*1969, degrees in business administration and more recently in psychology, 20 years work in hospital management, currently teaching/tutoring statistics
arunto(Arndt Regorz)
He could be referring to:
De Long, J. B., Shleifer, A., Summers, L. H., & Waldmann, R. J. (1990). Noise trader risk in financial markets. Journal of political Economy, 98(4), 703-738. Retrieved from http://www.nccr-finrisk.uzh.ch/media/pdf/DeLongShleiferSummersWaldmann_JPE1990.pdf
From the abstract:
″ The unpredictability of noise traders’ beliefs creates a risk in the price of the asset that deters rational arbitrageurs from aggressively betting against them. As a result, prices can diverge significantly from fundamental values even in the absence of fundamental risk. Moreover, bearing a disproportionate amount of risk that they themselves create enables noise traders to earn a higher expected return than rational investors do.”
(This paper has been quoted 6831 times according to Google Scholar).
For me (52 yrs old) it would actually be quite helpful to know what I should know/look into to keep up with current technologies. What is the current “internet canon” of tools, sites, and programs? And more general: How can I—at any given time—best find out which new things on the internet I should at least superficially learn in order not to be left behind?
Great list, thanks.
I think for 7. there is a possible alternative:
Writing something like “In the case that you would be willing to answer my questions I have included them below this mail” and putting them in at the end of the mail (below the closing of the e-mail).
This could have advantages for both sides:
The recipient can, if they choose, have a short look at the questions and decide based on that whether they want to answer. They don’t run the risk of saying “yes” and then being confronted with a time investment they didn’t want to make once they read the questions in a second mail.
Maybe the questions are interesting for the recipient (increasing the likelihood of them answering).
If the questions are easy to answer and the mail reaches the recipient at a time when he is able and willing to answer them it is not necessary for them to answer the mail and then wait for the questions.
I really like the content of the post, but disagree with its title. I believe a better title would have been:
“Great things are often free or cheap”.
Some examples for better things for that list have been mentioned by other comments. But there is a deeper reason I think the title is quite problematic:
Looking for “the best” seems to me a losing strategy when it comes to quality of life. There is (almost) always something or somewhere else that is better but out of your reach for several reasons (money, distance, time, etc.). If you look for that your experience will be contrasted with a hypothetically even better one, devaluing your own experience.
So, I believe we should not look for “the best”, but we definitely should look for “great”, for experiences that truly enrich our life and, as you rightfully pointed out, in many cases are cheap and easily accessible if we only start looking for them.
I think each soldier looking after himself was the older model some centuries ago, and maybe still is in place in many civil war situations (to the detriment of the civilian population). However, within the current international humanitarian rules of law it seems to be quite difficult to do that.
And for modern maneuver warfare based on fast troop movements I don’t see how soldiers could organize their own supplies.
...with the Baltic states being analogous to Czechoslovakia (which was allies with France, but which was more or less abandoned to Hitler)
I think a key difference is the presence of NATO troops in the Baltic states (NATO Enhanced Forward Presence, Baltic Air Policing). Militarily, those are only a tripwire, but killing US pilots in an attack on the Baltic states seems to me a very dangerous move.
If France and England had had garrisons in Czechoslovakia, then 1938 could have played out quite differently.
Here are the slides for the video:
...that the setting up of the Union Republics of the USSR in 1922 (which included the three Baltic states) involved transferring the territory and “the population of what was historically Russia” to the new states.
The setting up of the SU in 1922 did not include the Baltic states—these were independent states from 1918 until 1940 (and I don’t think that in Monday’s speech Putin contradicted that).
Parties to the Treaty on the Creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922 were only:
- Russian SFSR
- Ukrainian SSR
- Byelorussian SSR
- Transcaucasian SFSR
Apparently, in one important sense this isn’t true: they physically possessed the weapons, but not the capacity to do anything with them.
That’s an important point.
However, I believe that a highly industrialized nation with modern nuclear weapons (but without the launch codes) would have had the capacity to do something with them. Using the weapons grade material (not only the fissible material, also the electronics etc) and using the weapons as prototypes for designing warheads should have had the potential to greatly accelerate a nuclear weapons program.
So, in a way this case is quite similar to Gaddafi’s—not giving up a functional nuclear arsenal (only South Africa has done that up to now, and I don’t think there will be a second case any time soon) but giving up the potential for a nuclear weapons program.
