5 ms·

What will be forgotten in this discussion (and in history) is how awful humans are at predicting and reacting to risk. It's hard to peer through the layers of

by 23B1 4y ago

What will be forgotten in this discussion (and in history) is how awful humans are at predicting and reacting to risk. It's hard to peer through the layers of emerging science and virology, psychology and sociology, policymaking and politics, media and information theory... to find the truth of a thing like COVID.

globalreset 4y ago
What's forgotten is that people were forced to take it, continuously lied to, had lifehood destroyed and their options suppressed just to over time get to hear "oh, yeah, your were right but you're bad at assessing risk so no one should care". And this is just a first of more bad reactions to vaccines that are happening, which should be added up. And then mortality comparison for kids will be much different. All that was required to avoid this madness was being honest and make jabs voluntary. People gauge the trust they should put in the medical government complex actually quite well.
- krainboltgreene 4y ago
  > What's forgotten is that people were forced to take it, continuously lied to, had lifehood destroyed and their options suppressed just to over time get to hear "oh, yeah, your were right but you're bad at assessing risk so no one should care". It's really weird to see 5K people die from COVID-19 in the last 14 days and then come to HN and read someone describing a fantasy reality. Really cool place.
thenerdhead 4y ago
I find it interesting that certain books on personal risk (stoicism, antifragile, etc) have become must-reads over the last few years. At least to help you see the signal through all the noise of neomania(obsession of what's new).
blub 4y ago
Fortunately there were a couple of heuristics one could use: 1. If one of the vaccines causes horrible blood clots in the brain, get the other one. 2. If a bunch of self-important dilettantes claim that said vaccine is safe, but can’t comprehend how sex and age affects the risk profile… ignore them.
isaacremuant 4y ago
Oh many of us are pretty good at assessing risk. Specially being observant of the security theater that has been so heavily increased since Sept 11 2001 but what happened in relation to covid and communications since 2020 was pretty much an extremely effective suppression of any dissenting view to the local authority forces/government pushed narrative. It was not about science or credentials. Wrongthink was not allowed and people were made believe they were fringe minorities by simply turning up censoring to very high levels.
- tootie 4y ago
  People really hate being killed. Like 100x more than just dying. It's why you can win elections by fear-mongering crime or terrorism but not disease, auto safety or disaster preparedness.
  - devonkim 4y ago
    Active vs passive deaths is important in people’s minds. People act like all these passive things are simply endemic to “reality” when many are side effects of lack of collective action such as climate change, bad transportation infrastructure / zoning, poverty, etc.
- dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
  Well put. >Oh many of us are pretty good at assessing risk. My figure would be less that 5% of the population are good at assessing risk, what's your guess?
  - caeril 4y ago
    My guess is that 80% are good at assessing risk, but most of us are either born or raised to be compliant, so this assessment doesn't relate well to outcomes. Using the grandparent's 9/11 TSA analogy - talk to literally anyone - the vast majority of people will openly acknowledge that TSA screening is pure security theatre, but they accept and go through it anyway. You'll find the same thing regarding the Epstein suicide, domestic spying apparatus, etc. Most people know and accept statistically likely truth, but they play along because compliance makes for a more comfortable life.
QuantumGood 4y ago
A common mental model seems to be if perceived risk (possibility of harm) is low relative to other risks, take no actions to improve safety (freedom from risk). My model is if extreme harm is remotely possible, I ignore comparisons to other risks and take action to help limit it to minor harm (e.g. don't text while driving, wear a seat belt, wear a hard hat on a skyscraper building site, etc.). But "take action to increase safety" creates a combination of challenges for the average person: (1) Most people don't change easily ("Taking action" means change); (2) Most people underestimate the likelihood that the near future will be different than the present, that change will be thrust upon them; (3) Most people don't recognize that they don't change easily, or that they underestimate the likelihood of near-term change. (4) Very few realize that changing behavior overlaps with a lot of performance-related skills, some of which are poorly understood by virtually everyone. I have coached ten of thousands of sessions teaching voice acting, and I find that people attempting performance get stuck between stages 1 and 2 in the “Four Stages of Competence”: (1) Unconscious incompetence (Ignorance) (2) Conscious incompetence (Knowledge) (3) Conscious competence (Skill) (4) Unconscious competence (Awareness) As https://TaskCompetency.com/ https://TaskCompetency.com/ points out, stage 3 is okay for accountants, unworkable for performers. People think that if they've simply been given information and received coaching, that it somehow magically imbues them with special performance powers, yet they haven't: (1) Turned information into knowledge. (2) Applied knowledge to build skill. (3) Practiced skills to build awareness. So when people making an effort and paying to achieve change still fail at most steps for implementing change, I think there are a number of blind spots making it very difficult for people to really understand what safety is, because it's hidden behind "life performance" issues. Just my two cents. You might ask if I am simply a poor coach, and if better coaches get better results—maybe it's not an "other people" problem, but more a problem with my perceptions and approaches. There is a saying among some in our industry: "Once you get an agent, you lose your talent". (https://AcademyofVoiceover.com https://AcademyofVoiceover.com) This is due to newly trained talent no longer applying skills they have learned, due to believing that having had their training affirmed by getting an agent makes their performance "automatically high quality". There is a similar statement commonly found on websites of acting coaches, that goes something like "I'm one of the best coaches of my acting method, and I know this because I get the students of other coaches teaching my method and they haven't learned the method well". Of course statements along the lines of "others are bad, I alone am good" usually overlook many things. So in my experience, even trainers and producers of performers have a blind spot to some of the challenges in creating change in even people who are motivated to change.
jhanschoo 4y ago
Looking at the numbers mentioned and thinking rationally of risk, the deaths from the reaction to AZ despite the scale of the vaccination program are negligible compared to deaths from COVID itself, to the extent that this amount of discussion over this is comparatively an overreaction.
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
  you're confusing population risk with personal risk. Think about it like this. The chances of dying in a vehicle wreck is very small. But those who have died in them probably would have preferred finding an alternative means to get to their destination. If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine for fear they'll become a statistic, that's perfectly valid.
  - emporas 4y ago
    Yep, personal risk may be wildy different than a population risk. As someone who lives in a sparsely populated, rural and mountainous area in Greece, the risk of being killed in a car accident still exists but it is a lot different than city accidents. Seatbelts, car mirrors, airbags are all mandated by the government. Mirrors are not so useful, because not many cars are driving on the road at any given time. Most motorcycles do not have even one mirror because they are useless. Animals may cross the road, sharp rocks may have fallen on the street which can cause a vehicle to literally fall of a cliff. Good luck hoping for an airbag to save your life, while you are on a 10-20 meter fall. Safety is still provided by the car gizmos, albeit to a very small negligible amount of the local population. Safety measures mandated from the government to the car manufacturers are more relevant to big cities than here. Dangerity on the other hand, the ability to be in danger, is more preferable when it is cheaper. The car gizmos, take up space, and cost money. Safety is not always better, and when it costs too much money, every normal person should fear safety, and take the side of dangerity instead. A normal non fat person, who exercises once in a while, and is reasonably mindful of their eating habits, should definitely choose the side of dangerity in case of Covid. Safety in that case costs too much money, and it should definitely be avoided.
- blub 4y ago

