6 ms·

You can't neglect the prior. In most European countries, somewhere around 5% of the population might have been infected with covid. Up to around 10% in the US.

You can't neglect the prior. In most European countries, somewhere around 5% of the population might have been infected with covid. Up to around 10% in the US. Therefore, to have comparable posterior probabilities for long-term side effects, you would need the side effects argument not to merely "apply equally", but to favour the vaccine over the disease by a factor of about 10.

vanderZwan 6y ago
You're not wrong, but my priority is to ensure that my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments (fear of the unknown regarding the vaccines, dismissing the risks of covid and taking too few precautions as a result) to be safe and to not contribute to keeping the pandemic going. Going this deep into statistics would just lose them, because I'd come across as trying to intimidate them into taking my viewpoint on how to reason about these things. edit: apparently none of you have ever been accused of being an ivory tower jerk in their lives, explicitly or implicitly, ever? We're not talking about a discussion between people trying to weigh uncertainties based on what they do and do not know and working it out on a paper napkin. We're talking about people being overwhelmed by the complexity of it all and as a result starting from what they're most scared of and reasoning backwards from there. Which is how most people out there function, like it or not.
- adolph 6y ago
  >my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments Isn’t every argument based in emotion? Do unpalatable facts have a strong track record of success in arguments?
  - Retric 6y ago
    No. A lot of modern physics for example still seems objectively wrong when hearing about it as a student. Physical experiments and math has converted a lot of skeptics into believing some very “strange” things about how our universe works.
    - adolph 6y ago
      Are you saying that over a time period longer than a conversation or argument people who committed to learning a topic in depth were able to alter prior beliefs that were based in their lived experiences?
      - Retric 6y ago
        An argument isn’t some specific length of time. A 20 year bet on some outcome is a single argument that takes decades.
        adolph 6y ago
        >Going this deep into statistics would just lose them The comment’s text quoted above leads me to believe “argument” in this context refers to a shorter length of time rather than a longer one spent in deliberate study of the argument’s topic. Do you have a different interpretation of the comment to which this particular thread is devoted?
    - sdenton4 6y ago
      Acceptance of some of those strange observations relied on the older generation - with strong emotional attachment to the old way of looking at things - dying off.
      - Retric 6y ago
        That’s extremely overstated. Einstein for example complained about spooky action at a distance, but didn’t disagree with the results. “Quantum mechanics is very worthy of respect. But an inner voice tells me this is not the genuine article after all. The theory delivers much but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One's secret. In any event, I am convinced that He is not playing dice.” So, he was completely on board with the results of the single photon double slit experiment and other observable results which are very odd. But, he may have favored non local hidden variable theories which are indispensable from QM and all it’s observable oddities.
  - TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
    Depends on the setting. Among educated professionals - it's how science gets done. So even though the process is flawed, it's still more consistently fact-based than emotion-based. But some people's arguments are based exclusively on emotion. And they tend to be very bad at estimating risk, because they literally can't tell the difference between one specific tragedy which triggers their emotions because it's reported in great deal, and millions of tragedies which don't trigger their emotions because they're reported as dry statistics. If we were being less polite, we'd call this a form of cognitive handicap. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/ttu-pra040920.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/ttu-pra04092...
    - adolph 6y ago
      Is your claim that people whose “arguments are based exclusively on emotion” are “very bad at estimating risk?” Do you use the term “argument” as meaning a decision making process or an advocacy method? Is there a significant population of people who base a decision making process “exclusively” on emotion or is that a straw person? (And how do you know that?) If there were a significant population of people whose decision making process was based on emotion, how would one falsify the premise that they are “bad at estimating risk?” Given the causality claim that emotion based decision making poorly estimates risk due to availability cognitive bias, could the same causality claim be made that “educated professionals” are often bad at estimating wholistic risk because tunnel vision is also a product of their specialization?
- matwood 6y ago
  Not sure why you were downvoted because what you are talking about is the reality on the ground for a lot of people. I'm dealing with this with some family members now. "I heard everyone in Europe is getting blood clots from their vaccine." is a common statement even though it's factually untrue. It's not coming from a place of logic, but emotion and has to be handled appropriately, otherwise you lose them.
- klmadfejno 6y ago
  If your friends accuse you of being an ivory tower jerk for adding nuance to a conversation, you should probably get better friends.
IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
Without vaccination, the chance of eventually catching the disease is just about 100%. Yes, any single person may try and hope to be protected by herd immunity. But there are serious doubts that can be achieved given some variants' higher virulence and expected levels of eventual vaccine uptake considering justifiable reasons. Meanwhile, long-term harms from vaccination are entirely speculative. There isn't even a real theory as to any mechanism to cause any such effects: all components of the vaccines are well-known, except the COVID-specific parts which are a strict subset of the actual virus.
- jerf 6y ago
  "Meanwhile, long-term harms from vaccination are entirely speculative." I don't think this is a safe thing to say about mRNA vaccines, which are brand new. IIRC one of the vaccines is essentially an old-style vaccine made for COVID, and for that one you may be able to reasonably say that, but not the new stuff that has never been mass-deployed before. Nor does this mean they're automatically bad either. There's always a first time for something new. I'm just saying that it isn't really justified to apply decades of experience with one type of vaccine to another blindly.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    The other US approved vaccine is a live viral carrier that has only been used fairly recently in experimental treatments (I think maybe an Ebola vaccine using it got approved recently?).
standardUser 6y ago
The CDC estimates around 25% of the US population has been infected so far. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
- totheloop 6y ago
  It'll probably settle around 33-35% since that number is just for 2020.
airhead969 6y ago
Roughly 37% of the US population was infected. A large fraction of Americans never took it seriously. Does that sound familiar? Oh yeah, climate change.
peter422 6y ago
Well one pretty big side effect of the disease is death, which is very long term and we know the vaccines prevent way above 10x. So that should probably count for more.

