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All of Siebe's Comments + Replies

China Covid Update #1
Siebe1y1

Except that herd immunity isn't really a (permanent) thing; only temporary

1GeneSmith1y
True. It would be interesting to know how much a single (non-fatal) infection reduces the odds of mortality from subsequent infections. My guess is more than a single vaccination, but probably unlikely it can decrease it by as much as a 3-dose mRNA vaccine regiment.
Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y1

I had not seen it, because I don't read this form these days. I can't reply in too much detail but here are some points:

I think it's a decent attempt, but a little biased towards the "statistically clever" estimate. I do agree that many studies are pretty done. However, I've seen good ones that include controls, confirm infection via PCR, are large, and have pre pandemic health data. This was in a Dutch presentation of a data set though, and not clearly reported for some reason. (This is the project, but their data is not publicly available: https://www.li... (read more)

Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y1

Yes, vaccine injury is actually rather common - I've seen a lot of very credible case reports reporting either initiation of symptoms since vaccine (after having been infected), or more often worsening of symptoms. Top long COVID researchers also believe these.

I don't think the data for keto is that strong. Plenty of people with long COVID are trying it with not amazing results.

0superads911y
"I've seen a lot of very credible case reports reporting either initiation of symptoms since vaccine (after having been infected), or more often worsening of symptoms. Top long COVID researchers also believe these." Interesting! "I don't think the data for keto is that strong. Plenty of people with long COVID are trying it with not amazing results." Keto + intermittent fasting + elimination diet + vitamin D3+K2. Often all of these 4 are needed. Which one is more important depends on the chronic disease. For instance, I've heard from EA sources how vitamin D3 supplementation alone has massive success in curing cluster headaches (one of the most painful conditions) where medications have very little success. Or how elimination diet is the deciding factor for some auto-immune diseases. Or how my mom suffered from horrible body pains from years, having seen dozens of doctors, until one told her to go do yoga, and after 6 months all pain was gone and has remained so for the last 15 years. I'm not doubting that many with long COVID might indeed fail even after implementing all 4. But when you're desperate you try everything. Sometimes the cure might be what seems like a trivial lifestyle change - I've seen it a thousand times.
Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y3

The 15% is an upper estimate of people estimating 'some loss' of health, so not everyone would be severely disabled.

Unfortunately, the data isn't great, and I can't produce a robust estimate right now

3Sameerishere1y
FYI,  Alyssa Vance provided additional disability statistics https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4z3FBfmEHmqnz3NEY/long-covid-risk-how-to-maintain-an-up-to-date-risk?commentId=GKmqE9PKXfRSKb5PC [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4z3FBfmEHmqnz3NEY/long-covid-risk-how-to-maintain-an-up-to-date-risk?commentId=GKmqE9PKXfRSKb5PC] which suggest "serious, long-term illness from COVID is pretty unlikely."  Siebe, I would be interested to hear your take on that, since you seem to have a substantially more pessimistic view of this.
Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y1

Uhm, no? I'm quoting you on the middle category, which overlaps with the long category.

Also, there's no need to speculate, because there have been studies linking severity and viral load to increased risk of long COVID. https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00072-1

7DirectedEvolution1y
I see what you mean. The study's criteria, which I didn't quote here, states that the earliest time at which the respondant met any of the conditions for a COVID infection should be counted. I remain confused (not by you, by the UK study)! I don't see myself as speculating, so much as emphasizing that contradictory evidence exists even about the association, not to mention causality.
Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y3

You have far more faith in the rationality of government decision making during novel crises than I do.

Healthcare workers can barely or often not at all with with long covid.

Lowering infection rates, remaining able to work, and not needing to make high demands on the healthcare system seems much better for the economy. This is not an infohazard at all.

Your risk of developing long COVID is probably high
Siebe1y4

Awesome in depth response! Yes, I was hoping this post to serve as an initial alarm bell to look further into, rather than being definitive advice based on a comprehensive literature review.

