YARROW: Boy, one would have to be a complete moron to think that COVID-19 would not be a big deal as late as Feb 28 2020, i.e. something that would imminently upend life-as-usual. At this point had China locked down long ago, and even Italy had started locking down. Cases in the USA were going up and up, especially when you correct for the (tiny) amount of testing they were doing. The prepper community had certainly noticed, and was out in force buying out masks and such. Many public health authorities were also sounding alarms. What kind of complete moron would not see what’s happening here? Why is lesswrong patting themselves on the back for noticing something so glaringly obvious?
MY REPLY: Yes!! Yes, this is true!! Yes, you would have to be a complete moron to not make this inference!! …But man, by that definition, there sure were an awful lot of complete morons around, i.e. most everyone. LessWrong deserves credit for rising WAY above the incredibly dismal standards set by the public-at-large in the English-speaking world, even if they didn’t particularly surpass the higher standards of many virologists, preppers, etc.
My personal experience: As someone living in normie society in Massachusetts USA but reading lesswrong and related, I was crystal clear that everything about my life was about to wrenchingly change, weeks before any of my friends or coworkers were. And they were very weirded out by my insistence on this. Some were in outright denial (e.g. “COVID = anti-Chinese racism” was a very popular take well into February, maybe even into March, and certainly the “flu kills far more than COVID” take was widespread in early March, e.g. Anderson Cooper). Others were just thinking about things in far-mode; COVID was a thing that people argued about in the news, not a real-world thing that could or should affect one’s actual day-to-day life and decisions. “They can’t possibly shut down schools, that’s crazy”, a close family member told me days before they did.
Dominic Cummings cited seeing the smoke as being very influential in jolting him to action (and thus impacting UK COVID policy), see screenshot here, which implies that this essay said something that he (and others at the tip-top of the UK gov’t) did not already see as obvious at the time.
A funny example that sticks in my memory is a tweet by Eliezer from March 11 2020. Trump had just tweeted:
So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!
Eliezer quote-tweeted that, with the commentary:
9/11 happens, and nobody puts that number into the context of car crash deaths before turning the US into a security state and invading Iraq. Nobody contextualizes school shootings. But the ONE goddamn time the disaster is a straight line on a log chart, THAT’S when… [quote-tweet Trump]
We’re in Nerd Hell, lads and ladies and others. We’re in a universe that was specifically designed to maximally annoy numerate people. This is like watching a stopped clock, waiting for it to be right, and just as the clock almost actually is right, the clock hands fall off.
YARROW: Boy, one would have to be a complete moron to think that COVID-19 would not be a big deal as late as Feb 28 2020, i.e. something that would imminently upend life-as-usual. … What kind of complete moron would not see what’s happening here? Why is lesswrong patting themselves on the back for noticing something so glaringly obvious?
Not at all accurate. That’s not what I’m saying at all. It was a situation of high uncertainty, and the appropriate response was to be at least somewhat unsure, if not very unsure — yes, take precautions, think about it, learn about it, follow the public health advice. But I don’t think on February 28 anyone knew for sure what would happen, as opposed to made an uncertain call that turned out to be correct. The February 28 post I cite gives that sort of uncertain, precautionary advice, and I think it’s more or less reasonable advice — just a general ‘do some research, be prepared’ sort of thing.
It’s just that the post goes so far in patting itself on the back for being way ahead on this, when if someone in the LessWrong community had just posted about the CDC’s warning on the same day it was issued or had posted about it when San Francisco declared a public health emergency, or had made post noting that the S&P 500 had just fallen 7.5% and maybe that is a reason to be concerned, that would have put the first urgent warning about the pandemic a few days ahead of the February 28 post.
