For the time being, you can still say "the central dogma of how major outbreaks happen and are contained doesn't seem to fit the facts" and not be declaring your political allegiance to something. But that window is closing. Already I'm getting called a right-winger! (Hail hydra)
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Replying to @Pinboard
I think a lot of qualified epidemiologists *are* trying to find the answer to this question. The people you’re shouting at on Twitter aren’t among them. The only thing you’re going to accomplish by shouting here is to encourage an uninformed political debate.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green
I'm not shouting at anyone. And there's lots of great epidemiologists on Twitter—more every day.pic.twitter.com/r0mCeDDkyD
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Replying to @Pinboard
But my serious question is: what’s the purpose of your exhortation? Is the goal to inspire people to solve the mystery? To be aware that there is a mystery so that they temper their expectations? To convince people that they need a career change? To argue against lockdowns?
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Replying to @matthew_d_green
My stretch goal is to persuade people in the press to cover this mystery. My safety goal is to make other people who have noticed it feel somewhat less alone. The question about tempering expectations I don't understand—if anything, this should raise expectations higher.
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Replying to @Pinboard
I’m not sure what we’ll get from more uninformed coverage and attention except for a heightened political debate. Right now we’re in an environment where everyone will just assign their own pet theory to fit the data.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green @Pinboard
People of my generation had a term for Maciej’s affliction: “lack of Party consciousness”. Also, “political immaturity”.
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Replying to @deadprogrammer @Pinboard
I also don’t want this to become a partisan debate (at least insofar as I can help it). But I can’t help but notice that we have exactly one weapon that works against this virus, and there is a huge contingent who are actively working to put that weapon down.
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Replying to @matthew_d_green @deadprogrammer
If we can figure out why outbreaks don't happen when all the conditions appear to be met, then we will have two weapons. But the first step is paying attention to such incidents, rather than grafting just-so stories onto them after the fact
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Replying to @Pinboard @deadprogrammer
The people who can actually study them *are* paying attention to them. The people you’ll reach with Twitter and the press are just going to reach spurious conclusions. The best case result is that we ignore them, and the worst case is another Wuhan.
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Is it fair to say then that our disagreement is more on the nature of Twitter audiences, and the practical benefits of publicly airing these doubts, than on substance?
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Replying to @Pinboard @deadprogrammer
If you’re just airing your anxieties on Twitter, then I can’t criticize you at all. That’s what this stupid website is for. Insofar as you admit that your [stretch] goal is to inspire more media coverage, my thinking is that maybe you should reconsider. That’s all.
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(And yes: my issue was always with your purpose, not the content of your tweets.)
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