Popular Comments

Discussion: The Rose Garden and White House happenings: What does 2024 portend?

Smedley said:

so you don't want to fight a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine? I think Paul should know that. 

Oh, not you, too.

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: The NYT Spelling Bee Thread

jimmurphy said:

Just got QB, too.

QB for me too and agree that it was pretty easy today, though i did struggle a bit to get the final word  :bz

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: The NYT Spelling Bee Thread

Got it today too :-)

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: The Rose Garden and White House happenings: What does 2024 portend?

Smedley said:

yes, which is what I just did here.

https://twitter.com/washburnealex/status/1636004126873251840?s=61&t=9PvlxwW1YMphxP54kUQl-A

What are your thoughts on this information? Do you give it any credibility at all as far as circumstantial evidence for the lab leak theory? If not, why not? 

DS's response is largely mine here. I'll also venture into trying to make a broader point. A simultaneous strength and weakness of humans is that we are very good and finding patterns. It's a strength that's allowed us to develop culture and technology, from figuring out how to control fire and shape stone into tools to building AI chatbots, but also the same thing that shows us faces in our toast and which make us vulnerable to con men and demagogues.

If you spend any time at all looking at large data sets, one thing you'll notice is that they are very "noisy." Coincidences, far from being rare, are super common, and its possible to tell nearly any story one wishes by choosing which coincidences to pick out and arrange into a neat little story. That's our impressive pattern-recognition skills at work, but being unhelpful or even actively harmful here.

So how do we go about separating signal from noise? Since the arrival of the internet era, this is increasingly not just a question for data scientists, but for all of us, now that we're bombarded with an ever-increasing flood of "data." What's true but irrelevant? What's not true at all but pure b.s.?

I find two things helpful. One, to try and determine relevancy, asking what, if anything, would change if a claim were true or not true. If nothing much changes, then the claim is just noise. For instance, the claim that "WIV switches from civ-->military control." Let's run some scenarios:
- This claim is true, covid starts in the market, how does China behave?
- This claim is false, covid starts in the market, how does China behave?
- This claim is true, covid starts in the lab, how does China behave?
- This claim is false, covid starts in the lab, how does China behave?

I can't see China behaving different in any of those four scenarios. So it doesn't seem relevant. Noise, we can ignore it.

Ok, after throwing out noise, then what? Look at actual fact claims, as opposed to opinions or coincidences of timing. IOW, things that can be falsifiable. For instance, claims about the Furin cleavage site on the virus. There's actual scientists publishing research around this that can be looked at. So that's something one can actually look into (spoiler, no legitimate research supports the idea that anything here suggests lab manipulation).

It's a bit fractal too. For instance, on the furin cleavage site, diving in there one will again be faced with a lot of noise one must first filter out before getting to actual fact claims one can evaluate.

There's a third, important point -- accepting uncertainty. After doing all that, it's still often the case that there's a lot one simply cannot, and will never, know. And I'd argue that this is the fundamental difference between scientific and conspiracy thinking. Conspiracies are a claim that, in fact, there is ultimately someone, somewhere, who not only knows, but is controlling things, and that with enough work you, the intrepid research, can uncover the schemes. It's a rejection of uncertainty. The world may be controlled by a shadowy conspiracy, but there's a certain comfort in knowing that at least someone is controlling it. And it has its appeal. If the pandemic started as a result of Chinese communists cooking up bioweapons, we have villains to rage against and actions we can take. But if the pandemic is the result of random mutations by something that isn't even really alive, that neither wants to help or hurt us because it simply doesn't care about us at all, that in fact can't even care about us at all -- what are we supposed to do with that? An indifferent universe can be far more terrifying than a hostile one. Better to talk to the face in our toast, right? 
Like  3 Likes

Discussion: What is the best choice — Ipad or Ipad air?

If you have Wi-Fi, your new iPad will transfer the contents of the old one to the new one as long they stay close enough to each other.

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: What does Putin want (and whatabout it)

paulsurovell said:

Brusque 2:

This is fun.

force: to compel by physical, moral or intellectual means

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: What is the best choice — Ipad or Ipad air?

All done! typing this on the ipad air. Got $150 off,  $15 off the pencil, all transferring done while we waited (thank God I had it done for me). Now, to get the hang of it! Was going to buy a case for it, but decided to go on Amazon since Apple’s case is $75!

Like  2 Likes

Discussion: The NYT Spelling Bee Thread

I found the latest one (Wed March 22) fairly easy to get out.

Like  1 Like

Discussion: The Trump Indictments

It's ironic that the payoff to Stormy is now coming back to wreck what the payoff was supposed to prevent in the first place.  Also, if AG demands his extradition and DeSantis denies it, I'm sure DeSantis could play that up as protecting Trump while also going around the country campaigning for himself while Trump is essentially caged up in Florida. In summer.

Like  1 Like

Discussion: The NYT Spelling Bee Thread

jimmurphy said:

Just got QB! Couple of uncommon words.

Me too! Good day to plug away….

Like  1 Like