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Well, the "kind of thinking" that only certified, acronym'd Domain Experts have useful knowledge to contribute about complicated problems has led us down a lot

Well, the "kind of thinking" that only certified, acronym'd Domain Experts have useful knowledge to contribute about complicated problems has led us down a lot of fun paths in 2020: - No, definitely no need to worry about this novel virus in China - No, definitely no need to wear facial covering - No, definitely no aerosolized transmission - No, definitely no reason to violate protocol with a 1-dose regimin - No, definitely no evidence of lab-release accident (TBD) On each of these problems, attentive and interested non-experts called the correct answer months ahead of expert consensus. If your takeaway from 2020 is not "domain experts are always right, and there's no need for independent research from the outside"... you learned a really bad lesson.

mikestew 6y ago
If your takeaway from 2020 is not "domain experts are always right, and there's no need for independent research from the outside"... you learned a really bad lesson. That most certainly is not my takeaway, but perhaps you mistyped. What I had reinforced in 2020, however, was that though domain experts occasionally make a bad call (including you, dear reader), I'd still take their opinion over some random jackass on the Internet spouting off about "yeah, but remember when they told us not to wear masks?"
fao_ 6y ago
Most of those were political decisions, not ones made by domain experts. First, the delay of listening to domain experts (In america, the firing of any teams and staff that were trained in dealing with a pandemic, for example), and the delay in shutting down cross-country transportation as well as the delay in implementing social-distancing, led to the large spread of Coronavirus that is continuing to this day. Secondly, the reason people were informed not to wear masks initially was because there was a PPE shortage. Part of this was very likely related to the fact that I remember reports of people stealing boxes of masks from hospitals, and people stockpiling masks early on, which led to hospitals that were much less equipped to deal with the spread of it and led to higher deaths of healthcare workers. The reason Coronavirus got to the stage where it could mutate, at least in Britain, was because the Government instituted a policy of blatantly letting people die and assuming "herd immunity" would take hold, versus actually listening to the domain experts saying that was a shitty idea. If they had listened to them in the first place, and shut things down early on, the pandemic still wouldn't be going a year later. As you can see in China, Taiwan, etc.
BurningFrog 6y ago
> Most of those were political decisions, not ones made by domain experts. One thing to think about is when domain experts speak on behalf of political/regulatory organizations, it's the organization making a statement, not the person sharing their honest personal opinions.

mikestew 6y ago

If your takeaway from 2020 is not "domain experts are always right, and there's no need for independent research from the outside"... you learned a really bad lesson. That most certainly is not my takeaway, but perhaps you mistyped. What I had reinforced in 2020, however, was that though domain experts occasionally make a bad call (including you, dear reader), I'd still take their opinion over some random jackass on the Internet spouting off about "yeah, but remember when they told us not to wear masks?"

fao_ 6y ago

Most of those were political decisions, not ones made by domain experts. First, the delay of listening to domain experts (In america, the firing of any teams and staff that were trained in dealing with a pandemic, for example), and the delay in shutting down cross-country transportation as well as the delay in implementing social-distancing, led to the large spread of Coronavirus that is continuing to this day. Secondly, the reason people were informed not to wear masks initially was because there was a PPE shortage. Part of this was very likely related to the fact that I remember reports of people stealing boxes of masks from hospitals, and people stockpiling masks early on, which led to hospitals that were much less equipped to deal with the spread of it and led to higher deaths of healthcare workers. The reason Coronavirus got to the stage where it could mutate, at least in Britain, was because the Government instituted a policy of blatantly letting people die and assuming "herd immunity" would take hold, versus actually listening to the domain experts saying that was a shitty idea. If they had listened to them in the first place, and shut things down early on, the pandemic still wouldn't be going a year later. As you can see in China, Taiwan, etc.

BurningFrog 6y ago

> Most of those were political decisions, not ones made by domain experts. One thing to think about is when domain experts speak on behalf of political/regulatory organizations, it's the organization making a statement, not the person sharing their honest personal opinions.