In the U.S, male adolescents die by suicide at a rate five times greater than that of female adolescents, although suicide attempts by females are three times as frequent as those by males. A possible reason for this is the method of attempted suicide for males is typically that of firearm use, with a 78–90% chance of fatality.
The quoted possible reason of more attempted firearm use by male adolescents committing suicide can only be a partial explanation.
Looking at the German figures (where firearms are not widely available) from 2021, absolute numbers of suicides:
under 15: m 12, w 15
15-19: m 118, w 44
20-24: m 223, w 83
25-29: m 268, w 58
and from then on about a 3:1 ratio more or less across the age groups.
Regarding “Reminder that we should be very grateful here in America that we have the right of free speech, for Europeans enjoy no such right.” and Germany:
The basis for the claim made by the German embassy is the following section of the German criminal code (§ 140 StGB—translation by me):
“If one of the unlawful acts specified in section 138 (1) numbers 2 to 4 and 5 last alternative or in section 126 (1) or an unlawful act pursuant to section 176 (1) or to sections 176c and 176d
is rewarded after it has been committed or attempted in a punishable manner, or
is approved in a manner likely to disturb the public peace, publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating a content (Section 11 (3)),
that is punishable by imprisonment for not more than three years or by a fine.”
The acts in section 138 are, e.g., murder, high treason, and relevant here, conducting a war of aggression.
In Germany, the government does not have the right to decide what you can say. But it is true that there are some very specific things that are by law forbidden to say in public (mostly as a result of the crimes committed by Nazi Germany).
Bredford’s new data for Germany are quite interesting. An Rt of 3.2 with widespread mask mandates, compulsory testing for many public situations and something like a partial lockdown for unvaccinated persons (even though the vaccination status may not be that important for the spread of Omicron, locking down any 25%+ of the population should have a meaningful effect) leads me to the following predictions:
1. To stop the spread of Omicron (if that is what one really wants given the costs associated with it) a more or less full lockdown of all nonessential social activities would be necessary (whether that would be sufficient is a different question). − 75%
2. Since the German healthcare system (and those of many other European states) is near the limit of its capacity (primarily because of staffing shortages for intensive care beds), there will be a lockdown in Germany starting before January 15. − 55% (even if 1. were true, Omicron could be significantly less virulent).
3. Given the seasonality of the virus and the US being about 1 month behind Central Europe when it comes to the onset of autumn, the Rt in the US will increase to 4.5 or higher (more in the direction of the Rt in the UK). − 75% (could be lower if the control system kicks in fast).
Maybe I am extrapolating too much from the hospital situation here in parts of Europe (due to Delta’s seasonality, not yet to Omicron) but I think the probability of widely overwhelmed hospitals is still too low with 17%, taken together with your other stated probabilities:
a) 50% Omicron not importantly less virulent than Delta (rephrased statement)
b) 95% Omicron most common strain
c) 65% Omicron with a transmission advantage of more than 100%
If we take that, and in addition,
d) Low vaccination rates in many US states outside of New England (NPR vaccination tracker).
then I would think about 30% is more likely, because the chance of not vaccine protected persons being infected with a virus not importantly less virulent should massively increase given your probabilities. (Actually maybe more than 30%, but the possibility of fast availability of treatment options, e.g. Paxlovid, has to be taken into account).
Regarding the question to what extent a vaccine will be able to prevent infection or primarily reduce the symptoms one of Germany’s leading virologist, Christian Drosten, made some interesting remarks in his regular podcast this week on public radio (own translation with the help of deepl.com):
“Q: Is there also hope for such vaccines, which actually stop the virus completely, because they can elicit an immune response that is the same as in a real natural infection?
Christian Drosten: With the current vaccines that are currently being tested, this will probably not work. We are dealing here with an infection of the mucous membrane, i.e. in the nose and throat and then later in the lungs—or in the bronchial system, which is more likely to be mucous membrane. And the mucous membranes already have their own special local immune system. With the current vaccines, which are more likely to be administered to the muscles, this local immune system is not as easily reached, i.e. not in the special way. There one has more the general immune effect for the whole body, thus for the systemic spread and also for a part of the general immune response. For example the IGA-antibodies, which then already arrive. IGG antibodies also arrive in the lungs, for example, especially in the context of an incipient inflammation. And this is what the current vaccines do, which probably protect against the severe course of the disease rather than against the infection in general. That’s the most important thing we have to do for the time being. There won’t be one vaccine for everyone in the beginning anyway. Of course, we have to provide the people at risk with a vaccine and take away the dangerous course of the disease, so that the virus will then lose this high death rate in the population.
