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Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Twirling Time, Jan 21, 2020.

Page 731 of 2480
  1. ChrisLong

    ChrisLong Well-Known Member

    Should it have started in February? Why should we quarantine? Why should we social distance? Why should we wear masks? The president just told us that there is one case in the U.S. and it is under control.
     
    ChrisLong, May 21, 2020
    #8761
    Inky_Wretch, Roscablo and Jerry-atric like this.
  2. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    My mask habits are in large part dictated by my surroundings. If I'm going to be around people outside of my immediate family, I wear a mask. If I'm walking outside and no one is around, I don't... but I have one around my neck that I can pull up if I need it.
     
    Neutral Corner, May 21, 2020
    #8762
    cyclingwriter2, Driftwood, Inky_Wretch and 2 others like this.
  3. Jerry-atric

    Jerry-atric Well-Known Member

    That is a reasonable and safe approach.
     
    Jerry-atric, May 21, 2020
    #8763
  4. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    I'm all for questioning a model that people are using to advocate for action. Mervyn King has a book out right now called Radical Uncertainty, in which he makes the case, for example, that economics has become enslaved by models that pretend to knowledge the discipline can't possibly have. It happens when there is too much uncertainty, but a model tries to put well-defined numerical probabilities on the outcomes it is modeling for. That, in turn, leads to them giving people a false sense of precision that the model can't possibly have, and as he puts it, turns "evidence-based policy" into "policy-based evidence."

    The irony to me, since King ran the Bank of England during the financial crisis, is that the place you see this is with the PhDs making monetary policy around the world, who act like they are capable of taking very precise actions that can steer the economy like it's a small speedboat, and not a giant ocean liner.

    Most models are dealing with a lot of uncertainty. And that uncertainty is always going to require assumptions that may or may not prove correct. That limits what those models are capable of giving us. If an assumption is wrong, the model's predictions are going to differ from the actual outcomes. The more important the specific assumptions that are wrong are to the overall model, the more likely the predictions are going to differ from the outcomes.

    In the case of that Columbia model, it's not projecting the future, it's looking at the past and modeling what the outcomes would have been if people had behaved differently. Assuming the methodology they used is correct, that doesn't entail a lot of uncertainty. So I'd be more inclined to take a look at what they are doing. It's the past. We know what happened. And with the benefit of hindsight, they're able to simply plug in a different set of behaviors, and their model can probably be reasonably predictive of what the outcomes would have been.

    One other thing about what you are saying. I just said that people should be skeptical of any model that gets presented to them, but that doesn't mean the kinds of blanket dismissals you described. I've seen a lot of that from a few people on this thread. If you want to question something, question it on its merits. And at the same time, be open to the fact that even in a very uncertain world, evidence-based policy is still the most rational way to approach uncertainty, even if it can't create the precision or certainty that everyone wants.
     
    The Big Ragu, May 21, 2020
    #8764
    Roscablo likes this.
  5. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    Masks in Feb. is 20/20 pure hindsight. Emphasizing the acquisition, manufacture, stockpiling, and distribution of PPE is foresight, and that was among the big fails of that time period. Working on realistic and intelligent travel controls, ditto. Everything with regard to CV was ignored and pushed back at the Federal level until we were in crisis mode, and then ill-considered and halfassed measures were as likely to make things worse as to help. I'm thinking of the crowds of people who returned from Europe en masse after the Euro travel restrictions were announced. There is no way to know how many people died as a result of packed planes coming from Europe's hot spots and the incoming passengers standing around in huge lines for eight hours after landing.
     
    Neutral Corner, May 21, 2020
    #8765
  6. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    You are so full of shit.
     
    Neutral Corner, May 21, 2020
    #8766
    FileNotFound, Fred siegle, OscarMadison and 1 other person like this.
  7. qtlaw

    qtlaw Well-Known Member

    Agreed, the models maybe flawed but in many cases the people making them are more informed and have more training than others, including myself.

    What I dislike are people attacking modeling who have very little training and then disparage those who spent a great deal of time and effort in their work without any substance, just throwing conclusions out there.
     
    qtlaw, May 21, 2020
    #8767
    OscarMadison and Dog8Cats like this.
  8. Jerry-atric

    Jerry-atric Well-Known Member

    Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, my wife and myself wore masks when we were intimate, but we have largely forgone that as more is known and learned by the science community.
     
    Jerry-atric, May 21, 2020
    #8768
  9. Azrael

    Azrael Well-Known Member

    you mean like this thread from Clay Travis?

     
    Azrael, May 21, 2020
    #8769
  10. Roscablo

    Roscablo Well-Known Member

    Yes, and those who are using them to make decisions are usually using more than one. What the public does is cherry pick info, like anything else, to make their arguments.

    What I love about the modeling is wrong people are they mostly used a model that was the most incorrect of all models so far to make their point and even though that model has corrected itself they are still using claiming how wrong the models have been!
     
    Roscablo, May 21, 2020
    #8770
  11. Roscablo

    Roscablo Well-Known Member

    Did this actually happen? Because of models really sick people were sent back to nursing homes even though a nursing home was the site of the country's first big outbreak and deaths? More to the story if it even happened? Link?
     
    Roscablo, May 21, 2020
    #8771
  12. Spartan Squad

    Spartan Squad Well-Known Member

    It's also frustrating how many people dismiss models because they don't understand what variables mean. Right now, one of the biggest arguments to reopen the economy and get back to "normal" life is the fact the hospitals are not overrun (in California anyway) and we have an excess of space. What they don't understand is the SIP has gone a long way in making that happen. Models usually try to assume a certain level of behavior from citizens. Those go out the window when citizens don't want to do things like wear masks or social distance or wait for this to level out before we get hair cuts.

    Why do I need to know algebra or statistics when I grow up? Because not everything is linear and not everything is an A to B to C progression. That's why we need math.
     
    Spartan Squad, May 21, 2020
    #8772
    qtlaw and Jerry-atric like this.
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