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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

961–968 of 968 posts

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#961
post #921
post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. It feels quite funny though to be so specific about the ramblings of a man, who clearly says whatever comes to his mind without further thought. He might as well have said it and nothing would change. Definitely though there is a difference, and I should have probably worded myself a little differently. But it's quite hard to adhere to a high level of truthfulness when the other side clearly has no regard for…

> It feels quite funny though to be so specific about the ramblings of a man, He either said it's a hoax or he didn't. In this case, he didn't. If you don't care what he rambles about, that's fine, but then don't say he said something he didn't as a proof to some point, as if it were a well-known fact. > He might as well have said it and nothing would change But he did not. So don't say he did. It's a lie. It's not o…

Well I just noted your reply, 2 days later, but I'll still reply just because I feel annoyed.

Oh please, you are fighting windmills here. How I was phrasing myself in my opinion was vague enough to let the reader know, that I was not really sharing scientifically exact information. I expected somebody to write a short reply to correct me had I been wrong, not get so worked up on this.

Eg "If somebody of your friends told you that, please keep loving them as friends but accept anything they say with a grain of salt as they may be more gullible than you thought." What? I think you have overdosed on political zealousness as that's not something I would really care about. But perhaps as a European it's impossible for me to understand. And if I did care enough to correct them, I could just tell them and they wouldn't get upset. Unless you do it a like a nit-picking asshole that is.

It's nice you are trying the right the wrong, but seriously a less passive-aggressive reply would have been enough. Bless your heart.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#962
post #961
post #921

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It feels quite funny though to be so specific about the ramblings of a man, He either said it's a hoax or he didn't. In this case, he didn't. If you don't care what he rambles about, that's fine, but then don't say he said something he didn't as a proof to some point, as if it were a well-known fact. > He might as well have said it and nothing would change But he did not. So don't say he did. It's a lie. It's not o…

Well I just noted your reply, 2 days later, but I'll still reply just because I feel annoyed. Oh please, you are fighting windmills here. How I was phrasing myself in my opinion was vague enough to let the reader know, that I was not really sharing scientifically exact information. I expected somebody to write a short reply to correct me had I been wrong, not get so worked up on this. Eg "If somebody of your friends…

> How I was phrasing myself in my opinion was vague enough to let the reader know, that I was not really sharing scientifically exact information.

You were not sharing scientific information. The problem is not that your information was unscientific, it's that it was a lie. And instead of saying "well, sorry, my bad, I goofed up, should have checked my sources better, will do better in the future" you still are trying to prove it's somehow OK to tell untruth and I was unreasonable ("a nit-picking asshole") for calling you out on telling a falsity, and somehow now me "getting worked up" (you must be really psychic knowing that via the internet! maybe you should make billions betting on stocks instead?) is the problem, not telling false things. I don't think this has much to do with being a European. I myself have been born in Europe, and I have many European friends, and I know in Europe truth means the same as everywhere else in the world.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#963
post #400

I'm a biologist and I have no trouble saying with a straight face that, as of yet, COVID-19's true health impact has been lower than that of a bad year of flu. I don't care about TV commenters- by the metric of # of deaths (not potential number of deaths, or total cost to the medical system, or impact on economy), COVID-19 has been less than a bad year of flu. This isn't to say COVID-19 isn't bad, or doesn't have the…

You're a biologist who also was in the Navy special forces and you also worked at Google for 20 years? I'm guessing you were the Google company epidemiologist on staff, right?

You're so accomplished! Is there anything you aren't a 100% certified expert on?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#964

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But DJT lies a lot more than any of his predecessors, and hires a lot more incompetents, and fires a lot more competents, than any of his predecessors.

You must have a reasonably short memory, because people said exactly the same sort of sensational things about Obama, and Bush Jr, and Clinton, and Bush Sr, and Reagan...

But when (if) they said those things about Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, and Reagan, those were lies like Trump's.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must have a reasonably short memory, because people said exactly the same sort of sensational things about Obama, and Bush Jr, and Clinton, and Bush Sr, and Reagan...

But when (if) they said those things about Obama, the Bushes, Clinton, and Reagan, those were lies like Trump's.

Perhaps what you’re saying right now is a lie.

In general, I’m quite fond of being incredibly sceptical of the government and all of its agents. They should be scrutinized thoroughly. But this isn’t honest or productive scrutiny. The truth is all of those politicians lied, and all of them exaggerated details, and misrepresented facts (though trying to measure how much would be reasonably subjective). They also all did good work (again open to some subjective interpretation). But your commentary boils down to an incredibly black and white view, which ignores the sins of one group, and exaggerates the sins of another. It almost exclusively reflects your own biases over the actual conduct of any president.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#966
post #955

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is ludicrous. Nobody has the data to back this up, and there is plenty of data contradicting it. The data on this are so clear I don't really know where to start if you don't believe it. I feel your opposition on this issue is ideological, and there's no data that will change your mind. > If we're going to spend trillions of dollars on something, let's at least spend it on something that benefits everybody Giv…

> The data on this are so clear No, they're not. The data are a mess. Temperature records have been "adjusted" and the original raw data thrown away all over the place. I understand you don't believe this; I'm simply stating what I believe for the record. As I said, we're clearly not going to agree. > I feel your opposition on this issue is ideological, and there's no data that will change your mind. I have spent two…

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#967
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing annual death totals for the flu to coronavirus deaths over a couple of months is mistake number 1. Comparing a number that is static from year to year to one that is growing exponentially is mistake number 2.

and comparing "estimated contamination cases vs associated death" to "a known-positive cases vs. associated death" is mistake number 3. CDC data shows 220k known-tested-positive case and 22k associated death. The 36 millions case is pulled out of a hat. As per these number, seasonal flu kills 10% of the known-positive cases.

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Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#968
post #922
post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the quote from the Snopes article: > Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes. > O…

> it should be beyond question that Trump is downplaying the severity of the coronavirus in the last few sentences. He may have downplayed the severity, but it's light years away from claiming it's a "hoax". One can reasonably debate whether he did the former, but the latter is flat out lie. It's not ok to lie, even about Trump. There's a huge difference between choosing how to react to coronavirus (a lot of people w…

You literally made a new definition of "hoax" on the fly to fit your truth model. You steamrolled over a contradiction in your logic and then go accusing people of lying for not doing the same!
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