I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
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So there are a few things here:
- Scientists deal with reality and our current understanding of it. To speculte beyond that is generally frowned upon as non-scientific, and spoken about in terms of probabilities
- Words have different meanings in the scientific language, best exampified by the word "Theory" which almost has opposite meaning between scientific and every day language.Given this, the mistake is to expect scientists to make political decisions.
Science can inform, tell us what we know, what may be probable to happen. and what may be less probable.
Mask mandates are a good point to discuss this: early on, all the data we had for masks efficacy was from hospital studies, there were, to my knowledge, no large published studies on the effects of masks in public Areals.
The correct, scientific thing to say is "we have no data".
It's for politicians to gather data and make desicions.
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Science can inform, tell us what we know, what may be probable to happen. and what may be less probable.
Mask mandates are a good point to discuss this: early on, all the data we had for masks efficacy was from hospital studies, there were, to my knowledge, no large published studies on the effects of masks in public Areals.
The correct, scientific thing to say is "we have no data".
It's for politicians to gather data and make desicions.
When I hear you describe scientists, I hear someone describing an ideology, not a group of practitioners who have a body of knowledge and a mastery of a method designed to guide them in uncovering progressively more true aspects of our reality.
"Not making political decisions" is making a political decision, and especially in this era of "data is God" scientists are, whether they want to be or not, political.
That they are not taught this is a failure of their education
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When I hear you describe scientists, I hear someone describing an ideology, not a group of practitioners who have a body of knowledge and a mastery of a method designed to guide them in uncovering progressively more true aspects of our reality.
"Not making political decisions" is making a political decision, and especially in this era of "data is God" scientists are, whether they want to be or not, political.
That they are not taught this is a failure of their education
As I said, both hospital studies and RCTs are batshit dumb ways to "study the efficacy of masks", because masks are *engineered* and *thoroughly tested* for efficacy in absolute terms.
The way respirators protect from particles is well known and undisputed.
"Will people wear masks wrong" and "are masks effective" are categorically different questions.
One is a failure of training and execution. The other is an answered question of physics and engineering.
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As I said, both hospital studies and RCTs are batshit dumb ways to "study the efficacy of masks", because masks are *engineered* and *thoroughly tested* for efficacy in absolute terms.
The way respirators protect from particles is well known and undisputed.
"Will people wear masks wrong" and "are masks effective" are categorically different questions.
One is a failure of training and execution. The other is an answered question of physics and engineering.
But this category error - confusing execution failures with engineering specs - happened all the time during the pandemic
Yes, if a doctor is careless and "wearing" a masks incorrectly that they take off frequently, the mask will not be "effective", because the doctor is a fool misusing a tool.
To the same point, if a surgeon takes a scalpel and slashes around inside someone's body like they're pretending to be Zoro, it's not the scalpel's failure when the patient dies.
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I wish we had spent the last 26 years teaching people that the reason the 2000 bug didn't destroy a significant amount of our infrastructure is because *we caught it* and *spent thousands of hours fixing it* BEFORE the year 2000
Because within that little perplexion - people thinking the problem was a hoax because it was fixed before it destroyed shit - is an encapsulation of the current era of Western politics, including COVID mitigation, lesser evil politics, fascism, and crime rate hyperbole
@johnzajac yeah, that seems like the last time things were taken seriously somehow.
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Science can inform, tell us what we know, what may be probable to happen. and what may be less probable.
Mask mandates are a good point to discuss this: early on, all the data we had for masks efficacy was from hospital studies, there were, to my knowledge, no large published studies on the effects of masks in public Areals.
The correct, scientific thing to say is "we have no data".
It's for politicians to gather data and make desicions.
But this is recapitulating one of the early mistakes about mask science. We _did_ have data - on the size of aerosol particles likely to carry viruses, and the size of particles caught by different filter materials. When you know the physics, you can deduce things directly about the efficacy of different types of masks, without having to wait for them to be used inconsistently by humans and then try to sieve the resulting signal out of the noise.
(Then of course we run into the denial that airborne was important. But quite a lot of people were right about that from day 1, and had data to strongly suggest it should be taken seriously. I've not forgiven the WHO for denying it.)
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But this is recapitulating one of the early mistakes about mask science. We _did_ have data - on the size of aerosol particles likely to carry viruses, and the size of particles caught by different filter materials. When you know the physics, you can deduce things directly about the efficacy of different types of masks, without having to wait for them to be used inconsistently by humans and then try to sieve the resulting signal out of the noise.
