throwkeep

Earlier thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27964677

What age are we talking about? And what is the concern? What are they worried about exactly?

It's strange. Obesity is our biggest preventable health problem, and it gets almost no attention in the media or by public officials. We heard endlessly from health officials and news media personalities to wash our hands, stay indoors, wear a mask, get vaccinated, but nothing about eating healthier, eating less, exercising more?

"Obesity steals more years than diabetes, tobacco, high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- the other top preventable health problems that cut Americans' lives short, according to researchers who analyzed 2014 data."

https://www.webmd.com/diabetes/news/20170424/the-top-5-condi...

"Obesity is associated with nearly 1 in 5 US deaths, according to a study published online August 15 in the American Journal of Public Health."

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/809516

It should also be part of the climate change discussion:

"Overall, being obese is associated with about 20% more greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) than being a normal weight"

https://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20191220/growing-obe...

If you look at it from a global perspective, there are more forests now, up by 7% since 1982. Some regions see decreased life, others increased life:

"Here we analyse 35 years’ worth of satellite data and provide a comprehensive record of global land-change dynamics during the period 1982–2016. We show that—contrary to the prevailing view that forest area has declined globally—tree cover has increased by 2.24 million km2 (+7.1% relative to the 1982 level). This overall net gain is the result of a net loss in the tropics being outweighed by a net gain in the extratropics."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0411-9

Yes, it's a public performance more than a conversation.

If they ban Coca Cola ads, we'll know they are serious.

You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBBxWtKKQiA

> He purchased shares of his own startup at 0.001 cents, way below market rate.

How do you know that was below market rate? Startups generally begin with shares worth almost nothing.

To illustrate how easy it is to inject a racial angle into anything, here's Brandeis University on why "picnic" is oppressive language:

https://www.brandeis.edu/parc/accountability/oppressivelangu...

[edit] They just removed it. Here's what they had previously: https://archive.is/NR0Zj

Sitting member of Congress: "No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can't be reformed."

https://mobile.twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1381745303997...

Sitting member of Congress: "We can’t reform this."

https://mobile.twitter.com/AyannaPressley/status/13817027443...

Activist with 475k followers whose name is currently: "DEFUND & ABOLISH POLICE"

https://mobile.twitter.com/BreeNewsome

Ben & Jerrys: "This system can’t be reformed."

https://twitter.com/benandjerrys/status/1381743962558504969

When activists say they want to abolish the police, they “100%” mean they want no more police, Noor says.

https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2020/07/17/black-lives-matte...

NYT op ed: "Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police"

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

That would be the end of females in the Olympics. Male High School Athletes beat Female Olympians in most events:

https://boysvswomen.com

This is changing tho, with avatars and pronouns and emojis that display skin color. Now a thumbs up in Slack is segregated by color. Why people don't see this as an incredibly bad idea, I don't know.

October, 2020

I am content in here. I have friends.

The food is good. All is well.

Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine.

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/131680121508322509...

This group of domain experts know what's best and there will be no unintended consequences. It's the perfect permanent solution and 15% is exactly the right number.

A couple points...

College campuses are where you are supposed to be confronted with challenging ideas and different perspectives. That's one of their great gifts. But even mainstream Jerry Seinfeld, who created one of the most popular sitcoms of all time and doesn't even swear, is now considered too controversial?

It's not just him. Dave Chappelle and many other comedians have been saying the same thing about college audiences.

Because he didn't have much of a choice? I have a feeling he'd much prefer being back in the US or somewhere in Europe or any other number of places, but all of those lead to a jail cell.

When I worked at a FAANG, anti-censorship and pro free speech was normative. What happened? Why have we let a small number of intolerant activists scare us into silence?

He's almost certainly a 100x engineer.

It's strange. The biggest change isn't with the evidence, but with the narrative. For decades it was just pure crankery, but now we have 60 Minutes with a big episode with US Navy pilots, Obama talking about it, the mass media, late night shows, etc, all taking it seriously. This all would have been considered crazy just a year ago.

It would appear we are being prepped to get comfortable with a new narrative. Sam Harris, who I'd consider trustworthy and hard to fool, was given a heads up about what's to come. If he's right about his source being reliable, then we may have to have to contend with this:

"I got contacted by somebody who gave me a heads up with respect to all of this happening and he more or less told me listen, when this other shoe drops you’re going to be in the position of having to acknowledge that all the experts are on the same page, and there’s just this blanket declaration that we’re in the presence of alien technology, and we don’t know what to make of it. So prepare your brain for that and figure out what you’re going to do."

https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/

There are valid concerns and a difficult risk benefit analysis for some cohorts, I think. What are your thoughts on this? Put yourself in her shoes:

"I held off on a COVID vaccine because I wanted to wait for data with positive signals for both pregnancy in the short term and long-run fertility. I’m trying to get pregnant, and those are the two things I care about most.

Vaccine data is so politicized that it’s actually somewhat difficult to find full studies, results discussions or data sets as a layman, because every search term redirects you to “yes, get vaccinated right now, your concerns are merely ignorance”

The other study that concerns me shows that the vaccine’s lipid nanoparticles— which carry the RNA instructions for the spike protein — move beyond the deltoid muscle they’re injected into and accumulate in other tissues, and seem to accumulate in ovarian tissue preferentially.

