Sep 14 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
This story should stop the world. Heads must roll. The "safe and effective" and "y'all are misunderstanding VAERS" crowd need to fall on their knees and beg for forgiveness for having been fooled and perpetuating evil.

So I expect it will be ignored.

dailysceptic.org/2022/09/14/cdc… When @EduEngineer wrote about how the PRR system was flawed, I thought he had blown open the way the data was being pushed under the rug. Joke's on us, they weren't even running the analyses. Why cheat when you can win by not showing up? roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/defining-awa…
Sep 1 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Well, someone ran out of arguments 🙂 Image Lol. Blocked, alongside several others in that thread.

@ScottAdamsSays you taking that guy seriously is dumber than your dumbest tweets, and come to think of it, the two might not be unrelated.
Aug 28 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Remember, I asked Claire to correct the Quillette article about @BretWeinstein in the most trivial ways: e.g. the article says he won his lawsuit against evergreen, when in fact they settled. Her answer?

"A 'legal settlement' is often used interchangeably with 'win'." @BretWeinstein That's when I knew that any claims to care about accuracy of the content over political expediency were just that. Claims.
Aug 27 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How do "large-scale big-journal RCT" afficionados explain the TOGETHER and COVID-OUT opposite results on metformin & fluvoxamine?

COVID-OUT: Metformin is best, fluvoxamine so bad it was terminated early.

TOGETHER: Fluvoxamine is best, metformin so bad it was terminated early. Surely if these kinds of trials are the gold standard, we'd see consistent results, right?

Are we going to explain this away with worms, also?
Aug 25 • 27 tweets • 6 min read
Sam Harris drops new episode on Trump & Media bias.


I've not heard it yet. The one question I have is whether he clarifies if he would break the law in case of asteroid headed towards the earth. Let's see. "and this is the problem with taking clips of audio or video out of context".

I will clarify that I posted a 2 minute and 20 second clip, under a 3 minute and 40 second clip, and if I had clipped much more, Kisin would probably have sued my ass for copyright infringement.
Aug 25 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A little thought experiment. Let's say there were broadly two positions that could be taken on a specific question. One of the positions is much more accurate than the other. But the other is a position that vested interests would like to have accepted as true. One would expect any honest arbiter who looks at the facts to conclude that the "more accurate" side has the advantage. Thus, you would also expect the "less accurate" side to try to shut down any honest dialogue between sides, as it would show them to have no leg to stand on.
Aug 21 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
After thinking about this comment for a while, here's a list of reasons why "vaccines should be mandated because the unvaxed impose a burden on society by being hospitalized" is a very bad argument. 1. I see no way of supporting this without also supporting mandated fitness camps for the obese, as well as outlawing whole classes of foods. Far higher burden on society. On the extreme end, we could justify state-mandated diets. Same logic.
Aug 19 • 25 tweets • 8 min read
Good god man. @KonstantinKisin is one petty mofo.

He claims that I didn't initially reference them in my thread, when my first tweet was a QT of a link to their video on YT.

Brother, you don't know how to take a win. Seriously.

I wasn't going to tell the story, but 🤷‍♂️.

🧵:
Let me explain what happened, and why it matters.

So, I started a laid back thread a couple days back, QTing my friend @mmeJen. She was directly linking to their YouTube video.
Aug 18 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Dear @krystalball and @esaagar, when CDC, known and self-admitted liars, who would take their self-evaluation of what went wrong seriously? For God's sake, you're journalists. Is this the first you hear of "limited hangout"? Did you learn nothing? 🧵
Like, seriously, this page is still on their website. Today.
Aug 17 • 52 tweets • 15 min read
Haven't heard this yet. Let's do a live thread as i listen through. Yolo. Disclaimers:
If you don't like long threads, gfy.
If you don't like strong language, likewise.

OK, here we go.
Aug 17 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Excellent thread if you want to get a sense of what's going on with Proxalutamide and friends, for treatment of covid-19. Let's remember that @slatestarcodex still has this image up on his substack, mocking Cadegiani for his advocacy of anti-androgens.
Aug 15 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
OK. A hard riddle I don't expect an answer to, but WTF, might as well ask.

This quote:
"Findings for the primary outcome were similar for the modified intention-to-treat analysis (RR 0·69, 95% BCI 0·53–0·90) and larger in the per-protocol analysis (RR 0·34, 95% BCI, 0·21–0·54)." ...is written in the Fluvoxamine paper from the TOGETHER trial.

For the first interval (mITT), we actually have the raw data:
Treatment: 78 events/740 patients
Placebo: 115 events/752 patients

For the second one (per-protocol) we... don't.

thelancet.com/journals/langl…
Aug 15 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"There is no evidence to suggest that any of these fires were premeditated in an effort to create a food shortage."

Yes, but what's your evidence that there is no evidence? If you're going to butcher epistemology like that, at least make some effort.

reuters.com/article/factch… Like, you could say "we Googled and there was no evidence" or "I asked the dude in the office next door and he had no evidence" or "I went to a palm reader and was told that it was not evident". You're just gonna argue by authority like that?
Aug 11 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
The Cochrane meta-analysis on Ivermectin can't keep it's own rule changes straight.

Walk with me through what is turning into another classic ivermectin flustercluck. So, in their 2021 meta-analysis, Popp et al. found the classic "no evidence". There were concerns they made their criteria too tight, in order not to find enough evidence, but eventually they'd have to update their analysis with new studies, right?
cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.10…
Aug 10 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Authoritarianism and collectivism is built on public health narratives. This guy gets it.
Aug 9 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
Why did the TOGETHER trial terminate the Metformin arm before it was supposed to?

I knew I'd dig up something strange about the Metformin arm too, sooner or later. Let me walk you through what I found: TOGETHER had planned to do 3 interim analyses. one at 25% of enrollment, one at 50% of enrollment, one at 75% of enrollment, and a final one at 100%.

For each analysis the "probability of superiority" threshold for each drug became more demanding. first 20%, then 40%, then 60%.
Aug 9 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
18% of those vaccinated had abnormal EKG post 2nd pfizer shot.

If you think "so what", the issue is that this (& the myocarditis) seems to not have been understood by regulators (and pharma?). Malone, Kirsch, @BretWeinstein, @P_McCulloughMD were called crazy to mention it.🧵 The crazy people have been talking about this for a while btw:
Aug 7 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Good Job @Bad_Stats. Two errors in one tweet.

1195 patients (not "thousands")

Only one hospital said they "have no record" but also acknowledged that the staff could have participated on their own.

I also see no mention of "100% followup" in the paper. @Bad_Stats Good god, it gets worse.
1. the study was not actually retracted (here it is: medicalpressopenaccess.com/single_article…)
2. buzzfeed saw written approval by the main hospital and confirmed with the supplier of the drug
Aug 3 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
I did an experiment: would I be less convinced by Scott Alexander’s other writing now that I have spent considerable time going under the hood of one of his pieces?

So I tried to read his piece on Neom and... yeah. Not really convinced at all. Is this new? Is it just me? 🤷‍♂️ Like, I'm not saying Neom will be a huge success or whatever. I have no idea. What I'm saying is that whatever the knockdown argument might be, I just can't see it in this piece: astralcodexten.substack.com/p/model-city-m…
Jul 31 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
I'm reading into Thomas Borody and came across this piece in The Guardian.

The level of indirection is incredible.

Let me walk you through it.🧵
theguardian.com/australia-news… The accusation is that he filed a patent for a triple therapy (with generics) but did not disclose a conflict of interest.

The patent was filed in December 2020.

What is the evidence for the conflict of interest?
Jul 30 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Let me tell you a little story about how I collaborate with ivmmeta without having any direct contact with them.

One of the strangest things ever, in a good way.

So, a few days ago, I found out something new about the Lopez-Medina trial: In short, the registry says they only required you to not have taken ivm for 48 hours before enrollment, instead of the 5 days their published paper claims. The registry was changed a few days before the trial ended to say 5 days.
Jul 26 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
A riddle about the Ahmed et al. study:🧵

The study contains 3 arms.
1. Ivermectin (12mg x 5 days)
2. Ivermectin (12mg x 1 day + Doxycycline)
3. Placebo

sciencedirect.com/science/articl… Scott Alexander says:
"... the ivermectin + doxycycline group didn’t really differ from placebo, and that if you average out both ivermectin groups (with and without doxycycline) it looks like the difference would not be significant"
Jul 17 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Every single subject matter expert with a public platform not calling out the CDC on this travesty of science does not deserve to be called a scientist.

Some honorable mentions follow:
Jul 15 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
One of the most terrifying things I've ever heard. Keep reading the original tweet until you're properly terrified.

You don't sound properly terrified.
Jul 13 • 31 tweets • 9 min read
The story of Lopez-Medina🧵

I've just been catching up on the most widely promoted ivm study of 2020, and (surprise!) it's a mind-blowing story.

So let me put together the pieces for you. The trial took place in Cali, Colombia, between July and December 2021, and had 476 participants.
Jul 13 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
I think I found something about the Lopez-Medina ivm trial.🧵

Many ivm supporters have noted that it required patients not use ivm >=5 days prior to randomization.

Local use of ivm was 10x normal.

I just found that it was actually only >=48 hours prior. clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/history/NC… According to the clinicaltrials.gov registry, it was changed from 48 hours to 5 days, which most people thought it was, on December 16, only 5 days before the end of the trial. Why would it be changed so late other than to cover up the extremely short gap?
Jul 12 • 112 tweets • 40 min read
This is a deep-dive scratchpad in the lit review section of Scott Alexander's piece on ivm. 🧵

After noting a few major errors, I feel compelled to dig further.

It will be noisy so feel free to mute it, I won't judge you.

First, the article itself: astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-m… The major errors I know of so far are:

First:
Jul 11 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Welcome back to the pandemic's sloppiest man. (cont'd)
Jul 11 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
Biber finally published! Israeli study was circulating as preprint for quite a while. ijidonline.com/article/S1201-… c19ivermectin.com/biber.html
Jul 11 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
Craig Rayner, corresponding author of the TOGETHER trial ivm paper, has been involved in the development of moxidectin, another "ectin" competing for the same uses as ivm.

Might mean nothing, but worth digging a little more.
Jul 9 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
What happened to David Fuller?

Nothing. He's the same guy he ever was.

Peterson was always railing about compelled speech and totalitarianism. He still is. He was right then, and he's right now.

Fuller didn't get it then, and he doesn't get it now.
rebelwisdom.substack.com/p/what-happene… In a rant of almost 6 thousand words, Fuller mentions "compelled speech" once, as a "controversy", never seeming to make the connection that this is exactly what is the connecting thread of Peterson's most angry activism, then and now. He's the same man, perhaps more worn down.
Jul 2 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
How's that working out these days? Sounds like the Swiss cheese model is... full of holes.
Jun 21 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
I'm not much of a writer, but here's a premise to explain AI risk that someone with more talent than me can steal.🧵
----
Google's DeepMind announces DeepEnergy, its autonomous geothermal deep sea platform. DeepEnergy floats in international waters and drills the earth's crust. The big advantage of DeepEnergy is that it contains a cutting edge AI data center on board, that is able to evolve its drilling technology. It experiments with new materials, configurations, drilling spots, cooling technologies, etc.
Jun 19 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
In defense of cognitive dissonance🧵

"..cognitive dissonance is the perception of contradictory information. [..] The discomfort is triggered by the person's belief clashing with new information perceived, wherein the individual tries to find a way to resolve the contradiction." That's from wikipedia, but it's good enough for the purposes of this thread. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive…

I think cognitive dissonance is the key motivating force behind curiosity, creativity, invention, innovation, self-correction, and all sorts of desirable things.
Jun 15 • 38 tweets • 7 min read
I've recently been zooming in on double standards as the key mechanism by which the epistemological magic trick is done.

Say you have a trial with a weak signal.

Off-patent: "it doesn't work!"

On-patent: "positive trend with significant improvement in high-risk subgroups" Off-patent trial: "administration delay doesn't really matter. 10 days from symptoms is acceptable"

On-patent trial: "if the patient has had symptoms for more than 3 days, reject them immediately"
Jun 14 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
OK, let's do some napkin calculations with the ACTIV-6 dosing numbers. As per the preprint, participants were given 15 tablets of 7mg and instructions how to divide them into 3 doses of ~400mcg/kg. medrxiv.org/content/10.110…

Of course there's a fly in the ointment...🧵 Image In particular, the maximum daily dose one could take for 3 days is 5 tablets of 7mg (i.e. 35mg). 35mg is 400mcg/kg if you weigh 87kg (192lb). Anyone weighing more than that would be underdosed progressively more as their weight goes up. And with weight, risk goes up too.
Jun 13 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Not All Ivermectin Is Created Equal: Comparing The Quality of 11 Different Ivermectin Sources

Excellent experiment by Tim Williams, with fascinating implications for much of the research on ivm.

Summary 🧵follows: doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/not-all-iver… So, @timmy04jc got 11 different types of ivm, from the US, India, Philippines, and Mexico: Image
Jun 13 • 32 tweets • 10 min read
We did it! @ProjectQuine has our first working motor made w/ 3d printing & copperplating. No wires used at all. 0▶️1

Big step forward towards our plan to make self-replicating machines.

This is so unbelievably meaningful to me, almost on a metaphysical level.

