You can’t handle the truth!!
OK, some of you can, but many of you cannot:
1. The truth that masks work has been confirmed in another major scientific mega-study:
In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas: population impact, transmission characteristics, source control, wearer protection, sociological considerations, and implementation considerations. A primary route of transmission of COVID-19 is via respiratory particles, and it is known to be transmissible from presymptomatic, paucisymptomatic, and asymptomatic individuals. Reducing disease spread requires two things: limiting contacts of infected individuals via physical distancing and other measures and reducing the transmission probability per contact. The preponderance of evidence indicates that mask wearing reduces transmissibility per contact by reducing transmission of infected respiratory particles in both laboratory and clinical contexts. Public mask wearing is most effective at reducing spread of the virus when compliance is high. Given the current shortages of medical masks, we recommend the adoption of public cloth mask wearing, as an effective form of source control, in conjunction with existing hygiene, distancing, and contact tracing strategies.
Or maybe you think doctors have been wearing masks for 100 years because they feel comfy.
2. Covid denialism: There’s a school of thought that Covid deaths are greatly exaggerated. These claims are false, as we have lots of other data from various sources that back up the Covid fatality figures. Proponents of this fallacy suffer from innumeracy.
3. Stop the steal: Those who deny Biden’s win also suffer from innumeracy. A close look at county-by-county results shows that there was no widespread voter fraud, as Biden won because he did unusually well in lots of Republican controlled, well-educated suburban countries, not because he did unusually well in heavily black and Hispanic areas.
4. Climate denialism: It perfectly OK to question the policy preferences of environmentalists, but the truth of global warming is pretty firmly established by data from a wide range of sources.
5. Inflation truthers: No, true inflation is not running at 8%. If that were so then Trump would have presided over one of the worst depressions in world history, even before Covid hit in 2020. Wage growth is only around 3%/year. Does anyone think 2017-19 were years of catastrophic depression in the US? More innumeracy.
6. China denialists: While you can certainly question the exact figures, it’s not true that the Chinese government lies when they claim rapid economic growth over 40 years, as we have data from lots of non-Chinese sources that confirm this fact. If Western companies that do business with China lied about their (soaring) sales in China, then their executives could go to prison for accounting fraud. Why would they take that risk? I’ve been to China 8 times since 1994—the incredible growth is obvious to anyone with two eyes. Similarly, there is no evidence that China failed to control Covid after early missteps.
Why are so many people unable to handle the truth? The common theme here is that people believe what they want to believe. I have no problem with people being delusional, what I object to is their insistence that others share their delusions, as a way of showing “loyalty to the cause”.
Thus Trump doesn’t just insist that the election was stolen. He insists others knowingly and falsely claim that the election was stolen. Unless you are willing to lie for Trump, you are not sufficiently loyal.
Thus commenters don’t just insist that China is lying about rapid economic growth and Covid success, they insist that I share in their lies. If I fail to share their wild conspiracy theories, it shows that I am insufficiently loyal to the anti-communist cause. “He said something good about China, he must be a secret CCP supporter!”
In fact, there is no one in the blogosphere who is more anti-communist than I am. But my anti-communism comes from a mix of realism, pragmatism and utilitarianism. I understand that China’s rapid economic growth came from moving away from central control and toward the increased use of private markets. I don’t feel a need to signal loyalty to any particular tribe of anti-communist fanatics—I have confidence in my own reasons for being an anti-communist.
HT: Razib Khan
PS. You probably notice that the list of deluded denialists on top is dominated by those on the right. Of course the left is not entirely free of these sorts of delusions. Some progressives deny that building more houses will increase housing affordability. Some environmentalists deny that nuclear power plants (and yes even Chernobyl) are good for the environment. Some progressive education advocates deny that charter schools have improved education. Some left-wingers deny that gender and racial differences in earnings almost entirely reflect productivity differences, not discrimination. Some progressives deny that BLM riots help to elective conservative politicians. In any tribe, there will always be some people who deny truths that they find unpalatable.
PPS. Every day brings more evidence that America is a banana republic. This isn’t the country I grew up in (although there are some parallels with polarization and violence in the Jim Crow southern states):
How about a non-binding secret ballot, after the official vote?
Tags:
13. January 2021 at 10:50
On the inflation myths, if inflation was much higher than official statistics, it would show up in the stock index earnings yields. Also, it would be easy to set up a simple spread sheet and track one’s personal inflation rate over time. Don’t know why inflation conspiracy theorist don’t do this.
Alternatively, it’s fairly easy to use Python to scrape prices from a variety of websites online and develop one’s own inflation index. It wouldn’t be terribly expensive to pay a junior developer to do this, if need be.
Another conspiracy theory that started on the left, but now exists across the spectrum regards GMOs. Still no evidence of harm after decades, but lots of avoidance among those who think they’re in the know.
I disagree about nuclear power, because while we certainly have the engineering technology to safely operate nuclear power plants, we don’t have the management technology to do so.
And, the environmental costs of the disaster in the area surrounding Chernobyl is certainly worse than anything that would occur within realistic global warming scenarios, if I’m not mistaken.
13. January 2021 at 11:00
4. My issue with climate change action is with the solutions. So the EU promoted diesel passenger cars to reduce carbon emissions and America promoted corn ethanol to reduce carbon emissions…both policies have been unmitigated disasters. And the first hose same activists oppose fracking which has actually reduced carbon emissions in America, and they oppose fracking because they believe Russian disinformation about fracking.
5. Inflation is low but unfortunately we have a race to the bottom that keeps inflation low. So once again Google “Kress architecture” to see where the proletariat shopped for affordable goods for much of the 20th century and contrast that with Dollar General where the proletariat now shops for cheap goods.
6. Need more hard proof of the Chinese economic boom look at the the commodity super cycle of the early 21st century.
13. January 2021 at 11:26
The leftist response (at least mine) to “cancel culture will cause a right-wing backlash” or “BLM riots will cause a right-wing backlash” is that there is a well-organized and profitable right-wing backlash machine which does not need many examples. So if there are 10 million peaceful BLM protesters and 5 troublemakers who burn down some businesses, Fox will just show clips of those 5 on loop and that will be enough for their backlash. It doesn’t matter if there are 5 or 500. Maybe we have concerns about ‘cancel culture’ on the merits but “how it will look on Fox” is not a productive lens through which to look at things.
Also even if we give them zero examples of anything bad to backlash over, they will backlash over masks or vaccines or believing in climate change or something that shouldn’t even be political.
More concretely, here is an analysis of right-wing backlash that explains it in terms of local demographic changes.
https://medium.com/3streams/where-sedition-is-rewarded-2a50ccc70fd
13. January 2021 at 11:36
Michael, You said:
“I disagree about nuclear power, because while we certainly have the engineering technology to safely operate nuclear power plants, we don’t have the management technology to do so.
