Wow, there's a blast from the past. I think the full phrase was "WARNING! Military software detected. Top secret clearance required."
2,716 karma · joined March 5, 2016
I don't think most people on HN implying such things mean to say old people are freely expendable, but rather that they should not be saved at _all cost_. Our non-pharmaceutical interventions have a cost associated with them too, so we have to strike a balance that's acceptable. The debate to me is ultimately over where the line is. It's not helped that the true costs of lockdowns etc. (or indeed the true cost of not locking down) are not actually all that clear. One consequence is that debates over policies such as these have happened without reliable figures on both sides, and have therefore descended into unconstructive emotional arguments.
I think you intended that as a rhetorical question but I want to point out that in the UK the NHS has calculated the "worth" of a single quality-adjusted life year. If a treatment gives less quality-adjusted extra life years than it costs, it isn't administered. In 2014 it was £20-60k [1]. This shows the NHS definitely does consider older peoples' lives worth less than younger peoples', on average.
Love this.
Another thing: Jeff Huber thought that having 2.5 Google engineers would be enough to outcompete YouTube at the time. Given that they eventually acquired YouTube for over $1B, was that essentially paying for their ~2 best engineers?
Does this signal the end of Microsoft account-less logins?
Now I understand that, stretched to extremes, Kant's theory gets rather tricky to defend, such as a hypothetical situation of a Nazi coming to your house to ask if you are harbouring Jews he plans to kill. But Kant and others since have argued ways to deal with such situations too, though I must admit I haven't studied their arguments in detail and wouldn't do them justice to try to paraphrase. But I don't think we're really dealing with such a high stakes situation in the context of this discussion, so I think "lower order" arguments in favour of Kant (like mine) suffice. This is something I expect you'll disagree with given your response.
Coming back to the original context of governments lying to people to get them to have vaccines: I think it's possible to do huge damage to public trust in government and science if lies are told for the (always subjective) "greater good", even if the immediate outcome is positive. Governments should understand Kant.
P.S. thanks for your level headed response, it's refreshing and rare to see in threads that discuss COVID.
P.P.S. sometimes it needs to be said explicitly: I am open to changing my views on this if I hear a convincing argument.
I suggest, if you are unfamiliar with his work, that you read up on Kant's categorical imperative, in particular his absolute prohibition against lying. He argues that lying, even noble lying, is bad because it dehumanises the ones being lied to. If we stop treating each other as humans with rights, needs and desires, we will find ourselves in a very bad place - history has shown us that.
> Notice that when the key is, say, 40 bytes long, it’s padded with zeros to make it 64 bytes long. So the actual entropy of that key is equivalent to the 40-byte long key. But if the key is longer than 64 bytes, it’s effectively being shortened to 20 bytes. So its entropy is lower. If you want to maximize the complexity of the key, and you’re the one choosing the key, go for something around, but never more than, 64 bytes.
Perhaps that's why some sites have a maximum character limit for passwords. (Although I suspect many are just doing it wrong.)
[1] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/55696808/why-do-h5-and-h...
We were a bunch of physicists having fun. The impact of using just laptops for demand side response will be negligible but the idea is that all battery equipped, mains connected devices are capable of responding to grid supply/demand changes by adding or removing load only needing simple electronics (we used an Arduino Uno).
Why are we incentivising electric cars at purchase rather than incentivising the use of green energy to charge them?
(Edited to add "potentially" before "making it worse" given a comment below)
I'm curious as to what evidence you base that assertion on. Respectfully, can you explain your position there?
Papers from the 1900s are still our best description of some physical phenomena. A paper's age, taken on its own, has nothing to do with truth or untruth.
Or, to put it more succinctly, science has not yet converged.
Yet, COVID is killing people, so we can't wait for science to converge before doing something about it. It therefore makes most sense to use educated guesses and conduct evidence based medicine with appropriate weighing of risks versus rewards. What ivermectin has going for it is that it is an extremely safe drug with a long history of use as an antiviral. Repurposing existing drugs is also far easier (and quicker) to get approval for than new vaccines. Even if the papers you linked are eventually proved right, and ivermectin is not beneficial, the evidence from ivermectin's use over 40 years suggests that it does very little harm - deaths caused by ivermectin intervention are essentially in the noise. What's more, it's out of patent so we're not paying $20-40 a pop like we are with the vaccines. It's got so much going for it that any level headed risk versus reward calculation should include it in the arsenal to fight against COVID.
The first lecture in the session for example is from Dr Clare Craig, an epidemiologist, discussing how the virus actually spreads, and presents evidence for the remark you highlighted about social distancing and quarantine [1].
As I said in other comments here, rejecting arguments based on (lack of) credentials is not constructive. I encourage everyone to open their mind and engage with what people have to say. You can always disagree with them and you're then at least more familiar with the arguments of the other side. I am always trying to find a way to justify the behaviour of governments with regards to COVID-19 - it would sure as heck make my life easier right now to fall in line - and I do this by reading and hearing the arguments in favour of restrictions and mandates from all corners.
For the record, it's worth pointing out that the reasons for withdrawal are disputed by the authors. I have not looked closely at the arguments for and against so can't comment.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-s...
[2] https://odysee.com/@DarkHorsePodcastClips:b/ivermectin-meta-...
[1] https://unherd.com/thepost/the-most-vaccine-hesitant-educati...
As with all science, it's not the volume of studies one way or the other, it's the quality. Consensus on a topic only comes over time, especially for contentious issues with public interest. The good thing about science is that it more or less always converges on the truth over time, but some are not willing to wait and make snap decisions on policy without stating that it's not backed by scientific consensus.