Q: If we want to contain the spreading at the same time or at a later stage with vaccines, then one must directly go to the mucous membranes.
Christian Drosten: You definitely have to. One can perhaps imagine it in such a way, the next generation of the vaccines must also contain that.
...
Q: How we get to the mucous membranes.
Christian Drosten: In general this is what we would like to have, vaccines that protect the mucous membranes. That stimulate the special immune system there, so that in the future someone, if he breathes a whole load of virus into the nose, is not infected at all, thus does not get only a mild infection, but no infection at all. The virus is immediately stopped in the nose. And the good news is that some of the vaccines now being tested already contain that. They would even be able to do that already. There is an interesting study that proves this. But in principle, we have known that for quite some time, because these are vector vaccines. In other words, there are always vaccines that are mediated via a viral vector.
Q: Another carrier virus.
Christian Drosten: Exactly, where there is a carrier virus. Only one component of the SARS2 virus is added to this carrier virus, namely the surface protein. These carrier viruses often have the property that they can penetrate mucous membranes. So there is no need to inject them into the muscle with a syringe. In principle, they can also be put into a nasal spray, and on the mucous membrane, they enter the cells in the nose and develop their effect there. But at the moment we don’t know anything about the side effects and this has to be looked at carefully. So we have to choose the same study order again. For many of these vector vaccines in humans, we do not yet have this mucosal experience, although we actually know from the animal model that this is what they provide.”
I think we should focus a little bit more on the behaviour of the other participants in this game. Coordinating in order not to have a catastrophic event happening is difficult and takes effort. And just hoping that nobody does anything foolish seems to be a strategy doomed to fail in the long run.
Therefore those other participants who took this experiment really seriously might have done much more to prevent this outcome. E.g. forming a small group, announcing that they are dedicated to the front page not being nuked and that everybody seriously thinking about pressing the button should talk about that first. If across the time zones such a group had formed then Chris might have been convinced not to do it.
“What are the multiple worlds with which it is compatible? Which worlds that we previously thought possible have been ruled out by this new information?”
Thanks for spelling it out like this, that is quite helpful for me. Even though the idea behind it was clear to me before, I intend to implement those two specific questions more into my thinking routines.
If Putin used nukes, I would think he would do it with two objectives:
1. Force Ukraine to surrender (or give in to peace conditions in favour of Russia).
2. Stop or reduce foreign weapons supply for Ukraine.For that, the most likely targets for Russian (tactical) nukes would be traffic hubs near the Polish-Ukrainian border (but of course far enough on the Ukrainian side of the border so that it can’t be seen as an attack on a NATO country).
I don’t think it it likely that this would escelate into a US-Russia nuclear exchange (but of course the probability is a bit higher than zero).
That has been a key problem of NATO’s defense posture for many decades: How believable is it that the US will risk complete self destruction to protect the freedom of European countries? And iirc that was one reason during the cold war to switch from “massive retaliation” to “flexible response” as a deterrence doctrine.
As it was then, even now, I think, it is not about assuring the adversary that the US will be involved—there can’t be certainty about that. It is more about changing the probabilities for a US involvement. That is the main reason behind the troop movements to NATO’s eastern border, e.g. US F-35 fighter jets and an infantry batallion. An operation killing American soldiers in combat is massively more risky (and therefore, hopefully, much less likely) than an operation without this risk.
Telling the US “Get out of the Baltic states (even though you have guaranteed their safety), or else” is quite different from “Don’t get into Ukraine, or else”. Furthermore, there are troops in the Baltic states of other NATO countries with nuclear weapons, France and the UK.
There are at least three additional maps on OurWorldInData that maybe partially could explain it:
Trust (1)
(1) Unfortunately those numbers are from 2014. Given the political developments in the UK and in the US more recent data could look different. And “trust in government” would likely be the more relevant data point.
Re: Germany declaring South Africa as country with COVID variant of concern
This declaration has the legal consequence of a travel ban (excluding German citizens, who have to go into quarantine for 14 days).