allovernow

We absolutely can, on all fronts.

Deep neural networks have emerged as applicable to a wide range of general problems - they are very powerful universal function approximators and excel in noisy data environments.

1. Snooping out trends and correlations, especially nonlinear, non first order interactions that cannot be captures with typical statistics like averages and standard deviations. This could help with predicting mortality, tracking disease, modeling outcomes...

2. Accelerating all manner of modeling, 2D and 3D, e.g. protein folding

3. Classification problems, like image analysis, e.g. diagnosing 2019ncov from lung scans much more quickly and effectively than overburdened staff

Most importantly the technology is here. It is mature. Problems of similar complexity have repeatedly been solved in literature and most of the source code is available for rapid adaptation - and the great thing about neural nets is beyond basic architectural flow, neural nets of correct arrangement for a particular problem need little to no tweaking for other problems within a class. Much in the same way that the same mathematical equations govern phenomena across physics.

Now is our time to mobilize, to make connections and orchestrate solutions. You can run and train most of this stuff on a mid-range GPU with python, not to mention cloud computing is available for big problems.

This is a potential front in the coming civic mobilization against a global pandemic. Even as developers working remotely we can contribute to the effort.

TV and radio are broadcasted top down, and their power does not depend on users being able to access the rest of the world.

Functionally for our intents and purposes there is little difference between having no internet and having a national intranet which is cut off from the rest of the world and literally policed by the government. Technically the walled garden FB wanted to set up in India was "internet" too.

Plus as we've determined, the internet has spread to 60% of Chinese at best, and majority urban areas.

I appreciate your take.

The only point behind my recent anti CCP posts is to prevent westerners from taking Chinese numbers and information without hefty skepticism.

Also readers should consider this: China just locked down 700MM+ people for two months and shuttered it's entire GDP (80-90% according to CNBC a month ago). They are now approaching the time where they must resume some production as now critical supplies, including potentially medicine and food, are at risk of running out, as chains across the country have indisputably been disrupted.

If they are not recovering as effectively as they claim, they are effectively between a rock and a hard place - risking a second wave of infections to bring critical industry online, or risk famine and other hardship by continuing the wartime lockdown conditions.

This is exactly the kind of scenario where the CCP is possibly going to try to have their cake and eat it too - lie about recovery, including international gestures like equipment donations, in order to maintain authority, while simultaneously implementing necessary policies to resume function even risking another wave of infections.

Westerners need to understand that these perverse incentives pervade the entire society. It's like a nightmare bureaucracy governing every aspect of your life. The men at the top are "incentivized" by party leaders to report fewer infections. That Cascades downwards and you end up with absurd gaming of metrics on not just a corporate scale, but a social scale. The regional administrator of Wuhan was just replaced twice - the first one was forced out because he dared to report new infections.

Be very wary of any positive news out of China. We're seeing more of the truth as European nations lock down one by one - and soon American states, in the next 1-3 weeks. Watch.

>China internet users in urban areas account for 73.7% of total internet users. Among the Chinese population who don’t access the internet (which is 541 million)

Ok, sorry, I was off by 10%. That doesn't change my point that China is a nation of two worlds.

Also, with the degree to which information is controlled in China, these are likely Chinese numbers. Are you sure you want to trust them?

>While I’m a doctor, I’m No specialist so my opinion is of limited value, and experts seem to disagree with each other.

Given the state of modern politics, this is a time for people to very carefully consider their opinions, because the unpopularity of Trump and Boris is going to potentially sway decisions irrationally. This includes professionals and key decision makers.

This is not a value judgement regarding any world leaders. It's just a call to be very aware of bias and spitefulness can cloud judgement even in the most rational among us.

Iron lungs require industrial infrastructure to construct. They much resist the pressure of atmosphere over a large surface. I think they've been made obsolete by other tech.

But you need to isolate the pressure around the body from the neck down. For such an enclosure you can use modern materials with high tensile strength like fiberglass but you need to mold them in a sealed manner on a large scale. Very impractical to do in a garage without experience and tools for laying fiberglass matting, or welding in the case of steel or aluminum, which are too heavy to be practical in a home I think

Our modern building practices and materials are not optimized for longevity. What incentive in modern times does a contractor have in building homes that last hundreds of years?

The average person is too ignorant to know or care anyway.

I'm not arguing against that. What I'm saying is that we have been drastically overcorrecting for too long because we refuse to collectively acknowledge the reality of intelligence as a distribution and allocate resources that maximally benefit society.

