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Time to Declare Endemic


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3 minutes ago, Winston said:

From a methodology perspective, how did you come to the "dismissing" conclusion without reviewing the 35 publications?

You may be right, I do not know either. Logically making a conclusion without reviewing the publications seems a bit biased. 

Unless you're a doctor or a data scientist or PhD, meaningfully reviewing these research papers would be well-outside our expertise.  Certainly you'd agree that reading 35 research papers would be outside the reasonable scope of this debate, right?  

In that case we have to defer to experts on these sorts of conclusions, so on one hand you can choose the world's universities, government and international health organizations, and on the other hand you can choose the American Institute for Economic Research.  You decide for yourself.   

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1 minute ago, Moonbox said:

Unless you're a doctor or a data scientist or PhD, meaningfully reviewing these research papers would be well-outside our expertise.  Certainly you'd agree that reading 35 research papers would be outside the reasonable scope of this debate, right?  

In that case we have to defer to experts on these sorts of conclusions, so on one hand you can choose the world's universities, government and international health organizations, and on the other hand you can choose the American Institute for Economic Research.  You decide for yourself.   

 

I generally to not like appeals to authority. The General public should be able to review the papers and formulated their own position. If their position on the papers are incorrect, an expert should be able to easily counter a trivial false position. 

Personally I would not choose one institute as my position on the papers, I would rather read them myself and hear multiple expert opinions. 

In terms of methodology, you are citing experts to which you agree. I would assume they have a long term positive record. Fair enough. May I ask for your recommendation on an expert opinion you feel is a good source?

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57 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

I'm not dismissing universities.  I'm dismissing the conclusions the AIER draws from the papers

What conclusions? There's an intro and links to the actual sources. You'd know that if you weren't afraid of being  corrupted by a Libertarian website. Anybody who thinks they're more clever than the intro can click the links and see what the original non-partisan source says.

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6 minutes ago, Infidel Dog said:

What conclusions? There's an intro and links to the actual sources. You'd know that if you weren't afraid of being  corrupted by a Libertarian website. Anybody who thinks they're more clever than the intro can click the links and see what the original non-partisan source says.

"There is no relationship between lockdowns (or whatever else people want to call them to mask their true nature) and virus control. "

I'd say that goes a LITTLE bit beyond just linking sources.  That's their conclusion.  Then they link 35 research papers that they know none of you will actually read, and then say, "HERE!  PROOF!"

Funny thing:  I did read the first one, and while the conclusions were interesting they were also written by anesthesiologists, who are hardly experts on viruses and their transmission or control.  They ARE doctors who published something that resembles what the AIER wants to hear, however, so that's PERFECT!

 

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49 minutes ago, Winston said:

 

I generally to not like appeals to authority. The General public should be able to review the papers and formulated their own position. If their position on the papers are incorrect, an expert should be able to easily counter a trivial false position. 

Now that's truly naive. Never heard of the internet?

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18 minutes ago, Winston said:

Can you be more specific? 

The idea that you have the time, capacity and ability to digest complex technical information and concepts in fields for which you have zero experience or training.  

Also, on one hand you say you don't like appeals to authority, but then with the other you say that experts should be able to counter false information and claims.  By deferring to those experts to counter false claims, you are in fact appealing to the authorities on those subjects.

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19 minutes ago, Winston said:

Can you be more specific? 

That's the thing, it isn't specific. The internet is full of misinterpretation of studies, either through ignorance or intentional. This BS often has longer legs than the study itself. Once it gets loose it has a life of its own because if it fits a narrative, people won't fact check it.

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32 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

The idea that you have the time, capacity and ability to digest complex technical information and concepts in fields for which you have zero experience or training.  

Also, on one hand you say you don't like appeals to authority, but then with the other you say that experts should be able to counter false information and claims.  By deferring to those experts to counter false claims, you are in fact appealing to the authorities on those subjects.

Why would you think the general population has no ability to learn analysis on complex technical information?

"By deferring to those experts to counter false claims, you are in fact appealing to the authorities on those subjects." -  I am not deferring to those experts, because I do not hold their opinion as a weight, I hold the data as a weight.  An expert should be able to show data or results that would indicate why a conclusion may be correct or incorrect. We are not talking about opinions, we are talking about pure data analysis. Maybe one could argue methodology. 

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11 minutes ago, Aristides said:

That's the thing, it isn't specific. The internet is full of misinterpretation of studies, either through ignorance or intentional. This BS often has longer legs than the study itself. Once it gets loose it has a life of its own because if it fits a narrative, people won't fact check it.

Fair enough.

But I would not be in favor of limiting the general public to review scientific studies. People can hold their own opinion by their own review. It would be up to others to take it seriously or not based on the data and conclusion.

I would rather a society of people deeply thinking about topics, rather than being told what to think. 

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1 minute ago, Winston said:

Why would you think the general population has no ability to learn analysis on complex technical information?

Because some of the subject material requires 7+ years of schooling to even be considered "literate" on a topic, and far more to be considered an expert.  The idea that you could sit down and read through a molecular biology publication and form an intelligent opinion on its theories about a specific enzyme in the brain or something is laughable.  

Just like you wouldn't be form a proper argument on complex software coding alternatives without a programmer's background and training, you're literally not capable of forming an intelligent opinion on things like the metallurgical composition of experimental fusion reactors or the epidemiology of a virus.  You don't understand the language or have even the basics covered, so you're really just fooling yourself.  