And, the environmental costs of the disaster in the area surrounding Chernobyl is certainly worse than anything that would occur within realistic global warming scenarios, if I’m not mistaken.”
I did not say nuclear power was safe, I said it was good for the environment. And the area around Chernobyl is some of the purest wilderness in all of Europe. Back to nature. Animals love nuclear.
BTW, I didn’t say I support nuclear power.
aram, True, but cancel culture is making it much worse. It has an effect.
13. January 2021 at 12:01
The NYT has a great overview article on masks today: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/health/coronavirus-masks-transmission.html
13. January 2021 at 12:13
Michael Sandifer
Nuclear power has a better safety track record–in terms of deaths per kWh produced–than all other electric power generation technologies.
Comparing the safety of nuclear to, say, wind, is like comparing the safety of airplanes to that of cars.
13. January 2021 at 12:22
Stop the Steal is a lot like Russian-hoax. Its a motte-and-bailey argument. 66% of democrats believed Russia changed votes in 2016 to elect trump. When the left is confronted with this stat they retreat to “We just meant massive misinformation on fb” leading to people voting differently. Same with StopTheSteal many GOP think it means changed votes; even Trump in his last speech of claiming massive win retreats to Illegal changing of electoral laws to strongly favor Democrats along with a mail-in-ballot rejection of only .1% instead of historical 1%. Being that I believe it took a total change of less than 50k votes to flip the election to trump that leads to an argument that is true.
Trump got a little carried away on StopTheSteal as having a chance at changing the election. For better or worse it was a fine 20th century American politics stratagem of delegitimizing the new administration.
13. January 2021 at 12:30
I’ve followed this blog for a while now because it occasionally has interesting commentary, but these culture war posts are really annoying and this is the stupidest one yet. Excuse my inpoliteness, this the one rude comment I make instead of just deleting the blog from my RSS.
It frames things in black and white type thinking, attacks various straw men and does not contribute anything of value.
1) Masks do not “work” or “not work”, as with everything there are nuances and a wide spectrum of possibilities. What if, for example, masks provide a 50% protection for disease X and a 10% protection for disease Y and a -10% protection for disease Z? To me something like this is entirely plausible. Now you’re supposed to be the economist here, where is the thinking in terms of trade-offs and imperfect information?
2)What about the “school of thought that Covid deaths are greatly exaggerated”? In some cases (think Belgium), there is evidence to suggest that covid deaths may be greatly exaggerated. Many countries have median age of death for covid at something like 85, don’t you think that maybe some of those 85 year olds might have died also from causes unrelated to covid but *with* covid? In other places, probably most of them, covid deaths were obviously undercounted. But since it’s fitting for this kind of blog post I’ll be a bit rude and say that amongst mathematicians economists are generally considered to be ones suffering from “innumeracy”; glass houses, stones, etc…
3) I think you are right about the lack of fraud, but a close county-by-county result does not “show” a lack of fraud. Something something can’t prove a negative.
4)What is the “truth” of global warming? Why this tribal bullshit suggesting that there are only two possibilities, “global warming” and “no global warming”?
5) I am not qualified to talk about this point, though ‘inflation truthers’ seem to be so rare that I have never heard of them so far. That said (and wasn’t it this very blog where I learned this?), “all asset prices rising” is equivalent to “money is losing value”, so probably even the ‘inflation truthers’ can be steel-manned if one tried…
6) No comment, I’ve never heard this particular conspiracy theory.
Instead of suggesting that others cannot “handle the truth”, maybe stop framing things in inflammatory, binary ways? You may find that you and those who cannot “handle the truth” mostly agree on more than you think…
13. January 2021 at 12:56
“Some left-wingers deny that gender and racial differences in earnings almost entirely reflect productivity differences, not discrimination.”—Scott Sumner.
I wonder if Apple would put that quote on their website, instead of woke messaging.
I hope Google does not de-platform Sumner.
Some people cannot handle the truth that industrial location is a result of government subsidy and repressed labor income systems, and very rarely free-market comparative advantages.
13. January 2021 at 13:17
LK Beland,
You wrote:
“Nuclear power has a better safety track record–in terms of deaths per kWh produced–than all other electric power generation technologies.
Comparing the safety of nuclear to, say, wind, is like comparing the safety of airplanes to that of cars.”
Even if true, the costs associated with nuclear meltdowns seem unacceptably high. When other types of power plants fail, the costs are far smaller.
Yes, nuclear power is certainly an efficient, safer way to produce power on a global scale. Local accidents don’t override the global benefits of nuclear power.
But, is it a good idea to run a nuclear power plant near a metro area like Los Angeles, for example? The annual real GDP of the area is close to $1 trillion, with the discounted future GDP of nearly $30 trillion. Even a tiny risk of a nuclear accident in the area is obvy a catastrophe too terrible to consider. That’s before we consider any deaths.
Granted, California does get some power from a nuclear plant in Arizona, so we don’t have to risk large metro areas.
In the US anyway, it’s so expensive to develop a nuclear plant, that cost alone was killing the industry even before public fear of the technology reached current levels.
I actually don’t oppose expanding nuclear power, as long as we don’t risk major metro areas to meltdowns.
13. January 2021 at 13:20
‘Or maybe you think doctors have been wearing masks for 100 years because they feel comfy’
Believe it or not there is no strong evidence to support the benefits of doctors wearing masks in normal times:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4480558/
13. January 2021 at 13:31
‘There’s a school of thought that Covid deaths are greatly exaggerated’
Covid deaths are undoubtedly somewhat exaggerated because of the way that covid deaths are counted and its possible that this has led to serious miscounting in some countries in recent months.
This can be seen by looking at the excess mortality numbers on Euromono ( https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/). Look at the Z-scores charts and it can clearly be seen that many countries (such as the UK) showing high covid deaths are showing only slightly higher than normal excess deaths (and lower than 2018). I have yet to see a god explanation for this.
13. January 2021 at 13:45
The lead author of the “scientific mega study” is Jeremy Howard in San Francisco:
“Jeremy Howard is an entrepreneur, business strategist, developer, and educator.”
In his words: “This is a *narrative review* of mask use by the public as source control for COVID-19.
13. January 2021 at 13:52
@Sean. The mail-in-ballot rejection claim is a Republican urban legend. Check out this source: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/11/trump-misinformation-on-georgia-ballot-rejections/
You’ll have to give some examples for your other claim of illegally changing election rules to favor the Democrats.
13. January 2021 at 14:12
Todd, again with the credentialism. Check out the co-authors, plenty of epidemiologists and biophysicists on there.
I haven’t read the whole thing but you can quickly see how they are all trying to actually engage with evidence and trying to make sense of a complex situation rather than saying “there are 12 RCTs and I have a degree in physics so all the experts are wrong.”
