper we had similar lockdowns. > Wouldn't this cause them to not do regular health checkup…

> As long as we are comparing with what people actually do when there is a lockdown.

We are.

> This is what makes the data analysis so difficult - perhaps in some areas people actually followed lockdown rules - where I live basically nobody did.

Really? People in your area showed up to closed businesses and did what, congregated outside pointlessly? I'm gonna have to say, I don't believe that.

> Swedes kept going to routine checkups whereas Californians didn’t - but was that caused by the lockdowns or differences in culture?

[citation needed]

> Follow Michael Levitt on Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/MLevitt_NP2013

[citation needed] still, because I have no idea where you're seeing anything there which you're claiming, and more to the point, a biophysicist is not the same as an epidemiologist, and even more to the point, even an epidemiologist needs evidence to back up their point.

In short, link a study, or you are just making crap up.

> > Comparing Sweden to the US is misleading

> Yes, and so is comparing Sweden and Denmark - but you were happy to do that.

No, it's not.

The difference is that I gave reasons why the US and Sweden are different, whereas you don't seem to feel that a lack of evidence should prevent you from saying things.

Again, provide evidence for your claims, or you're just making crap up.

> NYC for example has had a ruinous number of deaths in nursing homes.

NYC didn't lock down until the disease had already been widespread.

Post reply on HN