Although Zvi’s overall output is fantastic, I don’t know which specific posts of his should be called timeless, and this is particularly tricky for these valuable but fast-moving weekly Covid posts. When it comes to judging intellectual progress, however, things are maybe a bit easier?
After skimming the post, a few points I noticed were: Besides the headline prediction which did not come to pass, this post also includes lots of themes which have stood the test of time or remained relevant since its publication: e.g. the FDA dragging its feet wrt allowing Covid tests, which is somehow still the case a year later; governments worldwide utterly failing at buying capacity or otherwise incentivizing more production of vaccines or tests; endorsing an analysis that Covid spreads via aerosol transmission; etc.
I do have one outsized nitpick with this essay, however. The headline “We’re F***ed, It’s Over” is alarmist, which is in principle fine given its dire prediction, and might make sense to regular readers of Zvi’s blog. But once such a post is shared more widely, sometimes the only thing a reader sees is the headline, and it seems to me like this headline cannot, and will not, be properly understood by those who do not know who Zvi is, and how he reasons. Even on LW, many people will not read the entirety of such a long essay, and might lack the context to understand the headline.
Regarding that context:
full herd immunity overshoot and game over by mid-July
...
This has counterintuitive implications, both for public policy and for individuals. As always, one’s approach to the pandemic must be to either succeed if one can do so at a cost worth paying, or fail gracefully if one cannot succeed. Thus, one could plausibly either make the case for being even more careful in response, or to folding one’s hand entirely. You can raise, or you can fold, but you can’t play passive and call all bets and hope to go to showdown.
This perspective makes sense. In these terms, the original prediction suggests shifting one’s strategy towards folding or losing gracefully, rather than fighting a losing battle. But that’s because this pandemic was never an x-risk. We could afford to play this game of containing the disease (possibly unfortunately so, as argued in this comment chain), whether we had a realistic shot at victory or not. But game over, in this context, is indeed merely meant as a game loss, by someone who professionally played card games with plenty of variance, and who knows that folding is an entirely valid strategy in such a situation.
But that’s not how I expect most people to interpret that headline? Even now, part of me interprets it as claiming “we’re all going to die”. And if, for example, a sufficient number of x-risk researchers wrote the same headline, that interpretation might be entirely accurate.
In this perspective, there’s only one real game we play, and that game must be won. As one fictional character put it:
There can only be one king upon the chessboard.
There can only be one piece whose value is beyond price.
That piece is not the world, it is the world’s peoples...
While survives any remnant of our kind, that piece is yet in play...
And if that piece be lost, the game ends.
To conclude, I understand that these posts are written at a speed premium, and would not complain about a random sentence like this; but as a headline of a >270-karma post, this is rather suboptimal.
Although Zvi’s overall output is fantastic, I don’t know which specific posts of his should be called timeless, and this is particularly tricky for these valuable but fast-moving weekly Covid posts. When it comes to judging intellectual progress, however, things are maybe a bit easier?
After skimming the post, a few points I noticed were: Besides the headline prediction which did not come to pass, this post also includes lots of themes which have stood the test of time or remained relevant since its publication: e.g. the FDA dragging its feet wrt allowing Covid tests, which is somehow still the case a year later; governments worldwide utterly failing at buying capacity or otherwise incentivizing more production of vaccines or tests; endorsing an analysis that Covid spreads via aerosol transmission; etc.
I do have one outsized nitpick with this essay, however. The headline “We’re F***ed, It’s Over” is alarmist, which is in principle fine given its dire prediction, and might make sense to regular readers of Zvi’s blog. But once such a post is shared more widely, sometimes the only thing a reader sees is the headline, and it seems to me like this headline cannot, and will not, be properly understood by those who do not know who Zvi is, and how he reasons. Even on LW, many people will not read the entirety of such a long essay, and might lack the context to understand the headline.
Regarding that context:
This perspective makes sense. In these terms, the original prediction suggests shifting one’s strategy towards folding or losing gracefully, rather than fighting a losing battle. But that’s because this pandemic was never an x-risk. We could afford to play this game of containing the disease (possibly unfortunately so, as argued in this comment chain), whether we had a realistic shot at victory or not. But game over, in this context, is indeed merely meant as a game loss, by someone who professionally played card games with plenty of variance, and who knows that folding is an entirely valid strategy in such a situation.
But that’s not how I expect most people to interpret that headline? Even now, part of me interprets it as claiming “we’re all going to die”. And if, for example, a sufficient number of x-risk researchers wrote the same headline, that interpretation might be entirely accurate.
In this perspective, there’s only one real game we play, and that game must be won. As one fictional character put it:
To conclude, I understand that these posts are written at a speed premium, and would not complain about a random sentence like this; but as a headline of a >270-karma post, this is rather suboptimal.