I liked this part:
“ The standard RCT paradigm is well suited to medical interventions in which a treatment has a measurable effect at the individual level and, furthermore, interventions and their outcomes are independent across persons comprising a target population.
By contrast, the effect of masks on a pandemic is a population-level outcome where individual-level interventions have an aggregate effect on their community as a system. Consider, for instance, the impact of source control: Its effect occurs to other individuals in the population, not the individual who implements the intervention by wearing a mask. This also underlies a common source of confusion: Most RCT studies in the field examine masks as personal protective equipment (PPE) because efficacy can be measured in individuals to whom treatment is applied, that is, “did the mask protect the person who wore it?””
Brian tried to have a discussion about the basic physics behind N95 masks but you ignored and insulted him. Maybe this would be a useful avenue given your physics interest? Why don’t they work? Would you personally rather be in a room with a Covid patient with both of you wearing N95 masks or both unmasked? How do doctor’s protect themselves from Covid patients, they seem to not get it THAT often given the situation.
13. January 2021 at 14:14
MD’s wear masks to keep snot and sweat from dripping into body cavities during surgery. A cloth mask, loosly fitted, in no way possible can stop a virus with a diameter of .025 microns. Maybe inhibit the viral “load” you get by stopping a mucus blob from hitting you’re face, but they are useless. WASH YOUR HANDS!
13. January 2021 at 14:24
It should be noted that this study is from last April and was just “published”. There’s been lots of follow up work since.
13. January 2021 at 14:32
Matty, Obviously you are not familiar with the whacky conspiracy theories to which I am responding. That’s fine.
I’ve discussed the fact that Belgium uses a more generous definition of Covid in multiple previous posts. Most countries underreport Covid.
I think most readers understood that I was talking about the effect of masks on Covid transmission, given that I QUOTED FROM AN ABSTRACT OF A PAPER LOOKING AT THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MASKS AGAINST COVID.
I never said there was no voter fraud, so you are attacking a straw man there.
And there are people who deny the Earth is warming, in case you didn’t notice.
Todd, You never give up, do you?
13. January 2021 at 14:45
Scott, you’ve left out flat earthers. Is it because you agree with them or are you worried they have overwhelming evidence?
13. January 2021 at 14:54
Some more from the NYT article above:
“Experiments testing the extent to which masks can waylay inbound and outbound spray have shown that even fairly basic materials, like cloth coverings and surgical masks, can be at least 50 percent effective in either direction.
Recent work by researchers like Dr. Marr is now pinning down the basis of these links on a microscopic scale. The science, she said, is fairly intuitive: Respiratory viruses like the coronavirus, which move between people in blobs of spittle and spray, need a clear conduit to enter the airway, which is crowded with the types of cells the viruses infect. Masks that cloak the nose and mouth inhibit that invasion.
The point is not to make a mask airtight, Dr. Marr said. Instead, the fibers that comprise masks create a haphazard obstacle course through which air — and any infectious cargo — must navigate.
“The air has to follow this tortuous path,” Dr. Marr said. “The big things it’s carrying are not going to be able to follow those twists and turns.”
The best masks remain N95s, which are designed with ultrahigh filtration efficiency. But they remain in short supply for health workers, who need them to safely treat patients.
Layering two less specialized masks on top of each other can provide comparable protection.”
Also another (very incomplete) overview of evidence:
The arguments for masking span several fields of science, including epidemiology and physics. A bevy of observational studies have suggested that widespread mask-wearing can curb infections and deaths on an impressive scale, in settings as small as hair salons and at the level of entire countries. One study, which tracked state policies mandating face coverings in public, found that known Covid cases waxed and waned in near-lockstep with mask-wearing rules. Another, which followed coronavirus infections among health care workers in Boston, noted a drastic drop in the number of positive test results after masks became a universal fixture among staff. And a study in Beijing found that face masks were 79 percent effective at blocking transmission from infected people to their close contacts.
13. January 2021 at 15:43
Only Demonrats, such as yourself, claim the other side is making claims about widespread voter fraud. The assertion has always been the fraud was targeted.
13. January 2021 at 15:47
Scott,
it’s all because of cultural cognition
http://www.culturalcognition.net/
People pick their tribe first, then believe what the tribe believes. I have seen this effect many times with friends on the liberal side too of course.
People’s reasoning skills are uniquely designed for persuasion – not for rationality
https://www.dan.sperber.fr/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/MercierSperberWhydohumansreason.pdf
On Banana Republics: I have little experience with those but a fair bit experience with Africa. The Trump administration remind me of African dictators, especially in their last days. Turns out there’s a skit on Youtube who has a skit on the same theme … from 2015!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FPrJxTvgdQ
13. January 2021 at 17:21
For 2) some more bad stats and insight on the ICU situation (currently 27k COVID patients vs. 7k in early October: https://twitter.com/ashishkjha/status/1349223947657748480 (Thread).
13. January 2021 at 18:30
I pass as reasonably knowledgable about bananaland, since I live in a country where bananas are everywhere.
The US media has been banana-fied. It is incorrect to think of media as “left wing” or “right-wing.” Or as having a consistent ideology or set of principles.
Media companies have aligned themselves with the politically powerful, that being the Donks (most mainstream) and ‘Phants (Fox-National Review-Washington Examiner and son on).
The Donks have some “left-wing” PR identity politics going on, but are funded by Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street and and multinationals. This money-soaked crowd is left-wing? Let alone the warmongering, huge military outlays. Notice any messaging from Donks on, say “keeping labor markets tight”? But your identity is of supreme, all-consuming importance, and explains the entire arc of your life and career.
Yet the US lacks the charms of bananaland, such as friendly people, and few regulations, and even those regulations are erratically enforced.
You want to build a house? Build a house.
You want to be a push-cart vendor? Go ahead.
Drive your scooter on the wrong side of the road? Traffic laws are for sissies.
But what you read in the papers in bananaland—well, that mirrors the US. A policy or event is not good or bad on the merits, rather a policy or event is good or bad depending if a major party supports it.
In the US media, burning down Main Street was OK; occupying the Capitol requires treason charges (a capital offense, no pun intended). Defund the police, but a radical upgrading of the Capitol police department is in order. (Or vice-versa from Fox).
Good luck everybody. Plantains are on the menu.
Banana-flavored kool-aid for dessert.
13. January 2021 at 18:44
@mbka
If we all just believe what our tribe believes, why does our tribe believe what it believes?
13. January 2021 at 18:50
Matty: “What is the “truth” of global warming? Why this tribal bullshit suggesting that there are only two possibilities, “global warming” and “no global warming”?”
Keep in mind that Scott brags about being a Luddite. That is all you need to know why he can’t grasp basic science concepts beyond a junior high level.