Let me explain:🧵 When I got a 3d printer, I had tweeted about my idea to copperplate 3d printed objects. 3d printing is limited by its inability to conduct electricity, and even conductive filament isn't conductive enough to make a big difference in what can be printed.
Jun 12 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
The moment you realize Curtis "Mencius Moldbug" Yarvin thinks that the REST architectural style was implemented faithfully, DOS attacks are not a thing, logging and analytics are not a thing,... graymirror.substack.com/p/do-not-punch… OH MY GOD YARVIN HAS LOST HIS MIND. THIS IS HIS AI SAFETY MECHANISM???

"This isn't hard, guys. It's, um, obvious."

Anyone who has ever built real systems shuddered at those words.

I mean, something is obvious, but not what Yarvin thinks...
May 31 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
New Emails Released🔥:

Did the TOGETHER Trial Principal Investigator admit to dosing patients with high-dose ivermectin before official ethics approval was secured, and did those patients get removed from the published paper?

Let's dig in with a 🧵 Ed Mills, TOGETHER Principal Investigator, Mar 6 '21 on IVM dosing:

"We're doing 3 days of dosing [..] That's what's being administered"

TOGETHER IVM study, New England Journal of Medicine:

"Our study involved patients assigned between Mar 23 '21 - Aug 6 '21" (paraphrased)
May 30 • 28 tweets • 13 min read
Remember when @k_sheldrick @gidmk @steamtraen @jamesheathers @jackmlawrence wrote in Nature that meta-analyses should not consider studies that don't provide raw data for review?

Why are they not demanding TOGETHER keeps its promise & provides raw data?
web.archive.org/web/2021100808… Further, they are consistently defending TOGETHER as the gold standard, despite many flaws, and say nothing about the failure to share IPD as promised.

I thought "the consequent potential for patient harm on a global scale demands nothing less"?

nature.com/articles/s4159…
May 29 • 21 tweets • 7 min read
Kyle Sheldrick has deleted the page on his blog where he accused Paul Marik of research fraud.🧵

Definitely a step in the right direction, but it would be much better if @K_Sheldrick released a proper explanation for what happened and why he changed his mind. @K_Sheldrick If you want to see what is in the page that was deleted, the wayback machine has the goods: web.archive.org/web/2022051009…
May 28 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Is a new protestant reformation starting?

Instead of unmediated access to God, we demand unmediated access to data, science, and truth

No more High Priests of The Science.
No more Indulgences by Big Pharma to regulators to buy absolution for their crimes against humanity. Anthony Fauci as the new Pope Leo X
May 26 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Let's work on a research project TOGETHER - collect a list of statements to the press by authors of the TOGETHER trial publications, especially before the studies being discussed were published.

Reply with quotes by Dr Edward Mills or others, and I will append them to this 🧵 Reasoning: would be good to document and quantify the issue described below.
May 22 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Imagine defending @noUpside, a "disinformation researcher" who worked for New Knowledge, ...the people caught red handed by @nytimes setting up campaigns imitating "Russian bots" and then pretending to reveal that "Russian bot campaigns" had taken place... nytimes.com/2018/12/19/us/… @noUpside @nytimes He is talking about notifying insurance companies about whether the patient takes the drug or not. Not quite the first stakeholder you think of when thinking of helping the patient. Not the doctor, not the next of kin, but the *insurance provider*. Sign me up. Not.
May 22 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
3 serious incidents relating to the Pfizer vaccine trials:
1. @IamBrookJackson revealing unblinding, lack of followup on AE, sample mislabeling, protocol deviations, retaliation...
2. Maddie de Garay serious adverse event concealed
3. Augusto Roux serious adverse event concealed @IamBrookJackson More on 1: bmj.com/content/375/bm…
May 20 • 12 tweets • 6 min read
There's a set of strange connections that I just can't get out of my mind.🧵

Why is the TOGETHER team collaborating with Andrew Hill and both of them collaborating with @GidMK and the rest of the fraud squad?

I'll write here what I know and please help me if you know more. We start off with this paper by the infamous Andrew Hill: academic.oup.com/ofid/article/9…

So Andrew Hill got help from @GidMK, @K_Sheldrick , and @jackmlawrence on his paper on ivm "fraud".

That paper was funded -- did they do the work for free? Or did money change hands?
May 17 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
I know you're all shocked that the FDA, like the NIH, didn't find endpoint used in the TOGETHER trial was reliable, and that mix-and-matching placebo types in the control group did not feel like the best idea.

Award for the trial designers, Rejection for Fluvoxamine. "I'm disappointed that FDA holds generics to different standards as big pharma, in this case using different definition of endpoints of what is a [COVID-19-related] 'hospitalization,'" Boulware tweeted Monday.

Turns out that to be hospitalized you have to go to a hospital.
May 17 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
Today I'll show you one more example of how brazen the TOGETHER trial is at messing with data when it's inconvenient.🧵

This particular example is from the fluvoxamine study. On August 6, 2021 the authors released preliminary results. There we were told that:

- Recruitment started on January 15th
- There were 742 patients in the treatment dcricollab.dcri.duke.edu/sites/NIHKR/KR… ImageImage
May 14 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Let's clear this up: The myocarditis and spike toxicity data means those who were hesitant were justified. The "safe and effective" crowd was wrong. Admitting this is table stakes to entering the conversation.

To say "well, we spaced out the doses, now STFU and take it" is.. 🙄 Btw, they'd've been justified anyway. But now their concerns have been proven accurate.

I wasn't paying attention & took the shot (I spaced out the doses, thx procrastination). Beyond temp neurological side-effects, I got away with it. That doesn't mean I made the right choice.
May 11 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
The underdosing issue in the TOGETHER trial is a lot more serious than I realized.

This🧵describes my current understanding.

[Statisticians of Twitter, amateur and pros, I need your help. This 🧵contains the questions I want to answer. Comment here or send DMs (they're open)]. So, to start off:

The TOGETHER study on IVM had a population that was fairly evenly split between patients with BMI < 30, and patients with BMI >= 30. nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
May 6 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
Looks like the TOGETHER Ivermectin NEJM paper's been updated (again). We'll see tomorrow if there've been big changes in the main body, it seems small ones definitely have. For now I'll focus on this statement on limitations in the new research summary:🧵 nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… Almost every word here has something interesting (insidious) about it, so we'll go through it slowly.

"The trial was initially designed to test 1 day of ivermectin treatment" - who treats a virus with a single dose of anything? Which antiviral works with just one pill?
May 5 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
It appears I may have an attempt at an answer to this:🧵 doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/was-the-data…

I considered countering this argument in the text but didn't think it would be tried.

Guess it was.

Mind you he has blocked me so I only see this when people send me screenshots.

So, let's see... What @gidmk is saying is that from a real set of patients with 16 cases of asthma in 756 patients, we take a subset of 679 patients which form the ivm control group. In that, we use multiple chained imputation to fill in missing values, adding another 44 cases.
May 1 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
Was Elon Musk a WEF "young global leader"? 🧵

We dug deep with resident WEFologist @everybodyshook
and found the original 2008 list that names Elon. What's going on?
archive.org/details/ygl-20… Here's the short answer:

The WEF YGL "honoree" list is basically an editorial list made without necessarily consulting the people named in it. It's like saying "here's some interesting up and comers".

These people are then offered to join various seminars and activities etc.
May 1 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Stunning email shared by @FlavioCadegiani.

New England Journal of Medicine editor-in-chief admits:

1. The result affects whether a study is published
2. The journal can't analyze the data

In brief, if Fleming had sent them an RCT on penicillin they wouldn't have published it. If it's not obvious why the result should not affect publication, the reason is that this is, almost by definition, publication bias. If our opinions, formed based on old knowledge, affect what new knowledge is accepted, then science acquires a new speed limit.
Apr 26 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
OK, something has definitely changed with Twitter today.♾️🧵

1. Weird changes in followership of popular accounts 2. Ivermectin trending
Apr 26 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Remdesivir approved for young children. The most baffling drug of the pandemic lives on. 🧵

"if you give remdesivir in the first five days, during the acute viral phase, before you wait for the door to close, you could prevent progression by almost 90%" ctvnews.ca/health/coronav… Giving the drug early was known to be the right way to go, from the start of the pandemic onwards.
Apr 26 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Incredible video. In the 2nd half, Mills, TOGETHER principal investigator, has 3 mutually exclusive excuses for stopping short:
1. It was the (heavily conflicted) Data and Safety Monitoring Committee
2. We ran out of money
3. Advocates weren't supportive

 Good question. If it was the DSMC, then mills feelings would play no role. If they ran out of money, then the DSMC's decision (or mills feelings) would play no role. Which was it?

To me this is classic gaslighting.

Image
Apr 21 • 19 tweets • 7 min read
The damage rationalists have done to pandemic discourse darkens my heart.

Scott (sorta) admitted that his claim of not relying on experts was untrue, and his math was wrong, after I proved as much.

Yet his essay is still there, & its impact on "independent thinkers" permanent.
FWIW, I've learned an immeasurable amount from Scott & other rationalists, and my abilities would not be what they are without them. When I saw Scott's post, I was disappointed, but hopeful, because it was clear to me the logic had an error I could prove. astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-m…
Apr 19 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
It looks like @gidmk is back, this time in the BMJ.

Unbelievably, he's citing the BBC article that is quoting him and his friends having examined 26 studies and found over one third had “serious errors or signs of potential fraud.”

And yet... 🧵

bmj.com/content/377/bm… ... they've never detailed what those studies were, and what the problems were. These transparency campaigners exempt themselves from such lowly requirements such as publishing their work.

The BMJ article was published 6 monthd from this exchange:
Apr 17 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Ahahahahhahahhahhahahahhahahhahahahhahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

This is right up there with "fact checkers say there's no such thing as mass formation psychosis" I'm *dying*. The layers of irony are so many that I'm not even able to articulate a response before the next layer hits me. This may be the tweet with the most explanatory power for the current moment I've seen.
Apr 14 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
The TOGETHER trial was supposed to be the antidote to shoddy science on early treatments.🧵

It's hard to believe that its execution compromised randomization, blinding, and placebo-control, but once you're done with this 🧵, it will be hard to deny.

doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/the-problem-… The 2021 phase of the trial started in January, with the metformin, ivermectin (low dose), fluvoxamine, and placebo arms all starting to accept patients.

The TOGETHER trial is an adaptive platform trial, so the placebo arm is shared between the treatments for efficiency.
Apr 12 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
A random TOGETHER randomization story. 🧵

When the 2021 era of the TOGETHER trial started, the randomization algorithm that was in force was this:

1:1:1:1, block randomization, stratified by site, variable patient set size. A new protocol was put in place on March 23, with basically the same randomization algorithm, with a small adjustment for metformin. Fair enough.
Apr 12 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Can you imagine if TOGETHER compared patients from an in part vaccinated placebo group to patients from an unvaccinated treatment group? That would be hilarious, right? I'll put this together much better, my last substack post with the highlights below makes the case pretty definitively. 75 patients, selected in part for vaccination, were added to the placebo group of ivm, where the treatment group had vaccination as exclusion criterion.
Apr 11 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
🔥🔥
"Sheldrick & friends savaged the reputation of Marik on the basis of a flawed understanding of statistics, and ridiculed my credentials as a mathematician for retweeting articles by Crawford & others who highlighted Sheldrick's statistical illiteracy" normanfenton.com/post/the-curio… There is deep statistics here, and @profnfenton corroborates in even more detail what @EduEngineer laid out. I'm not qualified to fully evaluate the arguments here, but Sheldrick seems to have been arrogant and overconfident in going to the journal without first contacting Marik.
Apr 10 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
To understand the difference between the Confidence Intervals used in most science, and the Bayesian Credible Intervals used in the TOGETHER IVM study, this article is essential. Truly excellent work. towardsdatascience.com/do-you-know-cr… This animation alone is worth a prize of some sort. Bayesian credible intervals above, frequentist confidence intervals below. Shows how bayesian intervals converge faster and stay more stable throughout.
Apr 10 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
The TOGETHER Fluvoxamine and Ivermectin studies were done mostly in parallel. Yet, the papers had key differences beyond the content, as did the protocols.

thelancet.com/journals/langl…
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

I'll list impactful differences I see, and reply with others here! 1. Each arm of the study was supposed to reach 681 patients. The ivm arm was stopped at 679 patients, while the FLV arm was allowed to continue until it reached 741 (and 756 placebo) patients. The difference (and FLV overrun) has never been explained. togethertrial.com/s/TOGETHER_MP_… Image
Apr 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Some more funny numbers from the TOGETHER trial... 🧵

The Metformin paper covers the period until April 3, 2021.

We see that until then, 3159 patients had been screened for eligibility. And of them, 1522 were accepted in the trial.

That's a 48% acceptance rate.

Then... Image ... We have the Fluvoxamine trial, ending Aug 5.

9803 patients screened, 3323 accepted: 34% acceptance.

This includes the patients summarized in the Metformin trial.

If we remove them, we see 6644 pts screened since April 3, and 1801 accepted. That's 27% acceptance rate. Image
Apr 7 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
TOGETHER Trial : The Ethics Violations. 🧵

The first violation is perhaps somewhat small. They were recruiting and treating before approval for the trial by the local ethics board. Approval was granted on Jan 18, but the Metformin arm was recruiting since Jan 15. ImageImage Brazilian ethics approval here: togethertrial.com/s/PB_PARECER_C…

Metformin paper here: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34927127/
Apr 7 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
If what he says is true, his track record throughout the pandemic must have been spectacular, right? Given these claims, it's only fair we do a review of the amazing positions this man has held throughout the pandemic. He came strong out of the gate in January 2020...
Apr 6 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Data Sharing in the TOGETHER trial.

