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Humanity Learned Almost Nothing From COVID-19
Zian10d155

trio

I stumbled over the word because there wasn't a definition of the term earlier. I inferred that $1 trio is 1 trillion US dollars.

Is that what you intended?

General theme of the post

Similar sentiments have been shared in the widely-read book The Hot Zone by Richard Preston. The 1994 book guessed that politicians would ignore the topic until it was horribly unavoidable and actively making them drop dead with blood gushing everywhere. I don't recall the exact quote, unfortunately.

Actions

For those who have lost hope in the higher levels of government, consider trying to influence the lower levels of government where you vote is most influential. Many actions don't require "big government". VaccinateCA started with a few volunteers, which is well within the number of people that exist in the department of a city or county government. Monitoring the wastewater in your local sewage plant may not require the water department to get permission from anyone outside the sewage plant's walls. Counting the number of patients with respiratory symptoms can be done with piles of rocks regardless of heap size. And so on.

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romeostevensit's Shortform
Zian10d10

Your description of ambiguous tasks reminds me of wicked problems. I'm familiar with their appearance in the software development process. There, the consensus has settled on some form of iterative development.

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Adele Lopez's Shortform
Zian1mo52

The existing literature (e.g. UpToDate) about psychosis in the general population could be a good source of priors. Or, is it safe to assume that Anna and you are already thoroughly familiar with the literature?

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The US Executive vs Supreme Court Deportations Clash
Zian6mo30

The various extraordinary renditions during the "War on Terror" seem to be an existence proof that the USA is able to act as it pleases in other countries, especially when it is focused on a small number of persons.

I agree that the country is not 100% successful but that does not prevent the nation from trying to act.

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Monastery and Throne
Zian1y-1-2

Of course you should cut corners when you need to get somewhere fast. Ambulances go through red lights!

That is a deeply unfortunate line to see.

Humanity has known for decades that "[most medical calls] don’t dramatically worsen in the course of a very few minutes, and they don’t spread from person to person" (Journal of Emergency Medical Services, 2017).

In the case of red lights and sirens, maybe they made sense before bystander CPR and before we had empirical data. But not now.

The overuse of red lights and sirens doesn't save lives. It ends them.

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Recommendation: reports on the search for missing hiker Bill Ewasko
Zian1y80

I wouldn't call them "common-sense". When a modern-day tragedy (death of a child) is required before "hug a tree and survive" becomes a slogan, it seems safe to say that they are counter-intuitive.

If humans did the right thing by default (e.g. "If you are lost, 'Hug-A-Tree' and stay put."), there would be fewer sad stories.

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LessWrong's (first) album: I Have Been A Good Bing
Zian2y11

Here's another tiny Windows Firefox bug report.

  1. Expand any song.
  2. Hit play.
  3. Collapse the song.

The song keeps playing. Would've expected the music to stop when the video player wasn't visible.

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There is way too much serendipity
Zian2y83

As anecdotal support for "constantly tasting everything", I offer my high school scientific calculator. After one year of 2 hrs per day of chemistry class, its crevices around the display had a permanent collection of precipitate.

I suspect that even without intentionally tasting things, nearly everything in a lab is ingested as an aerosol. It would be unsurprising if months of such exposure led someone to develop a hunch about a molecule.

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Experiments as a Third Alternative
Zian2y10

If you're looking for an experimental protocol, the ADHD MTA trial's protocol looks pretty good.

It is described at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10591283/ and explains in detail how the doctors decided when to try increasing the dosage. It supports evand's assertion that improvement should be noticeable quickly.

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What's the easiest way to make a luminator?
Zian2y20

How much ambient light is there? Is it all from sunlight?

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