Hopefully this clarifies things for you a bit, but I am making essentially 3 claims. I’d be happy to know which of these you disagree with, if any.
First, the restate the idea of infohazards as it regards the litany of Tarski, this is a personal litany. It does not apply to making public statements, especially ones that are put in places that people who will be negatively affected by them will likely see them. Otherwise, I might apply the litany to say “If I am going to unconditionally cooperate in this prisoners dilemma, I desire that everyone knows I will unconditionally cooperate in this prisoners dilemma.” This is obviously wrong and dumb.
Second, the claims in the post don’t have the simple relationship with trustworthiness that one might assume, and some of the claims are in fact misleading. These bear further discussion.
Most obviously, blaming the CDC for the FDA and HHS not allowing 3rd party detection kits is somewhere between false and misleading.
In some cases, it’s only clear in retrospect that the CDC got this wrong. Perhaps you think they should do better, but that’s different than saying they are untrustworthy, or not credible.
There is a difference between “these facts make the CDC look bad” and “the CDC is untrustworthy.” As I said elsewhere in comments, a number of points here are in that category.
There are situations where CDC did basically exactly the right thing, and the claim that they are untrustworthy is based on bad analysis. An example is discouraging use of face masks, which is exactly the correct thing for them to encourage given both the limited supply, and the fact that most people who are buying and hoarding them aren’t going to use them correctly. They didn’t even misrepresent the evidence—there really is evidence that community use of face-masks doesn’t help. And even if not, the fact that the CDC makes good public recommendations seems like a really bad reason to encourage people to distrust them.
Other places, they did the right thing, and are being blamed for the fact that things went wrong. For example, distributing testing kits quickly was really important, so they did. The fact that one of the chemicals supplied was no good was detected before the any were used seems like a great reason to think the CDC is doing a good job, both in rushing, and in making sure nothing goes wrong and catching their mistake before the kits started being used.
Third, given that the authors said they realized it might be bad, this should never have been posted without discussion with someone external. Instead, they went ahead and posted it without asking anyone. Lesswrong should have higher standards than this.
Third, given that the authors said they realized it might be bad, this should never have been posted without discussion with someone external.
For example…?
Suppose I’m a Less Wrong member who sometimes makes posts. Suppose I have some thoughts on this whole virus thing and I want to write down those thoughts and post them on Less Wrong.
You’re suggesting that after I write down what I think, but before I publish the post, I should consult with “someone external”.
But with whom? Are you proposing some general guideline for how to determine when a post should go through such consultation, and how to determine with whom to consult, and how to consult with them? If so, please do detail this process. I, for one, haven’t the foggiest idea how I would, in the general case, discern when a to-be-published post of mine needs to be vetted by some external agent, and how to figure out who that should be, etc.
This whole business of having people vet our posts seems like it’s easy to propose in retrospect as a purported unsatisfied criterion of posting a given post, but not so easy to satisfy in prospect. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. In any case, I should like to read your thoughts on the aforesaid guidelines.
(By the way, what assurances of vetting would satisfy you? Suppose the OP had contained a note: “This post has been vetted by X.”. And suppose otherwise the post were unchanged. For what value(s) of X would you now have no quarrel with the post?)
I’m proposing that literally anyone in the EA biosecurity world would have been a good place to start. Almost any of them would either have a response, or have a much better idea of who to ask. Just like for hey, I have an idea for how someone could misuse AI, running the potentially dangerous ideas by almost anyone in AI safety is enough for people to say either “I really wouldn’t worry,” or “maybe ask person Y,” or “Holy shit, no.”
As for what value of X, I’d be happy if basically anyone that had done work in biosecurity was asked. Anyone who signed up for / attended the Catalyst summit, for example. Or anyone who has posted about biosecurity on the EA forum. I know most of them, and on the whole I trust their judgement. Maybe I’m wrong, but in this case, I think most of their judgement would be to say either that it needs to be edited, or that it should probably be checked with someone at Open Phil or FHI before posting, since it’s potentially a bad idea.
Most obviously, blaming the CDC for the FDA and HHS not allowing 3rd party detection kits is somewhere between false and misleading.
Please support this claim. It seems obvious that they shat the bed (don’t know which agency, let god sort them out for now, history and FOIA requests will sort them out in the future). It seems obvious from reading the news that many many local and commercial labs would have been ready with capacity a lot sooner than they are if FDA/CDC/HHS conglomerate got out of the way sooner.
