4 ms·

Just out of curiosity, was the phrasing of your letter (or email or whatever) to Stanford a deliberate echo of https://lettersofnote.com/2011/02/14/regarding-yo

by gjm11 5y ago

Just out of curiosity, was the phrasing of your letter (or email or whatever) to Stanford a deliberate echo of https://lettersofnote.com/2011/02/14/regarding-your-stupid-complaint/ https://lettersofnote.com/2011/02/14/regarding-your-stupid-c... ?

CamperBob2 5y ago
Yes.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Kudos. More people should do this. Too many articulate, credentialed idiots out there sucking people into their little evil fantasies.
- supperburg 5y ago
  I’ve told you who he is. What do you think?
  - CamperBob2 5y ago
    I think you could probably choose worse sources, as many people have. I also suspect you could choose better ones, but what you really need is more sources. (It's also possible that you misunderstood him, or that he didn't do a good job expressing the point.) What's not debatable is that the fatality rate is not 0.02%, or anything close to it. The numbers don't work. If that's what he's saying, then he's telling you that your state and local health authorities have been lying to you all along... and while not an unprecedented thing (unfortunately), that's still a deadly serious accusation. You should demand that he back it up with solid citations. He won't, so you'll need to look at other sources of data and evaluate them to the best of your ability if you want to get a more accurate picture. In the meantime, it's important not to spread false info during a pandemic, as I'm sure you'd agree.
    - supperburg 5y ago
      He seemed to have plenty of hard science to cite in his hours long conversation with lex fridman, MIT alum and lecturer. It’s available for anyone to watch. If later on it becomes clear I was spreading wrong information then I’ll own up to it.
      - saalweachter 5y ago
        So at the end of the day we're both just referencing different authorities here. Why do you trust this guy's assertion on how many excess deaths there have been over the last two years, and their cause, more than the CDC's numbers?
        supperburg 5y ago
        Excess deaths != Covid deaths. I listened to the podcast again and he said he conducted serology studies pre-vaccine that indicate an overall lethality of 0.2% but 0.05% for everyone who isn’t 70 years old or whatever. That’s detection of antibodies with 0.05% false positive rate and then a follow up on death early on in the pandemic. So one might point out that I changed my number from 0.02 to 0.2 and this is true. But what’s also true is that there’s a huge difference between 4% and 0.2%. And I was right to point out that 1-4% is bullshit. I feel mad because I remember hearing the 0.2% number all the way back at the start of the pandemic but everyone shouted it down. And here we are and it was right after all…
        slg 5y ago
        >So one might point out that I changed my number from 0.02 to 0.2 and this is true. But what’s also true is that there’s a huge difference between 4% and 0.2%. And I was right to point out that 1-4% is bullshit. Let's for a moment assume your source is correct. If you were "right" to call out someone's "bullshit" because they were an order of magnitude high in their numbers, do you recognize that we were right to call out your bullshit for being an order of magnitude low with your number?

by gjm11 5y ago

CamperBob2 5y ago

Yes.

jacquesm 5y ago
Kudos. More people should do this. Too many articulate, credentialed idiots out there sucking people into their little evil fantasies.
supperburg 5y ago
I’ve told you who he is. What do you think?
- CamperBob2 5y ago
  I think you could probably choose worse sources, as many people have. I also suspect you could choose better ones, but what you really need is more sources. (It's also possible that you misunderstood him, or that he didn't do a good job expressing the point.) What's not debatable is that the fatality rate is not 0.02%, or anything close to it. The numbers don't work. If that's what he's saying, then he's telling you that your state and local health authorities have been lying to you all along... and while not an unprecedented thing (unfortunately), that's still a deadly serious accusation. You should demand that he back it up with solid citations. He won't, so you'll need to look at other sources of data and evaluate them to the best of your ability if you want to get a more accurate picture. In the meantime, it's important not to spread false info during a pandemic, as I'm sure you'd agree.
  - supperburg 5y ago
    He seemed to have plenty of hard science to cite in his hours long conversation with lex fridman, MIT alum and lecturer. It’s available for anyone to watch. If later on it becomes clear I was spreading wrong information then I’ll own up to it.
    - saalweachter 5y ago
      So at the end of the day we're both just referencing different authorities here. Why do you trust this guy's assertion on how many excess deaths there have been over the last two years, and their cause, more than the CDC's numbers?
      - supperburg 5y ago
        Excess deaths != Covid deaths. I listened to the podcast again and he said he conducted serology studies pre-vaccine that indicate an overall lethality of 0.2% but 0.05% for everyone who isn’t 70 years old or whatever. That’s detection of antibodies with 0.05% false positive rate and then a follow up on death early on in the pandemic. So one might point out that I changed my number from 0.02 to 0.2 and this is true. But what’s also true is that there’s a huge difference between 4% and 0.2%. And I was right to point out that 1-4% is bullshit. I feel mad because I remember hearing the 0.2% number all the way back at the start of the pandemic but everyone shouted it down. And here we are and it was right after all…
        slg 5y ago
        >So one might point out that I changed my number from 0.02 to 0.2 and this is true. But what’s also true is that there’s a huge difference between 4% and 0.2%. And I was right to point out that 1-4% is bullshit. Let's for a moment assume your source is correct. If you were "right" to call out someone's "bullshit" because they were an order of magnitude high in their numbers, do you recognize that we were right to call out your bullshit for being an order of magnitude low with your number?