Being late means that something should have been happening earlier. That’s the basic meaning of the word late.
Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big post about it is that there was an early promising phase in which he dared not say anything about it in public. So far as I can tell, that’s entirely false because (1) Scott didn’t say that he was scared to write about ivermectin in public and (2) Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big post about it is a bunch of propositions about ivermectin, not about Scott’s mental state months ago.
What do you think ‘early phase of “looks promising so far” ’ when it’s not about a early promising phase?
The paragraph from Scott is:
(am I secretly suggesting that we make rationality higher status? Maybe, although rationalists did no better here during the early phase of “looks promising so far” than anyone else, and it was researchers digging into the nitty-gritty of the data who really solved this.)
My reading of “I know I’m two months late here. Everyone’s already made up their mind and moved on to other things.” is that it’s a description about the cultural relevance of the post he is writing. He’s motivating the piece by preempting the reasons that someone might be disinterested; it’s essentially a form of understatement. I read it as more similar to “This topic doesn’t matter in terms of shaping behavior about ivermectin, but it’s interesting nonetheless” than “I should have written this post two months ago”.
Various things that would support your reading that Scott did not post due to social pressure and regrets not expressing himself earlier:
Him explicitly talking about social pressure affecting what he posts about, either in that post or elsewhere (he sometimes talks about how people speculate about his intentions for posting things at certain times, and are almost always wrong).
An indication that he knew whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time. This might be expressed by stating that it is obvious, and was obvious at the outset, that ivermectin is an ineffective therapeutic for people in well developed countries.
Specifically, he might have said something like “I regret not posting this earlier, since the information was all out there and I already knew where I stood on ivermectin as a treatment.”
The main thesis I took out of his post on ivermectin wasn’t even the efficacy of ivermectin, it was reiterating his philosophy of science and describing how to make sense of a published literature with contradictory findings on a particular topic.
An indication that he knew whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time.
Are you saying that Scott wouldn’t write a post on an important debate if the answer is “we don’t know yet”?
The main thesis I took out of his post on ivermectin wasn’t even the efficacy of ivermectin, it was reiterating his philosophy of science and describing how to make sense of a published literature with contradictory findings on a particular topic.
Yes. Given that it seems very strange that you believe that it would require him to be clear whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time to write a post.
Are you saying that Scott wouldn’t write a post on an important debate if the answer is “we don’t know yet”?
Not in the slightest.
Yes. Given that it seems very strange that you believe that it would require him to be clear whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time to write a post.
The things I listed were things that would be evidence of him having sat on an article for a while but being reluctant to post it due to perceived social pressure. Those reasons listed aren’t representative of why I think Scott writes about any particular topic on any particular day.
Yes, the basic literal meaning of the word “late” is that something should have happened earlier. But not all actual uses of it have exactly that meaning, and I think Scott’s use of it at the start of his post is an example.
(I agree with GWS’s reading of Scott’s opening sentence, and also with his examples of the sort of thing Scott might have written if he had actually intended to tell us that he ought to have written a post about ivermectin much sooner and that he hadn’t because he was scared.)
I did not disagree that Scott thought there was an “early promising phase”. What I was asking was where Scott said, as you implied he did, that “the meta-analysis we have points in the direction of ivermectin working” was the state of evidence two months ago. I take your reply as confirming that he did not say that, as I suspected he probably hadn’t.
He does say that rationalists did no better than anyone else. That doesn’t mean that he, personally, believed that there was good evidence that ivermectin is substantially helpful against Covid-19. (Both because “rationalists didn’t do better” and “no individual rationalist did better” are entirely different propositions, and because I was questioning your account of what he said at that point, not your account of what he thought. Though I don’t think much of your account of what he thought either.) Maybe he did believe that, maybe not; I don’t know; but he does not appear to have said that he believed that, and you said that he did. I don’t think you should do that.
(Another thing I don’t think you should do: quote what I wrote with a bunch of important words removed from it, so that it looks as if I said “Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big blog post about it is X” when in fact what I did was to say that you were claiming that and I think you were wrong.)
Being late means that something should have been happening earlier. That’s the basic meaning of the word late.
What do you think ‘early phase of “looks promising so far” ’ when it’s not about a early promising phase?
The paragraph from Scott is:
My reading of “I know I’m two months late here. Everyone’s already made up their mind and moved on to other things.” is that it’s a description about the cultural relevance of the post he is writing. He’s motivating the piece by preempting the reasons that someone might be disinterested; it’s essentially a form of understatement. I read it as more similar to “This topic doesn’t matter in terms of shaping behavior about ivermectin, but it’s interesting nonetheless” than “I should have written this post two months ago”.
How do you think the post would have been written if Scott would have thought that he should have voiced an opinion earlier?
Various things that would support your reading that Scott did not post due to social pressure and regrets not expressing himself earlier:
Him explicitly talking about social pressure affecting what he posts about, either in that post or elsewhere (he sometimes talks about how people speculate about his intentions for posting things at certain times, and are almost always wrong).
An indication that he knew whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time. This might be expressed by stating that it is obvious, and was obvious at the outset, that ivermectin is an ineffective therapeutic for people in well developed countries.
Specifically, he might have said something like “I regret not posting this earlier, since the information was all out there and I already knew where I stood on ivermectin as a treatment.”
The main thesis I took out of his post on ivermectin wasn’t even the efficacy of ivermectin, it was reiterating his philosophy of science and describing how to make sense of a published literature with contradictory findings on a particular topic.
Are you saying that Scott wouldn’t write a post on an important debate if the answer is “we don’t know yet”?
Yes. Given that it seems very strange that you believe that it would require him to be clear whether or not ivermectin was a good/bad therapeutic with high confidence for a prolonged period of time to write a post.
Not in the slightest.
The things I listed were things that would be evidence of him having sat on an article for a while but being reluctant to post it due to perceived social pressure. Those reasons listed aren’t representative of why I think Scott writes about any particular topic on any particular day.
Yes, the basic literal meaning of the word “late” is that something should have happened earlier. But not all actual uses of it have exactly that meaning, and I think Scott’s use of it at the start of his post is an example.
(I agree with GWS’s reading of Scott’s opening sentence, and also with his examples of the sort of thing Scott might have written if he had actually intended to tell us that he ought to have written a post about ivermectin much sooner and that he hadn’t because he was scared.)
I did not disagree that Scott thought there was an “early promising phase”. What I was asking was where Scott said, as you implied he did, that “the meta-analysis we have points in the direction of ivermectin working” was the state of evidence two months ago. I take your reply as confirming that he did not say that, as I suspected he probably hadn’t.
He does say that rationalists did no better than anyone else. That doesn’t mean that he, personally, believed that there was good evidence that ivermectin is substantially helpful against Covid-19. (Both because “rationalists didn’t do better” and “no individual rationalist did better” are entirely different propositions, and because I was questioning your account of what he said at that point, not your account of what he thought. Though I don’t think much of your account of what he thought either.) Maybe he did believe that, maybe not; I don’t know; but he does not appear to have said that he believed that, and you said that he did. I don’t think you should do that.
(Another thing I don’t think you should do: quote what I wrote with a bunch of important words removed from it, so that it looks as if I said “Scott’s position on ivermectin as described in his big blog post about it is X” when in fact what I did was to say that you were claiming that and I think you were wrong.)