nopie
29d ago
Believing ivermectin to be a cure for covid is intellectually lazy. Thanks for helping me to formulate what I meant with that.
But what does it mean to be intellectually dishonest? How is it different from just not being honest?
nopie
29d ago
Thanks, really good numbers.
I think it would be even greater, a lot of civilians would be killed too. And indirect deaths from violent occupation should be counted too.
nopie
29d ago
Most Ukrainians are not in army, it doesn't mean they wouldn't resist if suddenly Russians would appear to take their homes.
A lot of Ukrainians work for army, produce weapons etc. but not actively fighting.
Zelensky saved a lot of Ukrainians lives. Without his actions more deaths would have happened.
I have spent some time studying things outside my professional field, for example, about economics. I am not an expert, far from it, but I am quite confident about some basic principles in economy. I read Noah Smith, Marginal Revolution and some others. Anyone interested can gain a similar level of understanding without studying economics at school, just purely for interest, not too deep and because it is quite important in our society. I started with many false beliefs, but took time to read a lot of things online, and now I can see consensus about these basic principles and how things work. Obviously there are many opinions about certain policies etc., but they do not differ in a fundamental way.
But then there are others who haven't given any thought about things at all but who listen to some populists and immediately form an opinion that they proclaim loudly as irrefutable truth. For example, I have taken interest in Milei, the president in Argentina. His reforms generally are viewed as good and necessary. There is no resistance from mainstream economists. Even World Bank has recommended many things that Milei has undertaken. Milei words usually are stronger than his work but even that can be understood due to Argentina's long stagnation and lack of growth.
But then other people demand that we need Milei in our country (Latvia) because our economy is in tatters. It is not objectively true. There is objectively vast difference between GDP between Argentina and Latvia. For some reason Latvia has experienced significant growth, its GDP has grown about 10 times in the last 30 years. It started below Argentina and overtook it and succeeded while Argentina's GDP during this time has mostly stayed flat. Obviously, the situation is completely different that one needs to provide special arguments why it is similar to Argentina because by all measures it is not.
Maybe some smart people have some insights about corruption, growth retarders etc. But most will simply repeat some slogans they have heard from Milei and others, mix them with some vitriol against “establishment”, Word Forum, Bill Gates or whatever is popular each season. When probed, they will admit that they don't know much, it is probably the first time someone has told them what is Argentina's GDP, how GDP is calculated but definitely know that it is a false measure and should not be used because it only hides the truth which is that everything is bad and the elite should be exposed for their crimes etc.
I am tired discussing with people who only want to proclaim their opinions and don't want to learn.
nopie
29d ago
It is a test if a person is serious and takes at least some time to check if their opinion about something, for example, his beliefs about ivermectin are valid. If I had never known anything about ivermectin, just read something on internet that it is good for covid or that is a poison that kills you, I wouldn't trust it too much, maybe with 5% confidence. If I was asked to provide an opinion, I would do some research, starting from wikipedia, Scott Alexander's article etc. If one cannot bother to do that, why should I listen to his or her opinion about ivermectin and other things?
nopie
29d ago
Ivermectin is a good test how serious the person is. Obviously we all might have different beliefs, some of them will be wrong and others will be correct. I wouldn't disqualify anyone on that. But ivermectin issue is such a low bar that I use it as a filter whether a person takes time to verify his own opinions. I am sorry if it offends some.
nopie
29d ago
I don't know the history well. FUD just means Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. When internet was started (dialling in), everybody thought it will be a revolution but then spammers and FUD started. It can be about anything. It became clear that with open communications it is not easier to get true information as people are not inherently searching for truth but just want to express their opinions.
The great example is ivermectin effectiveness. Why this should be controversial? The story is very simple – we tried many things at the start of pandemic including ivermectin. There were some signals that it could be useful. But more studies were done and the signal disappeared. It happens with a lot of potential medicines. In about 10 prospective treatments only 1 passes final studies and are approved. Everybody can read data and this story. Starting from wikipedia and then Scott Alexander article for deeper interested laypersons. Specialists will simply read original sources. We have no controversy. Even Scott's assertion that it was ivermectin's anti-parasites effect that worked is a stretch and might not be true but I will assume that it is real.
Any information that somehow ivermectin effect is not resolved is FUD. I don't know why people continue bringing it up. Maybe they are really confused, maybe they have poor skills distinguishing real data from garbage, maybe they are propagandists or grifters. I don't care even if they are true believers. It is such a non-issue, not as close to that the earth is round but not that far either.
Obviously, sometimes we have to discuss things that the earth is round or that ivermectin is not effective. Usually with children or some learners. But it is boring to have such discussion in serious forums.
nopie
29d ago
As I said, I rest my case. You will probably ask next why no neutral party investigates ivermectin?
nopie
29d ago
No, it is not. First of all, it is not of the same scale. Not of the same time, and not of the same magnitude either. Details are important.
nopie
29d ago
This is from the section: yes, bad things happened, but elsewhere even worse things happened...
nopie
29d ago
Sorry, I don't engage in obvious falsehoods.