(Then of course we run into the denial that airborne was important. But quite a lot of people were right about that from day 1, and had data to strongly suggest it should be taken seriously. I've not forgiven the WHO for denying it.)
I will just say: what would have been a better approach.
Scientists are sometimes a weird bunch, only trying to state publicly what they are absolutely sure of, and hopefully only for the field they have expertise in.
So if you ask a virologist "do masks work" they will look for a study of reduced infectivity.
@johnzajac is right, we have good engineering data on masks, but that's engineering data, not scientific, and it would not be a virologist's expertise.
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I will just say: what would have been a better approach.
Scientists are sometimes a weird bunch, only trying to state publicly what they are absolutely sure of, and hopefully only for the field they have expertise in.
So if you ask a virologist "do masks work" they will look for a study of reduced infectivity.
@johnzajac is right, we have good engineering data on masks, but that's engineering data, not scientific, and it would not be a virologist's expertise.
The WHO is a different beast, that's a public health commitee, they're job is it to collect the available data and make policy proposals.
I guess that's where the gravity of the situation makes an impact: you see something coming that is large, do you cry "wolf"? How often do we see things that turn out to be nothing burgers? At what point *was* it obvious that mask mandates were the best first course of action?
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The WHO is a different beast, that's a public health commitee, they're job is it to collect the available data and make policy proposals.
I guess that's where the gravity of the situation makes an impact: you see something coming that is large, do you cry "wolf"? How often do we see things that turn out to be nothing burgers? At what point *was* it obvious that mask mandates were the best first course of action?
In January/February 2020, I was in New Zealand, and it was interesting to see that the Asian Population there started to mask upon the first news from Hubei, in fact, I remember first learning about it from a receptionist at a motel in Christchurch who wore a mask. That was in the last week of January, a full two months before any measures were taken back home in Germany.
I guess what I wanted to say is: I am not sure that it is that easy.
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In January/February 2020, I was in New Zealand, and it was interesting to see that the Asian Population there started to mask upon the first news from Hubei, in fact, I remember first learning about it from a receptionist at a motel in Christchurch who wore a mask. That was in the last week of January, a full two months before any measures were taken back home in Germany.
I guess what I wanted to say is: I am not sure that it is that easy.
Did you ever read this article about the aerosol / droplet argument? It's interesting.
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In January/February 2020, I was in New Zealand, and it was interesting to see that the Asian Population there started to mask upon the first news from Hubei, in fact, I remember first learning about it from a receptionist at a motel in Christchurch who wore a mask. That was in the last week of January, a full two months before any measures were taken back home in Germany.
I guess what I wanted to say is: I am not sure that it is that easy.
@pjakobs @unchartedworlds @syllopsium
The answer, of course, is "ask an engineer" or "yes", because ostensibly you'd know that answering outside of your knowledge level was, not to put too fine a point on it, foolish.
The entire purpose of the "precautionary principle" is to assume the worst and be proven wrong, because to assume otherwise and be proven wrong results in... 300+ million deaths and the worst mass disability and persistent chronic illness crisis in human history.
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@pjakobs @unchartedworlds @syllopsium
The answer, of course, is "ask an engineer" or "yes", because ostensibly you'd know that answering outside of your knowledge level was, not to put too fine a point on it, foolish.
The entire purpose of the "precautionary principle" is to assume the worst and be proven wrong, because to assume otherwise and be proven wrong results in... 300+ million deaths and the worst mass disability and persistent chronic illness crisis in human history.
@pjakobs @unchartedworlds @syllopsium
I mean, *basic decency* dictates that when you have a plague with a reported 1% CFR and strong potential for global spread you go hard with rhetoric.
Instead we got waffling and delays driven by politics and business.
It was politics and business that won the day, which is why Long COVID is the most common childhood chronic illness in the US.
I'm sure that'll work out fine, though. After all, I don't have a study in front of me that says "we're fucked".
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Did you ever read this article about the aerosol / droplet argument? It's interesting.
I had not, thank you.
I don't think it changes things.
We agree that early in, mistakes werde made, heck, even some of the virologists I trust most were initiallly dismissive about mask efficacy (Vincent Racaniello) and had to correct themselves.
Would it have been wetter to know then what we know now? Absolutely!
Did we?
The article is written through the eyes if people who challenged consesnus at the time and it turned out they were right -
I had not, thank you.
I don't think it changes things.
