5 ms·

> It's not a bad proxy, but it surely is not as good as actual excess death as proxy for "normal human life, good living standards and the capacity to adapt".

> It's not a bad proxy, but it surely is not as good as actual excess death as proxy for "normal human life, good living standards and the capacity to adapt". Excess deaths, in and of themselves, only tell you that more people than average died. Excess deaths, in and of themselves, don't tell you why they died. While a total number of human deaths is objective and can be counted with nearly perfect confidence, human deaths from a specific cause can be extraordinarily subjective. I gave some examples in the post you're replying to, but anybody with an agenda can link virtually anything to climate change if they really want to. Therefore, this metric isn't going to be persuasive to a large amount of people.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
That's the whole point: it doesn't matter why they died. If you're doing things well, excess deaths are low. If you're doing things badly, excess deaths are high. Could be a multiplicity of reasons that connect "bad" and "excess deaths", and the specifics won't matter if you're looking for a summary of "normal human life, good living standards, capacity to adapt".
- logicalmonster 4y ago
  Of course it matters why people die. If I was an analyst in the early 1940s analyzing why there was an excess of human deaths and wrongly attributed it to an increase in bear attacks, wouldn't that be really dumb? If you're trying to solve a specific problem, isn't getting the cause of death wrong a really big deal?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
    Well, if bear attacks really did contribute to a statistically significant increase in excess deaths, that would indicate that you're doing something wrong. Misattributing it to bears when it was really lead in gasoline or plastics in the air or whatever really caused it just delays your ability to help fix it, but that's a different question.
    - logicalmonster 4y ago
      > Misattributing it to bears when it was really lead in gasoline or plastics in the air or whatever really caused it just delays your ability to help fix it, I was thinking of WWII in my 1940s example, which I thought might have been obvious, but that's besides the point. (Bear attacks are a silly example to illustrate the principle involved) If you're misattributing excess societal deaths to a wrong cause such as bears when the cause is anything else, there's a much bigger cost than just delaying your ability to understand and fix a real problem. 1) While you have the real cause of deaths wrong, people are dying of something else that is perhaps preventable. There's a real opportunity cost. 2) Say you work up a real social panic about something incorrect (such as bear attacks) and start reconfiguring society to focus solely on preventing bear attacks. Any policies here can cause dramatic harm to the economy. Not only does a bad economy directly and indirectly kill lots of people, but it weakens your ability to fix other more important problems. Your well-intentioned, but misguided attempt to save people from bears can kill far more people than it saves. 3) How would you know if your attempt to prevent bear attacks causes more harm than it prevents? All of a sudden, there's going to be a big industry of people making lots of cash in providing bear attack prevention methods. They're going to virulently attack anybody who starts voicing any opinions that are contrary to the general proclamation that bear attacks are the existential threat to society. Any opposition to the bear-attack-prevention-industrial-complex is going to be subject to intense derision and you're never going to be able to properly direct social energy to other, perhaps bigger problems, under this condition.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
        I agree with all of this. However, I would still maintain that it is useful (necessary?) to differentiate between measurement and diagnosis. Excess deaths will remain an excellent (proxy) measurement for the extent to which we are satisfying (at least) the 3 goals you mentioned. Excess deaths (by themselves) are not useful for diagnosing the causes of their off-normal value.

PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago

That's the whole point: it doesn't matter why they died. If you're doing things well, excess deaths are low. If you're doing things badly, excess deaths are high. Could be a multiplicity of reasons that connect "bad" and "excess deaths", and the specifics won't matter if you're looking for a summary of "normal human life, good living standards, capacity to adapt".

logicalmonster 4y ago
Of course it matters why people die. If I was an analyst in the early 1940s analyzing why there was an excess of human deaths and wrongly attributed it to an increase in bear attacks, wouldn't that be really dumb? If you're trying to solve a specific problem, isn't getting the cause of death wrong a really big deal?
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
  Well, if bear attacks really did contribute to a statistically significant increase in excess deaths, that would indicate that you're doing something wrong. Misattributing it to bears when it was really lead in gasoline or plastics in the air or whatever really caused it just delays your ability to help fix it, but that's a different question.
  - logicalmonster 4y ago
    > Misattributing it to bears when it was really lead in gasoline or plastics in the air or whatever really caused it just delays your ability to help fix it, I was thinking of WWII in my 1940s example, which I thought might have been obvious, but that's besides the point. (Bear attacks are a silly example to illustrate the principle involved) If you're misattributing excess societal deaths to a wrong cause such as bears when the cause is anything else, there's a much bigger cost than just delaying your ability to understand and fix a real problem. 1) While you have the real cause of deaths wrong, people are dying of something else that is perhaps preventable. There's a real opportunity cost. 2) Say you work up a real social panic about something incorrect (such as bear attacks) and start reconfiguring society to focus solely on preventing bear attacks. Any policies here can cause dramatic harm to the economy. Not only does a bad economy directly and indirectly kill lots of people, but it weakens your ability to fix other more important problems. Your well-intentioned, but misguided attempt to save people from bears can kill far more people than it saves. 3) How would you know if your attempt to prevent bear attacks causes more harm than it prevents? All of a sudden, there's going to be a big industry of people making lots of cash in providing bear attack prevention methods. They're going to virulently attack anybody who starts voicing any opinions that are contrary to the general proclamation that bear attacks are the existential threat to society. Any opposition to the bear-attack-prevention-industrial-complex is going to be subject to intense derision and you're never going to be able to properly direct social energy to other, perhaps bigger problems, under this condition.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 4y ago
      I agree with all of this. However, I would still maintain that it is useful (necessary?) to differentiate between measurement and diagnosis. Excess deaths will remain an excellent (proxy) measurement for the extent to which we are satisfying (at least) the 3 goals you mentioned. Excess deaths (by themselves) are not useful for diagnosing the causes of their off-normal value.