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gog  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   6433 thread views

Where are the people smarter than us hanging out?

In Paul Fussell’s book on class (I think), he says that people are really worried about differentiating themselves from the class immediately below them, but largely ignorant of the customs and sometimes even existence of the classes above them. When I found SSC, and then The Motte, and stuff like TLP, I was astonished to find a tier of the internet I had had no idea even existed. The quality of discourse here is . . . usually . . . of the kind that “high brow” (by internet standards) websites THINK they are having, but when you see the best stuff here you realize that those clowns are just flattering themselves. My question is, who is rightly saying the same thing about us? Of what intellectual internet class am I ignorant now? Or does onlineness impose some kind of ceiling on things, and the real galaxy brains are at the equivalent of Davos somewhere?

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Too bad he is still endorsing 'flatten the curve' in his banner . That didn't age so well. Shows how even geniuses can fall for wrong beliefs.

What's wrong with "flatten the curve"?

it did not work when the virus is too contagious and mutates too readily

Seemed plausible for the R values we were seeing back then though.

Could you elaborate on that ''flatten the curve'' thing? From what I see mainstream approach to COVID is frowned upon here(with I presume more loose approach favored).

"Flattening the curve" is so obvious mathematically that the only reason Tao might ever put that up is that he wants to signal his "right" opinions. I strongly doubt he has the faintest clue about anything related to Covid policy and the complex game of balancing costs and benefits whilst not trampling on people's "rights" it entails (one might say its an optimization problem). In a sane World a mind like Tao's would have had access to all the information through the most mainstream channels and would have probably contributed a better model than the ones we have. In our world, The MSM spent no little amount of energy hiding the fact that covid mitigation policies might have drawbacks at all to begin with!

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