I can't respond to everything, at least not at once, but here's some:

  • categories of 'at least 12 weeks' and 'at least 1 year' do overlap, right?
  • I think the different waves may have had different underreporting factors, with least underreporting during Delta, so we can't take those rates at face value, and I prefer using estimated cases whenever possible
1DirectedEvolution1y
The wording is “less than 12 weeks” rather than “at least 12 weeks,” so the categories shouldn’t overlap, time wise. Under the theory that omicron is underreported and delta more accurately reported, this bolsters the case for long COVID being linked to disease severity - with the caveat about the percentages not adding to 100% in mind.
Long covid: probably worth avoiding—some considerations
Siebe2y1

See figure 2 of this large scale survey: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/7october2021

"As a proportion of the UK population, prevalence of self-reported long COVID was greatest in people aged 35 to 69 years, females, people living in more deprived areas, those working in health or social care, and those with another activity-limiting health condition or disability"

Long covid: probably worth avoiding—some considerations
Siebe2y6

No, these problems are most probably cause by a lack of oxygen getting through to tissues. There's a large amount of patients reporting these severe symptoms in patients groups, and they're not elderly.

It honestly feels to me like you really want to believe long COVID isn't a big deal somehow.

6johnswentworth2y
It's not that I don't want to believe it, it's that long covid is the sort of thing I'd expect to hear people talk about and publish papers about even in a world where it isn't actually significant, and many of those papers would have statistically-significant positive results even in a world where long covid isn't actually significant. Long covid is a story which has too much memetic fitness independent of its truth value. So I have to apply enough skepticism that I wouldn't believe it in a world where it isn't actually significant. That sounds right for shortness of breath, chest pain, and low oxygen levels. I'm more skeptical that it's driving palpitations, fatigue, joint and muscle pain, brain fog, lack of concentration, forgetfulness, sleep disturbance, and digestive and kidney problems; those sound a lot more like a list of old-age issues.
Long covid: probably worth avoiding—some considerations
Siebe2y6

In addition, we know that 100% of patients with long COVID have microclots, at least in this study: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1205453/v1

Interestingly, they diagnosed patients not via PCR or antibodies, but based on exclusion and symptom diagnosis:

"Patients gave consent to study their blood samples, following clinical examination and/or after filling in the South African Long COVID/PASC registry. Symptoms must have been new and persistent symptoms noted after acute COVID-19. Initial patient diagnosis was the end result of exclusions, only a... (read more)

1johnswentworth2y
This mostly sounds like age-related problems. I do expect generic age-related pathologies to be accelerated by covid (or any other major stressor), but if that's the bulk of what's going on, then I'd say "long covid" is a mischaracterization. It wouldn't be relevant to non-elderly people, and to elderly people it would be effectively the same as any other serious stressor.
Long covid: probably worth avoiding—some considerations
Siebe2y67

That French study is bunk.

Seropositivity is NOT AT ALL a good indicator for having had covid: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article

It is entirely possible that all those patients who believe they had COVID are right.

Some researchers believe absence of antibodies after infection is positively correlated with long covid (I don't have a source).

This study is bunk and it's harmful for adequate treatment of seronegative patients. The psychosomatic narrative has been a lazy answer stifling solid scientific research into illnesses that are not well understood yet.

1EGI1y
Same problem as with Lyme Disease. Weak or no antibody reaction is only good news IF it indicates absence of the pathogene. While this is not unreasonable to assume, it still needs to be demonstrated, preferably over a wide variety of differen tissues.
3Zvi1y
Writing up a Long Covid post and noticed this. Several things even taking study here at face value. Putting this here as a 'preprint' basically to see if there are counterarguments. And regardless, thanks for the link, it should be considered, but I do not think this constitutes bunk. One, everyone with a Ct of about 25 or lower got antibodies, so we're talking about light cases or outright false positives that then didn't get antibodies. And the spike in cases of Ct~37 is weird enough that I suspect something wrong with the PCRs.  Two, this implies that positive antibody test still means Covid (no false positives, only false negatives) so it would take a VERY large correlation with long Covid to have no correlation show up in the final data - keep in mind that Ct<25 still meant full positives later, so the correlation here can't be that big.  Three, we'd basically have to assume that virus count isn't linked to chance of long Covid or this doesn't make any sense, because all the high virus count cases are getting positives anyway. But lots of virus seems like it would be more likely to lead to long Covid because physics? Also from the French paper they use this source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33139419/ [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33139419/] which reports tests have high accuracy and has >10x the sample size of the one linked above. My interpretation of the linked study here is 'sufficiently mild cases sometimes don't generate antibodies but show up on PCR, and/or PCR tests are getting false positives and we should not take Ct>30 very seriously. E.g. from here [https://publichealthproviders.sccgov.org/sites/g/files/exjcpb951/files/Documents/FAQs-CT-values-from-covid-19-PCR-tests.pdf].  The bulk of the issues were in CT values >=32. Anyone have more thoughts? 
4RobertM2y
  I don't see any way in which the results of the French study are incompatible with a 64% true positive rate on "did this person previously have covid".  (Also, a 64% true positive rate is actually decent Bayesian evidence for having had covid, assuming a sufficiently large % of the underlying population has had covid, such that whatever the false positive rate is doesn't cause most/all of your positives to be false positives.)
johnswentworth2y11