>The article is about how economic class and educational inequality prevents everyone from having meaningful technical experiences that lead to technical literacy

No. That's exactly what I'm arguing is wrong. We're putting the cart before the horse. The internet is ubiquitous, even if you're poor at this point - it's in your schools, it's in free libraries, and entry level smartphones are cheap enough that all but the poorest can afford them if it's a priority.

The problem is none of that. It's that not everyone is technically competent - and no amount of education or money will fix that. Intelligence is a high dimensional spectrum and technical details regarding computers are out of reach for a sizable proportion of the population. This is exacerbated by poverty and/or poor education, but those are at most half of the problem.

The sooner we dispell the notion that all people are equally capable at everything, the sooner we can get back to prioritizing merit and see it return to the country. It will take decades. The virus has exposed the incompetence that pervades the nation.

Articles like this are only surprising because some two generations of propaganda has convinced young Americans that everyone deserves a trophy and we can all be Einsteins and Armstrongs if we just set our minds to it.

But this is moreso a structural, institutional issue. This mindset has resulted in the conflation of equality of outcome with equality of opportunity as we take for granted that everyone is equally capable in the west. So now instead we throw money and man hours and bad policy at our lowest achievers in a sort of crabs in a bucket mentality, I stead of prioritizing resources for those who are more likely to benefit society in broad strokes - scientists who cure disease, for example - and as a result our native students are being thoroughly outcompeted by other nations.

This has resulted in a net reduction of the standard of living for all Americans. And is probably one reason for inequality and general unhappiness.

>What works for people without that discipline ?

Amphetamines. Seriously. Prescription, of course. Coffee is a distant second. Thiobromine can be better for some people - you can get supplements it you can buy brewing cacao if you want to experiment with a potentially tasty drink.

Yeah, sure, there are behavioral interventions but for a guy like me, if I can just do it with a reasonably pill I'm willing to take the risk. Your risk tolerance may vary. Meditation is a good alternative but it takes time and, ironically, discipline.

Incidentally it may be the reverse, that people who are good at meditating are those predisposed to having good discipline!

>people who are enthusiastic about fucking children either. I don't need to understand everyone's enthusiasm, especially if it's actively harmfu

Because auto modification teaches discipline and determination and is practice for other general skills. This is nothing like fucking children and the fact that you'd equate the two is evidence of your [un]righteous indignation. Your rage is misplaced.

Edit: imagine being this pissed off at computer enthusiasts for buying multiple GPUs and overclocking their machines. It's about the same level of absurdity.

>All so that a bunch of man children can get attention. I can only some that it's a reflection of a general attitude in which they either don't care about the impact of their action on others or are completely oblivious

Again, you don't understand enthusiasts. You have a single stereotype based on the most obnoxious motorcyclists. This is pearl clutching.

Also most people live outside of high-rises.

You really don't understand car enthusiasm. These are more than just toys for some people. There's a certain soul to them.

And this "nuisance" is overstated. The amount of harm that enthusiasts do in terms of noise and air pollution are absolutely negligible - don't clutch pearls.

That's a hard call to make. IIRC income and land taxes were each supposed to be temporary funding solutions for wars and such.

On the other hand Trump had the right idea eliminating bloat but he went about it in the worst way. That way we'd be less likely to end up with more permanent taxes if this drags on.

Are you sure people commonly used the term impossible for things like m4a or cancellation of student loans, and do so literally?

I think the idea is the cost outweighs the benefit in non emergency situations.

Do you really think it's a good idea to concentrate almost all of your medical and semiconductor manufacturing on the shores of one of your biggest geopolitical rivals? Particularly when they've been saber rattling in the Pacific and are already making threats about withholding manufacturing?

>China is already returning to work

Don't be so sure. This is an authoritarian regime which went to great lengths to cover up the outbreak for the first month. And they claimed return to capacity weeks ago when pollution maps still showed little to no productivity. The world isn't all rainbows and sunshine - nation states are still competitive and do not always work in each other's best interest.

None of this even begins to go into all of the IP fuckery and socialization of US companies going on in China.

>an emphasis on overall company welfare at the expense of employees - there have been no proposals around preventing people from losing their jobs due to

Do you think these companies will continue to exist if they fire all the employees who get sick from the virus? Do you think these employees will survive without their paychecks?

