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methree
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1methree's Shortform
5y
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Luck based medicine: my resentful story of becoming a medical miracle
methree3y185

Wouldn't it be nice if there were a way to at least document random cures? Someone I know used to have problems doctors could not diagnose (lingua geographica was a symptom... one of those things nobody knows much about). Biopsies were made, blood levels were checked, a heroic efforts was put into trying to match the symptoms with something known. They disappeared all at once after a coloscopy, which requires, lo and behold, an intestinal cleansing that seriously disrupts the gut ecosystem. The moment the symptoms disappeared, doctors forgot about the issue. We learned that doctors are there to treat and have no time for research or curiosity. I feel an important bit of information is being left on the table, and it's not their fault, it's the system they are trapped in.

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Signaling Guilt
methree3y13

Or you can choose to subvert the system from the inside, which would justify your being part of it in the first place, which would justify filling out those CVs and striving to get as much influence as possible in order to be more effective at you future plans to make the system less broken. Imagine yourself in a position to hire others and choosing not to fall into the trap. That would be subverting the system for the better, and you won't get there without getting hired first. Some people would find that motivating enough.

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Gene drives: why the wait?
methree3y21

Fair points made, will take them and ponder.

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Gene drives: why the wait?
methree3y0-47

To me, the idea of eliminating an entire species of insect that is part of a complex system sounds reckless. The consequences cannot be predicted and we continue the trend of destroying rather than adapting. Not to mention that DNA is complex in its own right and we cannot predict the consequences of introducing mutations at a faster rate than "nature" has stabilized coping with.

The objective is not to eliminate malaria, really; it's to eliminate the disease that is caused by malaria, for which there are many approaches that do not require messing with large ecosystems, such as improving the resistance of victims or keeping mosquitoes at a distance (heck, if we are determined to introduce mutations, why not add one that causes the mosquitoes to dislike a particular smell, for example, and then make towns smell like that? It would be less destructive, although still subject to the unpredictability of messing with DNA).

(Note that even in the article you share about mosquitoes not being ecologically important there is didn't among the experts)

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Playing with DALL·E 2
methree3y30

I have a suspicion the guidelines are violated because "22" is a bullet caliber... a different number would probably work.

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Playing with DALL·E 2
methree3y10

Hahaha! Of course. Thank you so much for running suggestions. This is what having young children with incredible artistic skills is like.

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Playing with DALL·E 2
methree3y30

Is it ok if I hang the image of "a blog post on less wrong" on my wall? It speaks to my artistic sensibility.

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Playing with DALL·E 2
methree3y100

It makes me wonder what 22 bucks in a glass of COVID look like. It also matches pretty well with my experience with dreams, where written words and letters are always fake even though I "know" what they stand for.

More importantly, what does it produce when you ask it to draw the future (maybe in the style of the 70s)?

Okay, seriously, this is a great way to explore how "common sense" differs between humans and this AI and highlight the risks, visually and viscerally, of relying on a technology that is fundamentally alien to humanity. Images are innocuous, but what happens when you apply AI to other objectives?

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In the very near future the internet will answer all of our questions and that makes me sad
methree3y60

That is a very interesting proposal indeed, a search engine that doesn't return links to existing pages but instead generates them on the fly based on the query and the knowledge it has, like an aunt who just must have an answer to everything, even if it's made up, would be a lot more entertaining and possibly even more useful than existing ones. It would no longer be a search engine, but an answering machine, which certainly fits Google's goal of making knowledge find-able.

Ok, that's not what you meant, but I think it has potential.

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Why do people avoid vaccination?
methree3y20

It is being done, search for inactivated vaccines in https://www.raps.org/news-and-articles/news-articles/2020/3/covid-19-vaccine-tracker . I seem to recall there's a tiny, tiny, tiny chance of some viruses not being inactive, so I don't see an advantage. Also, all the adverse reactions of an mRNA vaccine seem to be related to the configuration of the spike protein they produce because it is very similar to the virus' spike protein, and an inactivated virus vaccine has the actual spike protein, so no gain there either. It is an alternative, though.

Also, there's no "free lunch" in this pandemic: either one accepts the risks associated with infection without a vaccine, or the risks associated with a vaccine, or sacrifices contact with fellow humans. In that calculation, the more information one has, the better off one is. It would be nice to see more funding in personalized recommendations (i.e. better prior determination of someone's propensity to permanent or deadly side effects to the virus'and the vaccine), but making health recommendations is very regulated and carries high liability.

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7A decision tree for vaccinating children against Covid-19, or how to wisely make a monumental decision
3y
12
1methree's Shortform
5y
0