What they said in the pre-registration on clinicaltrials.gov What they said on the fluvoxamine paper... (protocol termination turned into publication)
Apr 6 • 17 tweets • 7 min read
Let's talk about the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee of the TOGETHER trial.

And if committees sound boring, I promise this 🧵 will be anything but.

Every version of the TOGETHER trial protocol available contains this paragraph: So who is in the DSMC for the TOGETHER trial? The ivm paper supplemental appendix gives us some names:
Apr 4 • 15 tweets • 7 min read
TOGETHER trial: The Magical 3-day Placebo Group 🧵

Why is the per-protocol placebo (blue) curve shifted left compared to ITT/mITT placebo groups? It appears the per-protocol analysis gives lower superiority probability not because ivm did worse, but because placebo did better. This is most curious. How can one placebo group do better than others? One possibility is that it's just luck. Another might be that it's not properly randomized compared to the treatment group.

Say... when did the 3-day placebo group start?
Apr 4 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
To @daveyalba: kindly consider correcting your recent article, given that Malone has a pretty legitimate claim to the title of inventor. See detailed analysis with specific evidence below. nytimes.com/2022/04/03/tec… OK, fine, let's give this NYT piece on Malone a bit of a fact check shall we? 🧵

To start, this contravenes many of his statements that I've seen, and the fact that he is vaccinated, which he states in almost every interview.
Apr 3 • 10 tweets • 6 min read
Why was the TOGETHER trial ivm arm terminated?

NEJM Paper says the futility thresholds were 20/40/60% posterior probability of efficacy.

Website says that the trial was stopped for futility.

Yet the published probabilities of efficacy are all >60%.

What am I missing? Indeed, from an interview of the principal investigator, we have him saying clearly that that they intended to get 800 patients, and they stopped about 85% of the way. Given that the Gamma variant was lifting, this could have made a huge difference. halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/whats…
Apr 2 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
WIP thread noting all the potential problems noted with the TOGETHER manuscript. 🧵

These are being worked through by various people, and some of them will have good explanations. Gathering them here to keep track.

Reply to this first tweet with issues I may have missed. Let's start with the mistaken sums.
1. A death moving between treatment and placebo.
Apr 2 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Here's another problem with the TOGETHER trial:

They claim the dosage was 3x 400mcg/kg. However, in the protocol supplement, there's a little detail: the dosing doesn't scale beyond 90kg. You might think that this is how it's normally done for this medication. Turns out, that's not it.
Mar 31 • 12 tweets • 5 min read
Excuse me, what? 60% of placebo did not observe the protocol, yet they were analyzed as if they did? Have we lost our minds? What explains such imbalance between treatment and placebo? Could these be the people who were in the placebo group receiving ivermectin? Could this be what this section of the paper refers to?
Mar 31 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Act 1 Act 2
Mar 31 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
The TOGETHER trial on ivermectin is finally published, only 7 months after its completion. 🧵 nejm.org/doi/full/10.10… Impossible as it may sound, the investigators did not check at all if the patients in the study had taken ivermectin recently. In the paper we see no mention of ivermectin in the exclusion criteria:
Mar 30 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Dose 1 Dose 2
Mar 29 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
The sustainable energy debates are amazing. I've never seen a debate where each side has its own set of ridiculous linear extrapolations that reject the very concept of innovation being possible.

I try not to do "both sides have lost the plot" takes, but when the shoe fits... 🤷‍♂️
On the one hand we have the crowd that thinks that unless we stop burning fossil fuel immediately, the earth is going to be engulfed in hot lava raining from the heavens in about 20 minutes.
Mar 28 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This was 118 days ago. Anyone heard any news? businessinsider.com/pfizer-vaccine… This was early in January. Sounds promising. timesofisrael.com/pfizer-ceo-que… Image
Mar 27 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Did you ever think to yourself, "I want to know the truth, no matter what it is, I can handle it"? 🧵🧵

The next few threads should call your bluff. I. Pervasive control system is being erected all around us. A small sampling of parts involved:
Mar 27 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Complication vs. Complexity🧵

Public health approached this pandemic as a "complicated" problem that can be fixed with discipline, whereas it was a *complex* problem, requiring humility in the face of uncertainty.

statnews.com/2022/03/22/cov… This idea allows us to connect the baffling response to the pandemic with the powerful Cynefin framework: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_f…
Mar 25 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Science has turned into full-scale war. mediterranee-infection.com/communique-de-… Image "Moreover, Mrs. Bik had written in 22 articles that our research was neo-colonialist..."

This is a smoking gun of a weak argument in my opinion.

mediterranee-infection.com/the-case-again…
Mar 19 • 23 tweets • 9 min read
So, the 7 months delayed TOGETHER study paper on Ιvermectin is about to be published. They're doing extra effort to get in the press ahead of publication, with surgically crafted statements. SCIENCE.

So, what's the current state of the evidence? A 🧵

archive.is/QZzU7 Last time I looked at the evidence, even when excluding everything and anything anyone objected to, there still seemed to be clear evidence in favor: doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/a-conflict-o…
Mar 19 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
The Surgeon General's toolkit to identify misinformation claims one can search the CDC website to see "what the latest research is saying".

In this 🧵I will show you why, by its own standards, the document itself is misinformation, in a fundamental way.

hhs.gov/sites/default/… The key question any guide to identifying misinformation must answer is how to arrive at truth, so that one can know what misinformation even is.

This document points to the CDC website as the authoritative source.
Mar 15 • 26 tweets • 9 min read
While everyone has their eyes on Ukraine, there's a comprehensive control system being erected all around us.

Let's count the ways. 🧵 First, there is the treaty being worked on, on the level of the WHO. The details have not been worked out yet, but the Director General of the WHO is pushing for a binding treaty with the power to apply sanctions if 2/3rds of the members agree.

nature.com/articles/d4158… Image
Mar 13 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What you are seeing me do in the case of Ukraine is what I always try to: first principles thinking.

Allow me to summarize: 🧵 First of all, I don't have a position on the matter at all. It still appears too complex for me. I feel badly for the Ukrainian people suffering what they are, of course, as I feel for the Yemenis and Uighurs.
Mar 12 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Denison’s lab and its collaborators at the University of North Carolina (Baric) conducted the preclinical work showing that remdesivir could stop coronaviruses from replicating.

In Feb 2020, he was pretty clear that it should be given early.
 Later in the Q&A he said about potential trials: "if we design it to just treat those who are in the ICU, on a ventilator, then we might as well not design the trial".
Mar 11 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Daszak interview with the intercept, un-paywalled link:
archive.ph/4Kb55

Haven't read it yet, will probably turn this into a 🧵 as I go. Ooh! He throws Baric under the bus, ever so gently. Image
Mar 8 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
OK folks. Put on your full body tin foil hazmat suits, because we're about to dive deep.

This 🧵 will cover links between:
Ukraine. Biolabs. Hunter Biden. Ecohealth.

I seriously wish I was kidding. So, what are these Ukrainian biolabs? They appear to be run by a company called Metabiota.

The linked article has a *lot* of information I'd prefer to confirm more tightly first, but time is of the essence, so decide for yourselves: armswatch.com/the-pentagon-b… Image
Mar 8 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The Lancet: tip of the narrative spear🧵

From lab leak to early treatment, and from transmission to lockdowns, the Lancet was always there to make some absolutely understandable errors, but always in the same direction. 1. Delayed letting the world know about human-to-human transmission.

Mar 8 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Legitimately one of the most worrying tweets I've seen this year. It basically indicates that Elizabeth Warren's agenda is already being enacted.
Mar 7 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Phil Harper just had a major breakthrough in the investigation of the Andrew Hill meta-analysis.

The name of Andrew Owen, Prof at University of Liverpool and UNITAID grantee appears in the metadata of some digital versions of Andrew Hill's meta-analysis.
philharper.substack.com/p/professor-ti… Quote:"The person who allegedly edited the Andrew Hill paper on Ivermectin, is the person in receipt of consultancy fees from pharma with competing products, is the person who prepared the evidence base for the World Health Organisation to make their recommendation on Ιvermectin"
Mar 5 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A short film is out with Dr. Tess Lawrie's zoom call with Dr. Andrew Hill admitting that his sponsor, UNITAID, was an unacknowledged contributor affecting the conclusion of his Ιvermectin meta-analysis. It was treated as authoritative by the WHO & governments.

Part 1:
Part 2:
Feb 27 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
OK, tell me about everything dodgy about Event 201. The first mention of Event 201 I can find on the web is on August 21, 2019. This is important because it's not implausible that a lab leak could have happened before then.

centerforhealthsecurity.org/news/center-ne…
Feb 27 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Come on guys, give it up already. Image Guess who jumped on this?
Feb 23 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
I'll document this case of aggressive dishonesty from @AviBittMD as a reference for why I will no longer be engaging him in the future, as he's heavy on the insults and light on the substance.

So, he claims that my claim was false because remdesivir succeeded in a similar trial. He contests this claim I made about the JAMA study:

"In brief, the study design was such that any other antiviral, such as Paxlovid or Molnupiravir, would also have failed."
Feb 21 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
A 🧵 of cases where data has been withheld or updates suspended, explicitly because the Authorities did not want the Commoners to "misunderstand" and "misinterpret" it.

As usual, I'll start with the ones I know, and please respond with more cases you are aware of. 1.
Feb 20 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Yes, every hypothesis should be treated with suspicion. That doesn't mean it should not be disseminated, explored, investigated etc.

Explaining the basics of science to @AviBittMD is tiresome.

This man is a DDoS agent of bad faith.

Seriously, this is the best use of your time? Let's do this slowly for the people in the back: @BretWeinstein was commenting on a piece by Scott Alexander which picked through many ivm RCTs and did a meta-analysis to show there is a very weak signal. Then he threw the worms hypothesis on top to explain the signal.
Feb 19 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
As for my position on Ιvermectin, it's been consistent since the summer. We don't know if it works or not because *appropriately sized studies with correct dosing and timing* aren't being done. But it's safe enough that it's not worth not giving. You can see a prior review of the evidence I did a couple of months back here, showing that there is a clear, if uncertain, signal of efficacy. doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/a-conflict-o…
Feb 19 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
What went wrong with the recent I-TECH Ιvermectin study published in JAMA?🧵

In brief, the study design was such that any other antiviral, such as Paxlovid or Molnupiravir, would also have failed.

This thread will explain why.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jamai… Briefly, an antiviral started avg 5.1 days after symptom onset, with a primary endpoint that is triggered 3.1 days after start of treatment, when treatment is for 5 days, will be almost impossible to show benefit.

The avg patient didn't even have time to complete the treatment. Image
Feb 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
True. It only prevented death (3 vs 10) and ICU admission (4 vs 10). But who cares about that if it doesn't prevent... (*checks notes*) drop in O2 levels below 95%?

Did anyone claim it did that?

Read the results of the study yourselves and then the conclusions... 🙄 Some required reading for all those playing with words like "statistically significant" without any understanding that those words have a specific technical meaning that is not the same thing as what we mean by "significant" in everyday life.

nature.com/articles/d4158…
Feb 18 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
How much spike protein is produced in the body as a result of mRNA vaccination and how does it differ from ancestral SARS-CoV-2 spike? This will be one of the most important questions to answer moving forward. It will tell us a lot about the side-effects, among other things. 1/ 2/ the best attempt to answer this question I've seen to date has come from (you guessed it) from the substack of @JoomiKim1.

Here's part 1: joomi.substack.com/p/what-leads-t…
Feb 18 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I have a question for the stats-savvy people among us.

It will take a little bit of setup first, though. 🧵 In the paper "The Rise and Fall of Hydroxychloroquine for the Treatment and Prevention of COVID-19"
TOGETHER trial authors report it was stopped "for futility" because of this result: (risk ratio: 1.00; 95% CI: 0.45–2.21)
Feb 17 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Remember us insisting we knew all there was to know & any insinuation to the contrary was a malicious lie?

Well, in the immortal words of Vox:
"Emerging data suggests menstruating people are actually experiencing what they say they are experiencing"
vox.com/22935125/covid… In other words, grudgingly accept that Malone was right 9 months ago, but not without talking down to the very same people who were right in every damn sentence.

Remember, kids: Vox is safe, effective, mild, and transient.
Feb 17 • 9 tweets • 5 min read
Whenever a country makes clean data available that highlights worrying patterns, we inevitably see something like this next.

Here's what Scotland is silencing: @fvbirder asks about vaccination rates. This blog seems to have good data: spice-spotlight.scot/2022/02/16/cor…
Feb 17 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Heparin. Where have I heard this before?

Ah. The "H" in the MATH+ protocol.

It still blows my mind how much the good folks at FLCCC have gotten correct, and how much earlier than most, and how much shit they've gotten for their trouble. Even if we ignore ivm & hcq, even if we assume they do nothing.

They were first and ahead of their time in recommending corticosteroids. How many did they save until their insight became accepted?

They were recommending fluvoxamine almost a year ago. How many did that save?
Feb 17 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Been thinking about the concept of #leperization recently, and it strikes me that there's more than just what is done to the person. Sometimes someone who has been leperized will attach to others on the margin, some of whom are there for good reason, giving even more ammunition ... to the leperizers. Sometimes going on Alex Jones or Bannon, for instance, may feel like getting access to a huge audience. And it is. But it also is a very specific audience. And the appearance itself will always be used against that person.
Feb 16 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Time to cause some trouble.

