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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#871

Post by atomashpolskiy »

tigershark wrote: post #863
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is "we"? Actual scientists say the opposite: most numbers are meaningless and misleading, because we don't know, how wide the virus has spread. Are you that lazy-minded to not even try to check the links that I have provided?

Then why you post utterly meaningless numbers based on 1500 reported cases far behind the curve and ask for my comment? And please stop insulting me, you have gone too far.

Dr Ioannidis, for one example, thinks that Iceland's numbers are actually representative in contrast to US, Spain, Italy, etc. He's an expert, what reasons do you have to not at least consider his opinion (and many others') as viable?

And it's not my fault that you're so touchy to be insulted by opinions that challenge the ones you hold. There's hardly any valour in throwing downvotes left and right on every post by the person you disagree with either.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#872

Post by nickthemagicman »

dekhn wrote: post #490
DrJones1098 wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since there's no vaccine...what you're suggesting is a perpetual game of Covid whack-a-mole. We come out of quarantine it blows up again, we go back into quarantine. That's as infeasable solution as this current lockdown quarantine.

So far most data I've seen shows that people who were infected have some immunity. However, it's not clear yet what the annual effect of immunity will be - for example, we haven't sampled enough people/viruses to know in detail whether that immunity persists when the virus mutates. Epidemiologists are likely to know the answers to these sorts of questions in a few years.

Every single other known Coronavirus builds immunity.

Hundreds of thousands of patients and no reports of repeat healthy patients.

Preliminary studies with macaque monkeys show that an immunity is built.

There's plenty of data to show that an infection is built.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#873

Post by atomashpolskiy »

rsynnott wrote: post #732
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was using the word "flu" in the broader sense. People commonly refer to virus-caused colds as simply flu. So what I was trying to say was that this is yet another virus that causes "flu".

Ah, I see, ‘flu’ in the ‘broader sense’ of basically bloody anything. Yes, I’ve got a touch of the bubonic plague today. Oh, I’m using ‘bubonic plague’ in the broader sense; I stubbed my toe.

Note that it's you who is grossly exaggerating. Got anything meaningful to say regarding confirmed difference between flu and covid?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#874

Post by atomashpolskiy »

tigershark wrote: post #835
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be mentally unstable. There is nothing insulting about being skeptical. I have facts to back my statements, can you say the same for yourself?

You didn’t post any fact. Only a meaningless link to Iceland numbers. Thanks for insinuating that I’m mentally unstable by the way. That is certainly a very stable and mature behaviour.

You post fear-inducing bullshit with a straight face, get insulted by something that challenges your beliefs and carpet-bomb all my comments in the thread. That's the definition of a crank.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#875

Post by atomashpolskiy »

jMyles wrote: post #740
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #485

I commented on this earlier, and my karma is sinking due to all the crazy people downvoting each one of my comments in that thread. To all of these people and anyone sincerely interested in the topic I'd like to post an interview with Dr John P.A. Ioannidis, a professor of medicine and professor of epidemiology and population health, as well as professor by courtesy of biomedical data science at Stanford University S…

The ironic part is that Ioannidis has been a hero on HN for a long time now - I imagine that's where you discovered him, as I did. And it's not just him - his colleagues Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, who are presently conducting the first large-scale antibody test have also had a more sober tone. And David Katz. And Frank Ulrich Montgomery. And Albert Ko. I mean, I understand that somebody disagree with the mat…

+1

And thanks for /r/PrepareInsteadOfPanic, good stuff!

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#877

Post by lucretian »

xenyal wrote: post #771
garraeth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Unfortunately now it's more like picking a sport team ("Team CNN" or "Team Fox"), or Apple vs/ Google vs/ Microsoft than actually finding, or learning about, facts. Tribalism at it's finest. The only alternative I've found (I'm open to helpful suggestions) is to ignore that noise and read actual briefings and original sources. But, that defeats the point of news being an honest and straight forward source of…

Out of curiosity, and because I'm a Canadian out of the loop with respect to American news networks, how can there be news being at ends with each other? That's something I have difficulty putting into perspective (referring to the Team CNN vs Team Fox comparison)

two comments:

1) the american TV news industry has slowly blurred, then obliterated, the line between straight news and editorial opinion. they're now often intermixed, with slanted analysis weaved throughout reporting. things like those news panel shows are particularly bad about this.

many people don't like to admit it because it challenges their centrist pretensions, but in the modern era, fox news started it and the remaining TV news outlets followed suit over the years.

2) but more fundamentally, there is probably no such thing as truly unbiased straight news reporting. the choosing of which facts to present is itself still an editorial process subject to human prejudice.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#878

Post by catalogia »

thombat wrote: post #747
catalogia wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, why not? It's obvious "probably nobody is even going to listen to those guys" is true...

Why not? Because what evil puppet-master settles for "probably ok" when a slight extra effort buys certainty.

One that isn't totally neurotic, presumably. Just to reiterate, I don't believe such an organization exists. But when trying to understand the plausible actions of even fictional characters or organizations, I try to imagine myself in their shoes. If I were in their fictional shoes, I would ignore the people who say I rule the world if those people are widely mocked and derided as insane by the general public. To do anything other than ignore them would be to risk giving them a sliver of credibility.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#879

Post by Zenbit_UX »

burke_holland wrote: post #577
_wwz4 wrote: post #548

Do people appreciate that denial of the severity of this virus came from all political quarters? Here's one showing the mistakes of left-leaning media I found in 2 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=wVDPVBZF2Xg It's just as easy to find supercuts of Pelosi, DeBlasio, and other prominent Democrats telling people that they didn't need to start social distancing or that the virus wasn't airborne c…

I had this same thought. Here's Pelosi encouraging people to come to Chinatown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCzoXhNM6c Also, we should be careful about how much we eviscerate people on both sides politically during this time. If our leaders are too afraid of repercussions to make difficult decisions, they may make bad decisions instead. I'm calling for moratorium on partisan finger-pointing. I think we're all in…

Your link is a bit different, she was in Chinatown to show people that not all Chinese people have the virus. Seems there businesses were stagnating due to xenophobia. She was wrong to encourage people to go out and shop in general but she was not wrong to try to stop the rumors surrounding Chinese Americans.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#880

Post by Zenbit_UX »

lucretian wrote: post #877
xenyal wrote: post #771

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, and because I'm a Canadian out of the loop with respect to American news networks, how can there be news being at ends with each other? That's something I have difficulty putting into perspective (referring to the Team CNN vs Team Fox comparison)

two comments: 1) the american TV news industry has slowly blurred, then obliterated, the line between straight news and editorial opinion. they're now often intermixed, with slanted analysis weaved throughout reporting. things like those news panel shows are particularly bad about this. many people don't like to admit it because it challenges their centrist pretensions, but in the modern era, fox news started it and…

You're forgetting the most important point. There's no law requiring a "news" agency to report the facts. In fact there's no laws requiring them to not lie about everything they say. It seems crazy to admit, because news is suppose to be useful and factual information surrounding current events, but in America it doesn't have to be and it stopped being that way when they realize that sensational and entertaining stories got better ratings.
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