Bitcoin can only go as low as $0. Bitcoin could, in theory, go up not only to $100k but to $1 million or more.
I'm confused. In theory, $50k currently invested in VTI could also go to any of those values. Is there something I'm missing about the relative likelihood of different outcomes that would make Bitcoin the more attractive investment? I feel like there's some Econ 101 lesson I'm forgetting here.
There’s no trade, since (as many people reminded me) Metaculus is not a prediction market and you can’t trade on its values, but there’s still a big contradiction with market prices here.
In this case, isn't the trade to just use the info Metaculus provides to inform your trades elsewhere? In a way, that's an advantage of having Metaculus in addition to money-based prediction markets - predictors at money-based vs. points-based prediction markets have different motivations for predicting, so they're likely to be self-selected from different populations and may generate different, complementary predictions. Granted, for any individual question it would be easier to be able to trade directly in the money-based market, but I think there's an overall benefit in having both types available.
Welcome, and thanks for making your first comment!
As a fellow scientist with decades of experience in the industry, I disagree with several of your claims.
First, you will never know if it really works until you run blinded clinical trials against a placebo. This is the only way to tell and that is why it's required for any new drug/vaccine to be launched on the market.
Clinical trials are helpful for understanding whether a drug/vaccine works on the population level. But on the individual level, clinical trials are not the only way to tell. For example, you can just take an antibody test and see if it works.
You can't just take a antibody test and see if it works.
Of course you can.
Even if there were the right antibody tests for these peptides
Anna Czarnota posted an initial protocol here. I haven't tried it, but it seems reasonable and likely to provide useful information about one's level of protection.
but without using rigorous scientific method, there could be many other factors why you could see a response. Like you were exposed already to the virus and didn't know it.
The "rigorous scientific method" is not the only way to generate knowledge that allows individuals to update their priors. But setting that aside, the question of whether one's immune response came from the vaccine or from previous exposure to the virus is not very relevant to one's future decision making. Either way, the antibody test provides information about one's current level of immunity, which one can use to update their risk tolerance and behaviors.
It feels like your comments are aimed at the question, "What is the best vaccine (or vaccines) to approve and mass produce for the general population?" which is a perfectly valid and important question. As things currently stand, this relies on the standard clinical trials/FDA approval process. But this process takes a long time and is prone to all sorts of delays and inefficiencies due to politics and organizational maze behaviors, during which the pandemic continues to spread. Realizing that, the radvac developers and many commenters here have been asking a different question: "What can individuals do now (or in a future pandemic) to mitigate their personal risk of being infected?"
Both questions are important, but the large organizations responsible for developing/approving new vaccines have very different incentives than individuals looking for ways to minimize their own risk of infection.
I think it's just that a few weeks is the going rate for avoiding blame, as Zvi outlined in his posts Asymmetric Justice and Motive Ambiguity.
A politician can choose between two messages that affirm their loyalty: Advocating a beneficial policy, or advocating a useless and wasteful policy. They choose useless, because the motive behind advocating a beneficial policy is ambiguous. Maybe they wanted people to benefit!
Good question. I hadn't defined it in any more detail in my mind. But my basic thought is that someone should be able to build an online presence under a pseudonym (from the beginning, without having revealed their real name publicly like Scott had) as long as they comply with the rules of the communities they choose to join, without legal obligation to declare their real name. I would imagine some exceptions would have to apply (for example, in the case of a legally enforceable warrant) but others, including journalists, would refer to the pseudonym if they wanted to report on such a person.
But of course there could be unintended consequences of this sort of rule that I haven't considered.
Strongly agree with your analysis.
I also think a lesson to take away here is that, assuming we agree pseudonymity is generally considered a desirable option to have available, it falls on us to assert the right to it.
I agree this is an important topic for discussion, and I hope others will continue to weigh in with their thoughts. I'm sure this won't be the last time a journalist writes/is interested in writing an article about this community, and it would be good to coordinate around some norms here.
- Scott was told that the way to get ahead of damaging journalism is to reveal everything they might want to find out. For those of us writing under a pseudonym, should we all just be revealing our real names, and letting friends, family members, and colleagues (where appropriate) know about our connection with SSC and this community?
I'm personally not ready to do that yet. I also feel that revealing it too early would risk some of the positive things I'm trying to do within my community, and I don't want to take that chance.
Agree with John, thank you so much!
Yes, I think we are all in agreement on the topic. On my first reading, seeing the isolated quote between the other two examples of poor vaccine responses made me think this was another example of a poor response, and the quote itself can be interpreted that way if read alone (i.e. We think only vaccinating 75-year-olds is the correct policy, and it's hard but necessary work to enforce it).
The loss of life and health of innocent people who got suckered into a political issue without considering the ramifications?
By now, everyone has had a year to consider the ramifications of their decisions. People are free to make their own choices about the vaccine and their response to covid in general. If they make their choices based on their political affiliation or in-group signaling, so be it.
But with these numbers (death rate, long term health conditions, effectiveness of vaccines) around are you seriously suggesting trying to help them is not cost-effective?
I am seriously suggesting it is not cost-effective for me to try to influence others to get the vaccine. Most of the people I know have either already decided to get the vaccine at their first opportunity, or decided they will never get it. In November/December, as the vaccines were starting to get approved, I had some discussions with my few friends who I thought might be on the fence, but they weren't moved much by my arguments. I don't actually think I know anyone that I could convince at this point.
On a population level, I agree it is worthwhile and most likely cost-effective to continue to encourage people to get vaccinated. But that is almost entirely beyond my ability to influence. And I reject any blame for observing this situation and commenting on it without completely fixing it.
I also strongly upvoted for the same reasons. Very much looking forward to the results of the ELISA mucus test!