13. January 2021 at 18:57
Scott, you are using lead author Jeremy Howard who “is an entrepreneur, business strategist, developer, and educator.”
Why not include Deepak Chopra’s recent paper: “Face Masks Enhance Quantum Enlighten on the Astral Plane”?
13. January 2021 at 19:00
Anonymous, Locally flat.
JC1, Is Trump a Democrat? (He did support Clinton.)
mbka, Thanks, that African comparison is great.
Todd, Yeah, I forgot about global cooling.
13. January 2021 at 19:00
Todd, again with the baseless insults. Nobody is buying it. You have zero evidence of his lack of grasp of science. Scott calling himself a Luddite (I assume mainly as a joke in that he doesn’t like fancy tech, not that he’s against technological progress) is irrelevant – eg Donald Knuth one of them ist important Computer Scientists there are doesn’t use email.
13. January 2021 at 19:29
Todd, I missed your last post and you may have missed my earlier post (or ignored it) so again;
“Todd, again with the credentialism. Check out the co-authors, plenty of epidemiologists and biophysicists on there.“ I know Jeremy personally and apart from being one of the original people popularizing the field of data science he has more reasoning ability in his little finger than you’ve demonstrated here.
The paragraph I posted earlier clearly explains the pros and cons of RCTs and why your religious devotion to them here doesn’t make sense.
Also if Jeremy had misrepresented the Danish study and opinion of Fauci/CDC/WHO he’d have already admitted his mistake.
13. January 2021 at 19:36
Just my two cents on masks.
1. The article you cite is not a study. It’s a just glorified book report, and its methodology and logic are sloppy and its conclusions are garbage.
2. I wear an N95 mask most of the time in enclosed spaces or when near other people. It’s highly effective at protecting me against Covid.
3. A cloth mask is only slightly less effective than a rosary.
4. Surgical masks probably have some positive effect when worn by symptomatic carriers (but if you’re symptomatic you shouldn’t be out and about in the first place.)
5. Recent studies suggest that transmission from pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers is very rare.
6. IMHO wearing or not wearing a mask is mainly an exercise in signalling which nut-job cult you belong to.
13. January 2021 at 19:43
Carl,
the tribe constructs a world view model (“Weltanschauung”)that keeps it together by sharing values, and one layer above that, by sharing beliefs based on these values. The tribe (or group) creates trust that way. As a result, new “facts” are trusted much more preferentially if they come from group members.
Note that not all people think in tribal ways, because not everyone has a strong group affiliation. The cultural cognition idea is built on the group/grid model by anthropologist Mary Douglas. The model describes basic ways to construct a society, or values believed about society. It uses a quadrant with axes of strong or weak group affiliation, or bonds between people, and strong or weak internal structure / hierarchy / “inequality” (she call is “grid”). Weak group affiliation can give you anarchists or classical liberals / libertarians / individualists. Strong group affiliation with weak structure gives you egalitarianism (“liberals”, communism, sects). Strong group affiliation with strong structure gives you classic conservatism, or, in the extreme, fascism. See for example here http://changingminds.org/explanations/culture/grid-group_culture.htm
13. January 2021 at 19:53
scott – “I never said there was no voter fraud, so you are attacking a straw man there.”
Election could have flipped on the right 50k votes. To admit any fraud is to admit that it could have switched the election. I actually would have voted for Biden pre-riots – GOP everywhere else. Whiles its definitely a lie that Trump won in a landslide; a disputed election was a fine political play. Normally I wouldn’t make that political play as most elections will have some randomness, but I quit caring after Hillary disputed 2016. Need the same standard for both parties.
And agree on that report on masks looking like a book report. While I think masks work theirs 2 big caveats
1) False sense of security leading people swamping positive effects of masks for riskier behavior
2) Basically need to close restaurants, bars, gyms, etc. since masks and those social environments don’t work with masks. Which is a reasonable policy choice, but needs to be sold as closing businesses and not just wear a damn masks.
13. January 2021 at 20:23
dtoh,
Scott is not a rationalist on masks or climate change. He can’t distinguish a book report from a random controlled study. Having said that there is no reason to wear an N95 mask. Just stay away from anyone coughing.
13. January 2021 at 20:33
Todd, want to explain why? Brian already explained why you’re wrong on the physics and I did based on several studies. You can’t ignore everyone who shows why you’re wrong or disagrees with you and then say people aren’t rational. You don’t think people see through your behavior?
13. January 2021 at 21:43
Todd,
“Just stay away from anyone coughing.”
Easier said than done in Tokyo, and sneezing is a LOT worse than coughing, and if you’re in an enclosed space, the viron concentration can easily build up to a level sufficient for transmission even if no one is coughing or sneezing.
Also I would ignore anyone who quotes the NYT. If they haven’t read the actual studies, it’s not worth the effort of having a discussion.
13. January 2021 at 21:52
Dtoh, The article has links to all the studies in there. It’s still a good overview article for anyone who is new to the topic. I don’t particularly want to debate masks here (we’ve been going for almost a month) – my only goal is to get Todd to admit to a mistake for once and show some integrity, but I’ll point out that he doesn’t believe N95s work and has ignored all discussions to the contrary.
13. January 2021 at 23:03
@mbka
Thanks. I’m trying to figure out why my tribe here in the States seems to be migrating from the individualism quadrant into the collectivism quadrant or maybe even the fatalism quadrant. How would the theory explain our quadrant drift? When I see that the cultural hero of the Individualism group is the pioneer I am put to mind of Frederick Jackson Turner’s theory of the closing of the American frontier.
14. January 2021 at 00:13
Stray thought I have not seen addressed.
Evidently a very large people in the US have already been infected with COVID-19, but had no or minor symptoms, perhaps 120 million people. Then you have the 20 million or so that know they had COVID-19.
OK, so the US starts vaccinating people. Is there a mechanism so that the inoculations are not “wasted” on people who have already been exposed to COVID-19?
There is no point in artificially inoculating people who are already naturally inoculated.
14. January 2021 at 01:01
Carl,
very interesting question and I had the same thought. One can give an obvious answer as to what has to happen to shift quadrant, but not necessarily why this happened.
I can speculate of course. The move to egalitarian “liberal” likely originated from equal-opportunity libertarians who started feeling more as a part of a common values oriented group, while still feeling that “all people are more or less the same” (your place in the world is not fixed – open society). Advanced integration into a culture would do that to people I suppose. Archetype: Silicon Valley entrepreneur that now feels like he belongs to a tribe of equals rather than being a self made person.
The move to anarchism/fatalism likely originated from the “conservative” hierarchy quadrant. People who believed that they were tightly integrated into a group where every member had their place (low or high doesn’t matter – it’s the stable world order that matters). Then the group cohesion erodes, they feel less secure in their position, but still don’t feel like they have equal opportunity. Archetype working class whites of old stock, moving from Republican conservative to nihilist loner.