@MichaelPSenger uses the clip I made and tweeted, but his text implies that Fauci & Collins were voting in the panel. We don't know it's true and the context gives us reason to think otherwise.

I keep seeing this misleading variation referenced. Here's my original.
Feb 16 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
ΙVM dose required notes thread🧵

It seems I'm coming across quite a few resources discussing dose and mechanism of IVM for an antiviral effect, so I'll gather them here for a potential future writeup.

First entry: Fascinating. Historical precedent:
Feb 16 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Ever heard this argument? "in vitro experiments showed that Ιvermectin needs impossibly high doses to achieve an anti-viral effect in humans"?

Well, the group that did that research tells us that human lung cells need 6-8 times lower dose than the monkey kidney cells they used. 🤔
Feb 15 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
The Remdesivir Riddle.🧵

Why was this drug administered at the wrong time, at great financial and human cost, despite what logic and research dictated?

Walk with me through the mystery in this article, or simply scroll down for a thread to summarize.
doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/the-remdesiv… In short, the riddle is this:

Antivirals are supposed to be given early in the course of treatment: Image
Feb 14 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
The lies that experts signed. ♾️🧵

A list of statements from expert groups during the pandemic stating falsehoods that said experts should have known at the time were false.

I've got a few to list, but would appreciate your help to add more to the list. First and foremost, the Lancet letter stating "We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin"

Turns out, they weren't quite conspiracy theories, and the consensus wasn't remotely organic.
Feb 13 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Evergreen summary of a Sam harris podcast:

- PSA: this is an emergency
- I don't need to listen to the other side, they're flat earthers
- You can trust me because I'm not captured by my audience
- <proceeds to regurgitate think tank talking points he read in The Atlantic> OK, this is blowing up a bit and I'm getting a few "wow, you don't address his arguments at all", which, if you don't know me, is understandable. So, to save everyone a search, start here:
Feb 12 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Which are the most prescient tweets of the pandemic?♾️🧵

I've got a few in mind, show me others! 1.
Feb 11 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
A play in 4 parts 🧵 II.
Feb 10 • 27 tweets • 10 min read
How was the decision made to ignore immunity from prior infection?

In this clip, Paul Offit describes how he and another person advised in favor of accepting natural immunity, while two others voted against it.

A🧵 on why that was possibly the worst decision of the pandemic:
To understand the fallout of this decision, we can start from this piece by @FamedCelebrity which gives us a decent estimate of where seroprevalence was during the bulk of the vaccination campaign: wmbriggs.com/post/38585/
Feb 8 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
People have been warned for a very long time that overpaying the hand of public health with mandates that make no sense will lead to exactly this outcome. The person responsible is Anthony Fauci and his enablers.

Let me count the times I've warned of this exact outcome:
Feb 5 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
This is it. @joerogan @elonmusk let's rebuild the public square with open standards nobody can own. The future depends on it. If there's anything @balena_io can do, happy to help in any way.

Here's one way this could work: 🧵 Build a service behind uncensorable DNS like .eth or .ud. It can be accessed via the @brave browser so anyone can use it. (cc @BrendanEich - feedback welcome). Those who want to help can plug in a @Raspberry_Pi or old laptop, running a federated server. Let's call it "soapbox".
Feb 4 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Scott Alexander: "... the experts in the field won't lie directly".

CDC: "LOL, hold my beer" See here as to why this is an obviously, ludicrously, pitifully terrible study that doesn't even merit the paper it's printed on.
Feb 3 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Why freedom of speech must be protected at all costs🧵

Politicians have outsourced government to public health officials, who have taken safetyism to a whole other level, steamrolling fundamental rights. As they push more and more absurd positions, people start to see through the ludicrous machinations.

Here's a list of their greatest hits by the incredible @freakoutery
Feb 1 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
When you hear the word "misinformation", substitute with "wrongthink". It makes much more sense that way. Does anyone seriously believe that Joe Rogan is the greatest concern in terms of "misinformation" right now? Because the public sure is being led to think so. Image
Jan 30 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Julia correctly points out that the Lancet letter is an excellent counterargument to Scott's model that experts won't lie to your face. Which is kind of ironic, because Scott's point is that he can read through the lines, as opposed to someone like me. Why is it ironic? Read on. It's ironic because guess who broke the story that the Lancet letter was astroturfed and most of the signatories were deeply conflicted? Well, that would be.. me.
Jan 26 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
I did not know the video of this had come out. I'm at a loss for words. I can't process what I'm seeing. You can see the full transcript on the latter half of this article. If the whole zoom call has been released, I'd be grateful if someone can point me to it.

worldtribune.com/researcher-and…
Jan 14 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Poor Cathy. When Joe Rogan is more up to date than you, you should probably pause, watch some @VPrasadMDMPH videos, and then continue with your failed attempt at a dunk. But more like apologize. Here's one write up from @VPrasadMDMPH vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/uk-now-repor…
Jan 13 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
"the most egregious and far-reaching mistake made in responding to the pandemic has been the level of fear willingly conveyed on the public. Initially encouraged to boost public compliance, that fear seems to have subsequently driven policy decisions in a worrying feedback loop." I was wondering about this earlier today, and this article cements it. Governments drove fear to increase compliance. The fear affected the politicians, pushing ever harder measures, which created ever more fear, and so on.

Just don't call it mass psychosis.
Jan 8 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
New fearporn just dropped. 🧵 Why do I say it's fearporn? Well, for one, it seems to have the usual hallmarks of the CDC made-to-order studies that produce the opposite of truth.
Jan 7 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
What data is out there for or against negative vaccine effectiveness against infection by Omicron? ♾🧵

I've heard a growing chorus of circumstantial evidence. I'll post the ones I have seen below, please respond with others.

Let's keep it as data-focused as possible. This thread has a good exposition of the Danish data:

(h/t @xyzdkfe)
Jan 6 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
What are the best Twitter alternatives and why?🧵

Please reply with a single-tweet description of your favorite Twitter alternative. I'm mostly interested in distributed solutions but online services like gettr qualify too.🤷

I'll mention the few I know, tell me ones I don't. Mastodon was definitely one I had in mind:
Jan 5 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
New years' resolution: get my vitamin D levels to 50 ng/ml.

I hope this 🧵 will document my progress.

Maybe some of you will join me while we submerge in vitamin D upto our eyeballs? I've generally not been one to take care of my health much, but if the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that we outsource way too much of our health to others. I hope fixing my vitamin D levels will be a first step that will help me start working on other, harder goals.
Dec 29, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Break up the CDC.

Data gathering and transparent reporting should be firewalled from advocacy.

They have a treasure trove of data, and they use it to p-hack propaganda. Anything useful we learn is from Israel, UK, and Scandinavia.

And disease is sure not getting controlled. CDC - The lovely people who brought you this piece of target practice:
Dec 23, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
A thread of some of my best threads, enjoy!

1. Machines and nature share aesthetics. Why?
2. My investigation into lab leak suppression
Dec 22, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
I entered the conversation on the pandemic in May, with this thread, examining past narrative shifts. 🧵

A good time to review its main prediction. My core takeaway is that narrative shifts conclude with the class in power accepting most of the reality, sometimes enthusiastically, while rewriting history to make it look like they've been far more consistent than they've been, to say the least.
Dec 21, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
What are the weakest points of the pandemic narrative?

I'm looking truisms public health espouses, which strongly contradict what mainstream scientific sources say.

I'll tell you the ones on my mind, tell me any others you know of!

(thanks to @hollymathnerd for inspiration!) @hollymathnerd 1. Natural immunity.

The CDC portrays it as weak and inconsistent, yet a basic review of the literature makes it clear that it's effective, long-lasting, and probably our best bet against variants.
Dec 20, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
When rhetoric crosses the line🧵

I can't get over one thing from the video @ZDoggMD made commenting on the @P_McCulloughMD / @joerogan podcast.

A horrid rhetorical move betraying deep cynicism or shallow reasoning unbecoming of a public health advocate. It's at about minute 23 if you want to watch that first:


He basically says that hcq and ivermectin advocacy has created a bias in the public health establishment, which led to things with good RCT results, like fluvoxamine and budesonide being ignored.
Dec 19, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Something just clicked and it's even scarier than I feared. Most things make sense if you model governments as desperately wanting low case numbers.

They think that's what they're evaluated on.

It's not covid zero.
It's not managed endemicity.

It's just the tyranny of metrics. Explains lockdowns.
Explains masks.
Explains downplaying natural immunity.
Explains vaccinating kids & pregnant women.
Explains downplaying early treatment.
Explains vaccine passports.
Explains downplaying adverse events.
Explains pushing boosters.

Malignant short-termism.
Dec 18, 2021 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Why do most (if not all) tech development teams report the same issues, to the point of parody?🧵

The quoted tweet is hilarious, because it touches on experiences many have had, to an absurd level of detail.

However, predictability implies patterns, so what's the pattern here? All the items in the Universal Retrospective Template can be boiled down to a few core and omnipresent characteristics in today's technology:

Complexity, tight coupling of modules, lack of control, all of which lead to lack of clarity. Basically, modern bureaucracy in a gist.
Dec 18, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
People have been asking me to do a run-through the McCullough - Rogan podcast. 🧵

My problem with that is that McCullough cited much of what he said to papers and books, so I'd have to dig in on that level. He also had a number of claims that are hard to prove or disprove. While listening, I did catch a number of issues, such as his representation of the SPARS exercise, or how he described the bet offered by Steve Kirsch (wrongly). I also had issues with his over-reliance on credentials and the lack of qualification of claims.
Dec 15, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
"we know what happened with ivermectin".

No, @robbysoave @ryangrim, you read a well-written blog post that gave worms 50% subjective likelihood of being true, and you confused it for actual scientific knowledge.

Narrative beats data every time with these professional pundits. And @KimIversenShow thank you for holding the fort. Show your colleagues this response just in case you can dislodge that idea that worms is "settled science" from their heads. doyourownresearch.substack.com/p/a-conflict-o…
Dec 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Twitter but with code. Pico apps instead of tweets.
Dec 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
OK, so @VPrasadMDMPH dropped a monster video today. Anyone who was waiting for data on myocarditis and pericarditis, now has data. 🧵

Before continuing, please watch his video: The actual paper is here: nature.com/articles/s4159…
Dec 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Apparently @NAChristakis is a natural immunity denier who takes activist CDC studies at their word.

In case he ever sees this:
Κύριε Νίκο, σας παρακαλώ πολύ να κοιτάξετε λίγο πιο εις βάθος πριν να επαναλάμβανετε τις μελέτες της CDC στο ευρύ κοινό. Further reading:
Dec 12, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
"Liberty or Death" is the Greek national motto, and I've been thinking about it a lot recently.🧵

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleftheri… Consider this brief conversation between Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan. What is the collective solution? How does a large and diffuse crowd resist this kind of organized, centralized encroachment? Collective principled absolutism sounds actually sensible.
Dec 9, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
With @ProjectQuine we're attempting to make a machine that can copy itself.🧵

Here's our current list of experiments:

1. Printing and plating a simple PCB: 2. Leaving a part of the filament unplated (covering with nail polish) to substitute a resistor:
Dec 9, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
My model for the next 9 months: Omicron will not be very mild, especially in countries without widespread infections already.

The bad: More panic and overreaction.
The good: Few will still be naive to the virus by spring/summer. Follow on infections actually mild. Pandemic over. Certainty: 2/3

Putting this out there to solicit counterarguments and questions. Happy to change my mind.
Dec 7, 2021 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
Noticing people downplaying immunity from recovery (aka. natural immunity). Why? ♾🧵

I sincerely think NI is our best bet to get out of this mess given the situation on the ground, and I'm baffled why people would talk it down.

Give me your guesses why, I'll give you mine. 1. Keep it simple. They don't want the complexity of having to test for NI / believe people will lie to avoid the vaccine. Making no exception prevents that outcome.
Dec 7, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Act 1. @neontaster makes serious accusation Act 2. @neontaster makes it clear that @BretWeinstein did not double check the claims he propagated.
Dec 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
You are accused of murder. The prosecution has video of you shooting the victim, who later succombs of his wounds. You get up to testify and say:

I plead innocent because while I did shoot him, and he did die, it's well known that... I want to get into the weeds a bit here, because this is easy to misunderstand.
Dec 1, 2021 • 29 tweets • 11 min read
What went wrong with the TOGETHER trial? (take 2, now with 100% less wrongspeak) 🧵

I'll write down the 7 major issues I know of, let me know if you have others. The TOGETHER trial is a trial testing multiple treatments for COVID. It's got a fascinating "adaptive platform" trial design that allows it to efficiently evaluate many interventions and absorb findings from global research as it goes. So far so good. togethertrial.com/trials
Dec 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
What went wrong with the TOGETHER trial, and why do I consider it positive evidence of Ivermectin efficacy?🧵

I'll write down the 7 major issues I know of, let me know if you have others. The TOGETHER trial is a trial testing multiple treatments for COVID. It's got a fascinating "adaptive platform" trial design that allows it to efficiently evaluate many interventions and absorb findings from global research as it goes. So far so good. togethertrial.com/trials
Nov 29, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
Over the last year or so we've doubled down on dogfooding at @balena_io. We use our product to make our product. This does come with short term pain as people get frustrated with having to make changes to their development setup. But the long term gain is phenomenal. 🧵 For one, it gives our team embodied experience of using our product. It's one thing to know the specs, and another to have a feel for how our development experience flows. This helps us tremendously in discussions for further evolution of the workflow.
Nov 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
He shouldn't have had to be there.

