3 ms·

There is nothing reasonable or rational in bc's arguments. He is admittedly assuming an IFR out of thin air that fits his murderous agenda. He is also assuming

There is nothing reasonable or rational in bc's arguments. He is admittedly assuming an IFR out of thin air that fits his murderous agenda. He is also assuming an absurdly high likelihood that actual herd immunity begins to kick in at like 20% seroprevalence, which no one who actually has technical expertise in these matters would suggest. Once you assume an absurdly low IFR and an absurdly high latent immunity, well sure everything else just falls into place. You can layer on all the citations you want after that, but it doesn't change the fact that the entire thesis is built on a foundation of sand.

CWuestefeld 6y ago
I agree with your criticism of his IFR assumption, but the way you're doing it ("his murderous agenda") is incompatible with rational debate. Stop resorting to pathos, and instead be dispassionate and back it up with facts. In this case, I actually did call him out, citing the CDC's most recent estimates of 0.65%. > absurdly high likelihood that actual herd immunity begins to kick in at like 20% seroprevalence, which no one who actually has technical expertise in these matters would suggest. You're the one in the wrong here, and that suggests to me that you've just latched onto popular media misunderstandings of the science - and your refusal to actually support your claims is allowing you to make these mistakes. To enlighten yourself on this topic, look at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immu... Quoting from that: It doesn’t make intuitive sense, Gomes admits, but “the homogenous models just don’t make curves that match the current data,” she said. Dynamic systems develop in complex and unpredictable ways, and she believes that the best we can do is continually update models based on what is happening in the real world. She can’t say why the threshold in her models is consistently at or below 20 percent, but it is. “If heterogeneity isn’t the cause,” she said, “then I’d like for someone to explain what is.” At Stockholm University, Tom Britton, the dean of mathematics and physics, thinks that a 20 percent threshold is unlikely, but not impossible. His lab has also been building epidemiological models based on data from around the globe. He believes that variation in susceptibility and exposure to the virus clearly seems to be reducing estimates for herd immunity. Britton and his colleagues recently published their model, demonstrating the effect, in Science. “If there is a large variability of susceptibility among humans, then herd immunity could be as low as 20 percent,” Britton told me.
- hcknwscommenter 6y ago
  I am not resorting to pathos. I am rationally pointing out that _blockcipher_'s solution is to unnecessarily kill a bunch (easily millions) of people. That is a murderous agenda. There is no exaggeration. Just facts. Your attempts to paint me as the irrational pathos-ridden one with a thesis built on a foundation of sand and paper-ed over with non-sequitor citations in this conversation are transparent. I don't need any additional support when your own sources are telling you that it is highly unlikely that herd immunity kicks in at 20%. As an actual scientist, I can tell you that when someone says " a 20 percent threshold is unlikely, but not impossible", it means exactly what it says. Impossible is a very high bar (essentially unobtainable in biology), and when you invoke it you mean that whatever possibility there is is very very very very low.

CWuestefeld 6y ago

I agree with your criticism of his IFR assumption, but the way you're doing it ("his murderous agenda") is incompatible with rational debate. Stop resorting to pathos, and instead be dispassionate and back it up with facts. In this case, I actually did call him out, citing the CDC's most recent estimates of 0.65%. > absurdly high likelihood that actual herd immunity begins to kick in at like 20% seroprevalence, which no one who actually has technical expertise in these matters would suggest. You're the one in the wrong here, and that suggests to me that you've just latched onto popular media misunderstandings of the science - and your refusal to actually support your claims is allowing you to make these mistakes. To enlighten yourself on this topic, look at https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immunity-coronavirus/614035/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/07/herd-immu... Quoting from that: It doesn’t make intuitive sense, Gomes admits, but “the homogenous models just don’t make curves that match the current data,” she said. Dynamic systems develop in complex and unpredictable ways, and she believes that the best we can do is continually update models based on what is happening in the real world. She can’t say why the threshold in her models is consistently at or below 20 percent, but it is. “If heterogeneity isn’t the cause,” she said, “then I’d like for someone to explain what is.” At Stockholm University, Tom Britton, the dean of mathematics and physics, thinks that a 20 percent threshold is unlikely, but not impossible. His lab has also been building epidemiological models based on data from around the globe. He believes that variation in susceptibility and exposure to the virus clearly seems to be reducing estimates for herd immunity. Britton and his colleagues recently published their model, demonstrating the effect, in Science. “If there is a large variability of susceptibility among humans, then herd immunity could be as low as 20 percent,” Britton told me.

hcknwscommenter 6y ago
I am not resorting to pathos. I am rationally pointing out that _blockcipher_'s solution is to unnecessarily kill a bunch (easily millions) of people. That is a murderous agenda. There is no exaggeration. Just facts. Your attempts to paint me as the irrational pathos-ridden one with a thesis built on a foundation of sand and paper-ed over with non-sequitor citations in this conversation are transparent. I don't need any additional support when your own sources are telling you that it is highly unlikely that herd immunity kicks in at 20%. As an actual scientist, I can tell you that when someone says " a 20 percent threshold is unlikely, but not impossible", it means exactly what it says. Impossible is a very high bar (essentially unobtainable in biology), and when you invoke it you mean that whatever possibility there is is very very very very low.