This article has some interesting elaborations on the world views created by the four quadrants:
https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.125.4930&rep=rep1&type=pdf
14. January 2021 at 02:47
Scott, I clearly indicated which of the conspiracy theories you mentioned I am not familiar with, I did not comment on those.
I understand that you were talking about the effect of masks on covid transmission, but your reasoning was “Or maybe you think doctors have been wearing masks for 100 years because they feel comfy” which is why I mentioned that masks may have varying levels of efficacy for different diseases. Unlike you, I actually read scientific studies like the one you cited and they are often not worth the paper they are written on. Just because something is a “scientific study” does not mean it becomes an authority, if you disagree I have all kinds of papers from the social sciences I can show you.
I am not attacking a straw man, I was just a little unclear with what I meant. I am attacking your argument (“absence of evidence of type X for Y ‘shows’ absence of Y”), because the way you reason here is “there is no evidence of significant fraud, so we should stick with our priors of ‘high probability of fair election'”. When I said I don’t think there was fraud I was trying to make sure to emphasize that I think the argument is wrong and not the conclusion.
I know that there are people who “deny that the earth is warming”, but really what does that statement even mean? We can make fun of less intelligent people all we want, but if someone who isn’t particularly intelligent disagrees with “science” maybe we should ask ourselves why instead of making fun of them? Note that most “global warming deniers” (at least the intelligent ones) don’t actually deny global warming; they instead deny some form of “extreme global warming”.
14. January 2021 at 05:59
Anonymous: “but I’ll point out that he doesn’t believe N95s work and has ignored all discussions to the contrary.”
As I’ve written, The Danish study used high quality surgical masks, not N95 respirators.
“Encouragement to follow social distancing measures for coronavirus disease 2019, plus either no mask recommendation or a recommendation to wear a mask when outside the home among other persons together with a supply of 50 surgical masks and instructions for proper use.”
Here is a picture of the Abena surgical masks used in the study:
https://www.incodirect.co.uk/product/abena-face-mask-with-ear-loop/
14. January 2021 at 07:37
More WEF and CCP propaganda.
Sumner is a pedophile, communist, who wants the govt to dictate what you can eat, where to sleep, what to wear, and track your ever movement.
Force vaccination, covid passports, all scheme to control the masses.
And for those that think this is temporary: when has any govt program been temporary? Once you get the gov involved, its here to stay. The purpose may change. But the program will remain. Milton Friedman new that, but Sumner was looking at little boys and girls in his magazine instead of paying attention to the legend.
We are human. And we’re coming!
14. January 2021 at 08:40
Scott,
You said “Some left-wingers deny that gender and racial differences in earnings almost entirely reflect productivity differences, not discrimination”.
1. doesn’t that beg the question of where the differences in productivity come from?
2. does this include hiring discrimination or are the ones not hired not counted?
14. January 2021 at 09:29
@mbka
Thanks. I’m working my way through the paper and enjoying it. I guess being in software development, I fall into the hermit culture. I certainly wish our company had brought in Professor Mittleton-Kelly to tell us how to apply theories of complexity science to our inter-department culture problems instead of the speakers they brought in who taught us, among other things, the importance of striking power poses when speaking.
14. January 2021 at 09:48
“5. Recent studies suggest that transmission from pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic carriers is very rare.”
Really? I thought the majority of transmission was from presymptomatic carriers, since they have the highest viral load just before symptoms emerge and are not taking precautions.
14. January 2021 at 10:26
dtoh, Glad to hear you wear a mask. I also wear N95 masks.
You said:
“2. I wear an N95 mask most of the time in enclosed spaces or when near other people. It’s highly effective at protecting me against Covid.
6. IMHO wearing or not wearing a mask is mainly an exercise in signalling which nut-job cult you belong to.”
And so by wearing a mask which nut-job cult are you in. 🙂
As for presymptomatic, the studies I’ve seen suggest it’s highly infectious in the two days before symptoms show up. Are these studies wrong? Most illness are very contagious the day before symptoms show up.
And obviously I disagree with your definition of “study”, as do almost all serious scientists.
Sean, First of all, saying the election could have flipped with 50,000 votes is just more innumeracy, as the odds of those 50,000 fake votes being surgically located in precisely three states, one of which wasn’t even viewed as a pivotal state before the election, is a zillion to one. Realistically it would take fraud on the scales of hundreds of thousands of votes. Which is what I mean by “widespread”.
Indeed even the Trumpistas are claiming fraud outside those three states, for instance in PA and MI.
You said:
“after Hillary disputed 2016”
LOL, Not sure if you are being a troll, or just clueless, She conceded in like 24 hours.
robbb, Productivity differences may have many different causes, I was addressing the charge of employment discrimination in the labor market. Say women making less then men in the same field.
14. January 2021 at 11:15
Todd, you’re correct there – the study used surgical masks but you claimed it showed that it showed that “N-98” masks don’t work in this comment: https://www.themoneyillusion.com/random-thoughts-2/#comment-5811777
“Anyone who has studied logic at the graduate level must have enough neurons firing correctly to look up the 6,000 person Danish mask study that showed no benefit of even wearing highest quality N-98 masks, not the more porous cloth masks almost everyone puts around their faces.“
I guess that’s another misrepresentation of the study there.
14. January 2021 at 12:49
Scott,
I’m in the rationalist cult.
14. January 2021 at 18:13
No, Anonymous. It is not a misrepresentation. I quoted one of the authors and did not say N95 respirators – you did. N98 refers to the percent of bacteria, not viruses, that penetrate the mask.
dtoh, my sense that a good part of the reason that Scott and Tyler Cowen get so much wrong is that they have lived in real fear the past year since they are around 60 years old and have co-morbidities, which is unfortunate.
14. January 2021 at 18:47
Anonymous: “I know Jeremy personally and apart from being one of the original people popularizing the field of data science he has more reasoning ability in his little finger than you’ve demonstrated here.”
I’m sure that Jeremy Howard is an excellent entrepreneur, business strategist, developer, and educator. Oh, and he is with Singularity University – highly impressive – a place wealthy people from San Francisco and Boston can pay $$$ and come together to bullshit in futuristic mind-uploading seminars. I just have degrees in physics, mathematics and economics. Jeremy Howard, mask expert, has no degree that I can find but he did study philosophy for a while.
14. January 2021 at 19:47
Alright, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt on your N-98 then – even though that term doesn’t really appear in the literature on masks commonly. Let’s even forget your “Having said that there is no reason to wear an N95 mask” earlier in this thread since I’m now guessing that’s based on some theory of yours that there’s no aerosol transmission? I’d rather not get started on that.