There, I solved it for y'all. *have had to have been there. I'm ESL allright?
Nov 19, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
What are the pandemic-related questions on which the data is clear but public perception is not? ♾🧵

I have a few, maybe you can convince me of a few more? 1. Delta is more deadly than the original strain from Wuhan.
Nov 17, 2021 • 60 tweets • 18 min read
Everyone's sending me the latest @slatestarcodex piece. astralcodexten.substack.com/p/ivermectin-m…

The good - If anyone can convince me it's Scott Alexander

The bad - He also seems to misunderstand the issue with TOGETHER, and is also taking GidMK at face value, whom I consider a bad actor. 🧵 @slatestarcodex I've a number of other concerns on a first *very quick* pass, BUT they all may be completely superficial and Scott's point may still stand. Upon first read it looks like he's made the best faith, highest quality summary of the "anti" side, but not understood the counters fully.
Nov 17, 2021 • 24 tweets • 7 min read
I've mentioned before the different operational model we have at @balena_io. This is a 🧵 about the our basic organizational role and aspirational job description for everyone -- the product builder. A product builder builds a product. Obviously. But what is "a product"?

A product is a well-defined offering with a clear interface that the product builder needs no permission to improve upon. A product is useful on its own, has its own identity (brand, logo, mission...)
Nov 16, 2021 • 13 tweets • 7 min read
Supply chain chaos is accelerating trends that will revolutionize hardware forever.🧵

The @balena_io team asked the question:

Can we turn python code to physical hardware, at home, in a few hours?

Keep reading for an answer that will blow. your. mind. 🤯 I've been musing about the potential of continued supply chain disruption, and how it may drive software and hardware closer for a few months now.
Nov 16, 2021 • 29 tweets • 9 min read
What's going on with the FLCCC Retracted paper? (take 2) 🧵

I did a thread on this a few days ago, but the rabbit hole was deep and I ended up confusing people more than I helped, so here's my second bite at the apple. I hope this time things will be clearer. You can find the retracted paper by copying the following fragments into your browser address tab as one string:

https://sci-hubtw.hkvisa
.net/10.1177/0885066620973585

And you can find the retraction notice here:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/08…
Nov 15, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Folks, talk me off the ledge, this is making too much sense:

1. Pandemic panic distracts from printing of USD
2. Which is a reaction to China's currency manipulation
3. So inflation is on purpose, making domestic manufacturing & US debt cheaper
4. Helping US decouple from China This schema is coming from remembering what Greece (pre-euro) used to do when our debt got too high -- we'd print some money. And the narrative would always be "this helps our exports, because our currency is cheaper".
Nov 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What do you use Twitter for? ♾🧵

I've got a few usecases of mine to share, what are yours? 1. A better search engine.
Nov 14, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Nothing to see here citizen, move along... archive.md/oiZSc I commend the author for somehow managing to also not blame lockdowns somehow. Needle well threaded!
Nov 12, 2021 • 24 tweets • 8 min read
OK, what's going on with the retracted FLCCC paper? I dug in and here's what I found: 🧵 First things first, the paper. Twitter doesn't like scihub links, so you'll have to put the following three strings one after the other in your browser. I don't make the rules 🤷

https://sci-hubtw

.hkvisa.net/

10.1177/0885066620973585
Nov 12, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I'll start by calling you an ideologue and then "challenge" you to a "debate".

Classic.

I sure hope @PierreKory or @BretWeinstein don't take this guy's challenge up if he can't even be bothered to pretend to be civil in a fucking tweet. Nobody needs a shouting match on video. This guy's acolytes are the best. I've blocked a couple before, but he seems to have an army. Well, at least a gang.
Nov 12, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Time for a ♾🧵 on this excellent question: which countries have changed their vaccination recommendations and policies around different brands recently?

I've got some, I'm sure you all have more.
Nov 11, 2021 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Shameless plug thread. ♾🧵

Do you have talents that others can hire you for, or work for / run / own a company others can use?
Nov 10, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
🧵on official sources admitting that they're counting all deaths "with" COVID in the official numbers, not just deaths "because of" COVID. Here's @VictorianCHO saying pretty much the same:
Nov 10, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Having had a couple of days to let this interview settle in my head, I think @lexfridman exposed the biggest issue with the official response to the pandemic: Lack of humility.🧵 Vaccines based on entirely new to humans technology deployed at an unprecedented rate and scale. Mandated, even to children. Overriding natural immunity, underpinning a war on early treatment, steamrolling Adverse Events data, based on bogus data on efficacy from broken trials.
Nov 9, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
But if you say things Claire doesn't like about the pandemic then you're "irresponsible" and she will publish (s)hit pieces on you to defend your right of free enquiry.

Some other kind of truth indeed. Screenshot for the blocked:
Nov 9, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
What are the most serious statistical or data gathering errors (intentional or not) we've seen from official sources in this pandemic?♾🧵

I'll post a few I've seen in private conversations and you can tell me others you know of, ideally using references as neutral as possible. 1. The tragically wrong IHME model used to justify lockdowns: vox.com/future-perfect…
Nov 8, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
So, uh, how was your weekend? My favorite follower is the hatefollower.
Nov 7, 2021 • 67 tweets • 17 min read
The following is a 🧵on the Lex Fridman / Francis Collins podcast.

I haven't listened to it yet, so I'll be writing as I listen:
Episode #238 (Francis Collins: National Institutes of Health)

The pod is here if you want to listen along: Fridman starts by stating the goal is to ask hard questions with empathy and humility "so that we may begin to regain a sense of trust in science, and it may once again become a source of hope". Francis says "he loves the goal" and so do I.
Nov 7, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
What are the most glaring questions you have about the pandemic, that have no obvious answer? ♾🧵

Tell me yours, I'll tell you mine. 1. Why is the CDC/USG pushing for universal vaccination over any other consideration, including natural immunity, age risk profile, vaccine waning data, adverse events, etc, even though we know these vaccines can't produce herd immunity?
Nov 6, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
So, this thing is right above the stove in our new house, but we have no idea what it is. Any clues? Today I learned!
Nov 6, 2021 • 31 tweets • 9 min read
Why would the CDC say something so counterintuitive (and counter-most research) without rock solid evidence to back it? ♾🧵

Tell me your hypotheses and I'll tell you mine.

More details on the actual science: chrismasterjohnphd.com/blog/2021/11/0… 1. KISS Principle
Nov 4, 2021 • 20 tweets • 6 min read
People have been calling $TSLA a "meme stock", so I want to show you in a very simple way why I consider it to be anything but. For one, show me a trillion dollar company sustaining 50%+ revenue growth since it went public 12 years ago: 🧵 What about margins you ask? Consistently growing.
Nov 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
A tale of two tweets:🧵

One has 2x the likes,
has been up for 3x as long,
has 6x the engagements,
and 7x the retweets.

The other one doesn't mention the V-word.

Twitter's algorithm has shown both to ~12,000 people. Tweet #1 is makes an important point about our epistemic state in this pandemic: ImageImage
Oct 30, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
The Elon-Gator Principle 🧵

Or, what I learned from watching @elonmusk and @drrollergator use social media at the Grandmaster level.
Oct 29, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Count the sleighs of hand going on in this tweet here. This is masterful. I regret ever thinking government agencies were incompetent. Bravo! That's it. That's the gif.
Oct 29, 2021 • 45 tweets • 14 min read
The Real Scandal About Ivermectin🧵

Or, "Rigor for thee but not for me"

Let's walk through @jamesheathers latest article in The Atlantic to see if he and his collaborators have been paying attention to the criticism of their work.

theatlantic.com/science/archiv… The subtitle is already setting the stage: "Claims about the drug are based on shoddy science—but that science is entirely unremarkable in its shoddiness."

If I am reading correctly, this is saying that both "the science behind ivermectin is shoddy" and "that's pretty typical".
Oct 28, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Can journalism be rescued?

Back in February I wrote a thread about it, which I'll revisit and extend here: Another, more recent thread of thoughts, mostly focusing on honorable use of language:
Oct 28, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
Breaking News🧵

Yuri Deigin's PharmaBio lost several court cases in Russia for misusing funding, found after a flash audit, having to refund the government.

At YouthBio, his co-founder/CFO has been fined $100k by the SEC for securities violations involving misleading investors. This information has been released by @BillyBostickson in response to Yuri announcing a new website for DRASTIC, listing only 12 members. The old website is still there, listing 23 members. I'll try to find out more and update this thread as I figure out what's going on.
Oct 27, 2021 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
What are the biggest narrative shifts you know of, recent or historical?

Tell me yours I'll tell you mine. This is, of course, a Loopback Thread.
Oct 26, 2021 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Imagine tweeting about the people you appreciate and having cynical idiots using it to sneer and dunk.

Unprovoked nastiness like this is why people fear participating here.

But fear is the mind killer, and I play tit for tat, so time for a little 🧵 dedicated to these losers:
Oct 26, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
You are entering a complex, multilayered situation you need to understand and resolve. No other details available. You can choose any 5 people for your sensemaking dream team. Who do you bring?

My choices:
@elonmusk
@ConceptualJames
@BretWeinstein
@jockowillink
@danielkenobe Equal team of alternates inspired by the submissions so far.
@balajis
@ESYudkowsky
@chrismartenson
@slatestarcodex
@Plinz
Oct 25, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Introducing Loopback Threads ♾🧵.

Or, how to use Twitter to make yourself smarter.

You can see some examples in the QT, this thread will cover what these threads are and how to make your own. First, find a question that you know a few different plausible answers for. Start a thread with the question, and list out the answers you know.
Oct 23, 2021 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
Could corporations be code?

A perma-🧵 to gather thoughts on what's needed to build a robot in the domain of legal personhood. A legal android, if you will.

But first, what is a corporation, anyway? Put simply, it's a legal abstraction allowing many people, with a defined relationship between them, to appear as one, in the eyes of the law (and other humans). Perhaps a better way to think of it is as a "composite person".
Oct 23, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Why do corporations tend to reduce themselves to the lowest common denominator? 🧵 The book "Loonshots" refers to the idea of "return on politics": Companies should try to make sure that it's more advantageous for one's career to make actual contributions than to be engaged in internal marketing of one's work and angling to get promoted and/or amass more power.
Oct 23, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Whoever claims that the American and Australian experiences are so divergent as to not be intelligible is either lost or pulling a fast one (or both). Within the breadth and depth of possible human cultures, these two are so similar that they're hard to even distinguish. The memes are the point.
Oct 22, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
A riddle with many possible answers: 🧵

Name a thing that is
- anti-fragile
- advantageous to all who participate in it
- can accommodate an arbitrary number of participants

I'll give you my possible answers if you give me yours 😁 Answer 1. A language (and the community of its speakers)
Oct 20, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
Biden is going to war with Tesla to help out UAW. 🧵

Why is Sandy Munro, a 50+ year veteran of Detroit, who's worked on everything from ATVs to pickup trucks to fighter jets, pissed off about the appointment of @missy_cummings as NHTSA advisor?

Something's really gone wrong: So what's going on? Well, in short, this:
Oct 20, 2021 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
Why don't we have a delta-targeting vaccine available right now? I thought the promise of mrna tech was that it would be quick to adapt to variants?

I'll tell you the hypotheses I know of, you tell me yours. Hypothesis 1. Regulation makes it difficult to push through a new variant vaccine.
Oct 19, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
How many lies can one tweet contain? Let's see: 1. Tesla gets its cobalt from Canada, known hotbed of slavery
2. But cobalt is fungible, so their batteries use as little as possible, and their new ones don't use any of it (see LFP)
3. "Family wealth questionably obtained" is of course repeating the fake emerald mine BS. See:
Oct 19, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Elon Musk explains the supply chain crisis before it happened: What happens when you suddenly dump a bunch of noise (printed money) into the information mechanism for labor allocation?
Oct 19, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
No, seriously, what's causing the supply chain chaos?

So far, I've heard:
-Chinese ports closing randomly
-Lack of containers
-Port workers soft strike
-Lack of truck drivers
-Demand surge

Can it be a bit of everything? Or is the plurality of explanations obscuring sth deeper? Put this one in the "welcome to complex systems" column.
Oct 18, 2021 • 31 tweets • 9 min read
I've been hinting in various conversations about a distributed news aggregator design I've been sitting on for about a decade or so. I'll describe it here so I have somewhere to point to, for feedback, and if I never get a chance to build it, maybe it will inspire someone else.🧵 My quest begun with writing this paper back in 2009. We didn't know about the bitcoin white paper that had gotten released a months earlier, but we sketched out several pieces of what came out of the crypto ecosystem over the next dozen years. arxiv.org/abs/0907.2485
Oct 17, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Ok people, let's crowdsource it -

Fact check this article: I started off one on the TOGETHER trial being mischaracterized:
Oct 17, 2021 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
A preliminary analysis we did. A few details that are worth mentioning:

1. This was done as a response to *someone* claiming that there was no temporal relationship between vaccination and adverse events
2. We have removed j&j as it's single shot
3. The data is up to a cutoff date I will try to find precisely
Oct 16, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
This will be a 🧵 gathering England demographic and COVID data.

Please let me know if you have better sources and/or other timeseries that can be of help.

