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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   35470 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Looks like I missed Scott's latest on the Alexandros front.

On a factual level, it's high-quality and it seems he comes surprisingly close to Alexandros' perceived effect size.

On a conversational level, I hope that he considers this final. From my comment on the article:

gestalt vibes of untrustworthiness

Cue 37-part series from Alexandros explaining why Scott is Betraying Rationalism by including such a phrase.

I jest, but Alexandros has gotten so much mileage out of waging the culture war on this topic. He has worked very hard to frame his stance as simultaneously subversive and indignant. This shouldn't detract from the legitimate research he has collected. But it does predict his response to any high-profile conversation with Scott.

Anything Scott says can and will be used...not exactly against him, but for retweets and Substack follows. That does mean against him if and when Alexandros can frame it as punching up.

So I'll be satisfied if this is the end of the line. Scott has engaged, over and over again, with the factual scaffolding of Alexandros' arguments. The 5-10% chance is an adequate conclusion. Let Pascal and Omura wager accordingly.

Anything Scott says can and will be used...not exactly against him, but for retweets and Substack follows. That does mean against him if and when Alexandros can frame it as punching up.

Do you really think Alexandros' main motivation was followers? I don't get that impression from him, I think he genuinely cares a lot (maybe too much) about this stuff. That said I suppose it's often quite easy to convince yourself of something when it's profitable to do so, so maybe there's not a clear dividing line between "doing it for clout" and "doing it because you care" when the incentives align.

No, I won’t say main motivation. What you say about incentive alignment is more likely correct.

Edit: since this response I’ve checked Alexandros’ blog. He’s diversified into blaming FTX, like all right-thinking rationalists, and to live-streaming his opinions on Sam Harris. I think it’s obvious that he enjoys playing a certain kind of policy wonk, and has found a ready audience.

Oh, great. Now he's gone full tinfoil hat. He was always anti the TOGETHER trial, now he's trying to claim that of course it didn't find anything beneficial for ivermectin because SINISTER CONSPIRACY? I don't know if it's because Bankman-Fried is enemy of the month or what, but this is scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Why would TOGETHER go out of their way to obscure the prior $3.25m grant by FTX? Could it be that it was used to fund writing the paper on ivermectin and that would be an undesirable complication? We can only speculate.

I can only speculate that the alien abductions and repeated mindwiping have affected Alexandros badly. We can only speculate, after all, that things happened because of other things that people now want to cover up!

Oh, great. Now he's gone full tinfoil hat. He was always anti the TOGETHER trial, now he's trying to claim that of course it didn't find anything beneficial for ivermectin because SINISTER CONSPIRACY?

No. Can you please point me to where exactly he's saying that?

Why does it matter if TOGETHER got funding from Bankman-Fried, before it became known that FTX was a fraud? A lot of people received funding and donations and now have egg on their faces because of it. His argument seems to be that TOGETHER is trying to cover that up, because it looks bad, and if that looks bad, it means people won't trust them, and if people don't trust them, that means they don't trust the study. Indeed, he came right out and said they lied:

So the claim the TOGETHER team made to Reuters is that “FTX had ‘no association’ with TOGETHER Trial prior to the publication of the studies.” However, given that the ivermectin article was published by March 30, 2022—at which point FTX was listed on the TOGETHER website as a funder—this statement, also, is false.

In short, yes, FTX did fund TOGETHER, and the TOGETHER team falsely claimed that they received no funds from FTX before May 2022. The principal investigators, with their statement to Reuters, are obscuring a $3.25m grant by FTX that must have been provided to them before May 2022, given that FTX was listed as a funder on the TOGETHER website since March 3, 2022 at the latest. We can speculate why they did that, but the bottom line is that TOGETHER is once more obscuring the public record.

Hey, the study that didn't find a miracle cure effect for ivermectin? That study? The one Alexandros has been constantly criticising? Well now I'm just sayin', folks, not of course that TOGETHER can't be trusted because they took money they knew was the profits of fraud and then lied about it and that means they fiddled the study to come out that ivermectin was no good because FTX and EA and Big Pharma and billionaires and politicians and all that, but isn't it coincidental, hmmmm? That I was right all along that they're no good?

