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Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

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Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#621

Post by emn13 »

0-_-0 wrote: post #385
actually_a_dog wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Let's also not forget that for this virus to have escaped, there would have had to have been incredibly lax safety procedures. That doesn't mean that wasn't the case, just that we would have had trained researchers and technicians working with viruses similar to other viruses that have jumped species and caused serious disease under the equivalent of BSL-1 ( i.e. no precautions). BSL-2 is required for proced…

Biosecurity incidents are common, there were about 17 in the last decade [0]. Just SARS-CoV-1 leaked from the lab 4 times [1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laboratory_biosecurity... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndr...

A few incidents with excessively dangerous stuff like smallpox aside, most laboratory security incidents are essentially no worse than what millions of people experience on any given day. Scratched by sick animals, tick bites, mosquitos, bites larger animals, eating sick animals, getting blood from a different animal in an open (perhaps tiny) wound, breathing the air of densely held animals, leeches, etc etc etc.

I mean, not saying labs shouldn't be extremely careful, especially if the pathogen isn't unusually dangerous - but the outside world generally contains quite a few dangerous pathogens too, any more more (and more intense) interactions between host and human in which bad things can happen.

To be clear, these issues are serious and need addressing, but nevertheless the sheer numbers involved would suggest that the security incidents by themselves are unlikely to cause this kind of pandemic. We'd need some additional ingredient, like intention infection with multiple human subjects over a prolonged period, or extremely successful gain-of-function... something that can shift those otherwise billion-to-one odds very, very far.

Out of a kind of morbid fascination if indeed it turns out this long shot actually happened it would be really interesting to read the post-mortem as to which factors contributed, because it kind of has to be a list of bad luck and poor decisions.

(But to reiterate: it's not OK to ignore risks even if they aren't the most likely source of pandemic outbreaks, that's a way too low bar!)

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#622

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #620
dang wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those cases where it's helpful, in fact indispensable, to remember that there is exactly one thing we're optimizing for on HN, namely intellectual curiosity: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... . The fact that we have a clear guiding principle is my favorite thing about moderating HN because how the hell would one decide these things otherwise. It seems clear that the commun…

Not sure if this is too far down in your inbox, but I will write nonetheless... > This is one of those cases where it's helpful, in fact indispensable, to remember that there is exactly one thing we're optimizing for on HN, namely intellectual curiosity... Dang, respectfully, is it not true that "we are optimizing for" is a function of not only moderation, but the inherent (lack of) capabilities of rather feature spa…

I'm sorry but I don't understand.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#623

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #622
mistermann wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is too far down in your inbox, but I will write nonetheless... > This is one of those cases where it's helpful, in fact indispensable, to remember that there is exactly one thing we're optimizing for on HN, namely intellectual curiosity... Dang, respectfully, is it not true that "we are optimizing for" is a function of not only moderation, but the inherent (lack of) capabilities of rather feature spa…

I'm sorry but I don't understand.

At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums, and then someone invented one and the world was changed.

At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with voting, and then someone invented one and the world was changed.

At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with threaded conversations, and then someone invented one and the world was changed.

Has mankind reached the pinnacle of what can be achieved with respect to the optimization of intellectual discussion on internet forums, or might there be a few different things that have not yet been tried, or even thought of (if large quantities of intelligent people set their minds to the task)?

EDIT: An additional wrinkle of complexity: what if someone builds one, and it takes off and becomes a powerful juggernaut in the domain of thought-shaping-at-scale, but the founders are evil, or can be converted, or displaced? We arguably see some examples of this already.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#624

Post by ppf »

jiofih wrote: post #619
ppf wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the medical evidence for significant virus-related health benefits (to anyone) of general surgical-style mask wearing?

There is massive amounts of evidence for that. Even the standard flu nearly disappeared due to these hygiene measures. But what’s the point if you’re going to say those studies are fake?

Try me. I've already read all of the ones I can find - they all say the same thing - masks have a barely positive impact (non-zero, but barely positive) on the transmission of Covid. This is not surprising, as the holes in a mask are significantly bigger than the aerosols that they are supposed to slow.

Many different measures have been implemented, you can't possibly pick one of them and say that particular one has had a definite impact on a certain thing.

At least where I live, the way that Covid deaths were recorded over the winter left plenty of leeway for those dying "with Covid" to have just died of the flu (to be specific, if a patient had symptoms or evidence of a viral respiratory disease being the cause of death, then all that was needed was a "clinical picture of Covid" to make it a Covid death).

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#625

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #623
dang wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but I don't understand.

At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with voting, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with threaded conversations, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. Has mank…

Ah ok. I feel pretty sure that there are other improvements to be made! But most likely any significant ones would come from somebody starting a new forum with a different set of initial conditions.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#626

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #625
mistermann wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with voting, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. At one point in the past there were no internet discussion forums with threaded conversations, and then someone invented one and the world was changed. Has mank…

Ah ok. I feel pretty sure that there are other improvements to be made! But most likely any significant ones would come from somebody starting a new forum with a different set of initial conditions.

