5 ms·

Sometimes I wonder if one of the biggest fallacies humans succumb to is an "discrete-over-continuous" fallacy, which I guess would be a special case of the fals

Sometimes I wonder if one of the biggest fallacies humans succumb to is an "discrete-over-continuous" fallacy, which I guess would be a special case of the false dichotomy fallacy. People have a tendency to experience a bimodal or even multimodal distribution and come to the conclusion that there are two or more distinct equally probably possible values, when the truth is that there is a spectrum between those values and that the probability of experiencing the different modes are not equal. In this case, we could plot immunity on one or two axes. The first access would be the duration of immunity, from no immunity to lifetime immunity and the second axis would be the strength of the immune response from no immunity to total immunity. In the case of this coronavirus, if similar coronaviruses are any indication, we're probably dealing with something with a modal peak with mild to strong immunity for 3-5 years. If you're re-exposed in that time people, you get very mild to no symptoms and re-new your immunity. If you get re-exposed outside that window, your symptoms are more likely to be severe with the severity proportional to how long your body has had to forget how to respond. Furthermore, not all humans are equal and have the same immune system, so it's possible that there is a small subset of people whose immune system isn't capable of forming an antibody response that lasts very long. With this all in mind, for most people, re-infection isn't likely a risk and if you are re-infected, your symptoms will be milder. The real problem here is that this disease will almost certainly become endemic that humanity will deal with forever, so we should just go ahead and return to normal at a pace that our healthcare systems can handle.

ksk 7y ago
In addition you need to account for the kind of antibodies that are produced, whether they can neutralize a different strain of the virus, etc. Also, as you get older, your thymus isn't quite as capable, and so your immune response gets impacted quite a bit, especially with memory B cells, which means that in the case of a vaccine for e.g. you might have to give them an adjuvant formulation, or maybe a double dose, etc. If you want to model the human immune response, you're going to need lots more axes! :) >The real problem here is that this disease will almost certainly become endemic that humanity will deal with forever, so we should just go ahead and return to normal at a pace that our healthcare systems can handle. But if you accept the current 2% fatality rate, that means 2% of your countries population might die. Is that acceptable for a developed country?
- malandrew 7y ago
  > 2% of your countries population might die. Is that acceptable for a developed country? Are you really a developed country if your relationship with death is such that you're only capable of considering lives saved and not properly considering the consequences of what you're doing to save those lives? Right now we're welcoming all sorts of authoritarian surveillance that we will have long after the virus is no longer a threat. Is that legacy worth 2%? I don't know the answer to that question, but I can't consider any place developed if they aren't really having that conversation. The legacy of our actions will outlive all of us. What legacy are we going to leave? A surveillance state? An awful economic situation for those in their prime working years? A national debt whose interest only will claim greater proportion of the country's economic output?
  - ksk 7y ago
    Well but how do you evaluate the consequences of saving the lives? After all, discussing the value of human life might be one of the oldest debates in philosophy. To take an extreme example, is being poor worse than being dead? And to that point, do we all agree that being in a democracy means that your elected representative can make that choice for you? If you're at-risk, should you feel pressured to go back to your job (at the risk of being fired)? And then if your buddy is getting paid, either by the government, or the employer for sitting at home, why should you be forced to go to work? Making a national or even state policy that tackles all those issues is going to be quite a challenge...

ksk 7y ago

In addition you need to account for the kind of antibodies that are produced, whether they can neutralize a different strain of the virus, etc. Also, as you get older, your thymus isn't quite as capable, and so your immune response gets impacted quite a bit, especially with memory B cells, which means that in the case of a vaccine for e.g. you might have to give them an adjuvant formulation, or maybe a double dose, etc. If you want to model the human immune response, you're going to need lots more axes! :) >The real problem here is that this disease will almost certainly become endemic that humanity will deal with forever, so we should just go ahead and return to normal at a pace that our healthcare systems can handle. But if you accept the current 2% fatality rate, that means 2% of your countries population might die. Is that acceptable for a developed country?

malandrew 7y ago
> 2% of your countries population might die. Is that acceptable for a developed country? Are you really a developed country if your relationship with death is such that you're only capable of considering lives saved and not properly considering the consequences of what you're doing to save those lives? Right now we're welcoming all sorts of authoritarian surveillance that we will have long after the virus is no longer a threat. Is that legacy worth 2%? I don't know the answer to that question, but I can't consider any place developed if they aren't really having that conversation. The legacy of our actions will outlive all of us. What legacy are we going to leave? A surveillance state? An awful economic situation for those in their prime working years? A national debt whose interest only will claim greater proportion of the country's economic output?
- ksk 7y ago
  Well but how do you evaluate the consequences of saving the lives? After all, discussing the value of human life might be one of the oldest debates in philosophy. To take an extreme example, is being poor worse than being dead? And to that point, do we all agree that being in a democracy means that your elected representative can make that choice for you? If you're at-risk, should you feel pressured to go back to your job (at the risk of being fired)? And then if your buddy is getting paid, either by the government, or the employer for sitting at home, why should you be forced to go to work? Making a national or even state policy that tackles all those issues is going to be quite a challenge...