Why does it matter if TOGETHER got funding from Bankman-Fried, before it became known that FTX was a fraud?

For the same reason it matters that Cadegiani looks like a Minecraft character. Which is to say, it doesn't, but it was a bit too good to pass on without comment. The thing that's driving me somewhat crazy about this conversation is the double standards. Why is it such a big deal Alexandros made fun of TOGETHER being funded by FTX in light everything Scott said in his post?

A lot of people received funding and donations and now have egg on their faces because of it. His argument seems to be that TOGETHER is trying to cover that up, because it looks bad, and if that looks bad, it means people won't trust them, and if people don't trust them, that means they don't trust the study

You're acting like that's his entire argument against TOGETHER. The TOGETHER trial was a clown show. If the same standards Gideon used to reject the other IVM studies were applied here, it should have been rejected many times over.

he came right out and said they lied

Because they did! What do you want him to say? For whatever it's worth he also pointed out in the article itself, and on twitter that they didn't fund the IVM branch of the trial.

That I was right all along that they're no good?

If Scott was above these kind of swipes in this conversation, I'd see your point. But since he's not, I don't.

Feels like he's dug himself too deep of a hole at this point. Not to say I'm positive he's wrong, but it seems that way. Going against your own pride, reputation, and financial and social incentives to recant years of blog posts on a single topic would be incredibly difficult for anyone.

Feels like he's dug himself too deep of a hole at this point.

It feels like no one bothers addressing any of his arguments, and that they were just waiting for Scott to write a response post so they can pretend it's the final word.

It feels like no one bothers addressing any of his arguments

Look, way back when, for my sins I trawled through that Cochrane meta roundup of all the ivermectin and other possible cures studies, and the vast majority of them were shoddy, threw everything in so it's hard to say which if any had a positive effect, and the best effects constantly and consistently showed up in developing world countries and/or areas with high poverty levels and high parasitic infection levels (including the study from Florida - which is an area of high parasite load).

So the conclusion "ivermectin helps by reducing parasite load" is the reasonable one, not that "ivermectin has an anti-viral effect". The only study that would make me incline to the second one is the Israeli one, because that seems to have been carried out on a city population with high standards of living (on the other hand, it was formerly agricultural region, is to the west of the West Bank which does have high parasitic infection levels, and it may have included poorer/immigrant population in the study, I haven't looked into it deeply enough yet).

Alexandros ignores any comments to that effect and continues on with "all the studies show this works! Cadegiani shows it works!" while Cadigiani is a huckster and the other co-authors of his study all have bees in their bonnets about vaccination.

Frankly, if I were looking to buy a new kettle and looking for recommendations, I wouldn't trust Alexandros on that.

Look, way back when, for my sins I trawled through that Cochrane meta roundup of all the ivermectin and other possible cures studies, and the vast majority of them were shoddy, threw everything in so it's hard to say which if any had a positive effect, and the best effects constantly and consistently showed up in developing world countries and/or areas with high poverty levels and high parasitic infection levels (including the study from Florida - which is an area of high parasite load).

Ok, and the counter argument to that is that even if you throw out all the supposedly shoddy studies, you still have a signal, that the negative studies are just as shoddy if you hold them to the same standard, and that if the worms are responsible, we should see some evidence specifically in support of that hypothesis. You do have an advantage on me, in that I didn't actually look up all the relevant studies, but it's just weird how no one is responding to the points he's raising.

Frankly, if I were looking to buy a new kettle and looking for recommendations, I wouldn't trust Alexandros on that.

It's just bizarre to feel so strongly about him, but think Scott is ok at the same time.

You know, just for that I'm going to read some more of his posts, because you seem to have accurately described my unconscious process. I'm pretty much in the "Ivermectin probably has little effect on Covid, and all the studies purportedly showing that are terrible." But I'll at least give him a chance to address that position.

Oh wow, wasn't expecting that. Kudos!

If you want to cut through the unrelated side swipes, and the minutiae, I'd say the core of the argument is that even if you remove the studies Gideon / Scott don't like you still have a strong pro-ivermectin signal, and that the worms hypothesis doesn't hold water. I don't know if I can point to a specific place this is well articulated, because 37 blog posts... but if you want to give him a fair shot, this is what I'd focus on.

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