Favorites April 27th 2022: Communism, Parking, and Snake Bites

June 2021, Mountain View

Alex Trembath @atrembath

"If we want to build better societies, the way forward is neither to live as hunter-gatherers nor to bang the drum of a make-believe state of nature. Rather, it is to work with humans as they are, warts and all.” via @mnvrsngh @aeonmag

aeon.coThe idea of primitive communism is as seductive as it is wrong | Aeon EssaysMarx’s idea that societies were naturally egalitarian and communal before farming is widely influential and quite wrong

An absolutely fascinating article, the societies of pre-agricultural societies are so varied, the aspect of avoiding wasted resources was really dark.

Rob Lee @RALee85

Jumping to conclusions too quickly with limited data leaves us vulnerable to analytical fallacies. E.g. is Russia losing many aircraft to MANPADS because MANPADS are very effective? Or are they flying at low altitudes (in MANPADS range) because they're more concerned with Buk-M1?

Using this graphical illustration for its original purpose!

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

An underrated possibility is that China keeps locking places down that don't actually have any Covid, just because of false positives.

Dan Murtaugh @danmurtaugh

A whopping 5 people out of 3.78 million in Chaoyang tested positive on Monday, and now we all get to get tested again today. In the rain. https://t.co/umRBvoEvpR

Even the smallest false positive rate is going to be a problem if you're locking down a city over 5 positives out of millions.

zeynep tufekci @zeynep

My earlier thread on benefits of vaccines for kids (link is mid-thread). It's a pity we went through through the Omicron wave without vaccines for youngest kids. Delaying them even further in the name of "vaccine confidence" is makes absolutely no sense.

zeynep tufekci @zeynep

Study from France: Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children by COVID-19 Vaccination Status. Their tables have no line for fully-vaccinated children in their. Why? Because there wasn’t a single one among the 33 MIS-C cases in that hospital. https://t.co/DOJ2XB6A5F https://t.co/6qyTYiMnLZ

She goes on to say that looking for 50% comparative efficacy against symptomatic infection makes no sense against omicron, adult vaccines don't meet that mark.

Parking Reform Network @Parking_Reform

We know of at least 24 cities in North America which have repealed all of their costly car parking mandates.* It's a growing list with cities of all sizes. * Cities may still have parking requirements for a few specific uses or in special cases.

Don't let anyone tell you that your city is too small to remove parking requirements. Here's the detailed data.

Stefan Schubert @StefanFSchubert

MathiasKB on the cost-effectiveness of interventions vs snake bites, which kills ~100,000 globally per year

forum.effectivealtruism.orgSnakebites kill 100,000 people every year, here’s what you should know - EA ForumWHO estimates between 81,000-138,000 die every year from venomous snakebites. What on earth!? When I first heard this I refused to believe it. How had I managed to call myself an EA for so many years…

From the article, it's a bit over $80 per life year saved to just distribute more antivenom treatments, which is on the high side for effective altruists (also news to me, they aim for interventions at $30-$80). But there's other ideas for new systems to figure out what kind of venom it is which may be much more effective.

Thread

• Short thread regarding Q1 GDP, which looks like it's gonna come in a bit weak, but in part because Q1 2021 was so strong.