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16 minutes ago, Moonbox said:

Just like you wouldn't be form a proper argument on complex software coding alternatives without a programmer's background and training, you're literally not capable of forming an intelligent opinion on things like the metallurgical composition of experimental fusion reactors or the epidemiology of a virus. 

Yes I can concede this point. It would be unrealistic to expect the general public to be current on any/all fields. 

I am worried that experts may not have the publics best interest in mind unless they have a responsibility or vested interest in the conclusion. I would rather see expert opinions with pure transparency of methodology and data for those that wish to take the time to review the findings and learn the topic. 

 

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Yes there’s a doxa that comes through studying in the academy, to an extent.  The days of only the ecclesiastical class (the first universities were religious institutions) having knowledge (and the wealthy who could afford private tutors) while the illiterate masses learned stories from stained glass and sermons are long gone.  Hierarchies are quite flattened now, which is why the Occupy Wall Street movement rightly questioned how a CEO could justify earning thousands of times as much as the lowest paid employees in an organization.

Regular people, even uneducated ones, have tremendous access to information, and I laugh when I see my doctor Googling for medical answers.  That’s not to say that he isn’t an authority on medicine or that I could just become one overnight.

Regular people have a right to question policies and there are conflicting professional opinions among virologists. I wish more people would take their cues from someone like Dr. Ladapo than Dr. Tam.  Some approaches are serving humanity better than others right now.  

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11 minutes ago, Aristides said:

A doctor using a search engine for medical information, how bizarre. Unlike us he knows what he is looking for and the source, as well as understand what he is finding.

True but it speaks to the availability of medical information, including journals from accredited research hospitals and universities.  

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7 hours ago, Moonbox said:

I'd say that goes a LITTLE bit beyond just linking sources.  That's their conclusion.  Then they link 35 research papers that they know none of you will actually read, and then say, "HERE!  PROOF!"

What? You don't at least try to read the abstracts? I generally try to.

Actually there's one in that list that's better than an abstract. It's by some Professor. Ben Israel or something like that. He more just describes his study in a separate paper in easy to understand language. His conclusion is covid runs a similar pattern of peak and decline with or without lockdowns.

Speaking abstracts though there's one that's not on that list. I bookmarked it. It's from a Canadian economist.

"

Douglas W. Allen∗ April 2021

ABSTRACT

An examination of over 80 Covid-19 studies reveals that many relied on assumptions that were false, and which tended to over-estimate the benefits and underestimate the costs of lockdown. As a result, most of the early cost/benefit studies arrived at conclusions that were refuted later by data, and which rendered their cost/benefit findings incorrect. Research done over the past six months has shown that lockdowns have had, at best, a marginal effect on the number of Covid-19 deaths. Generally speaking, the ineffectiveness of lockdown stems from voluntary changes in behavior. Lockdown jurisdictions were not able to prevent noncompliance, and non-lockdown jurisdictions benefited from voluntary changes in behavior that mimicked lockdowns. The limited effectiveness of lockdowns explains why, after one year, the unconditional cumulative deaths per million, and the pattern of daily deaths per million, is not negatively correlated with the stringency of lockdown across countries. Using a cost/benefit method proposed by Professor Bryan Caplan, and using two extreme assumptions of lockdown effectiveness, the cost/benefit ratio of lockdowns in Canada, in terms of life-years saved, is between 3.6–282. That is, it is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history."

https://www.sfu.ca/~allen/LockdownReport.pdf

Another thread I see pop up here and there including that list is how adverse effects from lockdowns even out harm from the virus.

 

 

Edited by Infidel Dog
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Agreed, but some people have little risk tolerance and are willing to accept a massive curtailing of freedoms in the name of public safety.  It’s critical to question how safe such measures make us and whether we want to live in a society with so few freedoms to ensure such a level of safety.  Safer isn’t always better, when our thresholds for acceptable risk are so high that our society becomes dysfunctional across so many other metrics: public debt, suspension of personal medical discretion, freedom to gather, work unmasked, access basic services without proof of identification and vaccination, operate a restaurant with indoor dining, operate a gym, movie theatre, or sports venue, suffering mental health problems due to isolation, etc.  

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And to use the dreaded S word - Suicide.

Moonbox won't be interested in this because she's a Conservative but Sydney Watson makes some interesting points on lockdown suicides. (She doesn't get into it until about the 3 minute mark)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWwzgGW-ovY

Don't bitch at me about it Moonbox, or I warn you I have another one from one of your dreaded Libertarians and I'm not afraid to use it. :P

Edited by Infidel Dog
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33 minutes ago, Goddess said:

Would you have agreed with their conclusion if they had studied the 35 papers and concluded that lockdowns were wonderful?

But it's an objectively confirmed fact that lockdowns are not wonderful. That's the sort of argument that happens when one considers the truth and facts to be subjective and not based on rationality. I don't think I've ever seen it from people who didn't have a religious upbringing.

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2 hours ago, Infidel Dog said:

And slipping off topic for a sec but this new fear Progs have of Libertarians surprises me because last week I was browsing a Progressive's list of recommended sites. I think it was about # 5 where they listed Reason magazine. Reason is a Libertarian's go-to source.

What you think being progressive means or is doesn't surprise me a bit.

Quote

 

Overall, we rate Reason Magazine Right-Center biased based on story selection that favors Libertarian positions and High for factual reporting due to mostly proper sourcing, and a clean fact check record.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/reason/

 

Progs aren't stupid and they don't want the government on your back any more than they want it on their own.  Where on earth did you get the notion they did?  I mean, put yourself in their shoes. 

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