by 23B1 4y ago

globalreset 4y ago

What's forgotten is that people were forced to take it, continuously lied to, had lifehood destroyed and their options suppressed just to over time get to hear "oh, yeah, your were right but you're bad at assessing risk so no one should care". And this is just a first of more bad reactions to vaccines that are happening, which should be added up. And then mortality comparison for kids will be much different. All that was required to avoid this madness was being honest and make jabs voluntary. People gauge the trust they should put in the medical government complex actually quite well.

krainboltgreene 4y ago
> What's forgotten is that people were forced to take it, continuously lied to, had lifehood destroyed and their options suppressed just to over time get to hear "oh, yeah, your were right but you're bad at assessing risk so no one should care". It's really weird to see 5K people die from COVID-19 in the last 14 days and then come to HN and read someone describing a fantasy reality. Really cool place.

thenerdhead 4y ago

I find it interesting that certain books on personal risk (stoicism, antifragile, etc) have become must-reads over the last few years. At least to help you see the signal through all the noise of neomania(obsession of what's new).

blub 4y ago

Fortunately there were a couple of heuristics one could use: 1. If one of the vaccines causes horrible blood clots in the brain, get the other one. 2. If a bunch of self-important dilettantes claim that said vaccine is safe, but can’t comprehend how sex and age affects the risk profile… ignore them.

isaacremuant 4y ago

Oh many of us are pretty good at assessing risk. Specially being observant of the security theater that has been so heavily increased since Sept 11 2001 but what happened in relation to covid and communications since 2020 was pretty much an extremely effective suppression of any dissenting view to the local authority forces/government pushed narrative. It was not about science or credentials. Wrongthink was not allowed and people were made believe they were fringe minorities by simply turning up censoring to very high levels.

tootie 4y ago
People really hate being killed. Like 100x more than just dying. It's why you can win elections by fear-mongering crime or terrorism but not disease, auto safety or disaster preparedness.
- devonkim 4y ago
  Active vs passive deaths is important in people’s minds. People act like all these passive things are simply endemic to “reality” when many are side effects of lack of collective action such as climate change, bad transportation infrastructure / zoning, poverty, etc.
dennis_jeeves1 4y ago
Well put. >Oh many of us are pretty good at assessing risk. My figure would be less that 5% of the population are good at assessing risk, what's your guess?
- caeril 4y ago
  My guess is that 80% are good at assessing risk, but most of us are either born or raised to be compliant, so this assessment doesn't relate well to outcomes. Using the grandparent's 9/11 TSA analogy - talk to literally anyone - the vast majority of people will openly acknowledge that TSA screening is pure security theatre, but they accept and go through it anyway. You'll find the same thing regarding the Epstein suicide, domestic spying apparatus, etc. Most people know and accept statistically likely truth, but they play along because compliance makes for a more comfortable life.