vanderZwan 6y ago

You're not wrong, but my priority is to ensure that my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments (fear of the unknown regarding the vaccines, dismissing the risks of covid and taking too few precautions as a result) to be safe and to not contribute to keeping the pandemic going. Going this deep into statistics would just lose them, because I'd come across as trying to intimidate them into taking my viewpoint on how to reason about these things. edit: apparently none of you have ever been accused of being an ivory tower jerk in their lives, explicitly or implicitly, ever? We're not talking about a discussion between people trying to weigh uncertainties based on what they do and do not know and working it out on a paper napkin. We're talking about people being overwhelmed by the complexity of it all and as a result starting from what they're most scared of and reasoning backwards from there. Which is how most people out there function, like it or not.

adolph 6y ago
>my friends who rely on emotion-based arguments Isn’t every argument based in emotion? Do unpalatable facts have a strong track record of success in arguments?
- Retric 6y ago
  No. A lot of modern physics for example still seems objectively wrong when hearing about it as a student. Physical experiments and math has converted a lot of skeptics into believing some very “strange” things about how our universe works.
  - adolph 6y ago
    Are you saying that over a time period longer than a conversation or argument people who committed to learning a topic in depth were able to alter prior beliefs that were based in their lived experiences?
    - Retric 6y ago
      An argument isn’t some specific length of time. A 20 year bet on some outcome is a single argument that takes decades.
      - adolph 6y ago
        >Going this deep into statistics would just lose them The comment’s text quoted above leads me to believe “argument” in this context refers to a shorter length of time rather than a longer one spent in deliberate study of the argument’s topic. Do you have a different interpretation of the comment to which this particular thread is devoted?
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    Acceptance of some of those strange observations relied on the older generation - with strong emotional attachment to the old way of looking at things - dying off.
    - Retric 6y ago
      That’s extremely overstated. Einstein for example complained about spooky action at a distance, but didn’t disagree with the results. “Quantum mechanics is very worthy of respect. But an inner voice tells me this is not the genuine article after all. The theory delivers much but it hardly brings us closer to the Old One's secret. In any event, I am convinced that He is not playing dice.” So, he was completely on board with the results of the single photon double slit experiment and other observable results which are very odd. But, he may have favored non local hidden variable theories which are indispensable from QM and all it’s observable oddities.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  Depends on the setting. Among educated professionals - it's how science gets done. So even though the process is flawed, it's still more consistently fact-based than emotion-based. But some people's arguments are based exclusively on emotion. And they tend to be very bad at estimating risk, because they literally can't tell the difference between one specific tragedy which triggers their emotions because it's reported in great deal, and millions of tragedies which don't trigger their emotions because they're reported as dry statistics. If we were being less polite, we'd call this a form of cognitive handicap. https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/ttu-pra040920.php https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-04/ttu-pra04092...
  - adolph 6y ago
    Is your claim that people whose “arguments are based exclusively on emotion” are “very bad at estimating risk?” Do you use the term “argument” as meaning a decision making process or an advocacy method? Is there a significant population of people who base a decision making process “exclusively” on emotion or is that a straw person? (And how do you know that?) If there were a significant population of people whose decision making process was based on emotion, how would one falsify the premise that they are “bad at estimating risk?” Given the causality claim that emotion based decision making poorly estimates risk due to availability cognitive bias, could the same causality claim be made that “educated professionals” are often bad at estimating wholistic risk because tunnel vision is also a product of their specialization?
matwood 6y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted because what you are talking about is the reality on the ground for a lot of people. I'm dealing with this with some family members now. "I heard everyone in Europe is getting blood clots from their vaccine." is a common statement even though it's factually untrue. It's not coming from a place of logic, but emotion and has to be handled appropriately, otherwise you lose them.
klmadfejno 6y ago
If your friends accuse you of being an ivory tower jerk for adding nuance to a conversation, you should probably get better friends.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago

Without vaccination, the chance of eventually catching the disease is just about 100%. Yes, any single person may try and hope to be protected by herd immunity. But there are serious doubts that can be achieved given some variants' higher virulence and expected levels of eventual vaccine uptake considering justifiable reasons. Meanwhile, long-term harms from vaccination are entirely speculative. There isn't even a real theory as to any mechanism to cause any such effects: all components of the vaccines are well-known, except the COVID-specific parts which are a strict subset of the actual virus.

jerf 6y ago
"Meanwhile, long-term harms from vaccination are entirely speculative." I don't think this is a safe thing to say about mRNA vaccines, which are brand new. IIRC one of the vaccines is essentially an old-style vaccine made for COVID, and for that one you may be able to reasonably say that, but not the new stuff that has never been mass-deployed before. Nor does this mean they're automatically bad either. There's always a first time for something new. I'm just saying that it isn't really justified to apply decades of experience with one type of vaccine to another blindly.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The other US approved vaccine is a live viral carrier that has only been used fairly recently in experimental treatments (I think maybe an Ebola vaccine using it got approved recently?).

standardUser 6y ago

The CDC estimates around 25% of the US population has been infected so far. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...

totheloop 6y ago
It'll probably settle around 33-35% since that number is just for 2020.

airhead969 6y ago

Roughly 37% of the US population was infected. A large fraction of Americans never took it seriously. Does that sound familiar? Oh yeah, climate change.

peter422 6y ago

Well one pretty big side effect of the disease is death, which is very long term and we know the vaccines prevent way above 10x. So that should probably count for more.