CraigMichael

Karma: 539

CraigMichael 17 Jan 2022 21:51 UTC
1 point
on: Polymarket Covid-19 1/17/2022
I have some market noob questions — please feel free to point me to existing documentation if that’s more efficient.

How do you get the 68k liquidity from the Nate Silver question? Is it a multiple of the volume, for example?

I’m still unclear on the relationships between Briar score, resolution, and payout… there’s probably also a fourth thing here that has a name but I’m not sure what it’s called. Maybe “bet form.” I see on metaculus I can sometimes bet a number and other times a distribution. It seems like polymarket “merges” this by letting you bet several points (3-5) on a distribution in non-Boolean cases. First, is that a correct way to think about it?

Then, once it’s resolve how is the “correct” distribution assigned to a prediction? Meaning, if I bet high or low relative to a point, how does the realized outcome determine how close or far away I was? Does it assume a normal distribution with some values from the outcome, for example?

Take the “Will there be a variant that overtakes Omicron in the US by …?” Question. Let’s pretend (this is entirely hypothetical!!!) that I know there’s a Bond villain with a new variant that he can air drop over larger cities in the US on January 25th. But if James Bond stops him,, the villain’s airdrop won’t occur. The probability of Bond succeeding is 10%. So, I know there should be more of a peak near February 1st in a “true” probability distribution. But, if Bond succeeds, then everything looks more normal…. That’s probably a long way of asking, but I’m assuming Briar scores can’t account for scenarios like these. Like it would “punish” you in this circumstance?

Then, more straightforwardly, how to you go from Brair score to amount won or lost for a given bet?

CraigMichael 14 Jan 2022 11:14 UTC
1 point
in reply to: simon’s comment on: Omicron Post #14

it does reduce the average number of sequential infections each lineage experiences before the disease burns out

Does it, though? As a thought experiment say we just let just let A.1 rip. No lockdowns, no nothing. It burns though the world some number of months, say 3-4.

Would we not see lineages evolve in that time? There would likely be more replications in that scenarios than in the approach we’ve taken now. So maybe I can imagine there’s reason to think we’d see more linages in that scenario than we do now.

CraigMichael 14 Jan 2022 11:02 UTC
1 point
on: Omicron Post #14
Since it’s not mentioned elsewhere, there’s a good article from the Skeptical Cardiologist on paxlovid drug interactions. A lengthy quote:

https://theskepticalcardiologist.com/2022/01/07/the-new-covid-19-pill-paxlovid-interacts-with-many-medications-cardiac-patients-take-note/

Patients with hypertension, coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, and hyperlipidemia should pay close attention to what follows if they are considering starting the drug as they likely will need to stop or modify their cardiac medications and monitor their blood pressure and heart rates closely while taking it.

Paxlovid contains ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir.

Ritonavir has long been used to increase the levels of anti-HIV medications by strongly inhibiting the cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A system which metabolizes many cardiac (and non-cardiac) drugs including nirmatrelvir, the active anti-SARS-CoV2 antiviral.

The EUA for Paxlovid makes it clear how important it is for patients and physicians to be aware of these powerful drug interactions:

Clinicians who are not experienced in prescribing ritonavir-boosted drugs should refer to resources such as the EUA fact sheet for ritonavir-boosted nirmatrelvir (Paxlovid) and the Liverpool COVID-19 Drug Interactions website for additional guidance. Consultation with an expert (e.g., clinical pharmacist, HIV specialist, and/or the patient’s specialist provider[s], if applicable) should also be considered.

CraigMichael 12 Jan 2022 9:52 UTC
1 point
on: Resist the Happy Death Spiral
I just want to call these two paragraphs out as truly exceptional.

The happy death spiral is only an emotional problem because of a perceptual problem, the halo effect, that makes us more likely to accept future positive claims once we’ve accepted an initial positive claim. We can’t get rid of this effect just by wishing; it will probably always influence us a little. But we can manage to slow down, stop, consider each additional nice claim as an additional burdensome detail, and focus on the specific points of the claim apart from its positiveness.

What if a specific nice claim “can’t be disproven” but there are arguments “both for and against” it? Actually these are words to be wary of in general, because often this is what people say when they’re rehearsing the evidence or avoiding the real weak points. Given the danger of the happy death spiral, it makes sense to try to avoid being happy about unsettled claims—to avoid making them into a source of yet more positive affect about something you liked already.

The Happy Death Spiral is a very really thing still 14 years later. In the past I’ve heard similar behaviors called “True Believer Syndrome.” But I can spot many times in my past when an initial positive feeling about something made me too eager to believe other claims in it’s orbit.

CraigMichael 11 Jan 2022 17:29 UTC
1 point
on: Covid 1/6/22: The Blip
Zvi—also usually you would post the data from the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. Which I think lives (or lived) around here somewhere? https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
It doesn’t load for me. Did you stop posting because of the same issue?

CraigMichael 7 Jan 2022 8:09 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Steven Shafer’s comment on: Omicron: My Current Model
I think no one is denying that good people with good intentions and ethics work at the FDA and CDC.

But I’m not sure where to go with that? Support them no matter what? What incentive would they have to improve if we took that approach?