The takeaway of that post, and the takeaway of people who congratulate the LessWrong community on calling covid early, is that this is evidence that reading Yudkowsky’s Sequences or LessWrong posts or whatever promotes superior rationality, and is a vindication of the community’s beliefs. But that is the wrong conclusion to draw if something like 10-80% of the overall North American population (these figures are loosely based on polling cited in another comment) was at least equally concerned about covid-19 at least as early. 99.999% of the millions of people who were as concerned or more as early or earlier than the LessWrong community haven’t read the Sequences and don’t know what LessWrong is. A strategy that would have worked better than reading the Sequences or LessWrong posts is: just listen to what the CDC is saying and what state and local public health authorities are saying.
It’s ridiculous to draw the conclusion that this a vindication of LessWrong’s approach.
Dominic Cummings cited seeing the smoke as being very influential in jolting him to action (and thus impacting UK COVID policy), see screenshot here.
I don’t see this as a recommendation for LessWrong, although it sure is an interesting historical footnote. Dominic Cummings doesn’t appear to be a credible person on covid-19. For example, in November 2024 he posted a long, conspiratorial tweet which included:
”The Fauci network should be rolled up & retired en masse with some JAILED. And their media supporters—i.e most of the old media—driven out of business.”
The core problem there is not that he hasn’t read LessWrong enough. (Indeed, reading LessWrong might make a person more likely to believe such things, if anything.)
Incidentally, Cummings also had a scandal in the UK around allegations that he inappropriately violated the covid-19 lockdown and subsequently wasn’t honest about it.
My personal experience: As someone living in normie society in Massachusetts USA but reading lesswrong and related, I was crystal clear that everything about my life was about to wrenchingly change, weeks before any of my friends or coworkers were. And they were very weirded out by my insistence on this.
Tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people in North America had experiences similar to this. The level of alarm spread across the population gradually from around mid-January to mid-March 2020, so at any given time, there were a large number of people who were much more concerned than another large number of people.
I tried to convince my friends to take covid more seriously a few days before the WHO proclamation, the U.S. state of emergency declaration, and all the rest made it evident to them that it was time to worry. I don’t think I’m a genius for this — in fact, they were probably right to wait for more convincing evidence. If we were to re-run the experiment 10 times or 100 times, their approach might prove superior to mine. I don’t know.
A funny example that sticks in my memory is a tweet by Eliezer from March 11 2020. Trump had just tweeted:
This is ridiculous. Do you think these sort of snipes are at all unique to Eliezer Yudkowsky? Turn on Rachel Maddow or listen to Pod Save America, or follow any number of educated liberals (especially those with relevant expertise or journalists who cover science and medicine) on Twitter and you would see this kind of stuff all the time. It’s not an insight unique to Yudkowsky that Donald Trump says ridiculous and dangerous things about covid or many other topics.
My gloss on this situation is:
YARROW: Boy, one would have to be a complete moron to think that COVID-19 would not be a big deal as late as Feb 28 2020, i.e. something that would imminently upend life-as-usual. At this point had China locked down long ago, and even Italy had started locking down. Cases in the USA were going up and up, especially when you correct for the (tiny) amount of testing they were doing. The prepper community had certainly noticed, and was out in force buying out masks and such. Many public health authorities were also sounding alarms. What kind of complete moron would not see what’s happening here? Why is lesswrong patting themselves on the back for noticing something so glaringly obvious?
MY REPLY: Yes!! Yes, this is true!! Yes, you would have to be a complete moron to not make this inference!! …But man, by that definition, there sure were an awful lot of complete morons around, i.e. most everyone. LessWrong deserves credit for rising WAY above the incredibly dismal standards set by the public-at-large in the English-speaking world, even if they didn’t particularly surpass the higher standards of many virologists, preppers, etc.
My personal experience: As someone living in normie society in Massachusetts USA but reading lesswrong and related, I was crystal clear that everything about my life was about to wrenchingly change, weeks before any of my friends or coworkers were. And they were very weirded out by my insistence on this. Some were in outright denial (e.g. “COVID = anti-Chinese racism” was a very popular take well into February, maybe even into March, and certainly the “flu kills far more than COVID” take was widespread in early March, e.g. Anderson Cooper). Others were just thinking about things in far-mode; COVID was a thing that people argued about in the news, not a real-world thing that could or should affect one’s actual day-to-day life and decisions. “They can’t possibly shut down schools, that’s crazy”, a close family member told me days before they did.
