Thanks for the explanation.
I don't think it is Joe Biden though. My priors are that sons don't really want to be controlled by their fathers. But in case he had such a relationship with his father, he would had called him less formally, like “Dad” or similar.
Ray Epps is more interesting. I think the worry about January 6 being a potential coup is overblown. Recently Germany had arrested a bunch of people for plotting a coup and restoring monarchy. The media described them as a group of senile men who had got hold of weapons, i.e., nothing serious and all immediately forgot about it. The same is probably true about January 6 except they were not seniors but younger fantasists and some of them had guns (but everybody has a gun in the US). It should not be paid such an attention. Sadly some people died in the crowds but fatal traffic accidents also happen and it is time to forget about this.
The only difference I can see is that Trump was tweeting something and the irrational hate of Trump has been a feature of the US politics. I am not saying that Trump is a good man but he certainly is not guilty of all the outrageous things he is accused of. Whatever Ray Epps' role was, it doesn't change the fact that it was just a spontaneous crowd gathered in naive beliefs, probably instigated by social media viral messaging.
nopie
1mo ago
Inflate? It doesn't work mathematically. Sorry, you are not making any sense.
nopie
2mo ago
It has happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v.Joseph(2019)
Not very likely that it will lead to guilty verdict. Probably will be a slap on wrist.
Maybe it is a bet that now times are different. I don't know but I tend to think that this bet will fail and it will be another loss of popularity to Trump administration. They are total losers who are on a fast track to self destruction. Good luck to them!
nopie
4mo ago
I don't know the history well. FUD just means Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. When internet was started (dialling in), everybody thought it will be a revolution but then spammers and FUD started. It can be about anything. It became clear that with open communications it is not easier to get true information as people are not inherently searching for truth but just want to express their opinions.
The great example is ivermectin effectiveness. Why this should be controversial? The story is very simple – we tried many things at the start of pandemic including ivermectin. There were some signals that it could be useful. But more studies were done and the signal disappeared. It happens with a lot of potential medicines. In about 10 prospective treatments only 1 passes final studies and are approved. Everybody can read data and this story. Starting from wikipedia and then Scott Alexander article for deeper interested laypersons. Specialists will simply read original sources. We have no controversy. Even Scott's assertion that it was ivermectin's anti-parasites effect that worked is a stretch and might not be true but I will assume that it is real.
Any information that somehow ivermectin effect is not resolved is FUD. I don't know why people continue bringing it up. Maybe they are really confused, maybe they have poor skills distinguishing real data from garbage, maybe they are propagandists or grifters. I don't care even if they are true believers. It is such a non-issue, not as close to that the earth is round but not that far either.
Obviously, sometimes we have to discuss things that the earth is round or that ivermectin is not effective. Usually with children or some learners. But it is boring to have such discussion in serious forums.
nopie
2yr ago
The fact that he is a media person disqualifies him already.
He talked rubbish about war in Ukraine. He is not interested in finding truth, just make controversial statements to increase his audience (and income).
I don't know all about these political details. I think they are irrelevant. What is relevant is that we follow scientific process. Initially with new ideas, things, it is common that practice does not follow scientific evidence but gradually there is a demand for evidence-based practice and that what happened with transgender therapies in the UK. Science is never settled in the stone, however. I expect more studies and more reviews etc., all moving towards more evidence-based practice. And obviously, evidence can change with time with better studies and reviews.
As for ivermectin, we get a lot of prescriptions in the UK, both for tablets and cream, for parasite treatment. I have never seen it prescribed for covid. Why would someone do that? Not risky but unnecessary. It is irrelevant if someone gets it for covid. Those are rare cases, just expensive placebo.
What to speak of ivermectin, even Paxlovid was a dud. Maybe helped some half-dead elderly people. The UK had a scheme to dispense it in the pharmacy without needing a prescription. But that lasted only a couple of months because the further evidence was not good. The US, however, under Biden's administration spent 10 billion on this medicine. Total waste of money.
nopie
4mo ago
It is mostly done with tribal mentality. It is common for people to have an idea, then search on pubmed scientific articles that support their idea.