I have so many Kremlin apologists doubting that MH17 happened. I don't have time and energy to respond to all this. It is not very productive use of my time.
Doubting Bucha when we have so much confirmed evidence is pointless. It is what before we used to call FUD at the start of internet. I am that old.
Russians do not slaughter more civilians in Ukraine because they are not able to. That's how powerful Zelensky's defence is.
Obviously, Russia is still very powerful and is able to take over more territory but it is relatively small size.
Not believing that Bucha is reality is like believing that ivermectin is effective in treating covid and covid vaccines are pure poison (instead of not very effective in stopping infection but moderately effective in elderly reducing death and severe outcomes).
It doesn't get worse.
Before invasion in February 2022 certain western leaders offered Zelensky a ride. Basically they told him not to resist to save human lives. The reality was that Ukrainians would have resisted anyway but most probably would have lost. It would have led to terrible retributions from Russia. Think about Bucha multiplied hundreds of times.
Obviously, we cannot with 100% confidence say what would have happened but the idea is that Zelensky saved a lot of lives. Now pacifists are angry with him that he didn't save all lives. A lot of Ukrainians still perished and still dying on the battlefield.
It is a very hard concept for many to accept.
P.S. Unrelated to the war, but the same unwillingness to accept that some deaths will happen anyway let to higher mortality during covid pandemic. Still majority haven't accepted that despite clear data that Sweden fared best of all. They had about the same mortality from covid that the UK or any other western country and yet their excess mortality was practically zero whereas it was very high in the US. Why? The secret was to tolerate some deaths from covid as inevitable. There was no need to call Tegnel a nazi like some politicians did it hastily.
nopie
30d ago
We have gone through this many times. No one stopped Berenson to tell that covid vaccines don't stop infection. It is just that twitter was not the right forum for this. Yet, such limitation (orchestrated by the WH) is 100% of free speech issue.
The same happens here, except that happens in the WH. And even without all these legalistic details, this is simply a case when the WH doesn't want to hear something. Nothing else.
nopie
30d ago
Also, I think that Vance's critique about Europe lacking free speech is overrated. It is true that Europe has some issues. But the US has even bigger issues. During covid pandemic it was twitter and other social networks censured correct scientific information, apparently due to the pressure from the White House. Also, the US had very strict vaccine mandates that were completely unjustified. Even the UK managed to largely avoid them (with some exceptions).
The US probably has even stringer free speech restrictions that Europe but they frame them differently. I am not free speech absolutist and understand that sometimes free speech can be limited and the discussion is more about grey area what is and is not unacceptable. But the US is a leader in social networks and have much greater impact on limiting free speech than Europe, respectively it has more power to restrict and most probably it uses it more than Europe.
nopie
30d ago
I don't understand you. It IS a free speech issue. Yes, if Trump considered it wrong, he could have refused to sign a deal. I am not saying that free speech should free one from consequences. That I can understand. But be so much against Zelensky speaking his mind that you have to thrown him out immediately? It seems to be overreaction and signal that free speech is for me and not for you!
nopie
30d ago
I understand that Trump and Vance may not be high on niceties. They are right that Europe is too stifling, too much limiting freedom of speech. I give them that.
And yet when Zelensky allowed himself to express freely, suddenly it was all outrage and he was quickly thrown out of the White House. We don't see that in Europe where people may be shocked about Trump and Vance and yet remain civilized. And for Zelensky it might even be just a problem of English as a second language which he hasn't mastered well.
So, I don't buy these excuses that it is just the US culture to be more open and direct that European have problem with the US leaders right now. I think that yesterday showed that they were liek petulant children and trying to enforce their pettiness on others. I don't know if it qualifies as cultural revolution but it is revengeful and classless act nevertheless.
nopie
1mo ago
1% of a national budget spending on strong antibiotics, that would terrify me. Clearly that cannot be right.
Obviously costs include much more than cost of drugs but workforce, transportation, storage in Philippines most likely are cheap. Drugs for treating resistant TB are expensive but not that expensive to be 1% of the national budget.
Maybe they are, I don't know. My intuition is that USAID probably spends 5% on medicines and 95% on everything else, salaries to western volunteers, rent etc. that are normal for the US but very high compared to local prices. The local government could probably do it for a fraction of cost.
nopie
2mo ago
Not everybody noticed that Lex's Russian is actually poor. He is a native Russian speaker but his vocabulary is stuck at the level of 11-year-old and is not sufficient for discussing complex and abstract ideas. When speaking Russian, he takes long pauses and uses simple sentences. Somewhere he even mentioned that he is not fluent in Russian.
Zelensky's Russian is much better but clearly he decided against it, apparently he thought that it will not improve his chances to be better accepted by Russian speaking community. He explained that he tried speaking in Russian shortly after invasion in 2022 and no one listened to him. He is probably right. While translation is less effective than direct address, Ukrainian is actually similar sounding to Russian and if a Russian speaking person has a positive attitude towards Zelensky, he will enjoy listening to his Ukrainian (it has some nice sounding vibes) while reading subtitles.
