eillasti

Actually, I missed this one. I agree with you. 

I would edit this into the main post.  I am a programmer, but I missed it. 

Wow, it really, really worked out) I want my prestige points)

The word 'rational' is properly used to talk about cognitive algorithms which systematically promote map-territory correspondences or goal achievement. 

I disagree with the definition "systematically promote map-territory correspondences" because for me it is "maps all the way down", we never ever perceive the territory directly, we perceive and manipulate the world via models (maps). Finding models that work (that enable goal achievement/winning) is the essence of intelligence. "All models are wrong, some are useful". Even if we ge... (read more)

True (Scottish) Rationality is winning. Firstly, whom do we call a rational agent in Economics? It is a utility optimiser given constraints. An agent that makes optimal choices and attains max utility possible, that's basically winning. But real life is more complicated, all agents are computationally constrained and "best case" is not only practically unattainable, it is uncomputable, so we cannot even compare against it. So we talk about doing "better than normally expected", "better than others", etc. When I say "winning" I mean achieving ambitious goal... (read more)

How did you get the implied probabilities from the vanilla option markets? I don't know an obvious way to do it, perhaps the simplest (and wrong) approximation would be to take the BS IV of traded vanillas at the strike price and plug it into binary BS formula? 

Dividing the option price by the current spot or future underlying price is definitely not a correct way to do it.

Snorting peptides directly is hilarious! I should do lines of peptides at the next corona party :)

Theoretically, it shouldn’t cause an immune response, as peptides shouldn’t be immunogenic on their own, that’s why you need chitosan as a delivery mechanism and adjuvant. However, who knows? Was it actually researched and proven that peptides on their own do not cause an immune response no matter how big is the dose and route of administration? I could well imagine that this is simply a theoretical conclusion that was never empirically verified, or that it wa... (read more)

I don't know.

Yes, exactly. "None of us has tested positive using insensitive commercial point-of-care tests"

I haven't. Firstly, there is no proper data, just some bits of evidence. Secondly, yep, I am pretty sure that they would get in trouble if they did anything that looked like a trial, so I assume that they stay on the safe side and well, don't do anything like a trial.

> The radvac vaccine will have serious side effects (i.e. besides stuffy nose for a day) for >50% of people who try it

It should be well below 1%. Firstly, if it were that bad as to cause serious side effects for >50% of people who try it, would the RaDVaC team risk promoting it? Secondly, if it were that bad, wouldn’t we hear bad stories about side effects? Thirdly, getting serious side effects accidentally in >50% cases sounds pretty hard on its own.

> The radvac vaccine induces antibodies detectable in a standard commercial blood test in mo... (read more)

It is always good to have additional data, but this result is totally expected, so I don’t update much based on it. When I’ve discussed the efficiency evidence with RaDVaC team, they mentioned that:
- they have tried commercial tests and didn’t manage to get even one positive result
- they have tried ELISA to measure the blood antibody titers and got some good results (part awesome, part good, part not so good)
- they have tried ELISA to measure the saliva antibodies, there are more of them than in blood samples, but there is no methodology to translate the r... (read more)

You are right. Hedging with a long term future makes it a very targeted bet on "the real economy, especially travel halts in X months" and this is exactly what you can expect from COVID gone bad. You can see if this is priced in by comparing spring and autumn futures prices: March vs September or I would rather say May vs December. I took a look and the market is in backwardation (longer term is cheaper than short term)! The markets expect everything to be fine, it doesn't look like COVID disaster is priced in. 

I would say that it looks like a pretty good trade. Sell May, buy Dec, hold till May expiry (or till the shock is priced in) and then close both. 

You can order online not only peptides, but also the antibodies. So if you get sick, you can theoretically inject yourself an antibody cocktail like the one that Trump received. This is obviously not a medical advice, I haven't even researched it in depth and don't have a plan to do so on my own.

Regarding "how do you verify that it works?", specifically regarding the concerns whether the generated antibodies will bind to the virus and antibody enhanced disease concerns. , Right now there is a $600 test selling online (at a reputable source) that can verify whether the antibodies are neutralizing (=block the virus replication). It tests whether the generated antibodies bind to the RBD (Receptor Binding Domain) of the virus and block it from binding to the ACE2 receptor of the human cell (this is how the virus gets into the cell). It does so in a ex... (read more)

I don't know, this is simply what they state for all peptides and this is what actually took them to deliver.

If you really want to know that it works for sure, challenge trials are not that hard. Of course, you should probably check for immune response (T-cells and antibodies) and do some animal studies before going for a challenge trial. You don't need to infect 200 people at once, you can do one-by-one from a healthy cohort with low infectious dose so that in the worst case it works as variolation. You can get volunteers from https://www.1daysooner.org/. You can do it anonymously. You can pay people in darknet with BTC/Monero for the experiments. You can only r... (read more)

My bad, I forgot about testing for immunity. There are 2 testable types of immunity mentioned in the paper: antibodies and T-cells. They explicitly suggest testing for antibodies before and after. However, they say that it is going to be essentially tricky with their vaccine. Firstly, the biggest effect is expected to come via cellular immunity, not via antibodies, and testing for it is not as easy as for antibodies. Secondly, the biggest effect is expected via mucosal immune system, so even the antibodies testing should be done on a nasal wash and not on ... (read more)