nopie
2mo ago
I think it is obvious now that he has a mild form of dementia.
Scott Alexander wouldn't accept that Biden was senile but it was clear to me early on. It is not professional to diagnose people online, but from the other hand it has to be done for political persons who could cause a lot of harm.
Biden could function because he was surrounded by reasonable people. It does not appear to be the case with Trump. Trump should be removed from the office for reasons of mental incapacity.
nopie
2mo ago
Biden should have been removed. I am just saying that even though he wasn't, it didn't seem to be so bad because people who actually made the policy on his behalf were reasonable. Not great but competent.
Maybe the same expectation was with Trump. It doesn't matter how crazy he is if the administration is reasonable. No one believed that absurd tariffs will get implemented etc. In a way, the problem is not with Trump but that he is surrounded by people who are not competent.
nopie
4mo ago
Sorry, I don't engage in obvious falsehoods.
I have so many Kremlin apologists doubting that MH17 happened. I don't have time and energy to respond to all this. It is not very productive use of my time.
Doubting Bucha when we have so much confirmed evidence is pointless. It is what before we used to call FUD at the start of internet. I am that old.
Many rationalists support crypto because they consider that it will help to avoid government control to buy nootropics, participate in prediction markets etc. My advice is that instead of supporting crypto it is better to lobby politicians to allow to do these things legally and openly. That may take longer time and be harder to achieve but it will be much better because negative externalities from crypto are too severe and damaging that they cancel all the benefits that crypto could give us.
Many of these things are legal in other countries and they are not as great as many rationalists think. I am in Latvia now; piracetam and phenibut are manufactured by a local pharmaceutical company here, they are not only legal but doctors routinely prescribe them. What I think about them is that their effectiveness is very low. Healthcare professionals consider them as low class antidepresants/anxiolytics. They have very few adverse effects but basically they do very little.
If 50% of antidepressant effect is due to placebo effect, then prescribing something to people with moderate depression/anxiety will have 50% improvement rate. Doctors initially select medicines with less side-effects and switch to more serious antidepresants when they are not effective. It would be good if other countries used them as well but in the big scheme, they matter very little that it is not worth to use crypto to illegally buy them.
nopie
2yr ago
Ukraine is different. It is a European country that is being fast-tracked into the EU. Those who try to attack my friends, will get harshly punished.
The rules are clear. Just because someone somewhere broke them and didn't get punished is not an excuse.
nopie
4mo ago
As I said, I rest my case. You will probably ask next why no neutral party investigates ivermectin?
Why do you care about those people on internet?
Any reasonable person understands that it is morally wrong for one country to attack another that has never threatened you.
Then one can say – forget about morals, the power decides the outcome. Turns out Russia is not as powerful as we thought and they got stuck in Ukraine and are losing positions every day, thanks for western support.
A lot of people just suffer from denialism. The fog of war doesn't allow us to see clearly what is going on in every detail but in a nutshell the reality is clear. Russians might or might not manage to keep Donbas and/or the Crimea but the rest of Ukraine has remained an independent country and that is not going to change.
People in the western countries have free access to all the information and most of us see it clearly.
For a lot of Russians it is harder to see in this way because they suffer from collective delusions that Ukraine is a bad country (nazis or not) that does not deserve to remain independent and Russia is going to take over Ukraine and make it a glorious part of Russia.
nopie
4mo ago
Ivermectin is a good test how serious the person is. Obviously we all might have different beliefs, some of them will be wrong and others will be correct. I wouldn't disqualify anyone on that. But ivermectin issue is such a low bar that I use it as a filter whether a person takes time to verify his own opinions. I am sorry if it offends some.
nopie
4mo ago
Believing ivermectin to be a cure for covid is intellectually lazy. Thanks for helping me to formulate what I meant with that.
But what does it mean to be intellectually dishonest? How is it different from just not being honest?
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.
nopie
2mo ago
People have been expecting Trump comebacks all the time and somehow he always did. At least with elections, he still had his genius. But ultimately everyone succumbs to old age and loses everything. It is very hard to accept the ultimate demise but with Trump it is now. With Biden most people including Scott Alexander managed to live in denial until the end of his term. Could happen the same with Trump.
How would you differentiate “lost a step” and “suffering from dementia”? Dementia is exactly like that, initially mildly losing a step, with some better days and some worse days. Trump has always been very erratic and that's why many people don't notice. But if you are able to separate his rhetoric, you could see that now he has lost a plot.
nopie
2mo ago
Less intelligent decisions are one thing but doing senseless things are completely another.