Zelensky is also right – if someone doesn't want to hear, he will not hear what you are saying, regardless which language.
nopie
8mo ago
The narrative is that in a certain sense CrowdStrike fiasco was caused by regulators who promoted its use on the basis that it ensures full security with a single tick in the box. If true, this is an example of regulator failure more than CrowdStrike failure.
Regulators have a duty to ensure that their recommendations are fit for purpose. It also includes evaluation of risks from the accepted solution. When Boeing 737 Max planes were falling from the sky, it was the fault of Boeing because they self-certified any changes. You could argue that the regulators should not have allowed that without proper overview but I would not directly blame the FAA yet because Boeing lied.
However, in case of CrowdStrike it is different because they relied on 3rd party software and that puts more responsibility on the regulators to ensure that CrowdStrike service really works and the remedies are in place when it fails.
Another case of improper regulation is covid vaccine mandates in many countries. In certain conditions vaccine mandates could be justified, for example, in case of a very deadly, fast spreading disease and very good vaccine which is not the case with covid. The regulator failure here is even more apparent because vaccine mandates were introduced after the data about vaccine inefficiency to prevent infection and spread of covid was already published in peer-reviewed journals.
I am not arguing for stronger or more regulations, I am demanding better regulations which fulfil their purpose instead of ticking boxes.
nopie
8mo ago
Ha-ha. Of course you can do that.
But with friends and family, sometimes I tell them how I am doing, what new clothes I have bought and what colour they are. It's a normal talk.
While some of Kamala's recorded speech indeed seems frivolous and unfit for the occasion, I am judging her charitably.
The same critique was directed towards Trump when it was claimed that he suggested drinking bleach etc. He didn't. He was just musing about potential treatments. That wasn't meant to be taken too seriously. But people take seriously everything that the president says, sometimes uncharitably.
You don't need to worry. Ukrainians will not surrender. I give greater chances that they will die out as a nation due to bad demographics than they would be living under Russian government.
Eastern regions are more Russian populated, the language is dialect continuum between Ukrainian and Russian and their loyalties might be more towards Moscow than Kyiv but the rest of Ukraine is strongly nationalistic.
Think about Palestine and Israel, unsolvable problem because Palestinians are imbued with hate towards Jews. They don't care about their own country, only how to harm Israel. That's how bad nationalism works but it is a reality that no one knows how to solve.
Ukraine is similarly 100% imbued with idea that Russians are their oppressors. Except that in this case they really are. Russification worked better during the Soviet times because technically it was an independent republic. I think it even had its own seat at the UN then. The Soviet government was more like a local tragedy (like Trump in America) and not occupation.
Anyone harbouring hopes that if we let Russia win and occupy whole Ukraine thus creating peace and stop people from dying does not know anything about Ukraine. They read dry analysis that doesn't tell what real people in Ukraine feel.
I learned about Ukrainians during my time with Hare Krishnas. When the movement sizzled in the US, it became very popular in Russia and other Soviet countries. Hare Krishnas are very apolitical, their only interest in politics is if the governments will let them do what they want to do – preach, sell books, distribute food, dance on streets etc. For many hinduism is not a religion you can convert to, it is something you are born into. With Hare Krishnas it is that they go deeper and consider that your material body, your family origin is temporary and irrelevant, you are eternal soul and your natural tendency is to be a Hare Krishna. Apparently putting on robes, dancing on streets, changing diet to strictly vegetarian, even leaving the family and practically becoming a monk requires strong determination to throw away previous conceptions and in practice I didn't observe any discrimination due to nationality, race or previous status in this movement. You could criticise them for many things but not for racism.
I was living among many Hare Krishna devotees for several years and the cooperation and trust between them was phenomenal. I have never seen a better community since then. But sometimes we talked about our origins which country we are coming and what traditions we used to practice before. Devotees from Central Asia told me about their islamic practices like ramadan etc. Georgians made hachapuris, their national dish. Ukrainians however mostly told stories about Russians, how they were suffering under their rule (Holodomor), different jokes that put Russians into bad light etc. It didn't create any enmity though. The understanding was that it is all past and nationalistic designations no longer apply to devotees and it seemed they had all overcome this.
But these Hare Krishnas are practically monks. They are not like regular people who still hold these grudges. I could better judge how deep this resentment against Russians goes into Ukrainian psyche because as devotees they became more open, more willing to share these stories, to analyse and discard them as material contamination on their path to spiritual uplifting. But when I had to travel to Lviv, they warned me not to speak Russian on the street because I might get beaten by locals. I speak Russian but not Ukrainian, so it would be better for me to pretend not speaking Russian and use English instead. I spoke Russian anyway and didn't get beaten and they were nice, probably they sensed that I have an accent in Russian.
In short: anybody who thinks that you can ask Ukrainians (Zelensky is irrelevant, any other leader will be required to do the same or will be removed by another maidan) to make peace with Russia, should first show that he can make Palestinians to make peace with Israel. I mean why this is even a problem? Invite them to come to the White House, sign the peace treaty and they live in peace forever, right? Build a high wall between both countries to avoid unintended incursions and everybody is happy. Where is the problem?
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