Hopefully the kind of criticism here is valuable feedback about how their policies are playing out in the real world, even if it’s not optimized for charitability. There’s a lot of people with relevant experience and perspectives that feel unheard here, Tara Haelle (Zvi mentions elsewhere) is one excellent example. https://twitter.com/tarahaelle/status/1478531929351860225?s=20

CraigMichael 7 Jan 2022 7:54 UTC
3 points
in reply to: tkpwaeub’s comment on: Covid 1/6/22: The Blip
This is a good point. I don’t know if it’s changed with the variants, but believe that’s is unlikely as the mechanisms speculated were related to men having more ACE2 receptors.

CraigMichael 7 Jan 2022 3:15 UTC
1 point
on: An Observation of Vavilov Day
Would join this if there was a Front Range 25th gathering.
the part of my brain that allows me to make moral trade-offs at my own expense
I can relate to this. I wonder if there is a pinpointed system in the brain that’s responsible for it?

CraigMichael 6 Jan 2022 22:55 UTC
5 points
in reply to: Daniel S’s comment on: Covid 1/6/22: The Blip
I’m still finding these very useful at their current frequency.

EDIT: I should add, much of what I’m getting here is learning to appreciate the way Zvi thinks and his Not Covid section this time around was pretty good.

The silver-lining of the pandemic for me is that my epistemic reasoning has improved substantially, and I have a renewed appreciation for good science communication.

This is a real word scenario where we all have skin in the game and decisions have consequences. It’s an island of learning opportunities in a sea of dystopian tragedy, yes. But I really enjoy the visits to the island a few days a week. It’s at least a break from treading water in the sea.

CraigMichael 6 Jan 2022 22:50 UTC
6 points
on: Covid 1/6/22: The Blip

Zeynep’s First Law

Can we start calling these Observations or Razors or something, but not Laws?

Usually people are like “ohh, well we mean ‘Law’ like Murphy’s Law not like thermodynamics.” But that cheapens something like this which is meant to be taken more seriously than “Murphy’s Law.”

During the height of the Gender Wars, “Briffault’s Law” was often rebutted by pointing out (1) the context it occurred in was an observation and (2) was not specifically about humans (although it was implied it could scale to them). This first bit of this rebuttal is only possible because the strength of the observation was either overstated as a “Law” (e.g. thermodynamics) in one context or understated in another (e.g. Murphy).

(I scanned Briffault’s book where he wrote the observation several years ago if you want to verify: https://archive.org/details/TheMothersTheMatriarchalTheoryOfSocialOriginsImages )

So much of the value in what could be a more valuable observation was lost because “we” obfuscated it by calling it a ‘Law’ when it wasn’t that in either sense. Let’s stop making this mistake.

So, I propose we call this: Zeynep’s First Razor

CraigMichael 5 Jan 2022 2:09 UTC
1 point
on: Omicron Post #12
I basically agree with Rachel Thomas on everything, but I think she’s overestimating the risk of long Covid and hire much we can realistically do at this point to stop Omicron.

Would also like to see fluvoxamine mentioned along with paxlovid.

CraigMichael 5 Jan 2022 1:58 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Peter S’s comment on: Omicron Post #12
So the idea is the boosted/double-vaxxed risk-compensate with their behavior to an extent that they’re at more risk than, perhaps, a more isolated unvaccinated person?

CraigMichael 2 Jan 2022 11:32 UTC
1 point
in reply to: Zvi’s comment on: Omicron Post #11
Ah! That makes sense now, thank you!

CraigMichael 1 Jan 2022 10:20 UTC
3 points
on: Omicron Post #11
Hey—it’s been a minute since Statistics. Can someone explain the 1.17, 2.61, 3.66 to me? It seems like boosted sample and “fully vaccinated” we’re more susceptible to Omicron but contradicts other summaries. What am I missing? Feel free to link to whatever topic I’m missing here.

CraigMichael 1 Jan 2022 10:14 UTC
3 points
in reply to: Zvi’s comment on: Omicron Post #11
CU Boulder alerted today that this is the case.

CraigMichael 1 Jan 2022 8:31 UTC
18 points
on: Covid 12/30: Infinity War
Wow. Jordan Peterson joins the ranks with Bret Weinstein of people who had their brains and imaginations scrambled during this culture war battle. I don’t want to be too harsh about it, we’ve all been there at some point, but it’s really really hard to watch.

CraigMichael 1 Jan 2022 1:38 UTC
1 point
on: Personal Response to Omicron
My friendly amendment here is I’m ready to go back to normal once there’s a lot of paxlovid, fluvoxamine, etc in circulation. Then, with vaccination and treatment, it’s basically the flu by my guess.

CraigMichael 29 Dec 2021 22:08 UTC
2 points
on: CDC Changes Isolation Guidelines

the results are often inaccurateat

(sic)?

CraigMichael 29 Dec 2021 5:26 UTC
2 points
in reply to: Razied’s comment on: Omicron: My Current Model

I heard David Friedberg on the all-in podcast mention that he was pretty nervous about it because the drug messed with some pretty fundamental biological machinery…

Just heard that episode today and was thinking the samething. The scuttlebutt I’ve heard elsewhere is that paxlovid has several mechanisms to prevent viral replication. One of those mechanisms is similar to an HIV medication that has some known contraindications. OTOH HIV meds you take for life, Paxlovid you take for a few weeks. So my guess is that in the given the timespan you’re taking it, the risk is much lower.

CraigMichael 29 Dec 2021 5:17 UTC
3 points
in reply to: philh’s comment on: Omicron: My Current Model
It’s thought that it applies to coronaviruses in general.