Lightwave

Replying toCovid 10/7: Steady as She Goes

if I was sufficiently sick I would want it.

The problem is in the first few days of an infection you won't know whether you'll be sufficiently sick to be hospitalised on say day 10. We don't really know who will deteriorate on day 7 and beyond, and who will recover. And if you take the drug later it won't be as effective.

I suspect this drug will only be used for high risk groups, due to risk of side-effects and the high price (US is paying $700 per course).

Replying toIs antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Lightwave4y*

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

I'm a bit surprised by this. The entire logic behind booster doses for the immunocompromised (which several countries are already doing, e.g. US/UK) is based on a lack of (or low) immune response to the vaccine, which can be confirmed by an antibody test (measuring antibodies to the spike protein). There are studies with large numbers of people where you can see the median levels of antibodies in healthy adults and compare results (e.g. here and here). These tests are quantitative and give you a number, not just a positive or negative result, some people can have orders of magnitude more antibodies than others as a result of vaccination.

Also my impression is... (read more)

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Lightwave

I've had 2 Pfizer doses and was wondering if it's worth it to do a commercial antibody test to assess if I've had an adequate immune response and check antibody levels. This can also be used to decide whether to go for a 3rd booster shot if/when these become available.

Has anyone done this and do you think it would be useful?

Replying toCovid 6/3: No News is Good News

Lightwave5y

Covid 6/3: No News is Good News

2.5 times deadlier than existing strains

Where does this number come from?

Replying toCovid 1/28: Muddling Through

Lightwave5y

Covid 1/28: Muddling Through

I'm confused by this graph, if ~30% of critically ill patients are 60+, ~20% are 40-55, that adds up to 50%. What are the other 50%? Only the 55-60 and 0-39 age groups remain, but surely they can't be 50% of critically ill patients (the 55-60 group is too small and the 0-39s should have like 2 orders of magnitude fewer critically ill people than the 60+ group)?

Replying toBeta - First Impressions

Lightwave8y

Beta - First Impressions

The site is lacking breadcrumbs so it's hard to orient oneself. It's hard to follow what section of the website you're in as you dig deeper into the content. Any plans to add breadcrumbs (or some alternative)?

Replying toMarginal Revolution Thoughts on Black Lives Matter Movement

Lightwave9y

Marginal Revolution Thoughts on Black Lives Matter Movement

A black is also more likely to commit a violent crime than a white person.

Isn't it more relevant whether a black person is more likely to commit a violent crime against a police officer (during a search, etc)? After all the argument is that the police are responding to some perceived threat. The typical mostly black-on-black violent crime isn't the most relevant statistic that should be used. Where are the statistics about how blacks respond to the police?

Replying toWhy GiveWell can't recommend MIRI or anything like it

Lightwave9y

Why GiveWell can't recommend MIRI or anything like it

Funny you should mention that..

AI risk is one of the 2 main focus areas for the The Open Philanthropy Project for this year, which GiveWell is part of. You can read Holden Karnofsky's Potential Risks from Advanced Artificial Intelligence: The Philanthropic Opportunity.

They consider that AI risk is high enough on importance, neglectedness, and tractability (their 3 main criteria for choosing what to focus on) to be worth prioritizing.

Replying toCrony Beliefs

Lightwave9y

Crony Beliefs

things that I am very confident are false

Could you give any example?

Replying toBarack Obama's opinions on near-future AI [Fixed]

Lightwave9y

Barack Obama's opinions on near-future AI [Fixed]

This is also interesting: Barack Obama on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

Replying toBarack Obama's opinions on near-future AI

Lightwave9y

Barack Obama's opinions on near-future AI

This is the article: Barack Obama on Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Cars, and the Future of Humanity

Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

Lightwave

13y

This was posted a few hours ago. Basically, the reddit admins have decided to promote the so-called "University of Reddit", a subreddit where people can offer and teach any course they'd like, or just attend a course. This is official website for all courses. At the time of this posting the subreddit had ~38,400 subscribers, but I expect it will grow significantly.

Given the reddit demographics, a Rationality course has the potential to become extremely popular. The exposure can popularize CFAR and LessWrong, and can be used to recruit fresh minds for rationality-related causes. Also maybe run experiments with curricula or methods of teaching rationality?

What do you guys think?

'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Chapter Summaries / Notes [link]

Lightwave

14y

I recently read Kahneman's 'Thinking Fast and Slow' (actually listened to the audiobook) and I wanted to find a summary of the experiments he describes and I stumbled upon this: http://sivers.org/book/ThinkingFastAndSlow. It has a summary of the interesting/important points of each chapter. Most of the statements seem to be direct quotes from the book, so if you have it in an electronic format (it can easily be obtained from uh, various sources) you can search for those quotes and find the context.

Bonus: Notes from Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational and also many other books.

TED-Ed Launch

Lightwave

14y

TED has launched a new initiative: TED Education

TED-Ed's mission is to capture and amplify the voices of great educators around the world. We do this by pairing extraordinary educators with talented animators to produce a new library of curiosity-igniting videos.

http://education.ted.com/

So maybe we could get someone to do a short talk/lecture on rationality related topic(s) (maybe cognitive biases?)? Or anything else that is related to raising the sanity waterline. Or at least just suggest the idea.

Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief

Lightwave

14y

Article: Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief in an outcome

Defying logic, people given weak evidence can regard predictions supported by that evidence as less likely than if they aren’t given the evidence at all.

...

Consider the following statement: “Widespread use of hybrid and electric cars could reduce worldwide carbon emissions. One bill that has passed the Senate provides a $250 tax credit for purchasing a hybrid or electric car. How likely is it that at least one-fifth of the U.S. car fleet will be hybrid or electric in 2025?”

That middle sentence is the weak evidence. People presented with the entire statement — or similar statements with the same three-sentence structure but on different

... (read 220 more words →)

Some ideas on communicating risks to the general public

Lightwave

15y

http://www.decisionsciencenews.com/2010/12/03/some-ideas-on-communicating-risks-to-the-general-public/

Got this off from Reddit.

LESSWRONG
LW

LESSWRONG
LW

Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Chapter Summaries / Notes [link]

Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Lightwave

Lightwave

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Chapter Summaries / Notes [link]

TED-Ed Launch

Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief

Some ideas on communicating risks to the general public

Lightwave

Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Chapter Summaries / Notes [link]

Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Lightwave

Lightwave

Is antibody testing to assess effects of vaccines on you a good idea?

Can we teach Rationality at the University of Reddit?

'Thinking, Fast and Slow' Chapter Summaries / Notes [link]

TED-Ed Launch

Weak supporting evidence can undermine belief

Some ideas on communicating risks to the general public