It’s quite plausible that this is due to Trump pressure, history will sort this out, but my estimation of guilt will likely just move from “weasel” to “weak for not resisting”, and the facts remain the same
The CDC is not the same as HHS or the FDA, since they have different staff, are in different locations, and they have different goals (42 USC 6a versus 42 USC 43 and 21 USC).
Given that, I’m not sure why we should trust the CDC more or less because of the actions of the FDA. I’m not sure why this claim needs further support. Note that the CDC has no legal or other authority over what tests non-federal government laboratories can perform. They do have oversight over both certain types of labs from a biosafety standpoint, but that’s mostly irrelevant to allowing them to do tests, and there is no claim that the CDC banned research. And if we are asking the question that this post purports to answer—should we trust the CDC—it makes quite a difference whether the decision being discussed was something they had control over.
… many local and commercial labs would have been ready with capacity a lot sooner than they are if FDA/CDC/HHS conglomerate got out of the way sooner.
If you want to know whether the “FDA/CDC/HHS conglomerate,” should be blamed, I’d ask whether you think they are all the same thing, or whether this question in incoherent. As noted above, they aren’t the same, so I claim the question is mostly incoherent. You might suggest that they are all a part of the same government, so they should be lumped together. I’d suggest that you could ask whether you should trust the “DR_Manhattan/Davidmanheim/Elizabeth, jimrandomh conglomerate” in our judgement about whether to differentiate between these agencies. Clearly, of course, our judgement differs, but we’re all a part of the same web site, so maybe we can all be lumped together. If that doesn’t make sense, good.
All data I’ve seen indicates it was a poorly interplay between the FDA/HHS that caused the CDC to be the only source of tests (because FDA/HHS were the ones with the legal power to do so, and it’s recorded that they used it). It’s included on this list because interacted with decisions the CDC *did* make. I don’t think it’s misleading because we noted which agency did what, and have since edited the section header to make it clear even to skimmers.
It interacted with them, but it’s not clear to me that it interacted in a way that’s relevant to the credibility of the CDC.
The examples are “a list of actions from the CDC that we believe are misleading or otherwise indicative of an underlying problem”, but this isn’t an action from the CDC and it doesn’t obviously indicate a problem at the CDC.
Hopefully this clarifies things for you a bit, but I am making essentially 3 claims. I’d be happy to know which of these you disagree with, if any.
First, the restate the idea of infohazards as it regards the litany of Tarski, this is a personal litany. It does not apply to making public statements, especially ones that are put in places that people who will be negatively affected by them will likely see them. Otherwise, I might apply the litany to say “If I am going to unconditionally cooperate in this prisoners dilemma, I desire that everyone knows I will unconditionally cooperate in this prisoners dilemma.” This is obviously wrong and dumb.
Second, the claims in the post don’t have the simple relationship with trustworthiness that one might assume, and some of the claims are in fact misleading. These bear further discussion.
Most obviously, blaming the CDC for the FDA and HHS not allowing 3rd party detection kits is somewhere between false and misleading.
In some cases, it’s only clear in retrospect that the CDC got this wrong. Perhaps you think they should do better, but that’s different than saying they are untrustworthy, or not credible.
There is a difference between “these facts make the CDC look bad” and “the CDC is untrustworthy.” As I said elsewhere in comments, a number of points here are in that category.
There are situations where CDC did basically exactly the right thing, and the claim that they are untrustworthy is based on bad analysis. An example is discouraging use of face masks, which is exactly the correct thing for them to encourage given both the limited supply, and the fact that most people who are buying and hoarding them aren’t going to use them correctly. They didn’t even misrepresent the evidence—there really is evidence that community use of face-masks doesn’t help. And even if not, the fact that the CDC makes good public recommendations seems like a really bad reason to encourage people to distrust them.
Other places, they did the right thing, and are being blamed for the fact that things went wrong. For example, distributing testing kits quickly was really important, so they did. The fact that one of the chemicals supplied was no good was detected before the any were used seems like a great reason to think the CDC is doing a good job, both in rushing, and in making sure nothing goes wrong and catching their mistake before the kits started being used.
Third, given that the authors said they realized it might be bad, this should never have been posted without discussion with someone external. Instead, they went ahead and posted it without asking anyone. Lesswrong should have higher standards than this.