Dominic Cummings cited seeing the smoke as being very influential in jolting him to action (and thus impacting UK COVID policy), see screenshot here, which implies that this essay said something that he (and others at the tip-top of the UK gov’t) did not already see as obvious at the time.
A funny example that sticks in my memory is a tweet by Eliezer from March 11 2020. Trump had just tweeted:
Eliezer quote-tweeted that, with the commentary:
Not at all accurate. That’s not what I’m saying at all. It was a situation of high uncertainty, and the appropriate response was to be at least somewhat unsure, if not very unsure — yes, take precautions, think about it, learn about it, follow the public health advice. But I don’t think on February 28 anyone knew for sure what would happen, as opposed to made an uncertain call that turned out to be correct. The February 28 post I cite gives that sort of uncertain, precautionary advice, and I think it’s more or less reasonable advice — just a general ‘do some research, be prepared’ sort of thing.
It’s just that the post goes so far in patting itself on the back for being way ahead on this, when if someone in the LessWrong community had just posted about the CDC’s warning on the same day it was issued or had posted about it when San Francisco declared a public health emergency, or had made post noting that the S&P 500 had just fallen 7.5% and maybe that is a reason to be concerned, that would have put the first urgent warning about the pandemic a few days ahead of the February 28 post.
The takeaway of that post, and the takeaway of people who congratulate the LessWrong community on calling covid early, is that this is evidence that reading Yudkowsky’s Sequences or LessWrong posts or whatever promotes superior rationality, and is a vindication of the community’s beliefs. But that is the wrong conclusion to draw if something like 10-80% of the overall North American population (these figures are loosely based on polling cited in another comment) was at least equally concerned about covid-19 at least as early. 99.999% of the millions of people who were as concerned or more as early or earlier than the LessWrong community haven’t read the Sequences and don’t know what LessWrong is. A strategy that would have worked better than reading the Sequences or LessWrong posts is: just listen to what the CDC is saying and what state and local public health authorities are saying.
It’s ridiculous to draw the conclusion that this a vindication of LessWrong’s approach.
I don’t see this as a recommendation for LessWrong, although it sure is an interesting historical footnote. Dominic Cummings doesn’t appear to be a credible person on covid-19. For example, in November 2024 he posted a long, conspiratorial tweet which included:
”The Fauci network should be rolled up & retired en masse with some JAILED.
And their media supporters—i.e most of the old media—driven out of business.”
The core problem there is not that he hasn’t read LessWrong enough. (Indeed, reading LessWrong might make a person more likely to believe such things, if anything.)
Incidentally, Cummings also had a scandal in the UK around allegations that he inappropriately violated the covid-19 lockdown and subsequently wasn’t honest about it.
Tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of people in North America had experiences similar to this. The level of alarm spread across the population gradually from around mid-January to mid-March 2020, so at any given time, there were a large number of people who were much more concerned than another large number of people.
I tried to convince my friends to take covid more seriously a few days before the WHO proclamation, the U.S. state of emergency declaration, and all the rest made it evident to them that it was time to worry. I don’t think I’m a genius for this — in fact, they were probably right to wait for more convincing evidence. If we were to re-run the experiment 10 times or 100 times, their approach might prove superior to mine. I don’t know.
This is ridiculous. Do you think these sort of snipes are at all unique to Eliezer Yudkowsky? Turn on Rachel Maddow or listen to Pod Save America, or follow any number of educated liberals (especially those with relevant expertise or journalists who cover science and medicine) on Twitter and you would see this kind of stuff all the time. It’s not an insight unique to Yudkowsky that Donald Trump says ridiculous and dangerous things about covid or many other topics.