Two Covid-related things happened this week that I did not expect. The CDC admitted that it had failed us during the pandemic, withdrew at long last many of its remaining recommendations and promised reforms to be less academic and otherwise do better.
"It is vital that we are able to take yes for an answer from people who have previously answered no. What changed? Their minds changed. The social and political situations changed. The path of the pandemic changed. People came to their senses. We need to ensure they are happy with their decision to do this."
I think there is a bit of a problem here: how do you remove power from people who have drastically misused that power? If the CDC is essentially saying "Do what the Great Barrington people said two years ago", yet not even admitting "Yea, those guys whose careers we tried to destroy and censor etc. etc... they were right and we were wrong," and we are to say "Well, at least you are no longer abusing us anymore" how does that prevent future abuse? I mean, they are not really admitting they did anything wrong that matters, and are asking for more money and power. What mechanism is left for punishing bad behavior once people learn "Look, when it becomes abundantly obvious you screwed up, just apologize for something that doesn't matter and do what you demonized other people for doing before. Then people will be glad you stopped hurting them and will let you keep your power and position, and might give you more."
Doesn't one have to say its too little, too late, and remove people from office eventually? What's the mechanism for that if we are supposed to be happy that they are no longer doing the wrong thing?
I get that conditional on having abusing power hungry bastards lording over you it is probably the best strategy to gently train them to do it less when they feel like it, but it seems that going upstream a little to figure out what behavior helps avoid having those bastards in power in the first place, or removes them more quickly, seems desirable.
Zvi, sorry, I'm usually able to communicate well in written English but I don't understand this sentence, may I have a hint?
"It is greatly frowned upon and mostly illegal to do so, but this suggests that if you have men who dislike each other but most work together there is an obvious step one might take."
What is the step? Is there a typo in this sentence?
I don't get these periodic calls to bring back classic okcupid. It got outcompeted by tinder, and lost. Horribly. Women preferred tinder by miles (and men follow women.) Yes, women complain about Tinder, but by revealed preferences they loved it compared to okc.
If you cloned classic OKC, and even waved a magic wand to not worry about startup network effects, there'd be a few hundred lonely nerd profiles (and a bunch of spam bots, which a literal clone of classic OKC would lose horribly to; spam is a Red Queen Race.)
If you liked classic okcupid, good for you, but you're weird. Get used to it.
My wife and I stopped at the Levain Bakery on 74th street last time we were in NYC. It was pretty good, but it was almost closer to cake than what I would consider a traditional cookie. It is still recommended.
> The case for California state capacity as an EA cause area.
I love seeing this, though California might be too large. Getting a smaller political unit (or units) to work dramatically better may speed up the learning process.
I'd also love to see a cause area that looked like 'Make dictators act more like Singapore and/or turn into Switzerland'
I got back from Israel in mid March of 2020 and was diagnosed with Chickenpox like 2 days after I got home. Which was crazy because I had it when I was a kid.
This bit about Covid reactivating varicella and other viruses makes a lot of sense. I read articles about people with Covid having a varicella-like exanthem in early 2020: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305439/
There were no Covid tests and the time so I kept wondering if I had Covid or a second case of chickenpox. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it was both—had Covid and it reactivated varicella.
The research about markers for long Covid is encouraging. Perhaps I missed it, but is there any research about identifying the factors that make a person more susceptible to contracting long Covid?
Incentives matter, and one should encourage the admitting of mistakes versus the not-admitting of mistakes...
...at the same time, now I worry that the whole CDC Delenda Est thing is gonna get even more memory-holed via this CYA. The CDC has done a great job, look, they even admitted mistakes were made. They're gonna do better in the future, already planning to write a reform plan. P.S don't forget, Orange Man Bad. Did you know he cut Obama's pandemic preparedness office?
Better not to make mistakes in the first place, then there's nothing to admit or not-admit. If only someone had notified them they were making mistakes.
It's been very hard to explain to those wrapped in The Narrative the sheer systemic magnitude of some of the errors committed over the last few years; I feel like this only makes it harder, welcome and unexpected change though it is. Unsure how to resolve this tension. I'm all for pragmatic incremental change, but when up against exponential growth threats, one really does not have the time...
Speaking of California governance, I predict absolutely no observable change in my local revealed preferences of ongoing covid hawkery. Despite many individuals, organizations, and businesses using The CDC Says(tm) as their primary rhetorical trump card since the beginning. Will consider myself surprised if not a single local paper or politician condemns the CDC for Sacrificing Safety For Normalcy, or whatever. Masking of toddlers will continue outdoors, groceries will still be wiped down, everyone will continue to do hand sanitizer baptism (the one time it's okay to invade someone's 6ft personal space: to reach the Holy Water). I continue to get weekly reminders to Be Covid Ready, whatever that means. This continues to be low-grade epistemically depressing.
FYI: The German nuclear power plants running time has NOT been prolonged (yet). It’s still under consideration though. The news that a decision was reached were (sadly) wrong.
1.) I totally support wind power and pay ~$200/ yr to get all my electricity from the local wind farm. It's great! Makes me feel virtuous, when I use my electric chain saw to cut up wood for kindling.
2.) Offshore wind sounds great, but last time I looked it's about twice as expensive as onshore wind. (Which I think is mostly due to the fact that construction and maintenance costs are way higher offshore.) Googling I found this. "Is offshore wind cheaper than onshore wind?
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), offshore wind is 2.6 times more expensive as onshore wind power and is 3.4 times more expensive than power produced by a natural gas combined cycle plant."
You get the Chinese testing fish part wrong. This isn't heightened scrutiny, it's instead Xi Jinping Thought upping the ante on blame-shifting. "Anywhere but here."
