AnonymousActuary
No bio...
User ID: 2163
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
I've always wondered if they realized:
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Lockdowns aren't going to get rid of COVID
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We've turned some decent percentage of the population paranoid
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We need that population to start doing things again or we kill the economy
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Masks work! Just wear a mask and you are safe to go around making and consuming Economics inputs and outputs!
But maybe that is too conspiratorial...it really was a huge switch though. The stated reason was that they realized the amount of presymptomatic/asymptomatic spread, but lots of illnesses have huge periods of presymptomatic spread (Influenza and RSV, notably), so not sure why that would have resulted in a change.
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
entered the Covenant School via a side door
Once again, actually locking doors seems to be the anti-mass shooting low-hanging fruit
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
I have never seen a school that had doors that weren't locked from the outside after school hours. The problem seems to be actually locking them, not that they can't be locked
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
Ah - so then hardening the doors would be the fruit but that is substantially less low hanging.
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
purely because I hated the other big champion that year so fucking much
Ok you can't just say that and not elaborate
AnonymousActuary
1yr ago
I think Stefferi is right if he is talking about expectations for the vaccine before the first trial results were released. Especially focusing on scientific expectations, not the partisan "If Trump release a vaccine before the election it'll be rat poison".
AnonymousActuary
11mo ago
As an actuary in healthcare (arguably part of the problem) I heartily recommend that article.
AnonymousActuary
11mo ago
This should be mandatory reading anytime we discuss drug pricing (I think on PBMs on consolidation you are likely right):
https://slatestarcodex.com/2016/09/07/reverse-voxsplaining-brand-name-drugs/
What was the worst thing that ever happened? One strong contender is Mao’s Great Leap Forward, in which ineffective agricultural reforms and very effective purges killed 45 million people. Most of these people were probably already adults, and lifespan in Mao’s China wasn’t too high, so let’s say that each death from the Great Leap Forward cost what would otherwise be twenty healthy life years. In that case, the worst thing that has ever happened until now cost 45 million * 20 = 900 million life-years.
Once again, RAND’s calculations plus my own Fermi estimate suggest that prescription drug price regulation would cost one billion life-years, which would very slightly edge out Communist China for the title of Worst Thing Ever.
Prescription drugs are an area with real breakthoughs occurring - some of the new biologics, Harvoni/Solvadi/the Hep C drugs, a lot of the HIV/AIDS drugs, Ozempic, and so on. That is a golden goose I am very hesitant to mess with given the relatively low portion of total costs they make up. The Alzheimer's drugs may end up being an exception to this....
AnonymousActuary
11mo ago
Reminds me of Kevin Williamson's support for hanging (though he opposes the death penalty). If we want the state to have the power of execution, we should have to confront the consequences. None of this pseudo medicalized stuff. Firing squad or hanging.
AnonymousActuary
10mo ago
"Actions taken by the Biden Admin during the Covid pandemic were generally justified." Not enough info to sway either way
Always down to talk COVID. Prefer text only for op-sec reasons
AnonymousActuary
9mo ago
I mean if you want a lot to churn through Brandon Sanderson seems like the obvious choice? Start with Mistborn or The Way of Kings
AnonymousActuary
8mo ago
- I really enjoyed this article and happily followed the substack
- I have a vague memory of reading an article online a long time ago that discussed the logistical differences between Japan and the US in terms of how quickly the US was building destroyers/escort carriers/etc by 1944 even. If anyone remembers that can find me the link, I will be eternally* grateful
*grateful for a few hours plus every few years when I think about the article again
AnonymousActuary
8mo ago
AnonymousActuary
6mo ago
Yes, if you know you are going to deliver you should get as premium a plan as you can pretty much. If you need help with the calculations shoot me a message, I work in health insurance.
And yes, it's antiselection, and yes, the ACA kinda allows it, something something risk adjustment makes people whole something something.
AnonymousActuary
6mo ago
if you like a relaxing form of travel, stay at top tier all inclusive resorts for 4-5 days at a time.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
I did not run at a D1 University, but was fit in college, and got my Marathon done right before graduating to check off the box haha. Knew it was only going to get harder from there.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
Been playing the Divide and Conquer Medieval Total War II mod (https://www.moddb.com/mods/divide-and-conquer) and it is just spectacular. Full conversion mod that starts a few decades before the War of the Ring, has a ton of playable civs both lore accurate and a bit of a stretch, but it's just tremendous fun to charge your Dol Amroth Knights into Haradrim or mow down Goblins with your Elven archers.
And the first time Mumakil appeared on a battle map was legitimately a top 3 gaming moment of all time for me. Just complete shock and awe.
AnonymousActuary
5mo ago
Lockdowns aren't on the pareto frontier of policy options for even diseases significantly deadlier than covid imo, just because rapid development and distribution of technological solutions is possible, but ... covid killed one million people in the united states. Yes, mostly old people, but we're talking about protecting old people here. No reason to pretend otherwise.
Whether the policies may or may not have protected any old people has nothing to do with whether they were fascist or not. I could deprive everyone of freedom of movements this holiday season and probably save several thousand people from the flu, but that does not mean it is not fascist.
Closing down an airport or adding additional security is the same as mandating everyone stay in their homes, actually.
Securing your borders is very different then securing someone's home. This should be obvious.
If there's a black death like plague close your borders and tell your population what is going on - people will be more careful (as indeed they were in early March, even with popular figures telling them to "go hug a Chinese person" and that "they really should be worried about the flu".
EDIT: Also, saying "would these actions be justifiable with a plague that was 50x worse" is again, not really addressing the point at hand. Is fascism justifiable if things are bad enough (Do you support Korematsu v United States) is a separate question from "Was fascism justifiable in this instance" which is clearly false, especially because everyone abandoned their commitment to it as soon as a more politically favorable current thing popped up at the end of May 2020.
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
Lockdowns are fascism because using a trumped-up emergency (whether or not it killed people it was obviously trumped up - particularily the threat to children, young, healthy, and "long COVID") as pretext to confine your population to their homes only to be let out when your approved political causes are up for support is bad, well working with the media and technology companies to censor any opposition to your views is like, basically the dictionary definition. Like what political system would it be if not?
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
would you prefer authoritarian?
Forgot about the whole "yeah the 1st amendment doesn't apply anymore, no religious services or protests (except the state-sanctioned ones)"
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
I think it is more likely a happy accident then a deliberate targeting, but it is hard to say for sure. There is much about what went on in March 2020 that is still very unclear to me. I think it is definitely possible it was more a general egregore that drove the shutdowns than any one specific thing (China is sometimes mentioned, though if so they were clearly drinking their own kool-aid rather than trying to sabotage anyone).
EDIT: I should say I'm referring to an "egregore" being responsible rather than directly the "state", as in my mind much of 2020 is better explained by some sort of social media/traditional media/political expediency/current thing/good 'ol fashioned hysterias then more concrete concepts such as "the state"
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
he population of Russia dipped during WWII by about 10%
I don't have much substantial to add but just wanted to note that I hadn't seen Russian casualties during WWII laid out in percentage terms and I was honestly shocked it is this low. If WWII is somewhat a story of the US's vast industrial capacity and Russia vast population capacity combining together it was fascinating to see it laid out in such stark terms.
AnonymousActuary
4mo ago
Fair point - it's more just a "man Russia had a ton of people" then a "their sacrifice was not massive" obviously the casualties (both military and civilian) in Russia were insanely large.
Tangential to the discussion, but immediately made me think of this classic article on how they build the spaceship code:
https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff
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