Strong upvote, this is great info.

French long COVID study: Belief vs Infection
Siebe2y1

Seropositivity is also not a good indicator for having had covid: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article

Some researchers believe absence of antibodies after infection is positively correlated with long covid (I don't have a source).

This study is bunk and it's harmful for adequate treatment of seronegative treatment.

Being the (Pareto) Best in the World
Siebe4y2

This was very informative!

How would you translate this into a heuristic? And how much do I need to have a secondary skill, rather than finding a partner that has a great complementary skill?

3johnswentworth4y
This ties into Pattern's comment too. Spreading out the skills across people introduces a bunch [https://seekingquestions.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-breakthrough-how-to-part-3.html] of problems [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TqM6sfPuCX7ksjLoj/real-world-coordination-problems-are-usually-information]: * For the sort of problems which lend themselves to breakthroughs in the first place, the key is often one discrete insight. There's no good way to modularize the problem; breaking it up won't help find the key piece. (This is a GEM consequence: if it's modularizable, it's probably already been modularized.) * Group dynamics: Isaac Asimov wrote a great piece [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531911/isaac-asimov-asks-how-do-people-get-new-ideas/] about this. Creative problem-solving requires an exploratory mindset, and you need the right sort of group setup to support that. Also it doesn't scale well with group size. * Translation: different specialties use different jargon, and somebody needs to do the work of translating. Translation can be spread across two people, but that means spending a lot of time on "hey what's the word for a crunchy sweet red fruit that's sort of spherical?" It's much faster if one person knows both languages. * Unknown unknowns: if each person only knows one field well, then there may be a solution in one field for a problem in the other, and neither person even thinks to bring it up. It's tough to know what kinds of things are available in a field you don't know. All that said, obviously working in groups can theoretically leverage scale with less personal cost. Heuristics left as an exercise to the reader.
A case for strategy research: what it is and why we need more of it
Siebe4y9

I am not sure why you believe good strategy research always has infohazards. That's a very strong claim. Strategy research is broader than 'how should we deal with other agents'. Do you think Drexler's Reframing Superintelligence: Comprehensive AI Systems or The Unilateralist's Curse were negative expected value? Because I would classify them as public, good strategy research with a positive expected value.

Are there any specific types of infohazards you're thinking of? (E.g. informing unaligned actors, getting media attention and negative public opinion)

3Jan Kulveit4y
Depends on what you mean by public. While I don't think you can have good public research processes which would not run into infohazards, you can have nonpublic process which produces good public outcomes. I don't think the examples count as something public - e.g. do you see any public discussion leading to CAIS?
A case for strategy research: what it is and why we need more of it
Siebe4y9

I agree with you that #3 seems the most valuable option, and you are correct that we aren't as plugged in - although I am much less plugged in (yet) than the other two authors. I hope to learn more in the future about

  • How much explicit strategy research is actually going on behind close doors, rather than just people talking and sharing implicit models.
  • How much of all potential strategy research should be private, and how much should be public. My current belief is that more strategy research should be public than private, but my understanding of info ha
... (read more)
A case for strategy research: what it is and why we need more of it
Siebe4y1

I'm not sure I understand what Allan is suggesting, but it feels pretty similar to what you're saying. Can you perhaps explain your understanding of how his take differs from yours?

I believe he suggests that there is a large space that contains strategically important information. However, rather than first trying to structure that space and trying to find the questions with the most valuable answers, he suggests that researchers should just try their hand at finding anything of value. Probably for two reasons:

  1. By trying to find anything of value, you
... (read more)