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You don't think lowering healthcare costs, keeping sick people at home, and straight up giving parents of children cash resulted in fewer of the most vulnerable

You don't think lowering healthcare costs, keeping sick people at home, and straight up giving parents of children cash resulted in fewer of the most vulnerable people in US society dying? And there absolutely was a substantial dip in deaths after the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was passed in March of 2021. Last summer was the closest to "back to normal" we've gotten since this pandemic started.

pdonis 5y ago
> You don't think lowering healthcare costs, keeping sick people at home, and straight up giving parents of children cash resulted in fewer of the most vulnerable people in US society dying? I think this is a very nice theory which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be borne out in the data. See below. > there absolutely was a substantial dip in deaths after the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was passed in March of 2021. First, the money didn't magically appear in everyone's pocket the day the act was passed, so if you were going to look for any effects, it wouldn't be right after the act was passed. You would have to allow some time for the effects to propagate. How much time? Of course nobody has any answer to that; anyone who claims to is just waving their hands and pushing an ideological position. Second, as I've already said, all the variation we see in the data can be explained by seasonality and the times at which various new variants appeared. So Occam's Razor says there was no significant effect due to all the additional money being printed.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  So you go from saying what I claimed "isn't born out in the data" to saying there's no way of knowing when the effects kick in (though you do give some sense of timelines, which happen to line up pretty well with what is observed), to saying the effects we do see in the data (contradicting your first point) "can be explained by seasonality". Just sounds like you're making up whatever excuses you can to avoid giving credit where credit is due. Occam's Razor here says that the dump of money helped people, as that is by far the simplest explanation. It's your convoluted mishmash of viewpoints that is objectively more complex.
  - LoveGracePeace 5y ago
    Occam's Razor doesn't apply by the merit of your correct use of the term "dump" implying excessiveness; whereas the correct application of Occam's Razor in a discussion, is no more than is required: https://towardsdatascience.com/stop-using-the-occams-razor-principle-7281d143f9e6 https://towardsdatascience.com/stop-using-the-occams-razor-p... Plus, you attacked the person instead of their ideas: "your convoluted mishmash of viewpoints".
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > So you go from saying what I claimed "isn't born out in the data" to saying there's no way of knowing when the effects kick in No, I didn't "go from" one of those criticisms to the other. I am making both of them. I am saying both of the following: (1) The variation in the data can be explained by things we already know happen: seasonality and new variants emerging. So there's no need to hypothesize an additional effect just because you would like to claim that printing trillions of dollars of new money was a good idea. (2) The model you are using to make your claimed prediction can't make any such prediction anyway, because it can't predict how long it should take for the effects of printing trillions of dollars of new money to show up in the data on COVID deaths. So even if we did see something in the data that could not be explained by seasonality and new variants emerging, we would have no reason to believe that it was due to printing trillions of dollars of new money. It's perfectly possible for both of those things to be true. > the effects we do see in the data (contradicting your first point) My first point makes no such claim. Indeed, it says the opposite: it says there is variation in the data. > Occam's Razor here says that the dump of money helped people, as that is by far the simplest explanation. No, it isn't. The simplest explanation is the one that does not hypothesize any new effects over and above the ones we already know happen, like seasonality and new variants emerging. Both of these have been visible in the data throughout this pandemic. Indeed, both of these effects are well known and expected for any viral infection that causes respiratory illness. Or have you never heard the term "flu season" or been aware that flu vaccines have to change every year because of new variants?
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      You cannot make both criticisms and remain internally consistent in your argument. Either you do know what is in the data or you can't know what's in the data. You cannot argue both, and yet you continue to try. Nothing else in your comment follows, since this does not follow.

pdonis 5y ago

> You don't think lowering healthcare costs, keeping sick people at home, and straight up giving parents of children cash resulted in fewer of the most vulnerable people in US society dying? I think this is a very nice theory which, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be borne out in the data. See below. > there absolutely was a substantial dip in deaths after the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 was passed in March of 2021. First, the money didn't magically appear in everyone's pocket the day the act was passed, so if you were going to look for any effects, it wouldn't be right after the act was passed. You would have to allow some time for the effects to propagate. How much time? Of course nobody has any answer to that; anyone who claims to is just waving their hands and pushing an ideological position. Second, as I've already said, all the variation we see in the data can be explained by seasonality and the times at which various new variants appeared. So Occam's Razor says there was no significant effect due to all the additional money being printed.

TameAntelope 5y ago
So you go from saying what I claimed "isn't born out in the data" to saying there's no way of knowing when the effects kick in (though you do give some sense of timelines, which happen to line up pretty well with what is observed), to saying the effects we do see in the data (contradicting your first point) "can be explained by seasonality". Just sounds like you're making up whatever excuses you can to avoid giving credit where credit is due. Occam's Razor here says that the dump of money helped people, as that is by far the simplest explanation. It's your convoluted mishmash of viewpoints that is objectively more complex.
- LoveGracePeace 5y ago
  Occam's Razor doesn't apply by the merit of your correct use of the term "dump" implying excessiveness; whereas the correct application of Occam's Razor in a discussion, is no more than is required: https://towardsdatascience.com/stop-using-the-occams-razor-principle-7281d143f9e6 https://towardsdatascience.com/stop-using-the-occams-razor-p... Plus, you attacked the person instead of their ideas: "your convoluted mishmash of viewpoints".
- pdonis 5y ago
  > So you go from saying what I claimed "isn't born out in the data" to saying there's no way of knowing when the effects kick in No, I didn't "go from" one of those criticisms to the other. I am making both of them. I am saying both of the following: (1) The variation in the data can be explained by things we already know happen: seasonality and new variants emerging. So there's no need to hypothesize an additional effect just because you would like to claim that printing trillions of dollars of new money was a good idea. (2) The model you are using to make your claimed prediction can't make any such prediction anyway, because it can't predict how long it should take for the effects of printing trillions of dollars of new money to show up in the data on COVID deaths. So even if we did see something in the data that could not be explained by seasonality and new variants emerging, we would have no reason to believe that it was due to printing trillions of dollars of new money. It's perfectly possible for both of those things to be true. > the effects we do see in the data (contradicting your first point) My first point makes no such claim. Indeed, it says the opposite: it says there is variation in the data. > Occam's Razor here says that the dump of money helped people, as that is by far the simplest explanation. No, it isn't. The simplest explanation is the one that does not hypothesize any new effects over and above the ones we already know happen, like seasonality and new variants emerging. Both of these have been visible in the data throughout this pandemic. Indeed, both of these effects are well known and expected for any viral infection that causes respiratory illness. Or have you never heard the term "flu season" or been aware that flu vaccines have to change every year because of new variants?
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    You cannot make both criticisms and remain internally consistent in your argument. Either you do know what is in the data or you can't know what's in the data. You cannot argue both, and yet you continue to try. Nothing else in your comment follows, since this does not follow.