Also, if you are good at coding simulations, and want to help with the next step of this project, see tweet below: Vaccination rates by age:
Oct 15, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Journal Editors as Establishment Special Forces. 🧵

How many cases of editors pulling or rejecting controversial papers that have made it through peer review have we seen recently?

There's the Rose/McCullough paper: There's "The mechanisms of action of Ivermectin against SARS-CoV-2: An evidence-based clinical review article" by Asiya Kamber Zaidi & Puya Dehgani-Mobaraki that was pulled by the editor... nature.com/articles/s4142… Image
Oct 14, 2021 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
I've never really answered the critics of @BetterSkeptics first challenge in one place, so I should probably write this down so I can refer people to it in the future. 🧵 The criticism that has been coming our way should have been somewhat expected, given that in any sensemaking exercise where there's significant disagreement, someone will feel like their side was not fairly represented. That said, it may well be that they were right. Let's see:
Oct 14, 2021 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
The Mysterious Case of Sam Harris 🧵

A big reason pulling me into this whole debate around the pandemic is being baffled by behaviors of people like Sam. Having had high esteem for him, it was important to me to "unpack" our disagreement, to make sure I haven't lost my mind. I started by doing a comment thread on his podcast with Eric Topol, which, as you will discover, left me deeply unsatisfied.
Oct 11, 2021 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
I want to investigate the Hector Carvallo situation. This 🧵is likely to become overlong and meandering as I'll try to figure things out in real-time, so if you want to help please tag along, and if you want "just the facts" best to just mute this one and wait for the summary. I'm aware of 3 main articles I'll try to comb through, and I've read none of them closely. Please comment with other resources.

[1]: buzzfeednews.com/article/stepha…
[2]: rescue.substack.com/p/a-lifeline-f…
[3]: trialsitenews.com/ivermectin-war…
Oct 10, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This is strange...
September 14: "Journalist and disinformation researcher"
Today: "pursuing a master's degree in biomedical science"

Why edit to obscure the journalism background? I very well may be losing my mind, but this @ggreenwald tweet comes to mind..
Oct 10, 2021 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
I'm realizing that the insitence on Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) as the only evidence that matters when deciding if a medicine/supplement should be used, structurally biases against generics, over-the-counter meds/supplements, and those with few side-effects. Here's why:🧵 The first class of problems has to do with wide availability when the subject of effectiveness on a new disease is raised.

1. Cheap OTC generics with few side-effects get used a lot in an emergency, where word of mouth spreads, making it much harder to form a control group.
Oct 9, 2021 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Apparently Twitter has unfollowed me from @BretWeinstein.

Hey @jack. When I say I want to follow @BretWeinstein, I mean I want to follow @BretWeinstein, and it's not a matter up to Twitter's whims to decide that I don't. Capish? More
Oct 9, 2021 • 31 tweets • 10 min read
I've criticized Kyle's group for not sharing the data they use to make sweeping statements. I'll demonstrate why this matters:🧵

Take this quote:"Every randomised trial that found a statistically significant benefit for survival was fake or did not actually happen as described." First of all, it's important to say that while the tweet is far more carefully worded, the quote offered to the BBC, and not corrected when the article is shared, is far less careful, and basically false:
Oct 8, 2021 • 35 tweets • 11 min read
Is Ivermectin enthusiasm research founded upon fraudulent research?🧵

This investigation from the BBC, citing research by @GidMK @sTeamTraen @JackMLawrence @K_Sheldrick and @jamesheathers, claims the answer is yes.

Let's dive in and see what we find. bbc.com/news/health-58… I don't tend to list credentials, but in case this is read by academics, and this makes a difference, I'll mention that I have a PhD in Computing. Google says that the papers I wrote in my ~3 year publishing run have been cited 865 times and that my h-index is 11.
Oct 7, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Let's start keeping track of Fauci calls for resignation, from mainstream voices, overt and covert, because I'm starting to notice a bit of a pattern. May be nothing, may be something. 🧵washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/… This was a bit of a subtweet, also (hint: Collins was there for 12 years, Fauci has been there for 37).
Oct 6, 2021 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Every day we get another step closer to intentionally causing backlash on all vaccines. 🤦 To define as "anti-vaxxers" ~40% of Americans, knowing the effect labels have on beliefs, is simply criminal. 🧵 Here's the detailed numbers if you want to see them.
Oct 5, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
What if... HealthNerd's investigation into IVM is actually vindicating IVM instead of proving it fraudulent? Well, A BMJ article claims we should expect 20% medical research to be Fraud. That's more than HN has found out of the studies he researched. Not randomized, but even so. Yes, this is tongue in cheek. But this is the kind of background work he should have done before dragging the names of hundreds of researchers through the mud. Without a baseline, the implication is that we're looking for 0% bad papers, which is a fallacy. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate…
Oct 5, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Donation drive is on! HealthNerd's accolytes are swarming my thread on their hero, and are definitely being incredibly constructive. This time we'll do a mass banning, because they're out in numbers. Constructive Acolyte #2
Oct 4, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
How to master uncertainty for fun and profit.🧵

The world is a weird place, and it might just get weirder. Pretending we can control it guarantees we'll fail to make the most of what it has to offer.

Instead, start by accepting the uncertainty, and surf the wave.🌊 Enablement over control.

Instead of trying to figure out how you can control what others will think or do, understand what they need, and provide them with tools that help them be better.
Oct 3, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Modernity is uncertainty denialism.

To escape it, we're willing to give almost everything up.

I hope "almost".🧵 We dismiss Enablement in favor of Control.
Oct 3, 2021 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
Elon Musk vs. Bill Gates

Walk with me through all the ways in which these two are so diametrically opposed to each other. Gates: Warning about population growth
weforum.org/agenda/2018/09…
Oct 1, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Let's talk about the word "expert".

What does it mean when we call someone an expert? Here's what Google says:

"a person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of or skill in a particular area".

In this one word I think we will find the root of our troubles: 🧵 So if someone is an expert in virology, that means they have comprehensive & authoritative knowledge of virology.

But what does comprehensive knowledge of an area mean? It means to be complete.

We're expecting our scientists to claim complete knowledge of an area.
Sep 30, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Wow. Talk about a thread that says the exact opposite of the paper it cites. Comments🔥. 📄Quote:
"Transmission reductions declined over time since 2nd vaccination, for Delta reaching similar levels to unvaccinated by 12 weeks for ChAdOx1 & attenuating substantially for BNT162b2" Let me translate from 🤡ish:

"wane slightly" = completely
"somewhat less" = far less
Sep 30, 2021 • 10 tweets • 4 min read
If my current project isn't clear, I'm working on understanding and evaluating the hypotheses put forth by @GVDBossche. As things start to go sideways I'm suspecting that he may have been right about a lot, but with a hypothesis that rich, it takes work to make conclusions. 🧵 Like many, I was first exposed to Geert's ideas through his interview with @BretWeinstein:
Sep 29, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
🤣 @fiddlebits donated to the FLCCC in honor of @hang_a_shore's constructive comment below, and now I have no choice: I have to follow through with a "donate and block" fundraiser. The people have spoken!
Sep 29, 2021 • 22 tweets • 9 min read
Holy shit, I just noticed the subtitle of this image. OK folks, we have to get to the bottom of the whole "variants emerged due to vaccine trials" claim. Has anyone chased this down, other than the original correlation GISAID images? Image @EduEngineer has done fantastic work here, though it would be worth narrowing the claims in time and place further. roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/variant-roul…
Sep 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
The 5 lines of evidence we were able to collect, all point to Delta being more dangerous.

I keep hearing that viruses get milder as they become endemic, so what explains this anomaly? Good point.
Sep 28, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
I keep hearing about how delta variant is (more¦less) dangerous.

So, what do we know about its risks? (we need to compare with Alpha, on vaccinated:vaccinated & unvaccinated:unvaccinated for meaningful results).

I'll post what I have, and *please* share what you've come across. 1. The EAVE II study says risk of hospital admission doubled, and vaccine protection still effective but diminished.

thelancet.com/journals/lance…
Sep 27, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Come to think of it, I do seem to have gathered myself an illustrious set of blockings... Forgive the indulgent threadlet, nothing to take too seriously, just some harmless fun(?). The first person to block me was Kristian Andersen.
Sep 27, 2021 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
It is an honor, sir. (I don't believe I have ever interacted with him, but I may have written a thread or three that he didn't like. Image You know what, to celebrate, let's do a retrospective. My first significant mention of Daszak, was probably this one:
Sep 26, 2021 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
The Emerging Heretical Consensus🧵

Watching @RWMaloneMD & @GVDBossche yesterday, I saw scientific process at work. Outspoken experts opposing the establishment, converging to concrete predictions. We'll soon know who's right and who's wrong.

First, I've noticed this convergence a bit more than 2 months ago, with a number of controversial experts brought together by @BretWeinstein on the DarkHorse podcast. Since then, their views have been inching closer.
Sep 24, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
What is this feeling I am experiencing? Could it be... Hope? NIH says that EcoHealth broke the terms of its funding... Anyone smell barbecue bat?
Sep 22, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Imagine these words but being spoken by a dictator, while shutting down the opposition on any matter whatsoever.

When have the good guys ever said "you're either with us or against us, and creating doubt is deadly"?

Let's walk through this slowly, because I'm kinda in awe. 🧵 "the heterodox thinkers' obsession with nuance".

This assumes the conclusion, as usual. Nobody says that of their own position. People talk about nuance because they believe things are more complex than pro/anti mandate or covid-19 vaccine. Is the FDA rejecting boosters antivax?
Sep 20, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Sep 18, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I am reading the slide deck of the TOGETHER trial and have a few questions of those who know a bit more about this stuff than me.

I'll try to keep this thread as neutral as possible.

To read the deck, click the link below, and press the "slides" button. rethinkingclinicaltrials.org/news/august-6-… The trial says (implies) that it's using "shared control patients". In the "recruitment over time" slide, it shows that the placebo group was recruited in both "stages". Does this mean placebo patients from either stage were used to form control groups for each drug tested? ImageImage
Sep 18, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
So, this is probably the worst rebuttal I've seen recently, and this says a lot. I suspect I'm going to have a few things to say so it's time to reach for that 🧵emoji. So, first strike for a Professor of Ethics, he doesn't link to the video he is responding to. The tweet he quotes doesn't link to it, and the article the tweet links to doesn't link to the video. It's all meta-commentary. So here's the original:
Sep 18, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Upon request of @april_harding I will attempt to list some off-the-cuff principles for how my 🧵s come together.

I'm sure others do it differently, this is about how I do it.

That's right. It's a 🧵 about 🧵s. 1. Understanding the medium is important. A thread is not a blogpost. As much as possible make each tweet stand out as a stand-alone idea. The best part about threads is that each tweet can reach different people and generate different conversations.
Sep 18, 2021 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
A partially effective measure will not only select for the subset of the problem it doesn't address, but the very existence of the measure can worsen the problem by creating the impression it's under control, encouraging people to let their guard down.

What are some examples? 1. ADE:
A partially effective vaccine will not only select for the subset of the variants it doesn't kill, but the very presence of antibodies can worsen the infection by giving the virus the body's own signature, encouraging cells to let their guard down.en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-…
Sep 18, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Today's experiment in #tweetInversion...

- do you think this one works?
- if so, why do you think it works?

I'm still on the fence about whether this is.a tool of sensemaking or sophistry. I think I know why I was uncomfortable about this one. Her tweet is built on a false fact claim. The evidence is not being hidden, it's right there. So in this case inversion is not making a symmetric tweet. The response is genuinely superior, since it's actually true. Huh.
Sep 17, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I've started trying something that may look irritating, but is testing a hypothesis. Namely:

If a tweet, with minimal modifications, can become a perfectly coherent reply to itself, then the original is vacuous meta-commentary that can be discarded without further consideration. I've been noticing quite a few of these on-high "pretending to be wise" kind of quips that sound wise until one realizes that they are entirely free-floating and cannot be distinguished from their negatives, which also sound just as wise.
Sep 16, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
Today's donation to the FLCCC is in the honor of "Will". This one is a fascinating troll though, so first, a little 🧵 So, our friend "will", is one of the most stubborn, dishonest arguers around. Peruse his tweets if you like: @su3su2u1. If you hear him tell it, he's here to find arguments to convince his family to get vaccinated. Image
Sep 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Wait till they hear Darwin write the "Origin of the Species" without getting a PhD first. I even heard he did his own research. Why did he hate science?
Sep 15, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
The paper in the Lancet by the ex-FDA official had a fascinating figure in it. The reason it's fascinating is that it showed how vicious Gamma really is (chart B). The reason this is of interest is that the TOGETHER trial took place in Brazil, during a period of very high prevalence of the Gamma variant. bmj.com/content/374/bm…
Sep 14, 2021 • 60 tweets • 22 min read
Did Robert Malone invent mRNA vaccines?

This🧵will answer from first principles, a question that comes up surprisingly often in pandemic-related conversations.