I have to explain and again why this doesn't work. Mostly because you even start searching with keywords to support your idea. If you tried to search with keywords that would reject the idea, you would get articles that reject theses ideas.
The correct way is to start with neutral assumption and do real meta study. It is hard, very hard, take a lot of time. In most cases you are not able to do that. You have to admit that at some point that you don't have that much time, energy and probably even understanding to properly read even one study. Then you have to learn how to use secondary sources that summarizes meta studies, evaluate those sources, assign how much you trust them.
“Do your own research” is a good thing, but the problem with that is that you need to do your own research, correctly and not some half-assed version of it. Maybe laziness it is not the correct word. To me it is like building a house, you need to work hard, do it properly. Some people might just stick some wood in the ground, put a cover on top and call it a house. He just build a hut and even that was not good. You need an honesty to admit that you didn't do a good job. I don't know how to teach that. For me first it took 2 weeks to read one simple study. Even when it seems I understand it all, it wasn't the case. The scientific studies are written in a peculiar language and not a way that can be easily understood.
At university I started with simple assignments, like is polymorphism of beta-2 adrenoreceptors relevant for differentiating asthma treatments. Read a lot of studies, many positive. But the final conclusion, at current level of knowledge it cannot be done. You have to get used that most such searches will have negative result. It is easier if you start with null hypothesis. It is a hard work to find something. Scott Alexander is doing fantastic work with such reviews but I am afraid that even he doesn't have enough time and substitutes quality with quantity. I trusted his review of mask studies but it was incomplete. Cochrane review overturned his conclusions. But it wasn't possible for him to do in a few days what a group of dedicated and paid experts did during several months.
Contrarians sometimes challenge – how can you prove that earth is flat? It is actually a very good question in epistemology. You have limited resources to do actual experiments, travel to space and look at earth from outside. You only have access to the library. What are the methods to judge which information you can trust and why and which is not trustable. It opens whole philosophy of science, all about scientific paradigms and so on. Even scientists and engineers studying the actual things very deeply, like those who create and manage GPS system, haven't thought about these things. They are inside the paradigm but cannot describe it outsiders. Just like a native speaker often is unable to explain even simple phonetics of their own language. They have internalized them so deeply that they are unable to under realize that. Once I asked a native Japanese speaker, a linguist in fact, why I hear that in certain words they omit one sound. And his reaction was what? They never realized this omission.
What is absurd in the statement that Ukraine successfully pushed away Russian attack to most of their country?
As I said Ukraine might or might not recover Donbas and/or the Crimea but they successfully defended their capital from falling into Russia's hands. Now with the western help their army has only gotten stronger and I expect that they will liberate at least some of the territories currently occupied by Russians.
nopie
2yr ago
Exactly.
Why should I even care about this issue? I was just trying to convey how much would I trust this information based on my priors. I don't think I am biased exactly because I don't care about it. However, this is more interesting that Tucker doesn't move my priors.
If I read something on wikipedia that would move my priors.
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What does it mean “the Big Guy”?
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The data is already quite strong about this. It has already been a warning in vaccine information for more than a year. What we don't know, how much of a risk it is. Probably not that great in absolute numbers. However, the benefit from vaccine in young people is also not that great. We don't know if the benefits overweigh the risks.
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Very likely indeed.
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Who is Ray Epps?
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I don't think that China lying about covid matters. Nothing about covid really matters anymore. Most stats are only meant to scare people without true understanding how risks are/were age stratified. It took 3 years for European Medicines agency to finally say that covid risk increases exponentially by age even though we learned it within the first 2 weeks of pandemic.
nopie
2yr ago
Wrong? No, it was that you are likely a troll. That's the downvoting is for, it's intended purpose to show which comments are worse than others.
nopie
2mo ago
that seems to be shaping up, as reported, of essentially forcing countries to choose between the US and China does make sense.
Yes, it forces other countries to choose China instead of the US. How does it make sense?
nopie
4mo ago
Even more interesting that you mentioned Cass Review. It is a high quality review that states that the evidence we have is of low quality. Anyone can see that. A lot of people try to argue against it by saying that the review is of low quality but I can only see (at least in 99% of conversation) bias and/or intellectual laziness.
