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PaperclipPerfector  11d ago (text post)   32725 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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I seem to be getting into a bit of a rut with my comments here (I guess I'm frustrated when people display certainty in something that I think is unfounded), but why would a venture fund leader have some premium access to the capital T truth that others do not?

Does your assessment of his accuracy change if, for example, you knew that he had spent 1 minute looking into the issue versus an hour?

Nothing about his tweet implies he looked into this issue in any depth. Maybe there ARE significant benefits that would outweigh the supposed drop in IQ. Maybe other studies found no such IQ drop at all. I have no idea whether this is true, but it seems like an error to dismiss all such claims as completely improbable right off the bat.

I'm not saying it's certainly wrong or a lie or whatever, but taking action based off this tweet seems rather premature

Edit: the report says that fluoride at DOUBLE the recommended limit had this effect. Is it really a scandal that a chemical provided above the recommendations set by health agencies would cause health problems?

Yeah, I believe him more than I do a random kook. He's proven to be intelligent and has a reputation to protect.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that he has access to special sources of truth, or that the government report he linked to is correct. But it does mean that the substance of the tweet is true namely 1) That there actually is a government report and 2) That is shows fluoride leading to a decline in IQs.

the report says that fluoride at DOUBLE the recommended limit had this effect. Is it really a scandal that a chemical provided above the recommendations set by health agencies would cause health problems?

Yes, this is a huge scandal. 1.5ppm, while more than twice the recommended level, is only 40% of the EPA limit.

0.7 = CDC recommendation for dental health

1.5 = Causes lower IQ's

4.0 = EPA limit

So a level of 1.5 is still well below the EPA limit. This could be a crisis on the level of lead paint and leaded gasoline. Imagine if we were putting lead in the water to prevent cavities, and then just assuming that the amount delivered to the consumer was the perfect amount to prevent cavities without causing negative effects. That's seemingly what we are doing here with fluoride.

Doesn't the actual article imply that this could only possibly effect 0.6% of water systems in the US? And even then only to children and pregnant women. And even then the cause is not government addition of fluoride, but rather government failure to remove fluoride below the separately arrived at EPA number?

If 1.5 ppm causes 2-5 points of IQ loss, how much does 0.7 ppm cause?

On the other hand, the benefits of fluoridation appear to be a (poorly studied) 30% reduction in cavities. That seems... minor. Especially given that fluoridated toothpaste exists which would appear to confer all the benefits with none of the downsides.

If 1.5ppm causes 2-5 points of IQ loss, how much does 1000ppm in toothpaste cause?

You're claiming this is a huge scandal on the level of leaded gasoline. Given what the report found, that seems hysterical.

2-5 IQ points are very important. Getting fluoride via toothpaste is superior solution.

He's proven to be intelligent and has a reputation to protect.

Being wrong about this would have zero impact on his reputation. Haters would put another hop in their gish gallop against him. Fanboys would ignore it or find some plausible deniability ("all he did was post a screenshot of a news article!").

Did Andreessen lose credibility when, despite having published "It's Time to Build", he hypocritically implored the city council not to build more housing? No. It is, as they say, already priced in.

So a level of 1.5 is still well below the EPA limit. This could be a crisis on the level of lead paint and leaded gasoline.

Only 0.6% of the population is on a water system with 1.5ppm or more of fluoride. Lead paint this is not.

Imagine if we were putting lead in the water to prevent cavities, and then just assuming that the amount delivered to the consumer was the perfect amount to prevent cavities without causing negative effects.

And water systems with such high levels of fluoride have it not due to fluoridation but due to groundwater with high concentrations of fluoride.

Did Andreessen lose credibility when, despite having published "It's Time to Build", he hypocritically implored the city council not to build more housing? No. It is, as they say, already priced in.

He seems to have lost credibility with you.

Not really. I still think that "It's Time to Build" was largely correct, and I've generally enjoyed listening to his appearances on CWT. If by "lost credibility" you mean I don't take his word about fluoridation, well, he never had it to begin with - that's not what he's for.

If 1.5ppm reduces IQ's by 2-5 points, what is the reduction in IQ's from the recommended level of 0.7? Keep in mind that the recommended level was 1.2 until recently.

Sure the 18 "high quality" studies might be wrong. I don't have a lot of faith in this area of science. But certainly the burden of proof needs to fall on those who would seek to add a chemical to the drinking water.

In any case, it's one thing to have a normalcy bias. I get it, normalcy bias usually points to correct outcomes. But to arrive at correct outcomes we also have to consider things outside the norm. Markets of ideas can't work if everyone just buys an index fund. Aren't you at all curious about this?

If 1.5ppm reduces IQ's by 2-5 points, what is the reduction in IQ's from the recommended level of 0.7? Keep in mind that the recommended level was 1.2 until recently.

The number is between zero and 2-5, assuming no hormesis. Based on Cremieux's arguments here, I lean towards closer to zero.

Markets of ideas can't work if everyone just buys an index fund. Aren't you at all curious about this?

Far be it from me to compel people to buy index funds. Let a thousand flowers bloom. For my part, I'm not convinced that there is a there there at all, and I don't see anyone making any argument that would suggest that the scale of the problem is anywhere near spewing lead from every tailpipe.

There also has to be someone buying puts for the market to function, after all.

It pretty might be that the discovered threshold is depedant on statistical power, maybe there's drop at 0.7 too, just we don't have enough power to detect it

Fair enough, my interest has been peaked after more skimming so I'm going to try to look more into the issue. I admit I am less skeptical now than when I saw your post. There are some governmental reports from my country on the topic as well that I'm going to look through and compare

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