As always, I'll give you the primary sources and my reasoning so you can take my answer apart and put yours together. Image First, a caveat: You may have noticed that me and Dr. Malone have shared good words for each other. All that was *after* my original investigation thread that this one will polish and complete. Regardless, the case made should not require you to trust me. Image
Sep 13, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
This reads far fetched but I've come to believe it points to an uncomfortable truth. There are two mindsets for the future of humanity: one where we rely on control systems to keep things "stable", and one where we rely on enablement systems to do what life does: grow and grow. The "control" mindset is not just in communism, and it's not just in sustainability circles. Many of the world's top capitalists espouse it as well. It starts from a lack of faith in humanity. The problem? It creates zero-sum games, which bring out the worst in humanity.
Sep 13, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This sounds.. like a big deal. Any native speakers who can confirm context and translation? Content is in doubt as per the response below. Probably best to get an uncut recording before further conclusions.
Sep 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The responsibility for the expert conversation being had in public is solely with the godfather figures of "The Science" who have shut down any opposing voice within academia. We trusted them, they failed us, it's over. Public conversation is the only trustworthy conversation. No discussion of responsibility of any expert having public conversation can begin before total condemnation of those who shat on the hard won commons, forged fake consensus, and then have the gall to lecture about appropriate messaging.
Sep 12, 2021 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
Tonight's FLCCC donation campaign is in the honor our latest reading resistant variant, @Semple521. As usual, when I get roped in and waste my time on a dishonest actor, I donate to the @Covid19Critical and invite everyone else to, to make some good come of it regardless. If you feel like making trolling a bit less attractive by supporting a good cause, you can make your donation here: covid19criticalcare.com/network-suppor…
Sep 8, 2021 • 26 tweets • 7 min read
What if we had a do-over on this whole "medical science" thing? 🧵

I'm increasingly worried that our approach to science when it comes to complex systems generally, and medicine specifically, is deranged.

A rant, followed by a concrete suggestion for a different way forward: We try to isolate a slice of a system, nail down as many variables as we can, and produce generalizable conclusions. Here's the thing though:
Sep 7, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Remember: Every journo that says big words about responsibility for what the public will do with the info they get, is a journo that is outright telling you that they filter the info they give you based on what they think it will cause you to do. They think their job is herding. Hey journos, let's make a deal: you give me info, and I'll be responsible for what I do with it. Is that too complicated to keep straight? If you're sharing info to encourage virtue and discourage vice, there's a few words for that: manipulation, hypocrisy, betrayal, failure.
Sep 7, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
If you're here for insights on the pandemic, drop what you're doing and watch this video, first 10 min especially.

If you don't know how Fauci handled the HIV epidemic, your mind will melt. I don't know @KimIversenShow but damn that was well done.

#faucikilledfreddie
Sep 6, 2021 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
I'll sketch out a quick thought for early feedback. Maybe I'll do a proper thread later -

(1) I've been sensing that we might be at a crossover point like @jgreenhall is predicting, between the "blue church" and the bottom-up collective intelligence... (2) At the same time I've been baffled at how many people seem to be behaving completely erratically, including people who are considered respected thinkers.

Sep 5, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
A tweelogy without comment:
Sep 5, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Ouija Boards are a very useful example in trying to understand how things can appear coordinated by a hidden mind, when in fact they are a cascade of accidents & misunderstandings. 🧵

Vox has a decent explainer on Ouija boards, read it first if unsure: vox.com/2016/10/29/133… In the case of a big bureaucracy, you have a large set of agents all looking at each other, interpreting the slightest hint as an indication of the "right" move at the right time. This is why narrative is so important. It's not just for the public, it's also internal messaging.
Sep 5, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Tonight's donation to the FLCCC is in the honor of science denying, authoritarian safetyist troll, @deletethenats Donating is a just a few clicks, starting from this page: covid19criticalcare.com/network-suppor…
Sep 4, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
How it started (2008): How it's going (2021): Receipts: aclu.org/sites/default/…
Sep 3, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
I never properly concluded this challenge, so I want to review the results and what we can learn from them. The apparent winner is this entry by @crentsh:
Sep 3, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Look who's trying to play reasonable one day after Claire Lehmann tried the same maneuver. Call me conspiratorial, but I'm sensing coordination. It might be nothing, but has anyone else pulled similar moves recently? Folks are saying that I appear to be "on tilt". I very well might be. I'm putting this out there so my neck is fully extended and if I'm wrong it's made plain to me. My sense is that this is not as innocent as it looks, and if it is, I want to be wrong.
Sep 3, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Today's donation drive to FLCCC is in the honor of one James O'Leary. I'd make a thread analyzing something he said but this one is full blown incoherent, so I'll just do the donating. Don't click through if you care for your mental health. I mean, you *are* on Twitter though... Donations to the FLCCC can be made from this very accessible page: covid19criticalcare.com/network-suppor…
Sep 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Can any Japanese speakers help confirm/deny the provenance of this presentation and in general the status of ivm in Japan? I've heard conflicting narratives and the language barrier doesn't help.
Sep 2, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Seriously, let's figure out how this BS about "horse paste"/"horse dewormer" started. See the earliest mention I can find quickly. Anyone find earlier? It will be interesting to see the roots of this disinformation campaign, and if it's Claire that started it I will be in shock. Ok, here's an earlier case, as a casual reply to a comment about not-horse-paste.
Sep 1, 2021 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
I love this tweet so much. I love it so much I am about to spend an unreasonable amount of time analyzing the absurdity of this sequence of characters. You.. might want to mute this 🧵because this rant is about to go semantic. I will start with the second sentence first. "Your quibble doesn't debunk the article". For one, Bolle uses the word "quibble" to diminish the argument put forth, without justification. On top, they assert that it doesn't debunk the article with no justification. Just doesn't.
Sep 1, 2021 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Help me think through this:

Current vaccines reduce the chance of catching covid per unit of time, but with enough time, probability still approaches 100%

The older you get it, the worse off you are.

Are we betting the virus gets weaker faster than our immune systems do? I suppose there is the aspect of us getting better at treatment over time that is non-trivial
Sep 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Well, this is worth tracking... (heisen🧵.. Maybe it is maybe it's not, click and find out)
Aug 30, 2021 • 26 tweets • 7 min read
OK folks, classifying this under "huge if true". What's known about this? Can we share some resources & thoughts on what it is and what it means? who.int/publications/i… ok, first report that the "blockchain based" element is questionable. For whatever reason this is the scariest part for me -
Aug 30, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
I want to address this head on, because this sort of nasty attack has been threatened for a while by this "sensemaker" and he seems to have finally decided to cross the line, attacking my work.

I've been running a company for almost 10 years and seen it through lows and highs.🧵 We've intentionally decided to follow a non-standard approach to building our organization, which I will share more on soon. As the glassdoor reviews show, the responses are bimodal. People love working at balena or they don't.
Aug 30, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Omura's Wager (v1):

If even ivermectin skeptics say there's likely *some benefit*, even small, and treatment side-effects are minimal...

...then we've got little to lose, but many to save, by giving it to anyone with a positive COVID test when they're sent home to isolate.🧵 This is a proposal designed to find common ground between reasonable people despite disagreements. We don't have to agree on lab leak, or what the best prophylactic strategy is, or even how effective ivermectin is in early treatment. Only that we want to save lives from COVID.
Aug 29, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Someone asked for analysis on the tweet that got Berenson banned, and I think I have something nuanced to say, so here goes a mini🧵:

1. Not stopping infection or transmission is common knowledge at this point. It's a game of likelihoods. 2. The definitional point however is probably overstretched bordering on propaganda. There are things called non-sterilizing vaccines that fit this definition. Is the flu vaccine as contested in being called a vaccine?
Aug 28, 2021 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
This Health Nerd guy seems to be truly a strange case. Makes loud pretentious claims, then crumbles under pushback. Anyone have the details on what's going on?

I'll make this a mini-thread with the various clues I've seen so far in case anyone has more to bring to the table. Here's a mini-thread by @jonst0kes on the same guy. Apparently he's endorsed every bad take the establishment has had during the pandemic, including "masks bad"...
Aug 27, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Observations:
- This was a promoted tweet by...
- the CEO of Ford talking like a spreadsheet...
- pointing to bankruptcy before 2030, except...
- the US Gov't will have to bail them out as...
- unions, having ruined them, lobby to sustain their corpses.
- it still won't work. See here what a man who has devoted decades of his life to Detroit automotives has to say about the recent moves of the US government.
Aug 25, 2021 • 18 tweets • 7 min read
You guys want to hear a funny story?

Here's how I got in contact with @RWMaloneMD: 🧵 During the first Better Skeptics challenge, Fuller was sending me all sorts of arguments against dark horse. Among them that Malone was but a third author in a random paper and not really inventor of mRNA tech. I took him seriously and started to dig.
Aug 25, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I'm observing that a diverse set of heterodox thinkers that have not yet engaged much (in my recollection) with the coronavirus wars have started to pay attention. Case in point:
Aug 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Things I'm confused about
- Why mandates if herd immunity isn't possible
- What happens 8 months after boosters
- What's the plan for the next variant
- Why twitter is the best place for news
- Why we're messing with vaccine injury liability if the vaccines are safe and effective lesswrong.com/s/zpCiuR4T343j…
Aug 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
OK folks, this is going to be a bit off topic, but: what's the most multinational food ever? 🧵 Candidate 1: Eggs Benedict

Holandaise sauce 🇱🇺
Canadian bacon 🇨🇦
Poached eggs 🇨🇵
English Muffin 🇬🇧
Aug 22, 2021 • 33 tweets • 11 min read
Today in "rabbit holes nobody should ever jump into" we will attempt to answer the eternal question of whether a rolling stone truly gathers no moss.

Actually, we'll read through this article and try to find: how does it feel... to be on your own...
rollingstone.com/politics/polit… I'm listening to this on repeat, hoping to keep my mood above a certain minimum, play it if you want to follow along:
Aug 22, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Problem: PEOPLE MUST STOP TAKING HORSE DEWORMER.

Solution: Make it easy to access human-grade ivermectin.

Response: *Crickets*

... is it really a problem if you don't want to solve it?

slate.com/technology/201… And yes, we used to know ivermectin is pretty damn safe. We seem to have forgotten that recently for reasons unknown.
Aug 21, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
A 🧵 of 🧵s relating to the light absorbing equine, starting from the composite hypothesis they have been advancing with regard to the pandemic. I first entered the fray when I dug into the Quillette piece criticizing them:
Aug 21, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
I suspect this "research" piece published in Medium by Fuller will become a case study. He even gives journalists a bad name. 🧵 Part 2 from Dr Scott McLahlan
Aug 19, 2021 • 65 tweets • 16 min read
I want to try something different: A 🧵on a 32-minute segment by @RWMaloneMD speaking to Jason from the Intellectual People Podcast.

It's all worth listening to, but this segment stopped me in my tracks, and pulls together much of what's going on. I'll try to quote bits of this segment, and find sources as I go, because as you'll see he cites a lot of facts. I'm preparing to revisit the claim of Dr. Malone as inventor of the mRNA vaccine technology platform, so this video is background for that.
Aug 19, 2021 • 56 tweets • 18 min read
We haven't done a live-tweet article read in a while, let's get back in the saddle!

We'll be reading @michaelshermer's latest article for (you guessed it) @Quillette, "Vexed by the Un-vaxxed". Say what you want about the content -- that's a clever title. quillette.com/2021/08/14/vex… @michaelshermer @Quillette I wasn't going to delve too deep into it, but after reading @april_harding's tweet below, I was compelled to do a deep-dive. If she ends up doing a thread of her thoughts (which I'm sure will be far more well-researched) I'll be sharing that also.
Aug 18, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Time to start an official "this will age badly" prediction thread 🧵.

Whose claims best to be skeptical of first, but the master skeptic himself, Michael Shermer. I knew he was not reliable ever since he "debunked" cryonics, so not much of a surprise to me, but maybe to others. And this one is a twofer, it caught us a Pinker too.
Aug 13, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
A 🧵 of people/organizations using the "we do not know therefore we know" argument pattern.

A favorite of status quo maintainers everywhere.

Reply with your examples and I'll incorporate the best ones in the thread.

What better place to start than this instant classic: For the second entry in this illustrious list, we have a classic. To paraphrase: "we don't know what a mutation will do to a virus, therefore we know it didn't leak". Bonus Goodwin at the end for good measure. forbes.com/sites/startswi… ImageImageImage
Aug 10, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
In an attempt to truly address the heart of @SamHarrisOrg critique in his latest AMA, I'll pick up from where @KonstantinKisin left off. Sam wants to trust institutions even though they look like they're failing.

Let me tell you a little story I count as formative, from 2007.🧵 I was standing in the courtyard of my university in the UK, where I was a young PhD student, talking to a friend and researcher, also from Greece. Sotiris had been in the UK far longer than me, and we were discussing how Greece was doing recently.
Aug 2, 2021 • 52 tweets • 14 min read
Why Sensemaking Makes no Sense and other Morality Tales.

