4 ms·

This idea of putting 50 years of any war/ attacks etc is misguided and it’s a wrong use of statistics. A better approach would be to take into account other dis

This idea of putting 50 years of any war/ attacks etc is misguided and it’s a wrong use of statistics. A better approach would be to take into account other diseases as you have with its close relative the flu. Others on the list would be other types of diseases. Because all of those dwarfs numbers from wars etc.

tptacek 6y ago
Why is it "misguided and a wrong use of statistics"? It's true that the flu kills far more Americans than the last 50 years of war has. If a new disease emerged that was just the flu in a different form, and we retained the mortality rates both from the flu and that new disease, that alone would be extremely alarming: a new cause of death, displacing none of the other deaths, that exceeds most other causes! Honestly, I think we don't do nearly enough comparisons between disease mortality and other causes of mortality. A "War On Cancer" would have done us far more good than the wars we declared in the 2000s would have.
- alejohausner 6y ago
  Nixon signed a bill in 1972 that declared just such a "war on cancer". This war has not been won. A few cancers have been reduced, but cancer as a whole remains intractable. Most of the decline in cancer deaths over the past decades are due to fewer people smoking. I'm not saying that wars on "terror" are a good thing. It's just that cancer is a very tough problem.
- clairity 6y ago
  the more precise wording would be that you're comparing different time periods and then using that to extrapolate rationale. that's an error of statistical reasoning. the more accurate exapolation would be relative to the first 4 months of every other studied emerging disease, considering the estimated errors of each of the important variables. you'd fit the various current studies on corona/covid, considering the high uncertainty as (large) estimated error, and providing a range of future outcomes with probabilities on them. instead, you're asserting your worst possible scenario as the most likely outcome. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ now on the idea that we're entirely too blasé about preventable mortality in general, i agree. if we rigorously and intelligently attacked auto accidents, if we addressed cardiopulmonary diseases caused by pollution and poor habits, and if we regularly shut down the economy for the past decades because we want to reduce the hundreds of thousands of contagious disease fatalities every year and had the socioeconomic safety nets in place for that all along, then the current actions would seem more reasonable. instead, the response is out of proportion with our own past actions because of panic and fear. it happened with 9/11, mass shootings, fukushima, and everything else. the herd is not good at reasoning about rare and novel mortality events.
Shorel 6y ago
Or traffic collisions. Not a disease, but I think your argument makes it enter the discussion.

tptacek 6y ago

Why is it "misguided and a wrong use of statistics"? It's true that the flu kills far more Americans than the last 50 years of war has. If a new disease emerged that was just the flu in a different form, and we retained the mortality rates both from the flu and that new disease, that alone would be extremely alarming: a new cause of death, displacing none of the other deaths, that exceeds most other causes! Honestly, I think we don't do nearly enough comparisons between disease mortality and other causes of mortality. A "War On Cancer" would have done us far more good than the wars we declared in the 2000s would have.

alejohausner 6y ago
Nixon signed a bill in 1972 that declared just such a "war on cancer". This war has not been won. A few cancers have been reduced, but cancer as a whole remains intractable. Most of the decline in cancer deaths over the past decades are due to fewer people smoking. I'm not saying that wars on "terror" are a good thing. It's just that cancer is a very tough problem.
clairity 6y ago
the more precise wording would be that you're comparing different time periods and then using that to extrapolate rationale. that's an error of statistical reasoning. the more accurate exapolation would be relative to the first 4 months of every other studied emerging disease, considering the estimated errors of each of the important variables. you'd fit the various current studies on corona/covid, considering the high uncertainty as (large) estimated error, and providing a range of future outcomes with probabilities on them. instead, you're asserting your worst possible scenario as the most likely outcome. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ now on the idea that we're entirely too blasé about preventable mortality in general, i agree. if we rigorously and intelligently attacked auto accidents, if we addressed cardiopulmonary diseases caused by pollution and poor habits, and if we regularly shut down the economy for the past decades because we want to reduce the hundreds of thousands of contagious disease fatalities every year and had the socioeconomic safety nets in place for that all along, then the current actions would seem more reasonable. instead, the response is out of proportion with our own past actions because of panic and fear. it happened with 9/11, mass shootings, fukushima, and everything else. the herd is not good at reasoning about rare and novel mortality events.

Shorel 6y ago

Or traffic collisions. Not a disease, but I think your argument makes it enter the discussion.