Why am I obliged to engage in conversion with those people? I don't want to and I don't need to. It is not a productive use of my time. I would better discuss this with my peers who have put a lot of work to learn how to evaluate evidence.
I have not participated in discussions about Cass Review but certain groups of experts have. They certainly didn't start with consensus. The fact that puberty blockers in the UK were prescribed to minors shows that. But eventually experts have cooperated and come to the conclusion that based on current evidence or rather due to lack of good evidence we cannot allow puberty blockers to minors except for clinical studies.
This was brought to the attention of the UK government which now has made a law based on recommendation of experts. My duty is only to follow the law, otherwise I will be breaking the law, I could be held criminally liable and lose my pharmacist licence etc.
Again, I can participate in discussions but I don't see what's the point. The expert group suggestion seems reasonable and the law is reasonable. That's how it works. In fact, I had a case when I had to approve dispensing of puberty blocker in a pharmacy and it immediately reminded me of Cass Review.
Maybe you mean that sometimes experts need to sell their ideas to the politicians and society who are not able to evaluate anything. But that is a completely different thing from what I am doing here. I am not trying to convince anyone to vote for me or even spread my ideas. I mostly want to learn something interesting and insightful and share the same to others (if I have something to share).
nopie
4mo ago
The paradigm is in the link I provided with clear and detailed evidence – exactly which studies and how they showed that both groups (ivermectin and placebo) had no statistical differences. It is your homework now to see that other group is outside this paradigm.
nopie
4mo ago
I mentioned philosophy of science and the fact that most scientists haven't read it.
The question here is why would you believe the Flat earth society that has done studies to prove their point and not that the earth is round without any systematic proof?
I haven't done my own meta study about ivermectin. That would take too much time and energy. I just read expert group rationale, in this case NICE (https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/NG191/chapter/4-therapeutics-for-covid-19#ivermectin) guidelines. It seems that they are accessible only from UK IP address however, therefore you might not be able to access them. But sure you have your own country guidelines.
Science works in paradigms, it also works in groups. The real question is not about your particular beliefs about ivermectin but understanding what is the current paradigm and which scientists work within that paradigm. Then many things will become easier. Those groups will have disagreements, that's how science progresses. But if you those disagreements are outside the parameters of the current paradigm, then that is either not science, or some revolution is going to happen that will change our understanding substantially.
As for ivermectin, I don't see anyone breaking the paradigm.
nopie
4mo ago
First, Ukrainians, at least, the ones I spoke with mostly don't think it was intentional. Just a bad policy for which they blame Russians.
Second, it is not relevant. My argument is to show what Ukrainians feel and not if their feelings are morally justified.
Third, you are trying to be inflammatory. I refuse to discuss like that. I like motte. I can find really good information here, good gems. But please, avoid biting like that with lazy remarks.
I mean, this is going into circles. Your write something very unclear based on some references or comparisons that I am not familiar with, I don't understand them. You then say – what comparisons?
Maybe you should reflect on what DuplexFields wrote and try to rewrite it so that it makes sense. I cannot provide reasonings of things that I cannot understand.
nopie
1mo ago
To me it seems that if you have to pay 10% on interest payments for the debt, you could easily reduce spending by 10% and not to pay this interest payment and be in the same situation. Obviously, that would cause short term pain but long term benefits.
I personally can easily spend 4-5 years at college and/or training and live frugally to get better job or whatever. Everybody can.
nopie
2mo ago
I think nothing is more important than economy. People talk about different values and in that sense we need more than economy, for example, democracy and pure air (ecology). But economy is a central thing that allows the country to thrive because everything is based on it. It is just that historically the growth was non-existent (0.01% per year) therefore not many past thinkers have mentioned it in the list of good values. We need to add this to the constitution of every country that achieving growth is very important.
The rule that you are not allowed to occupy other countries without a good reason.
The rule is enforced by most powerful countries on this planet, namely, NATO countries who supply Ukraine sufficient weapons so that they can fight against Russian occupying forces.
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