nopie
1yr ago
CIA had better intel from inner circles of Kremlin that enabled them to predict that Putin will start a war. It is not that hard to predict if you have inside info. But apparently even CIA underestimated Ukrainians and their resolve to fight and their preparedness. Anyone who had talked to Ukrainians for the last 8 years would have known how serious they were to fight and resist. It is strange that CIA miscalculated so much.
Immunity debt is a possibility but needs more studies.
We don't need to prove that public health interventions caused harm. Those who decided to implement them had to prove that they are safe and effective, just like we do with medicines.
A lot of inflation in Europe is not related to Ukraine. Maybe prices for energy could be explained by war in Ukraine but food is very questionable. Even if the price of grains is determined by global market prices, their impact on total food should not be that much.
nopie
1yr ago
He was instrumental in the shift from COVID 'let it rip' to 'do something' and probably improved the UK's response to COVID from catastrophic to very bad.
With this he was clearly wrong. The UK results are very bad, even worse than for countries with less restrictions. Most lockdowns and school closures were pointless because it was elderly people who mostly died. If they had concentrated on protecting the elderly, they would have done better. But overall, even with that most countries overreacted.
The UK didn't introduce vaccine mandates unlike many other countries, so at least they did one thing right. But I doubt it had anything to do with Cummings.
nopie
1yr ago
The old method didn't work for me. When I was learning a second language (Russian) at school I memorized perfectly all declension tables and all grammar rules and still wasn't able to form a single sentence. I only learned it later with immersion when I had to live among Russians and learn to communicate in Russian. Now I have forgotten all the grammar rules but I can speak almost fluently.
Then I wanted to live in Spain, so I started learning Spanish by Pimsleur method which starts by using real sentences in conversion. It was great and motived me a lot. I am not fully proficient in Spanish yet but it enabled me to be able to deal with all practical matters in Spanish.
My observation is that memorizing rules do not translate well into internalizing them and being able to use in practice. Those kids who were good in Russian actually had exposure to Russia on the street or by watching cartoons in Russian.
It is possible that with this method you eventually reach a limit. Probably you then need to learn more things and appropriate training should be prepared. Sometimes knowing the detailed rules are necessary. But let's remember that people create these rules in their native language without being literate. Even a small child can sometimes correct my grammar.
You cannot separate “telling people to wear masks work” from “wearing masks work” in the intervention. It is the real life we are talking about.
The argument that maybe the results would be better if we apply efforts to improve the compliance is a real one and was raised by the Cochrane group reviewers. Their answer was that no one has studied it, so we don't know and cannot claim that it would have helped.
I was just learning about different contraceptive methods. Their reported results of effectiveness are not some best case values but real life results from studies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Index Even that is being criticised that in studies people get better counselling and training and may not represent the real life values. I find interesting that fertility rhythm method has very high theoretical effectiveness (slightly worse than condoms – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_birth_control_methods) and yet it is heavily criticized by all experts in the field. It is always more easier to take a pill than measure temperature daily plus all other behavioural aspects.
Some argue that it still makes sense for their elderly relative to wear mask to protect themselves. Maybe, but I don't know your elderly relative. The statistical chances are that they are as much non-compliant as any other member of the population. Telling all hundred or thousand of them (how many readers do we have?) to wear a mask will statistically yield the same result as in those studies.
I would say that about 30-35 million people that can be added to the global community that is engaged in improving human society is a big deal. It is not only about advancement of technologies because this can be done also in dictatorships like China but about the fabric of the society that is beneficial for all of us. The society is constantly facing different problems (social networks, lockdowns, lack of democracy etc.) that we need more people to deal with these problems in a positively progressive way instead of heavy-handed manner.
The biggest problem with dictatorship is that it is less effective. Putin started a senseless war that hurt Russia a lot. In Western democracies people can also make wrong choices but it is self correcting and it is better in long term development.
nopie
1yr ago
That's why we need EMH to protect people from making simple mistakes like that. :)
Eli Lily can and will make good money on tirzepatide but it is a big company with tens of different drugs on the market. Some of them will be unprofitable which makes it hard to predict the final stock price of this company.
Also, it doubtful that it will make a noticeable dent in McDonald's profits. McDonald's is not the only fast food chain. People buy food in supermarkets too and throw out about half of it for whatever reason. It is very hard to predict what impact the appetite loss in a number of fat people will have.
nopie
1yr ago
It is a really weird logic. Russia didn't attack Ukraine until 2008. Does it mean that Russia would never attack Ukraine?
Hitler didn't attack the USSR until 1940. Does it mean Hitler would never attack the USSR?
Obviously if a thing hasn't happened in a certain year, it cannot be the evidence that it would never happen.
nopie
1yr ago
Maybe masks filter things efficiently (just for the sake of argument) but it doesn't matter in practice because people cannot wear them 24 hours without stop and will get exposed to unfiltered air at some time. If the end result is that mask wearers get respiratory infections at almost the same rate as the rest, what is the point?
Also we are supposed to see the big picture, not just some technical point. Mask mandates would be wrong even if they were effective.
nopie
1yr ago
Probably not. Ukrainians would have started resistance and it would be very bloody and violent.
I would expect every country to fight if its existence was threatened, and asking for help is just natural too.
I don't see how Ukraine successfully fighting back Russian aggression escalates anything though.
nopie
1yr ago
I don't need the EMH to avoid doing things that are clearly reckless and most likely leading to ruin. But apparently many people need something that is softer on their ego. Instead of saying to them – don't overestimate your ideas, you probably know less whether the potential investment opportunities are good deals or not – we have to tell them soft lies about the EMH. It is like saying that you are a genius instead of an idiot but other investors are geniuses too and they have already cornered the market so you have very little chance to be the first. :)
When we talk about the elderly, the number of lives saved becomes meaningless. We should use QALY or at least months of life extended on average.
