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.
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.