Regarding point 2, how sure are you? Why are we even trying to disinfect N95 masks if that’s true? I think your point is plausible but the filter technology in these masks isn’t entirely trivial. Most filter materials actually depend on a static electric charge in the polypropylene to filter properly. Does the charge actually release the active virus particles after some time, and then you breathe them in? I have no idea. I was already surprised to find out that masks simply aren’t just a dense material that filters particles, but a bit more complicated.
xarkn
inoculating via the GI tract, which may lead to weaker symptoms than the same load in the respiratory system.
A critical care doctor speculated in the This Week in Virology -podcast that getting the virus gastrointestinally might result in worse outcomes. They had observed that in hospitalized patients, those with GI symptoms tended to have worse outcomes, and one theory for why was that the GI system has the widest surface area for the virus to multiply in before spreading to the rest of the body. I don’t have the expertise to judge how plausible this is.
Personal blogging as self-imposed oppression
Instead of creating new ingroups and outgroups and tribal signifiers for enforcing such, we should focus on careful truth-seeking. Some mythologies and terms that engage our more primal instincts can be useful, like when Scott introduced “Moloch”, but others are much more likely harmful. “Orthodox vs Reform” seems like a purely harmful one, that is only useful for enforcing further division and tribal warfare.
To summarize, in this post Aaronson,
Enforces the idea that AI safety is religion.
Creates new terminology to try and split the field into two ideological groups.
Chooses terminology that paints the other one as “old, conforming, traditional” and the other as, to quote wiktionary, “the change of something that is defective, broken, inefficient or otherwise negative”.
Immediately adopts the tribal framing he has created, and already identifies as “We Reform AI-riskers”, to quote him directly.
This seems like a powerful approach for waging ideological warfare. It is not constructive for truth-seeking.
- Benefits/Risks of Scott Aaronson’s Orthodox/Reform Framing for AI Alignment by 21 Nov 2022 17:47 UTC; 15 points) (EA Forum;
- 21 Nov 2022 18:02 UTC; 1 point) 's comment on Benefits/Risks of Scott Aaronson’s Orthodox/Reform Framing for AI Alignment by (
You are not directly vouching for anyone here, but as a general point I’d like to argue that friendship is a poor predictor of ethical behavior.
It may be tempting to consider positive social experiences and friendship as evidence that someone behaves generally ethically and with high standards, but when dealing with more capable people, it’s not. Maintaining ethical behavior and building trust in low-stakes settings like friendship with few temptations to try and exploit for profit is trivially easy. Especially if you are socially skilled and capable of higher level power games and manipulation. The cutthroat moves are saved exclusively for situations where the profits are large enough.(And a skilled manipulator will rarely engage in obviously cutthroat moves anyways, because the cost of being outed as an unethical cutthroat is high enough to outweight the potential profit of most situations..)
Because you’re someone with influence in the community, anyone with a manipulative bent and any smarts will absolutely give you their best impression. You have more value as an ally, and probably provide few opportunities for direct profit otherwise.
I bought a half-mask and several filters almost two months ago, and it’s definitely easier and safer for my once-per-week shopping trip than a single use mask. I don’t think that it’s a particularly effective general solution though, for the following reasons:
1. All of these are sold out. To make more, you need to manufacture both masks and filters.
2. All the replaceable filters are sold out. The filters need to be sequentially rotated or otherwise disinfected.
3. Wearing one for anything more than 30 minutes is still quite awful.
4. Most of them have exhaust valves which still spread the virus to others.