The key problem is that you have still failed to admit a single mistake or misrepresentation. We can find plenty more but let’s stick with the Danish study and Fauci/WHO/CDC. Why is it so hard?
You apparently even pulled the same trick with misrepresenting Fauci back in October and Christian caught you in the same thing and then you did it again in December:
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/masks-work-well-on-airplanes/#comment-5755636
https://www.themoneyillusion.com/random-thoughts-2/#comment-5811789
And finally, I just genuinely do not understand why you think your undergraduate physics degree is so impressive and relevant. I have never met anyone over the age of 25 or so who holds their degree as such a core part of their identity. Either way there are several co-authors on that study who are actual leading experts in immunology, epidemiology, and biophysics as I’ve pointed out twice, even though it doesn’t matter. After all your talk about your degrees I’m pretty sure you don’t work in academia because this kind of behavior just won’t fly there and I also have a hard time imagining it getting you far in industry.
Just behave like an adult for once and own up to the fact that you were wrong about these two things.
14. January 2021 at 20:21
Anonymous, the whole point is that Scott thinks a narrative on masks is a serious scientific study led by a guy at the Singularity University who studied philosophy for three years but never graduated.
Anyway, keep ranting on about N-95 respirators.
14. January 2021 at 20:47
No, the whole point is that you continue to show up on Scott’s blog and make absurd claims, bluster, lie, and then refuse to engage with any critique but instead cherry pick random points to deflect or simply change the subject. None of this behavior has anything to do with science (which you believe to consist of the possession of an undergraduate degree) – it’s the exact opposite.
Countless people have tried to engage with you but eventually given up and I want to see if you can do the simplest thing required of any rational individual: Admit a mistake when it is blindingly obvious that you’ve made it or if you are just completely psychologically incapable of doing so.
That study has 10+ co-authors and while it doesn’t have any new experiments it helped change the narrative on masks and got other people to do more studies. But again that is irrelevant.
Just do the honorable thing that any normal person would do.
14. January 2021 at 21:05
I’ve acknowledged that the lead author of the mask narrative that Scott thinks is science is likely an excellent entrepreneur, business strategist, developer and educator, at Mind-Uploading U. who studied philosophy for three years. I bet Jeremy Howard is also a team player who utilizes core functionality and cutting-edge diversity at the highest holistic level as well.
14. January 2021 at 21:24
Lol. That is irrelevant. You spent maybe 10-20 posts talking about the Danish study and continuously misrepresented it when both Scott and I laid it out in like five different ways while you kept going and going until you finally decided to ignore it. And you still haven’t admitted you were wrong. And you claimed twice that Fauci currently says masks don’t work and defended that statement several times in two separate threads with two separate people (and also saying that the WHO and CDC say so in one thread) when everyone knows this isn’t the case. And throughout that you called us religious zealots.
Everyone can see through your behavior. Why don’t you do the decent thing and admit that you were wrong? You can continue to claim that masks don’t work and all the other stuff but at least you’ll have done something honorable for once.
15. January 2021 at 02:34
@Anonymous, Todd: If you’re arguing about studies, just read them.
The Danish study (https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/full/10.7326/M20-6817) is the only RCT on masks I have seen so far, it’s 95% confidence-interval is consistent with a 46% reduction of spread (to the wearer) from surgical masks. It is also consistent with a 23% increase. This means it looks like masks protect the wearer, but the effect could also be noise. I see no reason to believe that surgical masks are somehow less effective than N95 masks – I mean Todd is right that the study didn’t look at those specifically, but strong claims like “N95 masks are worse than surgical masks” need strong evidence.
The study linked by Scott in PNAS is surprisingly good, and it acknowleges it’s own weaknesses. Sure, Scott summarizes it was “masks work” but that’s a massive oversimplifcation.
They start with RCTs – in my mind the only real way to do science – saying “Overall, evidence from RCTs and observational studies is informative, but not compelling on its own.” or “Overall, direct evidence of the efficacy of mask use is supportive, but inconclusive.”.
Then it goes on to describe some ecological studies, with sentences like ” Although between-region comparisons do not allow for direct causal attribution, they suggest mask wearing to be a low-risk measure with a potentially large positive impact.”. Then there’s a study that uses Google Trends, a study that finds “COVID-19 clusters in recreational ‘mask-off’ settings were significantly more common than in workplace “mask-on” settings”.
The next step is to look at modelling studies. I have a very low opinion on these because they try to model real life, which is far too complex to model like this. It seems like some of the studies agree, and I quote “Stutt et al. (37) explain that it is impossible to get accurate experimental evidence for potential control interventions” (I’ve ended the quote before a “but”). These modelling studies look at what mask wearing *could* achieve in a simple epidemiological model, not what they do achieve. Given that the implication “wearing a mask stops transmission” implies “less population level transmission”, I’m not sure why these studies are anything but a tautology, but maybe they needed “science” to rubber stamp it.
After that they go on to describe how people think the virus spreads (what kind of droplets, etc…), and some experiments related to these. Unfortunately, “There are currently no studies that measure the impact of any kind of mask on the amount of infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles from human actions”. But for other similar viruses, a study is described where they tested how well masks (not sure which kind) block virus particles leaving people (keyword: “source control”). Similar studies for other viruses also are described. To me, these kinds of studies are the most compelling, but I do wish we would just do more RCTs already. It seems like all kinds of masks stop some particles of diverse sizes from spreading, and since these particles are what carry the virus it makes sense for masks to “work”. After the “source control” studies, there are some PPE studies (i.e. “how well do masks protect you”).
The paper then ends with a large number of hand wavy “Sociological Considerations” at which point I stopped reading the study because scrolling down made it seem like all the meat had been covered.
In my opinion: a surprising good paper for PNAS, given the associations of the journal with the replication crisis.
15. January 2021 at 03:14
MW: ” I see no reason to believe that surgical masks are somehow less effective than N95 masks – I mean Todd is right that the study didn’t look at those specifically, but strong claims like “N95 masks are worse than surgical masks” need strong evidence.”
I never said anything like this. The Danish study did not show a statistically significant result.
MW: “The Danish study (…) is the only RCT on masks I have seen so far,…”
There have been ten RCT on masks prior to the recent Danish study. Last spring each was analyzed with a conclusion that: ” Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza”. (in the abstract)
“In pooled analysis, we found no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.51–1.20; I2 = 30%, p = 0.25)” (results for face masks section)
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
15. January 2021 at 03:50
Anonymous (again): “And you claimed twice that Fauci currently says masks don’t work and defended that statement several times in two separate threads ”
I never said that either. Fauci said in **February**: “The masks sold at drugstores [don’t] truly protect anyone. “If you look at the masks that you buy in a drug store, the leakage around that doesn’t do much to protect you. In the US, there is absolutely no reason to wear a mask.”