Trump's dealings with tariffs make no sense. Some people continue to refer to hidden motives but by now we are aware that this is not the case. He is not capable to fulfil the duties and is greatly harming the US. It's only going to be worse with every day. A lot of loyal people will be in denial. Just like many still believe in Havana syndrome as real or something like that. And his election was mostly luck. Democrats hid Biden's dementia and people felt cheated and decided to punish them for this. It just happened that Trump was the candidate. Could have been any other guy. Now people will be even more angry when they realize they have been cheated again.
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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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
I think that the leaders perform more like PR function and due to their power we cannot really think of terms we use for common men. Zelensky definitely played a role of inspiring leader and helped a lot in this war. But I suspect that Ukrainians would have fought bravely regardless and they are real heroes.
When people resist occupation risking their lives like in Bucha or the conductor was shot for refusing to play at the occupiers' concert, they are real heroes. If a robber comes to your house and at the gunpoint demands you to give all valuables, it would be insanity to refuse because your life is more valuable. However, during the war you are defending your country and if you are a civilian who decides to resist despite torture and risk of death then you are a hero. Many many Ukrainians turned out to be heroes.
nopie
2mo ago
I can understand that some say nothing against Trump because of loyalty. But allowing tariffs destroying economy? That is borderline to treason against the USA. Most likely they are not competent and don't even understand that.
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
2yr ago
When I learned that US embassy workers were having unexplained brain damage, many people ascribed that to “sonic weapons” from unknown attackers. The most likely explanation however was that it is probably coincidence and more likely it was mass psychogenic illness. This Havana syndrome is still unresolved but if there was a way to bet on this, the correct way would be to bet against sonic weapons.
Now, if the governments in many countries would wrongly become convinced that it was sonic weapon, it would seem that you lose the bet. But eventually the truth comes out and the bet against sonic weapons has much higher chance to be right.
Covid was something similar to this. When due to human nature collectively we have markets going into wrong direction, you may or may not be able to profit from it but in any case you need to take stance and try to correct the delusion that is harming all of us. If you can it directly by placing winning bets, that's preferrable because it might help other people to realize sooner that their thinking is faulty. Granted such cases are rare, or non-existent for most people.
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
2yr ago
Dictators always follow the same pattern – start with breaking the two-term rule and then break the country.
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
2yr 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.
nopie
2yr ago
Well, I had read Krugman's “End This Depression Now” explaining why stimulus in certain conditions is needed. I read the book because I was going through personally depressive period in my life but the book had some insights anyway. Krugman was proven right with sufficient evidence that I was surprised that so many experts still disagreed with him and demanded austerity policies instead. Nevertheless, even the staunchest critics have to admit that stimulus worked better during economic contraction, so it was no-brainer that the governments faced with economic contraction during covid pandemic would try to use stimulus too. I didn't believe that it will be very effective because unlike normal conditions people were prevented from spending money. The government had little choice though because they had to make sure that people who were forced out of work by their policies can still pay rent, buy food etc.
Incidentally, the lack of spending opportunities also gave me chance to invest some money. I expected that other people would do the same and it seems that eventually they did. But when I saw stock market taking a dive, it made no sense. I didn't expect to make a quick profit, I thought that recovery would take longer time. I believed that eventually everybody would get covid and then all the restrictions will be shown useless. Even the most totalitarian governments would have to admit that their policies are futile. Once restrictions are gone, people would quickly restart economic activities and stock market would rise.
Scott wrote that the stock market dive actually happened due to automatic selling. Many funds set automatic scripts to sell when the price reaches certain low threshold to prevent from further losses. Selling moved the price even lower with more and more funds initiating automatic selling.
It doesn't get worse.
Before invasion in February 2022 certain western leaders offered Zelensky a ride. Basically they told him not to resist to save human lives. The reality was that Ukrainians would have resisted anyway but most probably would have lost. It would have led to terrible retributions from Russia. Think about Bucha multiplied hundreds of times.
Obviously, we cannot with 100% confidence say what would have happened but the idea is that Zelensky saved a lot of lives. Now pacifists are angry with him that he didn't save all lives. A lot of Ukrainians still perished and still dying on the battlefield.
It is a very hard concept for many to accept.
P.S. Unrelated to the war, but the same unwillingness to accept that some deaths will happen anyway let to higher mortality during covid pandemic. Still majority haven't accepted that despite clear data that Sweden fared best of all. They had about the same mortality from covid that the UK or any other western country and yet their excess mortality was practically zero whereas it was very high in the US. Why? The secret was to tolerate some deaths from covid as inevitable. There was no need to call Tegnel a nazi like some politicians did it hastily.
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