Imagine a very old and sick person gets vaccinated for covid and this extends his life expectancy by 2 years. It won't be fully enjoyable life, probably still on wheelchair and full with health crisis but it is better than nothing.
Now we can compare how many QALYs were gained by antihypertensive medicines, by statins etc. and see the actual cost-effectiveness. Covid vaccines probably were quite effective among elderly but as now statins are generic and very cheap (£2 per month on average in the UK) and covid vaccines quite expensive (£50 per dose) I doubt that the gains are greater than for statins. I vaguely remember that statins provide additional life expectancy about 7 months on average. It doesn't sound much but on society's level that's quite impressive.
nopie
10mo ago
Sorry, I have hard time to understand you. English is not my native language and words like “belies” and “wasn't a shit show” are hard to grasp.
I would say that all countries in the Former Soviet Union and some even beyond that were doing equally poorly.
nopie
10mo ago
There was not much of a pie to divide at the start. All countries started being very poor but some countries received new investments and others not.
Specifically in Ukraine oligarhs resisted establishing links with the EU exactly because they feared that new investments will make their wealth to become proportionally much smaller (hence, losing power). If Ukraine had joined the EU despite inefficient privatization, it would have been much more developed today.
On the other hand, the countries that remained economically related to Russia, the risk of western investments was too high and they remained poor.
nopie
1yr ago
Nobody is perfect. He needs to maintain his brand with his substack and some of these discussions can damage it.
I am being charitable to him and assume that he doesn't denounce lockdown restrictions only because he cannot without damage to his reputation. It is the same Kolgomorov's complicity he wrote about.
I can put my bets that the public is volatile. Crowds that demanded that everyone stays at home, will soon demand for blood of those who issued these orders. But I have nothing to lose if my bets do not work out. For him it is much more riskier. And he can join the crowd too when it demands blood.
nopie
1yr ago
It might not be true but it is very believable. Extrajudicial killings in occupied areas happen very frequently on both sides.
nopie
10mo ago
That's one way of looking at that. The other, completely naive way is to consider that previously Ukrainians were pushed back, then Ukrainians stopped and were able to defend their positions and now they are pushing Russians back albeit slowly.
That clearly shows that the rate of strengthening heir armies, for Ukrainians is slightly faster than for Russians.
With every day Ukrainians gains small but real superiority over Russians. Granted, this comes with very wide confidence intervals. Maybe both sides are bluffing, we don't know.
Also we have to consider that with time the support for Ukrainian army both nationally and internationally may wane. And Russians may gain more supporters and ramp up their war time production. That does not allow me to make predictions with strong confidence.
It may also be that the strength of Russian resistance increases with the distance from Kyiv. Ukrainians will be able to recover only up to certain limit.
In summary, it seems that sanctions on Russia is working as intended – to minimise their war production capabilities.
I don't believe that the use of nuclear arms means the world is over. It can cause a lot of damage but the impact on it is overestimated. Even if one believes argameddon, we don't really know what increases the risk. People are just unnecessary panicking. We just witnessed the same happened with covid pandemic. It just led to a lot of unnecessary lockdowns, travel restrictions, useless but dehumanising vaccine mandates etc.
That said, I totally understand Elon Musk's arguments. His first poll was unreasonable because it included the condition of Ukraine remaining neutral naively believing that it was a real reason why Russia attacked. The second poll is more reasonable. Despite all the blood and everything ultimately if most people in those areas prefer to stay with Russia, then it is wrong to force them eternally. The question is only how this transition should happen? I cannot imagine that the referendum during the war is appropriate. But if given a reasonable time, like in five years when the cities are rebuilt and the scars of war are more or less healed, then people can make a choice. The poll doesn't say anything about these conditions but many people are reading it in the context of the first poll and in the context of current politics instead taking it at the face value.
nopie
1yr ago
Even more weird reasoning coming. The second paragraph is a clear contradiction of the first. Hitler hadn't attacked the USSR in 1940. He had a non-aggression pact. Clearly, it must be prima facie evidence that he lacks the motive to attack the USSR. Except that he did just a few months later. What changed? Probably nothing, he was only busy with other things or waiting for more opportune moment.
nopie
1yr ago
Some people are waiting for Twitter to fail just like some were waiting for Russians to take Kyiv :)
Musk makes mistakes but overall I think Twitter will neither be a great success nor failure.
nopie
1yr ago
The article itself (with which you still have yet to engage) provides plenty of context on this, e.g. re: "negotiations as 20" vs. "negotiations as 19+1." Russia even wanted to join NATO at one point, so the idea that Russian security concerns are purely a cover for stopping neighbors from joining alliances is ridiculous.
No, it is not. If not for NATO, Russia by now would have started war with the Baltic countries, probably even gained quick victory because they are smaller than Russia.
As for the fault of the west, some are saying that Hitler got to the power because of hyperinflation. Other economists are quick to argue that it was actually due to austerity policy that followed it. In any case, we can analyse what could have other countries done to prevent fascist Germany. But the arguments that we only had to convince the Jews in Germany to stop predatory banking practices and the WWII would be averted are wrong on too many levels.
The same is about Russia. What the west could have done is to support post-Soviet countries more to avoid crash of their economy. I don't know how feasible it was but at least it is open for debate.
If it was found in RCT trials that the drug does not treat the illness in the treatment group (whatever the reason), it would not get approved.
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