Fauci also said last January: “lockdowms don’t work, historically” and until March last year, the WHO strongly advised against lockdowns because they are ineffective and cause great social and economic harm.
When the H1N1 pandemic hit, the head of the WHO gave a speech that included: “In this regard, let me make a strong plea to countries to refrain from introducing measures that are economically and socially disruptive, yet have no scientific justification and bring no clear benefit from public health.”
15. January 2021 at 08:08
@Todd: My N95 vs surgical masks comment referred to “As I’ve written, The Danish study used high quality surgical masks, not N95 respirators”. You do not understand what “did not show statistically significant result” means. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. From a Bayesian perspective, the Danish study should increase your subjective probability of masks “working”.
There were some RCTs on some kinds of mask use, but they aren’t great. See also https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/31/ssc-journal-club-macintyre-on-cloth-masks/. It’s important to remember that while RCTs are in principle straightforward for the question “does a mask protect the wearer”, they are not straightforward for the question “does a mask protect others”. But we shouldn’t forget that it may be that masks protect against covid-19 better than (or worse) than against influenza, I don’t see why the two should be the same. That said, I agree that the evidence for masks isn’t as strong as it should be. But I don’t think that the evidence against masks is particularly strong either…
15. January 2021 at 09:01
I agree that it seems likely that masks reduce covid transmission, especially in poorly ventilated areas.
But it’s maddening that in a crisis of this scale, we don’t know more. I’d love to see people designing new mask that use best practices in terms of fitting, filtration, etc.
(For example, a mask that filtered as well as a KN95 mask but looked as stylish as a cloth mask would seem like an obvious win, assuming KN95 is better than cloth, but we don’t even know that).
Not sure how much of this is the limits of knowledge and how much of it is ethical restrictions.
15. January 2021 at 09:38
@Todd K:
So why do you prioritize what Fauci and the WHO said a couple times far earlier over what they’ve said far more times since? Shouldn’t their current recommendations take precedence over past ones? Something Keynes said about changing one’s opinion when the facts change…
But let’s say you’re right and the rest of the world is wrong. What is the motive for Fauci and so many others to keep misinforming everyone? You think they like lockdowns?
15. January 2021 at 10:42
Todd, nope, you’re evading again.
But let’s start with a disclaimer for the good people here trying to make actual arguments: These are all great points and in Todd was arguing in good faith we could have an interesting discussion that way. E.g. Matty gave a good overview of the Danish study and the PNAS one. I started out that way but quickly realized that Todd refuses to engage and just focuses on small details and immediately focuses on those while ignoring the larger point. This is at this point an obvious tactic but it also seems to be how his mind works – that’s why he can use these small discrepancies to invalidate the mountain of evidence.
He’ll never change his mind based on discussion, but maybe at least he can be shamed into admitting a single mistake though he seems to be psychologically unable to.
We’ve been going on about the Danish study for so long I can’t even find all the threads anymore, including me quoting the abstract, the author, etc. and Todd saying that it’s all wrong because he has a degree. But here’s a short example though, about 10% of the discussion:
Todd: “The 6,000 randomized mask trial showed that there was no evidence that masks slow down the transmission of coronavirus which is obvious to anyone who actually reads the results.”
Scott: “Todd, No, the Danish study did not show that masks are not effective, indeed it didn’t even test the effectiveness of masks. I don’t know of anyone who’s been so consistently wrong about everything from day one.”
Todd: “This is the same Scott who doesn’t know what a scientific study is. This is also the same Scott who was quite sure in late March that no more than 30,000 Americans would die from Covid-19. The 6,000 randomized mask trial showed that there was no evidence that masks slow down the transmission of coronavirus which is obvious to anyone who actually reads the results.”
You still can’t admit that the study focuses on individual protection and not the spread of the virus.
Your Fauci/CDC/WHO argument is similar: You clearly claimed that scientific consensus was on your side and that others were crazy to think otherwise. Here is one of the two threads were you used Fauci:
“What in the world are you talking about? I am not arguing against expert consensus. The entire Western world’s health organizations including the WHO and the CDC were against mask wearing since ineffective as Dr. Fauci explained to Americans in February: masks are too porous to have any real protection.”
Both of those threads led to a back and forth and when pushed enough you did a Motte and Bailey saying that you meant February (though not in my thread) and not now and now you’re doing it again but it’s clear to the reader what you were trying to do.
We can debate other studies and the wider topic all year long but again if you can’t admit when you’re wrong (and when you’re intentionally deceiving people – but we can ignore that) there’s no point. Just admit that you were wrong.
Nobody who cares about science and the truth behaves this way. It’s like Scott said, you can’t handle the truth.
15. January 2021 at 11:08
MW wrote: “You do not understand what “did not show statistically significant result” means.”
Yes, I do know what it means. The Danish study did not show that mask use for a month was effective at reducing transmission. Obviously, that study wasn’t designed to determine if masks protect others but that still remains a religious statement by those who claim it as a fact.
msgivings wrote: “But let’s say you’re right and the rest of the world is wrong. What is the motive for Fauci and so many others to keep misinforming everyone? You think they like lockdowns?”
This is a dumb statement, but I’ll respond. It isn’t me versus the rest of the world as most scientists still recommend against lockdowns and wearing face masks independent of their supply. The WHO is a political organization and Fauci is a political person. You’d have to ask them why they flipped 180 degrees in only a few weeks despite no new scientific evidence supporting such a flip. Michael Osterholm spent an entire hour on a special podcast in his series on the science of masks explaining why neither cloth nor surgical masks are effective and basically gave the same reason as Fauci. A couple of weeks later he said he got a tone of email against that and so started to comically say: “As I’ve said all along, Wear. A. Mask!”
15. January 2021 at 11:19
At the risk of being called a denier, I confess to a couple of creeping doubts about the things of which you are certain.
There’s a huge preponderance of scientists who believe that humans are driving temperatures up at an alarming rate. And, I accept that they have studied the subject in much more depth than I have and are probably right. I also have read their counter-arguments to a number of the questions I have raised and for the most part find them convincing. So, let’s set policy by their findings. But does that mean that I am a denier if I still look at this graph and wonder why the CO2 and CH4 trend lines run counter to the temperature trend lines for 5000 years: https://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/figure-38.png.
Likewise, I accept that inflation is low. I’ve looked at the findings from the Billion Prices Project. I read your blog regularly. I accept your argument that we would see spikes in other indicators such as unemployment measures if inflation were truly occurring and we’re not seeing those spikes. Again, people with far deeper knowledge of the field than I have are making good arguments why inflation is low and I am not convincing anyone. Therefore, I concede for the sake of policy making, inflation is low. At the same time, I see booming asset prices while household debt to GDP and government debt to GDP levels are increasing and wonder whether we’re missing something in our measure of inflation. Does our current situation with the dollar as the reserve currency and the world’s lingering trust in US securities just allow us to do a better job of avoiding core inflation while we’re building to a currency crisis?
