[ExI] the science might be wrong

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Thu, 21 Jan 2021 at 09:59, spike jones via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

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> *From:* extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> *On Behalf
> Of *Stathis Papaioannou via extropy-chat
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> >…Suppose there were an epidemic of a more dangerous virus…
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> How much more dangerous and how much more contagious?
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> >… and epidemiologists agree…
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> How many epidemiologists?  Qualifications necessary?
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> >… that lockdowns and other measures to separate people from each other
> would help…
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> How much does it help?  Does it help more than it harms?
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> >… Should we implement those measures or just accept that hundreds of
> millions will die?
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> --
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> Stathis Papaioannou
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> We don’t know that hundreds of millions would die.  That’s the problem.
> We are asked to do these things but no one really knows how these pandemics
> will play out.  There have been over 2 million covid deaths.  How can we
> know something else will cause hundreds of millions?  How many died because
> of lockdowns?  We don’t know.
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> Stathis this question cannot be simplified.  After all this, we still
> don’t know the answers to some very fundamental questions.
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> We can compare states however, such as California and Florida.  They both
> have a lot of international travel, plenty of domestic travel, similar
> climate, similar population demographics, about twice as many people in
> California but those two are perhaps our best test case.
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> California is and has been on lockdowns, schools closed, masks required,
> strict protocols.  Florida ended all that in September.  This is what
> happened.  California has twice the population and three times the new case
> rate:
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> How are these two or more epidemiologists going to resurrect enough
> credibility when they predict hundreds of millions of deaths?
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I don’t want to go into the particulars of the current pandemic. The reason
for my question is that I am concerned that you are saying that EVEN IF
there is good reason to believe that millions of lives will be saved by
compulsory public health measures, these measures should, on principle, not
be taken. Is that right, or is there some level of certainty about the
efficacy of compulsory public health measures that would lead you to say
they should be implemented?

> --
Stathis Papaioannou
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