Do you believe that anything benefiting "corporations" goes directly into the pocket of evil 1% CEOs and confers no benefit to employees? You probably work for a corporation. Corporate well-being is employee wellbeing because corporations are staffed by people.

>What did he do that will bring back manufacturing? Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are in a manufacturing recession.

Please remove your Orange Man Bad blinders for a minute and listen to what I'm saying. I'm not saying he's done anything for manufacturing to date. I'm saying that this coronavirus now has exposed the weakness of offshoring a substantial proportion of critical manufacturing and it's an excellent opportunity to bring back much of the capacity that is still disrupted in China.

That's also why I said under subsidy. Because manufacturing here is more expensive but it looks like a national security problem if during calamity or war we have to depend on a nation on the other side of the world for things like semiconductors, medical equipment, and medicine. Based on the way the word is being thrown around recently, think of it as "socialism."

Well, not exactly, it means that "immunity" may actually be dangerous or fatal. Because immunity implies release of antibodies on re-exposure, except in this case the antibodies bind to the virus, as normal, but then the virus infects much more readily, prompting the body to produce more antibodies and mount an ever greater immune response in a dangerous cycle.

>And I agree, the word socialism is losing meaning because right wing media has been trying to equate democratic socialism with Stalin

The fact that you agree with what you read does not mean that it isn't propaganda. The man had his homeymoon in the USSR and is on video talking fondly of bread lines. I'm not saying he's Stalin 2.0 but right wing media isn't entirely stretching when they point out how far removed his policies are from American politics.

Note, that's not a value judgement. I'm just saying you're wrong to blame the shift in meaning on the particular media that you don't agree with.

If you can get reinfected, there's a good chance that the second infection will have a particularly high mortality rate, because this virus likely has a property known as antibody dependent enhancement[1]. Long story short, your normally protective antibodies actually work for the infection. This was a property of past coronaviruses like SARS and is likely why no vaccine was successfully developed.

1.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S128645792...

If that's the case then the word socialism has lost any consistent meaning.

We are literally turning toward capitalist corporations to manufacture and sell products to solve a crisis. This is not socialism. Workers are not taking control of factories. The government is not commandeering private resources.

>Look, either socialism includes Bernie Sander's Democratic Socialism or it doesn't

You also don't seem to understand how many different flavors of socialism exist - feel free to point out how what's going on now fits under any definition. Also what does any of this have to do with Sanders?

Hello? The entire country just recognized the folly of outsourcing literally everything to a single third world country.

If Trump isn't a total idiot (though I know many of you believe he is) this is his opportunity to return manufacturing jobs to the US, possibly under subsidy, at the very least as a national security concern.

This rampant tribalism is insane. Literally nothing the administration does now will see any credit from it's opponents. Take off the partisan blinders. Even shitty leaders can make good decisions, and deserve credit for doing so.

What? Socialization would see the government forcibly taking control of these corporations. This is nothing like socialism.

This is legitimately the kind of stimulus that the economy has needed for decades. A true cause for the American powerhouse to rally behind, if there's anything left of it. Yeah the administration has been less than ideal in handling this but you people need to give credit where it is due.

This will be a true test of the viability of the declining American Empire.

What exactly is the problem with turning toward corporate America to help solve this problem?

Isn't that the ultimate stimulus?

Is the potential of returned manufacturing jobs not a hugely good thing?

Or are we not allowed to give credit for anything because Trump?

Medical personnel outside of China were still laughing this off as "just another flu" until mid February at the earliest. Unfortunately all I have is anecdote...but it took far too long for people to take this seriously, because doctors are humans too and aren't necessarily trawling internet forums for happenings.

>In emergencies it is pretty standard procedures to ration essential stuff in limited supplies

We're talking about laws restricting free access to drugs before emergencies, not emergency quarantine.

The alternative is drowning in your own body fluids after you're turned away by overwhelmed hospitals. Or watching it happen helplessly to your loved ones after they're turned away for being too old, as is happening in Italy. And in any case Chloroquine is a well studied, proven safe drug with minimal side effects and a high therapeutic ratio.

Nanny states breed incompetence.

Honestly this is a perfect example of a time when laws are excessively restrictive. I should have the right to purchase this drug and use it as a last resort in the case that I or my family are infected.

It's not fair to responsible people who are capable of researching safety and dosages to have to pay for the ignorance of others. Especially when this drug is OTC in most of the world. You don't need a medical degree to safely administer most drugs - and you should have the right to take that risk, even if that means ignorant people getting hurt or dying.