Typo: "Prediction for next week: 560k deaths" I hope not
"It is vital that we are able to take yes for an answer from people who have previously answered no. What changed? Their minds changed. The social and political situations changed. The path of the pandemic changed. People came to their senses. We need to ensure they are happy with their decision to do this."
I think there is a bit of a problem here: how do you remove power from people who have drastically misused that power? If the CDC is essentially saying "Do what the Great Barrington people said two years ago", yet not even admitting "Yea, those guys whose careers we tried to destroy and censor etc. etc... they were right and we were wrong," and we are to say "Well, at least you are no longer abusing us anymore" how does that prevent future abuse? I mean, they are not really admitting they did anything wrong that matters, and are asking for more money and power. What mechanism is left for punishing bad behavior once people learn "Look, when it becomes abundantly obvious you screwed up, just apologize for something that doesn't matter and do what you demonized other people for doing before. Then people will be glad you stopped hurting them and will let you keep your power and position, and might give you more."
Doesn't one have to say its too little, too late, and remove people from office eventually? What's the mechanism for that if we are supposed to be happy that they are no longer doing the wrong thing?
I get that conditional on having abusing power hungry bastards lording over you it is probably the best strategy to gently train them to do it less when they feel like it, but it seems that going upstream a little to figure out what behavior helps avoid having those bastards in power in the first place, or removes them more quickly, seems desirable.
Zvi, sorry, I'm usually able to communicate well in written English but I don't understand this sentence, may I have a hint?
"It is greatly frowned upon and mostly illegal to do so, but this suggests that if you have men who dislike each other but most work together there is an obvious step one might take."
What is the step? Is there a typo in this sentence?
I don't get these periodic calls to bring back classic okcupid. It got outcompeted by tinder, and lost. Horribly. Women preferred tinder by miles (and men follow women.) Yes, women complain about Tinder, but by revealed preferences they loved it compared to okc.
If you cloned classic OKC, and even waved a magic wand to not worry about startup network effects, there'd be a few hundred lonely nerd profiles (and a bunch of spam bots, which a literal clone of classic OKC would lose horribly to; spam is a Red Queen Race.)
If you liked classic okcupid, good for you, but you're weird. Get used to it.
My wife and I stopped at the Levain Bakery on 74th street last time we were in NYC. It was pretty good, but it was almost closer to cake than what I would consider a traditional cookie. It is still recommended.
> The case for California state capacity as an EA cause area.
I love seeing this, though California might be too large. Getting a smaller political unit (or units) to work dramatically better may speed up the learning process.
I'd also love to see a cause area that looked like 'Make dictators act more like Singapore and/or turn into Switzerland'
I got back from Israel in mid March of 2020 and was diagnosed with Chickenpox like 2 days after I got home. Which was crazy because I had it when I was a kid.
This bit about Covid reactivating varicella and other viruses makes a lot of sense. I read articles about people with Covid having a varicella-like exanthem in early 2020: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32305439/
There were no Covid tests and the time so I kept wondering if I had Covid or a second case of chickenpox. I hadn’t considered the possibility that it was both—had Covid and it reactivated varicella.
The research about markers for long Covid is encouraging. Perhaps I missed it, but is there any research about identifying the factors that make a person more susceptible to contracting long Covid?
Incentives matter, and one should encourage the admitting of mistakes versus the not-admitting of mistakes...
...at the same time, now I worry that the whole CDC Delenda Est thing is gonna get even more memory-holed via this CYA. The CDC has done a great job, look, they even admitted mistakes were made. They're gonna do better in the future, already planning to write a reform plan. P.S don't forget, Orange Man Bad. Did you know he cut Obama's pandemic preparedness office?
Better not to make mistakes in the first place, then there's nothing to admit or not-admit. If only someone had notified them they were making mistakes.
It's been very hard to explain to those wrapped in The Narrative the sheer systemic magnitude of some of the errors committed over the last few years; I feel like this only makes it harder, welcome and unexpected change though it is. Unsure how to resolve this tension. I'm all for pragmatic incremental change, but when up against exponential growth threats, one really does not have the time...
Speaking of California governance, I predict absolutely no observable change in my local revealed preferences of ongoing covid hawkery. Despite many individuals, organizations, and businesses using The CDC Says(tm) as their primary rhetorical trump card since the beginning. Will consider myself surprised if not a single local paper or politician condemns the CDC for Sacrificing Safety For Normalcy, or whatever. Masking of toddlers will continue outdoors, groceries will still be wiped down, everyone will continue to do hand sanitizer baptism (the one time it's okay to invade someone's 6ft personal space: to reach the Holy Water). I continue to get weekly reminders to Be Covid Ready, whatever that means. This continues to be low-grade epistemically depressing.
FYI: The German nuclear power plants running time has NOT been prolonged (yet). It’s still under consideration though. The news that a decision was reached were (sadly) wrong.
Re: Offshore wind power.
1.) I totally support wind power and pay ~$200/ yr to get all my electricity from the local wind farm. It's great! Makes me feel virtuous, when I use my electric chain saw to cut up wood for kindling.
2.) Offshore wind sounds great, but last time I looked it's about twice as expensive as onshore wind. (Which I think is mostly due to the fact that construction and maintenance costs are way higher offshore.) Googling I found this. "Is offshore wind cheaper than onshore wind?
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), offshore wind is 2.6 times more expensive as onshore wind power and is 3.4 times more expensive than power produced by a natural gas combined cycle plant."
You get the Chinese testing fish part wrong. This isn't heightened scrutiny, it's instead Xi Jinping Thought upping the ante on blame-shifting. "Anywhere but here."