It will have been a year in a month and a half. We are currently at 1.33 million deaths. We are not going to have 3.7 million deaths in the next month. For why that won't happen regardless of the amount of policy attention see https://thezvi.wordpress.com/.
I don't follow. I know there won't be 3.7M deaths in a month and a half, I'm arguing that without policies we would be at more than 1.33 million deaths and would plausibly end the year at more than 5M. If you disagree, could you point me to an article instead of the whole zvi website? I have no idea where to look.
We know COVID has a barrier to reinfection, so Covid is very unlikely to "circle the world for years". Also the tobacco deaths are actually going to continue for decades, so this can't be an argument for more marginal attention to Covid.
I didn't say the deaths that would happend at the n'th time around the earth would all be as high. I meant to say that there would be deaths chronically as opposed to just from this year.
Tobacco will be around for decade That's a fair point. But I think you dismiss too easily the possibility for covid to stay around for years. There are still numerous unknown around animal reservoir also. So covid could plausibly, gently circle the earth several times per decade, reinfecting some houmans and infecting younglings etc. I have no competence to judge on this matter but I can't see how that's not to be taken into account.
Do you believe the marginal cost of preventing a Covid death is lower than the marginal cost of preventing a tobacco death? Why or why not?
I am terrible at this but my guess is that there is a diminishing return when trying to reduce tobacco below a certain threshold as (somewhat) opposed to covid where you need more ressources to completely erase it but if you do it's done. Addiction cannot be that "easily" defeated given how diverse our psychiatric profiles are.
You could add the added uncertainty. Covid had all the more reasons to gather lots of attention at its beginning because we had no idea of the possible death rate. Whereas tobacco's risk has been known for a while. We still don't know anything about long term consequences of such an infection. Maybe none, maybe not.
I think most people consider than smokers more or less choose to smoke, whereas covid kills and cripples far more arbitrarilly. This makes it way more of a threat for most people, who "could just decide not to smoke".
Aside from that, can you link to sources as to why only 5 million people would die if no policies or behavior were changed? A death rate of 0.1% out of 5 billion people would be 5 million but
The real problem is assigning values to the different tasks. How valuable is planning out my course schedule for the next year? Evaluating a specific research agenda? Exploring the papers in a new field? Unfortunately, I lack good answers for these questions. I'm vaguely aware that I should have >5 articles published when I enter the job market. But the weightings for quality, quantity, prestige and coherence of these publications are unclear. This is a vital area for further research.
I have been slowly developping my own python app to solve this. I have talked here about this before so let me put the link to my previous comment where I explained this : https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/54Bw7Yxouzdg5KxsF/how-do-you-organise-your-reading?commentId=aGtZWpnn9ecPtQoLp
I am selftaught and terribly bad at estimating what's left to code. I'll probably finish it when my exams make me procrastinate the most.
To sum it up in a few words : It manages a db of entries containing your goals It asks you "which is more important" after picking 2 items It then asks you "which takes most time to complete" It computes ELO score (one for "importance" and one for "length") You do this with enough pairs of entries, you can now rank all your tasks by what is the most important and takes the less time, even if sometimes you can't compare two items the ELO will find a way to converge somewhat, and supposedly fast enough.
The reason my coding is so slow is that I try to make it generalizable for n scores. For example for my movie database : it takes into account importance / length / size of the file. In your situation, you could add a question "what will help me most to become a professor" etc.
This way I watch what's important and short while never fulling my hard drive to the brim.
If there are coders that whish to participate and that are armed with tremendous patience for my lack of skills, I could open the github. If you have any question or recommendation don't hesitate.
What are your opinions on STAR vs majority judgement?
To me, when I was reading about the different voting systems at the time of the last election in my country I recall majority judgement was a very clear winner. So I'm surprised to not see it mentionned here.
Personnaly I don't. I just call some friends individually and organize a serie of 1-1 dinners.
The science youtuber behind the channel "the thought emporium" and "the taste emporium" has an interesting take on this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8djjv5ovMNo at 25 seconds. Basically he makes a cake outside of his skill set, spends the whole day on it and give it to his friends.
If he's sentence was 1 word away from right to super wrong I still think it's terribly unprofessional.
In any case, he should know that the sentence is absolutely critical. He should have made three setences in a row to clarify just in case, because if he missed the word "dying" from your sentence the consequences are enormous.
Disclaimer : I have not read studies on zinc and covid, and barely some with zinc and flu. My answer assumes that the consensus is that zinc shortens and reduces the severity of the common cold. Also that zinc and covid-19 are not studied
Traditionally, the medical field doesn't put much energy into studying what self care is effective. It's rather a field that does it best to outlaw self care.
I think "outlaw" is an exagerration, I would rather say "cautions against".
From what we know about Zinc lozenges and the flu, they have to be taken at symptoms onset to be effective, so the assumption that the same is true for COVID-19 is not farfetched.
Indeed it is not farfetched to imagine that zinc could have something to do with the immune reaction to viruses. But it is definitely not enough for me to take some.
First random example. Imagine taking zinc increases your immunity to the virus, great. Or is it? I have no idea, because that could also imply that it increases the immune reaction against the virus, causing more damage to the body than the virus itself. That would not occur in common cold studies but would for COVID-19.
Other example : if having zinc at the right place and at the right moment would be a total winner virus-wise, that doesn't mean that maybe taking zinc supplements too early or late might downregulate some zinc pathways, hindering your immune response. I don't know them but I guess there is at least one feedback loop in the zinc absorption cycle and disturbing it could lessen the immunity somehow.
My point is : we don't know. There seems to be evidence that zinc could have something to do with viral response, but that doesn't mean it helps it. Or if it does for the common cold : that doesn't mean that it works in the same way for a virus that is not even related and doesn't kill the same way.
In my opinion, this is why the medical field urges caution towards self care.
(And the fact that if you say zinc could help again covid you know you will have 500 people taking 3 times the lethal dose out of sheer darwinism, so you wait for proper studies.)
Good point. It was indeed not clear but I meant "known" not as in "by everyone" but rather more by its occurence in my readings, which are more technical and rigorous than mainstream media. (I am in the medical field)
That's right, my reasonning was flawed. Thank you!
Regarding the fact that you forget quicker than usual. Why not using the deck settings like lowering the interval modifier + adding a 6 month limit ? Or just lowering the starting ease.