QuantumGood 4y ago

A common mental model seems to be if perceived risk (possibility of harm) is low relative to other risks, take no actions to improve safety (freedom from risk). My model is if extreme harm is remotely possible, I ignore comparisons to other risks and take action to help limit it to minor harm (e.g. don't text while driving, wear a seat belt, wear a hard hat on a skyscraper building site, etc.). But "take action to increase safety" creates a combination of challenges for the average person: (1) Most people don't change easily ("Taking action" means change); (2) Most people underestimate the likelihood that the near future will be different than the present, that change will be thrust upon them; (3) Most people don't recognize that they don't change easily, or that they underestimate the likelihood of near-term change. (4) Very few realize that changing behavior overlaps with a lot of performance-related skills, some of which are poorly understood by virtually everyone. I have coached ten of thousands of sessions teaching voice acting, and I find that people attempting performance get stuck between stages 1 and 2 in the “Four Stages of Competence”: (1) Unconscious incompetence (Ignorance) (2) Conscious incompetence (Knowledge) (3) Conscious competence (Skill) (4) Unconscious competence (Awareness) As https://TaskCompetency.com/ https://TaskCompetency.com/ points out, stage 3 is okay for accountants, unworkable for performers. People think that if they've simply been given information and received coaching, that it somehow magically imbues them with special performance powers, yet they haven't: (1) Turned information into knowledge. (2) Applied knowledge to build skill. (3) Practiced skills to build awareness. So when people making an effort and paying to achieve change still fail at most steps for implementing change, I think there are a number of blind spots making it very difficult for people to really understand what safety is, because it's hidden behind "life performance" issues. Just my two cents. You might ask if I am simply a poor coach, and if better coaches get better results—maybe it's not an "other people" problem, but more a problem with my perceptions and approaches. There is a saying among some in our industry: "Once you get an agent, you lose your talent". (https://AcademyofVoiceover.com https://AcademyofVoiceover.com) This is due to newly trained talent no longer applying skills they have learned, due to believing that having had their training affirmed by getting an agent makes their performance "automatically high quality". There is a similar statement commonly found on websites of acting coaches, that goes something like "I'm one of the best coaches of my acting method, and I know this because I get the students of other coaches teaching my method and they haven't learned the method well". Of course statements along the lines of "others are bad, I alone am good" usually overlook many things. So in my experience, even trainers and producers of performers have a blind spot to some of the challenges in creating change in even people who are motivated to change.

jhanschoo 4y ago

Looking at the numbers mentioned and thinking rationally of risk, the deaths from the reaction to AZ despite the scale of the vaccination program are negligible compared to deaths from COVID itself, to the extent that this amount of discussion over this is comparatively an overreaction.

P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y ago
you're confusing population risk with personal risk. Think about it like this. The chances of dying in a vehicle wreck is very small. But those who have died in them probably would have preferred finding an alternative means to get to their destination. If someone doesn't want to get a vaccine for fear they'll become a statistic, that's perfectly valid.
- emporas 4y ago
  Yep, personal risk may be wildy different than a population risk. As someone who lives in a sparsely populated, rural and mountainous area in Greece, the risk of being killed in a car accident still exists but it is a lot different than city accidents. Seatbelts, car mirrors, airbags are all mandated by the government. Mirrors are not so useful, because not many cars are driving on the road at any given time. Most motorcycles do not have even one mirror because they are useless. Animals may cross the road, sharp rocks may have fallen on the street which can cause a vehicle to literally fall of a cliff. Good luck hoping for an airbag to save your life, while you are on a 10-20 meter fall. Safety is still provided by the car gizmos, albeit to a very small negligible amount of the local population. Safety measures mandated from the government to the car manufacturers are more relevant to big cities than here. Dangerity on the other hand, the ability to be in danger, is more preferable when it is cheaper. The car gizmos, take up space, and cost money. Safety is not always better, and when it costs too much money, every normal person should fear safety, and take the side of dangerity instead. A normal non fat person, who exercises once in a while, and is reasonably mindful of their eating habits, should definitely choose the side of dangerity in case of Covid. Safety in that case costs too much money, and it should definitely be avoided.
blub 4y ago