Not Social desireability bias is to blame for binary thinking re safety. I guess most Humans are just naturally not very good to think at continuums especially when it comes to safety. I guess humans are for some reason binary thinkers.
> Compare unfamiliar risks to familiar risks. Start with: How does this risk compare to the risk of driving?
The problem here is that people often have underindexed or overindexed fears relative to actual risks, so they can pick comparisons to support their instincts or, more commonly, to bludgeon their opposition with. If you want to make the risk of driving sound trivial, compare it to the flu. If you want to make it sound severe, compare it to terrorism. Cars are the equivalent of ten 9/11s every year, or half of a rough flu season - dealer's choice.
In principle, it's a good approach, but it requires a starting point of rationality that is hard to reach and would require constant effort just to maintain.
I'm not sure the most ill-formed question concerns the vaccines but was for the basics of human existence: going outside, and being near other people. Both of these have been deemed 'unsafe' officially for long periods of time, and this still informs the behaviour of people today, many for the rest of their lives I imagine.
Your point on the risk/benefit tradeoff of vaccines being very favourable needs to be age adjusted in the manner of your masking maths. What matters is the absolute benefit and because of the extremely low likelihood of serious COVID effects to younger cohorts, the absolute benefit can only ever be minute. Describing this as 'very favourable' seems a stretch in that context.
Amazing that this fairly unremarkable blog post (not that it's bad or wrong, just a fairly basic statement of something I completely agree with so not something I'd otherwise have likely remembered long) ends with a quote I'm going to remember for a long time. I'd perhaps extend it from the family environment and make it an instruction: "Lead with good maths before someone else leads with bad poetry" would make a smashing life motto (I'm British so I can't say "math" without some sort of negative reaction :p)
"For now, all we can honestly say is, “The risk trade-off seems very favorable..."
Where have you been for the last two years? It has been completely obvious for a LONG time that the vaccine's effectiveness goes negative within a few months, and that people are dropping dead by the thousands after taking it. The mRNA vax is a total disaster, and there's no excuse for not realizing that.
Bryan has his math wrong: Covid vaccines are clearly not beneficial for people younger than 65, they're dangerous, especially for athletes who exercise. Even for lean people older than 65, the dangers of the vaccines are higher than the potential benefits.
Part of why people are bad with risk is that our brains don't grasp large/small magnitudes intuitively. (I have a gut feel for the difference between of 25%. I do not have a gut feel for 0.00000025%.) This is exactly why it's important, as you say, to "compare unfamiliar risks to familiar risks".
As someone that does statistics for a living, I long ago realized that if most of my fellows were good at statistics then I would not have the highly compensated career I have. Therefore, I must conclude that they are not good at statistics, and accept this as the inevitable tradeoff for my having a rare talent the market demands.
This makes sense based on evolution. How valuable would statistical talent be in the pre-modern world for increased surviving fertility. Not much. Again, statistics dictates that humans will be bad at statistics.
Not Social desireability bias is to blame for binary thinking re safety. I guess most Humans are just naturally not very good to think at continuums especially when it comes to safety. I guess humans are for some reason binary thinkers.
Is your vaxx-safety reading confined to MR and other such bubblies? My view is very much otherwise.
> Compare unfamiliar risks to familiar risks. Start with: How does this risk compare to the risk of driving?
The problem here is that people often have underindexed or overindexed fears relative to actual risks, so they can pick comparisons to support their instincts or, more commonly, to bludgeon their opposition with. If you want to make the risk of driving sound trivial, compare it to the flu. If you want to make it sound severe, compare it to terrorism. Cars are the equivalent of ten 9/11s every year, or half of a rough flu season - dealer's choice.
In principle, it's a good approach, but it requires a starting point of rationality that is hard to reach and would require constant effort just to maintain.
I'm not sure the most ill-formed question concerns the vaccines but was for the basics of human existence: going outside, and being near other people. Both of these have been deemed 'unsafe' officially for long periods of time, and this still informs the behaviour of people today, many for the rest of their lives I imagine.
Your point on the risk/benefit tradeoff of vaccines being very favourable needs to be age adjusted in the manner of your masking maths. What matters is the absolute benefit and because of the extremely low likelihood of serious COVID effects to younger cohorts, the absolute benefit can only ever be minute. Describing this as 'very favourable' seems a stretch in that context.
Amazing that this fairly unremarkable blog post (not that it's bad or wrong, just a fairly basic statement of something I completely agree with so not something I'd otherwise have likely remembered long) ends with a quote I'm going to remember for a long time. I'd perhaps extend it from the family environment and make it an instruction: "Lead with good maths before someone else leads with bad poetry" would make a smashing life motto (I'm British so I can't say "math" without some sort of negative reaction :p)
There is a lot in that, not only SDB but also pro-authority bias and binary thinking.
I think about this question a lot, especially the probabilistic vs. binary thinking angle.
Deserves extended treatment in your upcoming "Capitalism and Freedom" book!
(False) binaries are also a crude technique of argumentation. Not unlike a lawyer's demanding of a witness testifying, "Answer yes or no."
"For now, all we can honestly say is, “The risk trade-off seems very favorable..."
Where have you been for the last two years? It has been completely obvious for a LONG time that the vaccine's effectiveness goes negative within a few months, and that people are dropping dead by the thousands after taking it. The mRNA vax is a total disaster, and there's no excuse for not realizing that.
Bryan has his math wrong: Covid vaccines are clearly not beneficial for people younger than 65, they're dangerous, especially for athletes who exercise. Even for lean people older than 65, the dangers of the vaccines are higher than the potential benefits.
How would you respond if asked, "are we at a point on the safety curve where is it prudent to take thus-and-such an action?"
Part of why people are bad with risk is that our brains don't grasp large/small magnitudes intuitively. (I have a gut feel for the difference between of 25%. I do not have a gut feel for 0.00000025%.) This is exactly why it's important, as you say, to "compare unfamiliar risks to familiar risks".
As someone that does statistics for a living, I long ago realized that if most of my fellows were good at statistics then I would not have the highly compensated career I have. Therefore, I must conclude that they are not good at statistics, and accept this as the inevitable tradeoff for my having a rare talent the market demands.
This makes sense based on evolution. How valuable would statistical talent be in the pre-modern world for increased surviving fertility. Not much. Again, statistics dictates that humans will be bad at statistics.