That study looked at a very small sample, but given what we think we know about the spike protein — it likely causes some degree of tissue damage on its own, independent of the virus — it’s something that definitely demands further study

Anyway, I feel like I need to come clean at this point. For a long time I was avoiding the vaccine because I wanted to hold out for more data. Now I’m actively choosing not to get it because what I’ve seen is providing the opposite of a positive safety signal for my purposes.

It’s really important that I clarify I’m not at a high risk of exposure. I generally don’t work or even socialize outside my home. Lockdown life frankly doesn’t look that different from my preferred lifestyle. If I were a high exposure risk I would think about this differently

I’m in the process of getting a prescription for prophylactic ivermectin, which has also become extremely politicized — to the point of becoming a censored topic on some platforms. I’m not giving advice, here. I’m not making broader efficacy claims. I’m just trying to be honest

COVID is no joke. You do not want to get COVID. “Long COVID” symptoms should concern you even if you don’t think an infection would kill you. But the vaccines are very new and skipped a great deal of otherwise required safety testing, and some of this data is really worrisome."

https://mobile.twitter.com/webdevMason/status/14056498962128...

I think a better solution is funding students instead of systems. Give everyone the ability to opt out of broken systems, force all schools to compete for students.

Ok, but let's not get confused. This is different than being an anti-vaxxer. You can speak up for something like Ivermectin AND be a pro-vaxxer. The most prominent voice on this is Bret Weinstein (biology PhD), who is more vaccinated than average. He and his wife and kids are vaccinated for the typical things plus typhoid, rabies, yellow fever... They are pro-vaccine and so am I. Vaccines are one of the best inventions ever.

> Many people pushing Ivermectin have a vested interest in proving the vaccines are unnecessary.

What is their vested interest in a generic, cheap, decades old, off patent drug? Vested interests tend to be in new, patented treatments. That's where big pharma profit is. So let's try a rephrase: Many people pushing patented treatments have a vested interest in proving off patent alternatives are unnecessary.

For example, here's Merck warning against using Ivermectin for Covid-19:

https://www.merck.com/news/merck-statement-on-ivermectin-use...

Then a few months later, "Merck Announces Supply Agreement with U.S. Government for Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral Candidate for Treatment of Mild to Moderate COVID-19"

https://www.merck.com/news/merck-announces-supply-agreement-...

Speaking of cult like, what is this thing with calling people who are on firmly on the left, like Bret Weinstein and Joe Rogan, alt-right?

> If Ivermectin worked on COVID-19, the manufacturer of Ivermectin that has made no money on vaccines for COVID-19 would probably be pushing it wouldn't they?

No, because it's out of patent. There's little profit to be made. Merck is instead pushing a new drug that they will have a monopoly on.

"Merck Announces Supply Agreement with U.S. Government for Molnupiravir, an Investigational Oral Antiviral Candidate for Treatment of Mild to Moderate COVID-19"

https://www.merck.com/news/merck-announces-supply-agreement-...

Big pharma 101.

As for Ivermectin effectiveness, it looks promising. There was an evidence based clinical review posted on Nature earlier this week:

"As per data available on 16 May 2021, 100% of 36 early treatment and prophylaxis studies report positive effects (96% of all 55 studies). Of these, 26 studies show statistically significant improvements in isolation. Random effects meta-analysis with pooled effects using the most serious outcome reported 79% and 85% improvement for early treatment and prophylaxis respectively (RR 0.21 [0.11–0.37] and 0.15 [0.09–0.25]). The results were similar after exclusion based sensitivity analysis: 81% and 87% (RR 0.19 [0.14–0.26] and 0.13 [0.07–0.25]), and after restriction to 29 peer-reviewed studies: 82% and 88% (RR 0.18 [0.11–0.31] and 0.12 [0.05–0.30]). Statistically significant improvements were seen for mortality, ventilation, hospitalization, cases, and viral clearance. 100% of the 17 Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) for early treatment and prophylaxis report positive effects, with an estimated improvement of 73% and 83% respectively (RR 0.27 [0.18–0.41] and 0.17 [0.05–0.61]), and 93% of all 28 RCTs."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-021-00430-5

> "The problem with #Crypto, as in most things, is the leverage," he tweeted. "If you don't know how much leverage is in crypto, you don't know anything about crypto."

Wasn't a lot this knocked out when Bitcoin crashed to $30k? How much still remains?

It’s insane these are a thing. I didn’t know about them until the recent Paris Hilton documentary. She was sent to something similar and if I recall correctly was taken in the middle of the night, as though being kidnapped.

> “They’d been asleep long enough that the house had already gotten to 78 degrees,” English said. “So they woke up sweating.”

This is silly. 78 degrees is not that bad and it’s literally what the Department of Energy recommends setting your thermostat to in the summer.

PG has an essay on that, submarine articles: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Isn't that a tautology? They aren't 24/7 sources and we don't have the battery technology to power modern industrial society. In addition to renewables we need nuclear energy; a constant source of safe(1) clean power, compact, little waste.

1) https://ourworldindata.org/safest-sources-of-energy