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1984 was not a novel about getting downvoted by other people because they didn’t feel your point was a particularly good or insightful contribution to a discuss

1984 was not a novel about getting downvoted by other people because they didn’t feel your point was a particularly good or insightful contribution to a discussion board, nor is a downvote in any way equal to censorship in any meaningful sense, so it seems a bit hysterical to suggest it somehow “proves his point”.

rangerdan 5y ago
It's not "censorship" it's "programming" also known as "brainwashing" of a population not to care about contrarian viewpoints, rather to view them as "dangerous" and "conspiracy theories" which only "right wing nuts" believe. You can even see how its infected minds right here on HN. Amazing how quickly 10 years of social media brain rot materializes.
nanis 5y ago
Last year, I tried to put together some sane information about the statistics of testing[1] plus a simple app that allows you to play with the arithmetic[2]. It took very little time to put it together. Everything on it is factually accurate. However, it took me three months to get all the bans on it removed by which point I had given up on the notion of providing sober commentary instead of constant breathless panic mode. At this point, I do not know if it still appears in any blacklists. The simple fact was that with 5% of the population infected, a 2.5% false positive probability, and 10% false negative probability, fully 34.5% of all positive test results will be false. So, a lot of resources will be wasted in tracking, restraining, and constraining people who don't need to be and their absence from the labor market will have further repercussions. Sure, if 95% of the population is infected, the false positive rate will be really low, but then there is really no point to a massive testing infrastructure: Just assume everyone is infected instead of dealing with the fact that 33.9% of the negative results will be false. Testing asymptomatic people repeatedly will likely not provide a net benefit beyond assuaging the fears of the perpetually panicked. This is a recent example I am comfortable discussing in public. [1]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/ https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu... [2]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/app.html https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu...
- regularfry 5y ago
  I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, but those seem like odd numbers to have picked. Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate, and a 23% false negative rate. With those numbers, at a 5% infected rate, 7% of all positive test results will be false, rather than 34%. But that ignores a major factor, which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. It's inevitably going to be skewed towards people who are more likely to be infected. That means the true number will be less than 7%. The danger with testing really isn't the false positive rate. It's the false negatives.
  - nanis 5y ago
    > I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, Notes: https://archive.ph/hwbSf https://archive.ph/hwbSf App: https://archive.ph/ntqR3 https://archive.ph/ntqR3 > Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world. > which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. The comments were in the context of efforts to test everyone at least once or twice a week whether symptomatic or not. > The danger with testing really isn't the false positive rate. Only if you assume there is no cost to false positives.
    - regularfry 5y ago
      > In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world No, I quoted the real-world value intentionally. The lab value is 0.06%. Depending on when you wrote the page it's understandable that you might not have had access to that yet, but it turns out that LFT's are really, really good at not throwing a false positive. > Only if you assume there is no cost to false positives. No, you don't need to assume there is no cost to false positives, only that it is less than the cost of false negatives in aggregate. And that's not hard: false negatives cause infections which compound exponentially, whereas false positives have a linear cost. That alone would make false negatives more costly, but when you account for the probability of each it's really not close.
      - 5y ago

rangerdan 5y ago

It's not "censorship" it's "programming" also known as "brainwashing" of a population not to care about contrarian viewpoints, rather to view them as "dangerous" and "conspiracy theories" which only "right wing nuts" believe. You can even see how its infected minds right here on HN. Amazing how quickly 10 years of social media brain rot materializes.

nanis 5y ago

Last year, I tried to put together some sane information about the statistics of testing[1] plus a simple app that allows you to play with the arithmetic[2]. It took very little time to put it together. Everything on it is factually accurate. However, it took me three months to get all the bans on it removed by which point I had given up on the notion of providing sober commentary instead of constant breathless panic mode. At this point, I do not know if it still appears in any blacklists. The simple fact was that with 5% of the population infected, a 2.5% false positive probability, and 10% false negative probability, fully 34.5% of all positive test results will be false. So, a lot of resources will be wasted in tracking, restraining, and constraining people who don't need to be and their absence from the labor market will have further repercussions. Sure, if 95% of the population is infected, the false positive rate will be really low, but then there is really no point to a massive testing infrastructure: Just assume everyone is infected instead of dealing with the fact that 33.9% of the negative results will be false. Testing asymptomatic people repeatedly will likely not provide a net benefit beyond assuaging the fears of the perpetually panicked. This is a recent example I am comfortable discussing in public. [1]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/ https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu... [2]: https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simulator/app.html https://www.covid2020.icu/false-positive-false-negative-simu...

regularfry 5y ago
I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, but those seem like odd numbers to have picked. Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate, and a 23% false negative rate. With those numbers, at a 5% infected rate, 7% of all positive test results will be false, rather than 34%. But that ignores a major factor, which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. It's inevitably going to be skewed towards people who are more likely to be infected. That means the true number will be less than 7%. The danger with testing really isn't the false positive rate. It's the false negatives.
- nanis 5y ago
  > I can't see that domain, it's blocked on our corporate network, Notes: https://archive.ph/hwbSf https://archive.ph/hwbSf App: https://archive.ph/ntqR3 https://archive.ph/ntqR3 > Lateral flow tests have a 0.3% false positive rate In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world. > which is that testing isn't uniformly distributed. The comments were in the context of efforts to test everyone at least once or twice a week whether symptomatic or not. > The danger with testing really isn't the false positive rate. Only if you assume there is no cost to false positives.
  - regularfry 5y ago
    > In the lab ... which is not the same as the real world No, I quoted the real-world value intentionally. The lab value is 0.06%. Depending on when you wrote the page it's understandable that you might not have had access to that yet, but it turns out that LFT's are really, really good at not throwing a false positive. > Only if you assume there is no cost to false positives. No, you don't need to assume there is no cost to false positives, only that it is less than the cost of false negatives in aggregate. And that's not hard: false negatives cause infections which compound exponentially, whereas false positives have a linear cost. That alone would make false negatives more costly, but when you account for the probability of each it's really not close.
    - 5y ago