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Again, there are people who get paid to spend all their time determining whether, for example, overestimation is worse or underestimation is. It is an absolute

Again, there are people who get paid to spend all their time determining whether, for example, overestimation is worse or underestimation is. It is an absolute certainty that the response to covid was suboptimal. Apart from how complex the situation and the response was, just given that responses varied widely from region to region guarantees that most were not perfect. But while it's certainly possible to nitpick some aspect or another of the response, to jump from that to therefore you (or I) know better than the people being paid to do nothing but study the situation and learn from the outcomes, is as conceited as looking at the Challenger explosion and saying, "Clearly there was a problem with the O-rings, therefore I know better how NASA should be run." I didn't mean to attack you with my comment -- I just wanted to inform you of how your tone seemed in case you were unaware. It seems that you're not only aware, you think your tone is justified. So good for you, enjoy your confidence.

mike_hearn 3y ago
You make the same argument in another post, will reply once. Your examples of experts you trust are all engineers, not public health scientists. Air disasters, power outages and rocket explosions are immediate, visible and concrete failures. You can't consensus your way out of a plane crash. If a plane goes down ordinary people demand serious answers and because plane travel is run by the private sector the operators are all very incentivized to cooperate with a real investigation, in order to reassure the public it won't happen again. The investigations into these failures are very deep, very real, root cause what went wrong and generate concrete changes. Scientists aren't operating in the same environment. Many people use as a test of scientific competence "do you agree with other scientists" and nothing else, which is circular reasoning. When scientists fail there's a tendency for them to argue that oh well the situation was complex, lots of unknowns, did the best we could, consensus of experts etc. People are trained to never argue with scientists so they can do this. Engineers don't get the same privilege. Saying "the experts decided it" is worth nothing to governments, the media or the public if your oil drilling ship just sank.
spookthesunset 3y ago
> It seems that you're not only aware, you think your tone is justified I encourage you to play the other side of this argument for a while. I've been called all kinds of absolutely awful things by people I used to respect. Why? Because I dared to question or examine things myself. I guess I was just expected to shut up and listen to "the experts" even if I found their edicts to be completely useless, unethical, immoral, and not even close to being driven by data. I've been banned, blocked, and called "dangerous" just for linking to public data hosted on a government website. Somewhere I read "consensus"... well, there was absolutely no consensus. Any critic, no matter how qualified, was immediately discredited by those in power. Covid policy was completely one-sided the entire time. So, I'm kinda sorry but not really sorry about my tone. Those of us who had to suffer through 3 years of hell thanks to "the experts" intentionally painting us as heartless alt-right grandma killers... well we are kinda pissed. We've all heard every argument you write. We heard it for three years. And we believe it is wrong; ethically, morally, and legally. And we have a complete right to that opinion. Because public policy is not based on "experts" or "the science" but on opinion and values. And quite frankly, the values that drove the lockdowns and all the other nonsense covid theater are, in my opinion, bad...even evil. The values that drove lockdowns and such expose some of the absolute worst aspects of humanity--arrogance, hubris, and tribalism. Modern humans think they are way more advanced than people thousands of years ago, but based on our reactions to covid, I'd say we have the same archaic superstitions our ancestors had back when we all lived in caves. Anyway, I hope this helps you understand where those of us with a difference of opinion come from.

mike_hearn 3y ago

You make the same argument in another post, will reply once. Your examples of experts you trust are all engineers, not public health scientists. Air disasters, power outages and rocket explosions are immediate, visible and concrete failures. You can't consensus your way out of a plane crash. If a plane goes down ordinary people demand serious answers and because plane travel is run by the private sector the operators are all very incentivized to cooperate with a real investigation, in order to reassure the public it won't happen again. The investigations into these failures are very deep, very real, root cause what went wrong and generate concrete changes. Scientists aren't operating in the same environment. Many people use as a test of scientific competence "do you agree with other scientists" and nothing else, which is circular reasoning. When scientists fail there's a tendency for them to argue that oh well the situation was complex, lots of unknowns, did the best we could, consensus of experts etc. People are trained to never argue with scientists so they can do this. Engineers don't get the same privilege. Saying "the experts decided it" is worth nothing to governments, the media or the public if your oil drilling ship just sank.

spookthesunset 3y ago

> It seems that you're not only aware, you think your tone is justified I encourage you to play the other side of this argument for a while. I've been called all kinds of absolutely awful things by people I used to respect. Why? Because I dared to question or examine things myself. I guess I was just expected to shut up and listen to "the experts" even if I found their edicts to be completely useless, unethical, immoral, and not even close to being driven by data. I've been banned, blocked, and called "dangerous" just for linking to public data hosted on a government website. Somewhere I read "consensus"... well, there was absolutely no consensus. Any critic, no matter how qualified, was immediately discredited by those in power. Covid policy was completely one-sided the entire time. So, I'm kinda sorry but not really sorry about my tone. Those of us who had to suffer through 3 years of hell thanks to "the experts" intentionally painting us as heartless alt-right grandma killers... well we are kinda pissed. We've all heard every argument you write. We heard it for three years. And we believe it is wrong; ethically, morally, and legally. And we have a complete right to that opinion. Because public policy is not based on "experts" or "the science" but on opinion and values. And quite frankly, the values that drove the lockdowns and all the other nonsense covid theater are, in my opinion, bad...even evil. The values that drove lockdowns and such expose some of the absolute worst aspects of humanity--arrogance, hubris, and tribalism. Modern humans think they are way more advanced than people thousands of years ago, but based on our reactions to covid, I'd say we have the same archaic superstitions our ancestors had back when we all lived in caves. Anyway, I hope this helps you understand where those of us with a difference of opinion come from.