I really liked/enjoyed your logic on why you decided to make your own vaccine. You seem like a highly rational guy, and because of that, I find myself curious about your logic on the preceding decision—the decision that you would take a brand-new Covid-19 vaccine, and soon, from, say, Pfizer.
Most people are eager to get that vaccine, but most people are not rationalists. I’m curious about the logic an intelligent and skeptical rationalist used to decide he’d take a new Pfizer vaccine.
I’m curious about how you came to the conclusion that a new vaccine would be way better than general good health and treatment options. And I’m curious about how you came to the conclusion that a new, experimental, lightly tested, approved-only-under-emergency-authorization vaccine from a politically powerful, profit-seeking corporation poses fewer risks to you than a case of Covid-19.
Most people are enthusiastic about the new vaccines. But the enthusiasm in many cases is driven more by a year of wall-to-wall media coverage than by any logical consistency. Many of the millions rushing to get Covid-19 vaccines are not up to date on the CDC’s adult vaccination schedule and do not get flu shots.
Most people don’t even try to distinguish real experts from fake. When it comes to Covid-19, most people unquestioningly accept scientific pronouncements from...politicians and journalists. (And politicians and journalists, however noble their intentions, sometimes can’t help but be influenced by the the pharmaceutical industry’s massive lobbying efforts and massive advertising spend in the news media.)
You, on the other hand, do try to distinguish real experts from fake, and you say you are extremely unusually good at it. And as a rationalist you’re probably much more likely than the average person to understand incentives, follow the money, consult primary scientific sources, and more accurately estimate risks and rewards.
And that’s why I’m curious about your thought process. Even if your thought process was fairly quick, leveraging previous knowledge. I’ve seen plenty of emotional or political or conformist reasons for rushing out to get the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. But I’m interested in the rationalist reasons for doing it.
(Thanks for reading this reply. I know it’s a little long, a little off topic, and tinged with a little cynicism. But I’d love to read any thoughts you care to share about how you made the overall yes/no vaccine decision that preceded your decision to make your own!)
I’ve been putting off answering this, because a proper answer would require diving into a lot of disparate evidence for some background models. But developments over the past few weeks have provided more direct data on the key assumption, so I can now point directly to that evidence rather than going through all the different pieces of weaker prior information.
The key assumption underlying my belief (and, presumably, most other peoples’ belief) in the efficacy of the commercial vaccines is that the data from the clinical trials is basically true and representative. If we believe the data, then the health risks are trivial (compared to COVID), and the effectiveness is decent, and our certainty about these two facts is very high. The vaccines are not “lightly tested” in any epistemically-relevant sense, only relative to the frankly-unnecessary extreme over-testing typically used. (Zvi’s posts frequently provide helpful snapshots of the relevant data/analysis.)
The question which you seem to be interested in is whether the data is trustworthy. The key model here is that, if there were anything even remotely suspicious in there, then regulators and the media would absolutely freak out over it. That’s exactly what we’ve seen over the past few weeks—first with the AZ clotting thing, then with AZ calling their vaccine “79% effective” when the regulators thought it only merited “69 to 74% effective”. The clotting thing in particular is a clear case where there was absolutely no real, important problem, and regulators/media freaked out over it anyway, because they are super-over-sensitive to even the tiniest hint of a problem. That follows directly from their incentives: regulators do not get punished for delaying good vaccines, but if a bad vaccine gets regulatory approval, then there’s a scandal and an Official Investigation and “heads will roll”.
Thank you so much for your great answers.
I have one follow-up question for you.
I really liked/enjoyed your logic on why you decided to make your own vaccine. You seem like a highly rational guy, and because of that, I find myself curious about your logic on the preceding decision—the decision that you would take a brand-new Covid-19 vaccine, and soon, from, say, Pfizer.
Most people are eager to get that vaccine, but most people are not rationalists. I’m curious about the logic an intelligent and skeptical rationalist used to decide he’d take a new Pfizer vaccine.
I’m curious about how you came to the conclusion that a new vaccine would be way better than general good health and treatment options. And I’m curious about how you came to the conclusion that a new, experimental, lightly tested, approved-only-under-emergency-authorization vaccine from a politically powerful, profit-seeking corporation poses fewer risks to you than a case of Covid-19.
Most people are enthusiastic about the new vaccines. But the enthusiasm in many cases is driven more by a year of wall-to-wall media coverage than by any logical consistency. Many of the millions rushing to get Covid-19 vaccines are not up to date on the CDC’s adult vaccination schedule and do not get flu shots.
Most people don’t even try to distinguish real experts from fake. When it comes to Covid-19, most people unquestioningly accept scientific pronouncements from...politicians and journalists. (And politicians and journalists, however noble their intentions, sometimes can’t help but be influenced by the the pharmaceutical industry’s massive lobbying efforts and massive advertising spend in the news media.)
You, on the other hand, do try to distinguish real experts from fake, and you say you are extremely unusually good at it. And as a rationalist you’re probably much more likely than the average person to understand incentives, follow the money, consult primary scientific sources, and more accurately estimate risks and rewards.
And that’s why I’m curious about your thought process. Even if your thought process was fairly quick, leveraging previous knowledge. I’ve seen plenty of emotional or political or conformist reasons for rushing out to get the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine. But I’m interested in the rationalist reasons for doing it.
(Thanks for reading this reply. I know it’s a little long, a little off topic, and tinged with a little cynicism. But I’d love to read any thoughts you care to share about how you made the overall yes/no vaccine decision that preceded your decision to make your own!)
I’ve been putting off answering this, because a proper answer would require diving into a lot of disparate evidence for some background models. But developments over the past few weeks have provided more direct data on the key assumption, so I can now point directly to that evidence rather than going through all the different pieces of weaker prior information.
The key assumption underlying my belief (and, presumably, most other peoples’ belief) in the efficacy of the commercial vaccines is that the data from the clinical trials is basically true and representative. If we believe the data, then the health risks are trivial (compared to COVID), and the effectiveness is decent, and our certainty about these two facts is very high. The vaccines are not “lightly tested” in any epistemically-relevant sense, only relative to the frankly-unnecessary extreme over-testing typically used. (Zvi’s posts frequently provide helpful snapshots of the relevant data/analysis.)
The question which you seem to be interested in is whether the data is trustworthy. The key model here is that, if there were anything even remotely suspicious in there, then regulators and the media would absolutely freak out over it. That’s exactly what we’ve seen over the past few weeks—first with the AZ clotting thing, then with AZ calling their vaccine “79% effective” when the regulators thought it only merited “69 to 74% effective”. The clotting thing in particular is a clear case where there was absolutely no real, important problem, and regulators/media freaked out over it anyway, because they are super-over-sensitive to even the tiniest hint of a problem. That follows directly from their incentives: regulators do not get punished for delaying good vaccines, but if a bad vaccine gets regulatory approval, then there’s a scandal and an Official Investigation and “heads will roll”.