If those who currently run forums consciously choose to not consider expanding functionality to truly maximize the optimization of their goal (in this case, intellectual curiosity), this seems true by definition.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#627

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #626
dang wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah ok. I feel pretty sure that there are other improvements to be made! But most likely any significant ones would come from somebody starting a new forum with a different set of initial conditions.

If those who currently run forums consciously choose to not consider expanding functionality to truly maximize the optimization of their goal (in this case, intellectual curiosity), this seems true by definition.

The problem with your argument is that what you call "expanding functionality" can easily have negative effects. If you have a specific idea that you're confident would help HN to optimize better for intellectual curiosity, I'd like to hear it.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#628

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #627
mistermann wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those who currently run forums consciously choose to not consider expanding functionality to truly maximize the optimization of their goal (in this case, intellectual curiosity), this seems true by definition.

The problem with your argument is that what you call "expanding functionality" can easily have negative effects. If you have a specific idea that you're confident would help HN to optimize better for intellectual curiosity, I'd like to hear it.

I have many ideas, ranging from simple to extremely complex (some of which would require an entirely new platform).

A few examples (if ever implementing such things, I would do it in an "experimental mode" that can be enabled for specific threads):

- offer more options than simply upvoting & downvoting, perhaps something like a list of tags (epistemically unsound, speculative, smart, insightful, outside-the-box thinking, etc)

- When downvoting a user, offer/force the downvoter to provide a reason from a list (which could be voted on by others who agree/disagree), perhaps with the additional ability to provide specific reasoning. Some benefits of this might be for the downvoted user to actually have some insight into why they are being downvoted, it may make the downvoter put a little more effort into considering why they are downvoting, and it would provide additional metadata on conversations which could be used for a variety of things.

- Some sort "cultural mode" for threads of certain kinds, which might include things like "epistemic strictness". So for example, for culture war (politics) threads, it might be interesting to set Epistemic Strictness = High, meaning certain common behaviors would be forbidden, such as asserting imaginary beliefs as facts (mind reading, future reading, etc). Or, the same idea could be run under two threads, with opposite ends of the spectrum of a specific dimension...so if we were discussing the viability of nuclear power, one might have one thread for "extreme optimism" (the goal being to collect as large as possible set of why it is plausibly a good idea), and its counterpart could be "extreme pessimism" (why it is plausibly not a good idea).

Of course, some of these are better/easier than others, all of them are debateable from a cost/benefit/risk perspective, opinions would vary (a HN meta-thread seems like a fine approach for that...or as a general idea), etc.

My basic thinking is this: HN is an influential site, populated by intelligent and influential people, and the world has a lot of complex problems going on simultaneously (some people even think some of these problems are in the existential threat to humanity category). Considering this, is it possible that the HN Hivemind (a massive cluster of knowledge and skilled biological compute) produce some valuable new for humanity (new ideas, new ways of thinking, etc) if this cluster was orchestrated in a more optimal manner?

And of course: this is not your job. It is no one's job. And if hard jobs with no plausible economic return are not assigned to someone, they often do not get done, and humanity eventually suffers the consequences (with or without realizing why).

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#629

Post by dang »

mistermann wrote: post #628
dang wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your argument is that what you call "expanding functionality" can easily have negative effects. If you have a specific idea that you're confident would help HN to optimize better for intellectual curiosity, I'd like to hear it.

I have many ideas, ranging from simple to extremely complex (some of which would require an entirely new platform). A few examples (if ever implementing such things, I would do it in an "experimental mode" that can be enabled for specific threads): - offer more options than simply upvoting & downvoting, perhaps something like a list of tags (epistemically unsound, speculative, smart, insightful, outside-the-box think…

We've considered things like that over the years, but I think these and similar ideas suffer from a common flaw: people who disagree about X would disagree about reasons for upvoting/downvoting X or the level of "epistemic strictness" re X. So you'd just get the same arguments repeated at a meta level, which would not be a win.

I'm sorry to sound so dismissive; it's at least partly because I'm writing hastily. I don't mean to reflexively put down new ideas and I know it's all too easy to come across that way. At the same time, we're not going to add more metaness to HN because it actually goes against the core value of curiosity. Metaness has a peculiar attraction but it's not intellectual curiosity; I've sometimes called it the crack of internet forums.

Re: Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19 Infection

#630

Post by mistermann »

dang wrote: post #629
mistermann wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many ideas, ranging from simple to extremely complex (some of which would require an entirely new platform). A few examples (if ever implementing such things, I would do it in an "experimental mode" that can be enabled for specific threads): - offer more options than simply upvoting & downvoting, perhaps something like a list of tags (epistemically unsound, speculative, smart, insightful, outside-the-box think…

We've considered things like that over the years, but I think these and similar ideas suffer from a common flaw: people who disagree about X would disagree about reasons for upvoting/downvoting X or the level of "epistemic strictness" re X. So you'd just get the same arguments repeated at a meta level, which would not be a win. I'm sorry to sound so dismissive; it's at least partly because I'm writing hastily. I don'…

re: epistemic strictness

You don't think HN users are capable of realizing when they are engaged in mind/future reading, even if it was an explicit rule? You surely know the userbase better than me, but this seems unlikely.

If you want nothing to change, so be it, but the idea that functionality changes cannot have an effect is very frustrating.

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