Mitch McConnell said it well when he said we can’t have a functioning democracy and throw out an election simply because some people express doubts which they cannot prove in court. That applies to these other topics as well. I don’t consider someone a denier simply because they can’t prove their case. Or rather I don’t worry about it as long as they accept the system for adjudicating disagreements. In fact, the people who continue to pursue their beliefs even after losing their case are responsible for a great many breakthroughs in history. I find this viewpoint supportive of classical liberalism. The fewer ideas we need consensus on to act, the more ideas people will act on and the more we will learn.
15. January 2021 at 11:34
You denied this for many many many posts and now you’re just denying ever having done it: “Obviously, that study wasn’t designed to determine if masks protect others but that still remains a religious statement by those who claim it as a fact.” You’re the religious and deluded one here.
15. January 2021 at 11:48
What are you so afraid of Todd? What do you think will happen if you admit you’re wrong?
15. January 2021 at 11:55
@Todd K:
I have no way of asking them why they flipped. I’m asking you to speculate, because if these high profile people and organizations all over the world are doing it wrong, I’d like to know why you think that is. Nobody likes lockdowns, and yet almost the entire world either is or has used them. Why did they all do that? The whole world…
15. January 2021 at 12:02
Also this is an absurd statement: “ It isn’t me versus the rest of the world as most scientists still recommend against lockdowns and wearing face masks independent of their supply”. You cite no evidence of what MOST scientists say.
Msgkings, they’re all religious fanatics, duh. I think this could be a good direction for handling this discussion with a normal person but Todd can’t even concede the tiniest point so no progress is possible.
15. January 2021 at 12:04
Eg several of these changes were at least partially driven by the importance of pre-symptomatic transmission (don’t really need a lockdown against Ebola) but then I’m pretty sure Todd has a theory of how that doesn’t exist and I’d rather not even go there if we can’t agree on what the abstract of a paper says.
15. January 2021 at 12:13
Matty, Good comment. But this:
“The study linked by Scott in PNAS”
Don’t you know that there are word police on here who will insist you are an idiot for calling a scientific paper published in a scientific journal a “study”?
Yes, these scientists STUDIED the issue intensively, and wrote up their findings, but how dare you call it a “study”!!
Carl, I’m not 100% certain about anything. But most of the arguments used by various deniers are pretty weak.
Todd, I hope you are keeping up with the data out of Sweden.
Anonymous, Take it from me, Todd is hopeless. When you prove him wrong he’ll just lie and deny making this claims, and then lie about what you said in previous comments. I’ve been there.
15. January 2021 at 12:30
Scott, yes, I agree. I’m too stubborn for my own good sometimes.
For those who are curious about Osterholm’s actual thoughts on the topic of masks this gives a good overview and I basically agree with all of it (TLDR: Cloth masks are a useful tool, not a panacea, reliance on them alone can be problematic, we should have N95 masks, the CDC has made some over the top claims about how masks alone can stop the pandemic): https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/osterholm-stop-mischaracterizing-my-comments-about-face-masks
I’ll also say (just like the PNAS “study” authors wrote this week) that it’s crazy that so many people still wear cloth masks instead of N95 masks and that we haven’t innovated to make the latter more available and usable.
It’s almost like out in the real world people can have nuanced opinions.
15. January 2021 at 14:55
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trump-is-an-illegitimate-president/2019/09/26/29195d5a-e099-11e9-b199-f638bf2c340f_story.html%3foutputType=amp
How is what I said about Hillary trolling? She conceded yes but to this day calls the election illegitimate.
16. January 2021 at 00:29
@Todd: Wou write ” The Danish study did not show that mask use for a month was effective at reducing transmission”, and I agree except that perhaps we should qualify the “show” somehow, like “show with 95% confidence”.
@Scott: You wrote “Don’t you know that there are word police on here who will insist you are an idiot for calling a scientific paper published in a scientific journal a “study”?” – if we’re talking semantics then I symphasize both with those who would not call this a “study” and those who would. What words mean is more or less arbitrary, the important thing is that both sides know which meaning is meant. My personal view is that this study is not a study on masks, but a study on the scientific literature on masks…
16. January 2021 at 10:46
Sean, That’s very different. She’s complaining about how Trump encouraged Russian interference (which is true). Trump is literally claim he got more votes, that he won the election (which is false).
Hillary did not encourage her supporters to overturn the election.
Having said that, I don’t agree that Trump was an illegitimate president, just a bad one.
Matty, You said:
“My personal view is that this study is not a study on masks, but a study on the scientific literature on masks…”
That’s fine. In any case, it’s clearly a study.
And yes, meanings are arbitrary, which is why I tend to discount people who make a big fuss over them. It’s like when someone tells me “economics is not a science”. I make a mental note that this person probably doesn’t know that calling something a science is not a form of praise.
16. January 2021 at 18:43
I’m lying Scott? About what? This is what 12 year olds do – accuse lying without backing up the slander.
@mskvings It’s complicated but this whole thing has been extremely political. The WHO and CDC have completely embarrassed themselves so have moved the goalposts. The West panicked. The West is like Scott, a 63 year old (many in power are obese) with less than ideal lungs with parents who are 85 in nursing homes = panic.
Again, you are completely wrong to say that the whole world has locked down.
16. January 2021 at 18:50
Again, I’m sorry Scott has less than ideal lungs but 1) am confident he will be fine and 2) this as well as being an admitted Luddite is why he doesn’t know up from down about this pandemic.
16. January 2021 at 19:06
@Todd K:
“It’s complicated” LOL
No it’s pretty simple, you know better than “The West”. We’re lucky to have you around.
16. January 2021 at 22:02
Todd, Lol. I’m still genuinely curious if deep down you know how messed up you are or if you’re just completely oblivious. It would take more than an undergraduate degree (even from a top school!) in psychology to figure this one out.
17. January 2021 at 03:48
msgkings, you are just like Scott – you don’t have a scientifically curious bone in your body to look anything up.
17. January 2021 at 10:14
@Todd K:
Again, it looks like it’s Todd K vs The West. I know where I’m placing my bets. Hint: The West has some scientifically curious people besides you.
Besides, with those NR pills that you stopped talking about for some reason, we’re all gonna live forever anyway.
17. January 2021 at 10:29
Todd, speaking of 12 year olds – you’re like one of those children endlessly denying that they’ve stolen the chocolate off the table while their face is covered in chocolate. Except most kids eventually admit the truth. But not all of them I guess: “No, you’ve stolen the chocolate! All of you! I am the only one who doesn’t steal chocolate!”