We agree that early in, mistakes werde made, heck, even some of the virologists I trust most were initiallly dismissive about mask efficacy (Vincent Racaniello) and had to correct themselves.
Would it have been wetter to know then what we know now? Absolutely!
Did we?
The article is written through the eyes if people who challenged consesnus at the time and it turned out they were right@pjakobs @unchartedworlds @syllopsium
This sounds like an excellent way to absolve people who were fatally wrong and help them keep their positions of power and influence.
Which, don't get me wrong, is *very* "collapsing Western Empire" coded! There's nothing like being wrong and killing people to get you a promotion and a bonus in our society.
The reality is that science in the early 21st century is more of an ideology than a method, just like it was in the late 18th century.
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I had not, thank you.
I don't think it changes things.
We agree that early in, mistakes werde made, heck, even some of the virologists I trust most were initiallly dismissive about mask efficacy (Vincent Racaniello) and had to correct themselves.
Would it have been wetter to know then what we know now? Absolutely!
Did we?
The article is written through the eyes if people who challenged consesnus at the time and it turned out they were rightThat's great, that‘s how science should work. Would it have been better to understand this earlier? To self-correct quicker? Yes.
I am by no means saying everything went right, not by a long shot, I‘m saying that, in the situation back then, I understand why people werde unwilling to go out on a limb.I said it earlier: to me, the situation was easy, I believe I understood the situation as good as I could, I had access to developing information
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That's great, that‘s how science should work. Would it have been better to understand this earlier? To self-correct quicker? Yes.
I am by no means saying everything went right, not by a long shot, I‘m saying that, in the situation back then, I understand why people werde unwilling to go out on a limb.I said it earlier: to me, the situation was easy, I believe I understood the situation as good as I could, I had access to developing information
I could make my decisions on the base if the facts we knew and the discussion of the uncertainties. But I also have had an Interest in Virologe for 15 or so years by that time and could access sources that were not easily accessible for most (not from an availability level, but due to their complexity)
The bigger problem, and that was my initial argument were people that can‘t or would not be able to grasp the scientific facts.
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I could make my decisions on the base if the facts we knew and the discussion of the uncertainties. But I also have had an Interest in Virologe for 15 or so years by that time and could access sources that were not easily accessible for most (not from an availability level, but due to their complexity)
The bigger problem, and that was my initial argument were people that can‘t or would not be able to grasp the scientific facts.
Policy decisions must be made for and explained to them as well.
And politicians may themselves be an that camp, too.To me, politics has failed to act decisively in a situation where they were facing a force that they had no tools for, that was outside of what politics has been dealing with in more than three generations.
But on the flip side, even the relatively mild measures we had created a major societal rift.
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@pjakobs @unchartedworlds @syllopsium
I mean, *basic decency* dictates that when you have a plague with a reported 1% CFR and strong potential for global spread you go hard with rhetoric.
Instead we got waffling and delays driven by politics and business.
It was politics and business that won the day, which is why Long COVID is the most common childhood chronic illness in the US.
I'm sure that'll work out fine, though. After all, I don't have a study in front of me that says "we're fucked".
we're discussing after the fact, with next to perfect knowledge of what we did not know six years ago.
My primary point was: Information alone, knowledge, is not enough to overcome the prevention paradox.
If we look at a different domain, climate change, things are slightly different, here, science almost unanimously agrees on "if we stay on this path, we're f'ed", we have high quality information.
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we're discussing after the fact, with next to perfect knowledge of what we did not know six years ago.
My primary point was: Information alone, knowledge, is not enough to overcome the prevention paradox.
If we look at a different domain, climate change, things are slightly different, here, science almost unanimously agrees on "if we stay on this path, we're f'ed", we have high quality information.
@johnzajac
If you read the IPCC report, you can even see how the contributing scientists rate the probability of the verious predictions the models make.it's all right there, but what do we do?
Do politicians act according to the facts?
Do countries elect politicians that do?That is my key point: it's not enough to *know* what's coming, you also have to feel it, to *fear* it.
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@johnzajac
If you read the IPCC report, you can even see how the contributing scientists rate the probability of the verious predictions the models make.it's all right there, but what do we do?
Do politicians act according to the facts?
Do countries elect politicians that do?That is my key point: it's not enough to *know* what's coming, you also have to feel it, to *fear* it.
the y2k example you opened with was different in one way: the people to act were all part of a group of people that deeply understood both the reason and the possible outcomes of the issue, that could act based on information.
Things that need broad collaboration from society at large work, as far as I can see, different.
