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Largely missing from discussions around what course of action we should take during the COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately, were statistical lives, their assumed
by epgui 4y ago
Largely missing from discussions around what course of action we should take during the COVID-19 pandemic, unfortunately, were statistical lives, their assumed value in dollars, and the quantitative tradeoff between the costs of decisions and the cost in DALY/QALYs. I really think that should be a regular exercise in any discussion of politics.
Happy to see this on HN, it's a fascinating topic.
- smitty1e 4y agoIt is fascinating, with a worrisome twist to it. The more stochastic we get, the easier it is to "zoom out" from the ground truth of individual lives. Distant officials in high offices making Olympian decisions seem to produce mixed results on their best days.
- epgui 4y agoI don't disagree, but it's a false dichotomy: we don't have to choose between the statistical view and boots on the ground. All forms of useful knowledge should be sought. Human brains are heavily biased towards anecdotes and stories, as opposed to cold calculated statistics... So that's the baseline we're starting from.
- smitty1e 4y ago> I don't disagree, but it's a false dichotomy: we don't have to choose between the statistical view and boots on the ground. All forms of useful knowledge should be sought. Human brains are heavily biased towards anecdotes and stories, as opposed to cold calculated statistics... Precisely my point. We can't do those statistics without narrowing the discussion to a finite set of dimensions that *may* be representative. The more one works toward the doctorate, the more one realizes the squishiness of efforts to generalize from the nifty p-value to the population at large. Especially where life-altering decisions are involved. Those ascribing to themselves vast authorities are far too insulated from negative consequences. More skin in the game, please.
- cyanydeez 4y agoIsn't the current political drama entirely be aide one party focuses entirely on ground truth and anecdotes and presents no coherent connection or policy positions? ...
- epgui 4y agoYeah, exactly, using too much cold logic and rigorous statistics is just not a natural human bias. :P ie.: You don’t get your political base engaged and mobilized with statistical rigour. But objectively, if you could, it would make things better.