Hacker News Reader

Comment by ifyoubuildit | Hacker News Reader

What about something like cancer? If you get diagnosed with some form of cancer tomorrow, it's probably not because some cell first mutated yesterday, right?

That would essentially be a "robot with a little timer". And it's just the only one a layman like myself can come up with off the cuff. I have to assume there are more.

Edit: I watched the video, and this guy is presumably much smarter than I am, so I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem very convincing.

He's basically just claiming what you said, that conditions that take an extended amount of time to manifest just dont exist. That in some portion of the population, those conditions will necessarily manifest quickly. The video doesnt explain why I should believe that other than saying something like "these things are possible, but very unlikely".

View on HN

IDK if dude is smarter than you are, but he's a domain expert. He knows enough about the subject that it would likely take you something in the range of a decade of dedicated time, research, engagement, and experience to reach an equivalence. You're probably quite capable of this, if you decide to go down this path.

If you don't want to go down this path, though, know that it probably will just take that breadth of experience to develop the understanding and intuition necessary to be able to say and explain things on the subject with confidence.

You should believe it because you trust people like the one in the video when they tell you it's a good idea to clean your wounds to prevent infection. You vaguely understand this has something to do with germs, but you (probably) don't know all about the various actual diseases that cause open wound infections, their outcomes, their treatments, the history of research behind it, etc. It's an entire field of medicine, actually. Luckily for you, a lot of the important stuff can be condensed into a single important general-action for the populations: clean your wound with soap and water, then, cover it with a bandage.

So why do you trust domain experts when they tell you about first aid, and not what they tell you about hugely more complex subjects, such as vaccinations and drug trials?

Why the sudden skepticism now? During a pandemic, of all times? If this was a movie, the climax / resolution would be the development of a vaccine - thank god, the experts delivered us from this terror. What were you expecting instead? 10 years of lockdown while we wait for things to shake out?

NNT is certainly smart and is an expert, but what domain? Last time I checked it was mathematical risk modelling and options trading, not medical research. And the most robust modelling on a flawed premise is still flawed.

As sibling says, I vaguely know of the guy in the video as a math expert, not as some expert in a particularly relevant field of medicine.

But even so, I was expecting to watch the video and have it explain why I should believe x, and instead I found it just reiterating that I should believe x.

This is a little off topic for the thread (I was originally just responding to the claim that "Vaccines don’t have long term side effects"), but based on what you said:

Would you feel the same way about "you should clean your wounds to prevent infection" as you would with "you should inject this compound that we invented 1 (or 2 or 3) years ago?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com