> I am claiming (and have receipts for the claims) that public health professionals will provide advice that is damaging or risky in order to protect something else. They will intentionally mislead you so that some imagined total outcome is better. In the past, their attempt to do so resulted in personal harm or death for many (perhaps in the millions) because they're bad at managing the total outcome too.
Ok, I’ll bite. Relative to what alternative, exactly? Is this a testable claim?
## Actionable? Testable?
Or is this a historical comparison of the US public health advice against the best case advice in hindsight?
Can I compare advice from an alternative “private health” source that has my interests at heart?
In other words, going forward, do you have a source or algorithm (e.g. to combine different sources of advice) process that you think is more reliable?
## Your Decisions and Outcome
And you offer yourself as an example of doing opposite. That’s fine, but be intellectually honest that this is ‘at best’ a sample size of 1, and you didn’t really do the ‘total opposite’ of masking and exposure, did you?
Conceptually that is undefined — opposite here could mean so many things. Practically speaking, you didn’t share a tiny enclosed air space with obviously contagious people, did you?
## Subtext: apparent overconfidence
I think what I’m picking at is what appears to be an overconfidence and a lack of testable claims.
It’s fine to be skeptical of public health advice, but you seem to go further. I can’t really tell how far you are willing to go.
## Ensembling (like ML)
In my view, the key is gathering evidence and reasoning over it. Don’t throw out a source of information when you have a fairly good characterization of how it operates. Even flawed sources add signal.
## You Can Help Most of the People Most of the Time
Yes, public health make mistakes. And they aim to prioritize public health, not my health in particular. They should.
For most people, most of the time, following the advice of the CDC is a good ‘default’ starting point. Deviate at your own risk.
## We are the Idiots My Friend and we’ll keep on fighting ‘till the end
Somewhere around half (maybe more) of Americans make glaring errors regarding basic facts and critical thinking around public health. This is why almost all people should follow public health advice, even if changes a little bit every week — and even if the agency got it wrong last week.
Many of these people fall prey to politically motivated reasoning or conspiracy theory quackery.
## Impossible Standards
If people held themselves to the same standard that they are judging the CDC, they would not have a shred of self confidence left. Can’t stick to a diet? Can’t seem to keep your shit together? Yeah. But expect the CDC to predict the dynamics and mechanisms of the coronavirus and its impact on global health and supply chains. It is ludicrous. People by and large seem to be designed to complain about not themselves.
The pandemic was really a level of unprecedented change that few of us have seen since maybe Vietnam, the AIDS outbreak, or WW2.
Ok, I’ll bite. Relative to what alternative, exactly? Is this a testable claim?
## Actionable? Testable?
Or is this a historical comparison of the US public health advice against the best case advice in hindsight?
Can I compare advice from an alternative “private health” source that has my interests at heart?
In other words, going forward, do you have a source or algorithm (e.g. to combine different sources of advice) process that you think is more reliable?
## Your Decisions and Outcome
And you offer yourself as an example of doing opposite. That’s fine, but be intellectually honest that this is ‘at best’ a sample size of 1, and you didn’t really do the ‘total opposite’ of masking and exposure, did you?
Conceptually that is undefined — opposite here could mean so many things. Practically speaking, you didn’t share a tiny enclosed air space with obviously contagious people, did you?
## Subtext: apparent overconfidence
I think what I’m picking at is what appears to be an overconfidence and a lack of testable claims.
It’s fine to be skeptical of public health advice, but you seem to go further. I can’t really tell how far you are willing to go.
## Ensembling (like ML)
In my view, the key is gathering evidence and reasoning over it. Don’t throw out a source of information when you have a fairly good characterization of how it operates. Even flawed sources add signal.
## You Can Help Most of the People Most of the Time
Yes, public health make mistakes. And they aim to prioritize public health, not my health in particular. They should.
For most people, most of the time, following the advice of the CDC is a good ‘default’ starting point. Deviate at your own risk.
## We are the Idiots My Friend and we’ll keep on fighting ‘till the end
Somewhere around half (maybe more) of Americans make glaring errors regarding basic facts and critical thinking around public health. This is why almost all people should follow public health advice, even if changes a little bit every week — and even if the agency got it wrong last week.
Many of these people fall prey to politically motivated reasoning or conspiracy theory quackery.
## Impossible Standards
If people held themselves to the same standard that they are judging the CDC, they would not have a shred of self confidence left. Can’t stick to a diet? Can’t seem to keep your shit together? Yeah. But expect the CDC to predict the dynamics and mechanisms of the coronavirus and its impact on global health and supply chains. It is ludicrous. People by and large seem to be designed to complain about not themselves.
The pandemic was really a level of unprecedented change that few of us have seen since maybe Vietnam, the AIDS outbreak, or WW2.