For example…?
Suppose I’m a Less Wrong member who sometimes makes posts. Suppose I have some thoughts on this whole virus thing and I want to write down those thoughts and post them on Less Wrong.
You’re suggesting that after I write down what I think, but before I publish the post, I should consult with “someone external”.
But with whom? Are you proposing some general guideline for how to determine when a post should go through such consultation, and how to determine with whom to consult, and how to consult with them? If so, please do detail this process. I, for one, haven’t the foggiest idea how I would, in the general case, discern when a to-be-published post of mine needs to be vetted by some external agent, and how to figure out who that should be, etc.
This whole business of having people vet our posts seems like it’s easy to propose in retrospect as a purported unsatisfied criterion of posting a given post, but not so easy to satisfy in prospect. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding you. In any case, I should like to read your thoughts on the aforesaid guidelines.
(By the way, what assurances of vetting would satisfy you? Suppose the OP had contained a note: “This post has been vetted by X.”. And suppose otherwise the post were unchanged. For what value(s) of X would you now have no quarrel with the post?)
I’m proposing that literally anyone in the EA biosecurity world would have been a good place to start. Almost any of them would either have a response, or have a much better idea of who to ask. Just like for hey, I have an idea for how someone could misuse AI, running the potentially dangerous ideas by almost anyone in AI safety is enough for people to say either “I really wouldn’t worry,” or “maybe ask person Y,” or “Holy shit, no.”
As for what value of X, I’d be happy if basically anyone that had done work in biosecurity was asked. Anyone who signed up for / attended the Catalyst summit, for example. Or anyone who has posted about biosecurity on the EA forum. I know most of them, and on the whole I trust their judgement. Maybe I’m wrong, but in this case, I think most of their judgement would be to say either that it needs to be edited, or that it should probably be checked with someone at Open Phil or FHI before posting, since it’s potentially a bad idea.
Please support this claim. It seems obvious that they shat the bed (don’t know which agency, let god sort them out for now, history and FOIA requests will sort them out in the future). It seems obvious from reading the news that many many local and commercial labs would have been ready with capacity a lot sooner than they are if FDA/CDC/HHS conglomerate got out of the way sooner.
It’s quite plausible that this is due to Trump pressure, history will sort this out, but my estimation of guilt will likely just move from “weasel” to “weak for not resisting”, and the facts remain the same
The CDC is not the same as HHS or the FDA, since they have different staff, are in different locations, and they have different goals (42 USC 6a versus 42 USC 43 and 21 USC).
Given that, I’m not sure why we should trust the CDC more or less because of the actions of the FDA. I’m not sure why this claim needs further support. Note that the CDC has no legal or other authority over what tests non-federal government laboratories can perform. They do have oversight over both certain types of labs from a biosafety standpoint, but that’s mostly irrelevant to allowing them to do tests, and there is no claim that the CDC banned research. And if we are asking the question that this post purports to answer—should we trust the CDC—it makes quite a difference whether the decision being discussed was something they had control over.
If you want to know whether the “FDA/CDC/HHS conglomerate,” should be blamed, I’d ask whether you think they are all the same thing, or whether this question in incoherent. As noted above, they aren’t the same, so I claim the question is mostly incoherent. You might suggest that they are all a part of the same government, so they should be lumped together. I’d suggest that you could ask whether you should trust the “DR_Manhattan/Davidmanheim/Elizabeth, jimrandomh conglomerate” in our judgement about whether to differentiate between these agencies. Clearly, of course, our judgement differs, but we’re all a part of the same web site, so maybe we can all be lumped together. If that doesn’t make sense, good.
Ok. To clarify, one of them is to blame. Maybe it’s not the CDC. History will tell.
All data I’ve seen indicates it was a poorly interplay between the FDA/HHS that caused the CDC to be the only source of tests (because FDA/HHS were the ones with the legal power to do so, and it’s recorded that they used it). It’s included on this list because interacted with decisions the CDC *did* make. I don’t think it’s misleading because we noted which agency did what, and have since edited the section header to make it clear even to skimmers.
It interacted with them, but it’s not clear to me that it interacted in a way that’s relevant to the credibility of the CDC.
The examples are “a list of actions from the CDC that we believe are misleading or otherwise indicative of an underlying problem”, but this isn’t an action from the CDC and it doesn’t obviously indicate a problem at the CDC.
Am I missing something?