I stepped into the online discussion of the pandemic wondering why folks don't focus on the facts but devolve to the personal. The latest on @BetterSkeptics, @WisdomRebel, @fullydavid have given me a lot to work with. 🧵 This will be a long thread, and as such I'll try to put my takeaways in the first half. If you're unconvinced, please read the timeline that will follow to see what makes me conclude as I do. As I have till now, I will share facts and reasoning for all to conclude as they will.
Aug 2, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
People seem to not realize that given the existence of substantial amounts of counter-narrative data and research out there, someone would do the composition and be the hub of the anti-establishment attention. We should thank our lucky stars this is DarkHorse and not some loon.🧵 The mistrust earned by institutional players in this pandemic, and the repeated slow reaction to research has created the classic vacuum into which extremists historically step into. Given the stakes and degree of about face by authorities over and over, the danger is real.
Aug 2, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Can someone find the weakness in this? It looks extremely compelling for something this simple but maybe I'm missing something. I think I see at least a narrow flaw, though non-lethal IMO. Keep the conversation going, this is super interesting.
Aug 1, 2021 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
I wonder if "rebel wisdom" is going to be renamed "conventional wisdom" soon. To point and judge initiatives of others, even if they tried and failed (which is unclear), is the worst kind of establishment gatekeeping. Very, very sad for someone who pretends to curate sensemaking. I may be annoyed that someone who pretends to be objective and following the principles of journalism can't seem to keep from becoming a player. David sadly didn't respect the fact that he was given special access as an observer in the BetterSkeptics process, and gave ...
Jul 29, 2021 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
How to *actually* convince the unvaccinated:

Step 1: Assume positive intent

Accept that everyone balances perceived odds of...
- Vaccine (harm/benefit)
- IVM or other drugs (harm/benefit)
- COVID-19 harm
- Societal benefit of vaccination

The difference is (mostly) on facts. And while we're at it...

- Stop denigrating those who don't take institutions who have covered themselves in dishonor at their word.

- Stop sneering at those who expect you to earn their trust instead of worshiping every word that comes out your mouth.
Jul 29, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
What if you didn't talk down to them by assuming they've obviously got no rational reason for choosing their course of action and treated it as a conversation instead? And if anyone wonders why Sam's attempt at "persuasion" may have fallen flat, here's what his attempt looked like:
Jul 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A 🧵on more meta stuff. If you're here for the printers and/or pandemic, this one's safe to ignore, except maybe the podcast appearances:

Love me a good Twitter insult!

Jul 28, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
The screenshot and tweet share an author. Yet Quillette still refuses to fix the worst part of the piece, creating fear in every parent that reads it (including me, until I read their references and realized they didn't know how to count or read English).

Zeroism is a brainworm. For those doing the math, the number Yuri quotes is 1 in 100,000 children dying of covid. Stepping aside questions being asked in his replies about whether those cases should be counted, do we even have data about that many childhood vaccinations to have statistical confidence?
Jul 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The best twitter insults use a depth and breadth of references and vocabulary, are customized to me by using real factual bases to insult me on, and have real development of the storyline as they go.

In this thread I will score some of the best so far. Starting from this literary accomplishment right here:

8/10
Image
Jul 27, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
What the hell happened to our sensemaking?

Sam Harris, known for portraying his interlocutors fairly, released a strawman so bad it self-immolated.

Quillette, the place for "dangerous ideas" attempts to cancel its once-allies for... dangerous ideas.

Did reason catch COVID?🧵 Norman R. F. Maier had an edict to enhance group problem solving: “Do not propose solutions until the problem has been discussed as thoroughly as possible without suggesting any.”. amazon.com/Rational-Choic…
Jul 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
3d printer extruders: The 🧵of 🧵s

First, to start simple, some ideas on a 3d printer I'm hoping to build, with quite a bit of detail on my plans for the extruder: From there we get to exploring crazy ideas on what can be done with the medium of PCBs, specifically for the extruder.
Jul 26, 2021 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
Let's talk about objectivity, neutrality, independence, etc. 🧵

Most of us have grown up with the shared myth that journalists, authorities, judges, referees, are objective. Many of them try, some are good at it, but nobody is perfect. Given what we know about cognitive bias, we should rather not be trusting ourselves, instead of telling others to "trust us on this". To me, nothing screams bias like insisting you have none.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c…
Jul 24, 2021 • 93 tweets • 20 min read
Welcome to the "making sense of the 'making sense podcast' thread."🧵

Let's listen together to Episode #256 (A Contagion of Bad Ideas: A Conversation with Eric Topol)

The whole podcast is unpaywalled on YouTube:

We'll follow the flow of the podcast. Sam Harris is someone I have a lot of respect for, though he's lost my attention recently, as it seems the last few years he's no longer setting the agenda, moreso trying to keep up.

This podcast touches on issues I've written a lot about so I want to see how it holds up.
Jul 23, 2021 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
What has DarkHorse Podcast been right on, ahead of the relevant organizations?

While we're crowdsourcing an effort to fact check the Dark Horse podcast, it's worthwhile to explore the reverse position.

I have a few, give me yours. 🧵 Btw, I don't have the time right now to document these at the level of precision I'd like (e.g. what precisely was said when, what was the official position at the time, when did it change) but I thought better to get a start on this than not. Maybe I'll do a followup with more.
Jul 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
The v3 of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople was started on 532 CE, completed after ~6y of work. Earthquakes on 553-557 collapsed its dome due to over-ambitious design. The nephew of the original architect fixed the dome, w/ supports & lighter materials. alexandros.resin.io/bridgebuilding… Image For 800 years, it was the largest enclosed building in the world. The Statue of Liberty can fit beneath its dome with room to spare. Image
Jul 22, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Once again I'm being pushed to refute arguments against ivermectin when my point is that we need to encourage scientific investigation and make sure the data is aggregated fairly and without obstruction.

Regardless, when I find something out, I'll be sharing with everyone. 🧵 The argument this time is "we don't know ivermectin's mechanism of action against covid". Even if so, it's in good company. From Wikipedia: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism… Image
Jul 22, 2021 • 28 tweets • 11 min read
Let's talk politics.

But first, let's get back to the origins of life on earth.

Our best current hypothesis is that the first replicator was a string of aminoacids. It's called the RNA world hypothesis, and this video is amazing: Assuming that was the case, aminoacids fumbling into each other, somehow stumbling upon a mirroring structure, you can see how the environment was doing most the heavy lifting. Aminoacid density, water, temperature differentials, movement, all had to be perfectly balanced.
Jul 21, 2021 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Ok, let's work through VAERS data, see what can be known. First and very interesting datapoint is from April 2: "...there were only about 6 million v-safe users as of mid-March, yet about 90 million Americans had received at least their first dose by then."desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/… This ^ is about the v-safe system, and implies a 6.6% signup rate by mid-March. What is more concerning to me though is that this quote is in a local newspaper,and I can't find any other data since. If anyone has more recent info I'd really like to see it.
Jul 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Me and @Iseravi1 are starting to work through the VAERS data and pipeline to figure out what can be reliably known. ⚡🧵twitter.com/i/spaces/1PlKQ… Will start by parsing the resources posted here by kind passers by
Jul 21, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Tesla / SpaceX / Elon Musk 🧵of🧵s.

Why solar power and EVs matter even if they weren't good for the environment (which they are, but just saying) - Tesla Feedback Loops
Jul 21, 2021 • 14 tweets • 7 min read
Is Elon Musk founder of Tesla? Let's answer this question together. But before we answer this one, we must answer whether @elonmusk is the founder of PayPal, for reasons that will soon become apparent. Two contentious topics, probably enough for a...🧵! In '99, Paypal launched as a digital wallet by a company named Confinity, founded by Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, and Luke Nosek. Their main competitor was x.com, founded by one Elon Musk. They both soon realized that they could bleed to death or join forces.
Jul 21, 2021 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
I've tried to stay away from opining on the actual biology of ivermectin as I'm not of that field, but in a recent conversation someone put me in a spot where I was forced to dig deeper on the specifics. And if I have to suffer, might as well write here about what I learned.🧵 This person, who I consider a good person, was referring to @ydeigin's argument on blood plasma half-life being 18 hours, and therefore that a weekly regimen couldn't possibly be efficacious. Yuri has made that argument clearly here:
Jul 20, 2021 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
What is the root of all evil?

🧵It's hard to avoid the feeling that all is broken, to desire build a better world. Before we start on the next utopia, let's maybe dig some more, try to see where all this brokenness stems from.

This is an expansion of a prior conversation: Are multipolar traps the root of all evil?

Multipolar traps are situations in which every agent would prefer to act differently, but can't for fear of every other player, instead being forced to make their own situation a little worse to avoid others making it much worse instead Image
Jul 17, 2021 • 16 tweets • 9 min read
"Fans" on either side are accusing @BetterSkeptics. It's how you know it's working.

The story:
- Me & @iseravi1 are DarkHorse viewers
- I took apart the Quillette attack myself
- We still want the best counters

So I'm self-funding this challenge with some of my $TSLA gains.🧵 The longer story: Me and @Iseravi1 have been reading & learning throughout the pandemic, and listening to a lot of DarkHorse. I got into the Lab Leak hypothesis through seeing @ydeigin on DarkHorse, and did a bunch of my own digging on the subject.
Jul 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Hi @clairlemon - I have never claimed, nevermind "touted" anything about the Laurie study meaning that IVM works. I have not opined on IVM itself in general, as I am not in a relevant field. Twitter does not allow me to reply to your accusation directly, but this is a new low. It also appears you are not aware how meta-analyses work, or even how to hangle factual criticism of the many errors that article still contains to this day after being pointed out over and over. I will list just a few here for you. 🧵But first, proof I cannot respond directly: Image
Jul 14, 2021 • 43 tweets • 14 min read
Sensemaking Robert Malone & mRNA vaccines, part II

In part I, I asked for help in finding pointers to understanding, and Twitter delivered. The arrows point all over the place.

In part II, I will try to build up a factual basis, without yet drawing grand conclusions. First and foremost, many grant Malone credit for writing this paper, but claim that he was but one of three authors. pnas.org/content/86/16/… Indeed, if we look at the authors and their affiliations, it looks like a "normal" paper, coming out of Salk Institute.
Jul 13, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Indicators like "# of publications", "h-index", "degrees", "affiliation" &c, are all extremely imperfect. Their imperfections lead to abuse and capture. I actually wrote a paper about this back in 2009, which affected my decision to leave academia. researchgate.net/publication/24… I then posted the same idea to LessWrong, and the commenters there (not the peer reviewers in for the publication above) showed me that the same ideas had been discussed in economics in the 70's. Mainly Goodhart's Law. lesswrong.com/posts/fTu69HzL…
Jul 13, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
It all comes to this: It's time for a 🧵of🧵of🧵s!

I write a lot of threads, and this is the "table of contents".

First in line, one where I develop, loosely, my vision for the far future. Can we make a self-replicator? Yes! One day...
Jul 13, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
This is a 🧵organizing my 🧵s on org structure for companies, how balena works, and #gameb in startup form. These go together for semi-obvious reasons, but let's start with our dedication to Short Term Pain for Long Term Game or as we say in balena #stpltg First, let's establish some known problems, starting from all the known and persistent problems that appear in hierarchical organizations.
Jul 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
A 🧵organizing my 🧵s for various non-3d printing projects. Hopefully more to come here in the future.

For now we have - Rolamite: Tensegrity Cube:
Jul 12, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A 🧵organizing my 3d printing🧵s:

Starting with when I bought a printer. This is a monster thread containing:

- 3D printer and first prints:


- Designing hexagonal legos for my son:


- Copperplating fun: This thread is about first principles approach to 3d printing -- exploring what's really possible:
Jul 11, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Some people have noted I'm focusing too much on Yuri's tone/flaws and too little on actual errors. Here is yet one more time I tried to engage on the facts, in what I believe is good faith, only to get more noise. If I'm missing something, I'd appreciate being told what it is. My response to his request in 3 tweets here:
Jul 7, 2021 • 103 tweets • 26 min read
Allright. Down the rabbit hole we go. I'll do a line-by-line read of the latest Quilette piece by Deigin and Berlinski (not @-ing to not annoy) on @BretWeinstein. I'm bothered enough that I want to strip off the invective and see if there's anything left. quillette.com/2021/07/06/loo… Before we get started, some ground rules, I am a Doctor, but my PhD is in Computing, so unless you're a computer, please don't take what I write here as medical advice. I want to read through it and parse critiques I've seen from @t_ayorinde, @GanineVanalst, @satrapo86, &c
Jul 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Ok folks, it's official -- we're entering a third attempt to seize the narrative from the side of the zoonoticists. They don't seem to be bringing anything new to the table, but they're trying. And more -
Jul 6, 2021 • 21 tweets • 6 min read
The new Lancet letter by Daszak and Co can only be read as an apology.

The title "We apologize: Science, not speculation, is essential to determine how SARS-CoV-2 reached humans" was probably too long and had to be shortened, but the intent is clear. thelancet.com/journals/lance… Sadly, it starts with two lies. "On Feb 19, 2020, we, a group of physicians, veterinarians, epidemiologists, virologists, biologists, ecologists, and public health experts from around the world, joined together to express solidarity with our professional colleagues in China."
Jul 5, 2021 • 15 tweets • 5 min read
Why do I find the lab leak conversation suppression interesting?

Where else can we see our sensemaking fail in real-time, this clearly?

- Govenment
- Academia
- Medicine
- Journalism
- International orgs
- Factcheckers
- Tech Companies
- Wikipedia

All getting it wrong at once. Wikipedia should never have classified the lab leak hypothesis as "misinformation", but even now it's still "debating" whether to correct: cnet.com/features/wikip…
Jul 5, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
A🧵on retrospective wastewater (aka. sewage water) studies that attempted to pick up early signs of SARS-CoV-2

<epistemic status: gathering datapoints, not drawing conclusions> Santa Catarina (Florianopolis), Brazil🇧🇷, November 2019 - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Jul 4, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a🧵of🧵s organizing the early datapoints we have on the origins of SARS-CoV-2. After starting a thread for open-ended datapoint gathering I realized there is too much to follow up in one place, so I'll be starting individual 🧵s and collecting them all as replies to this. The intent of this thread is to gather different types of datapoints, and eventually attempt to stitch the different types together into a coherent story we can have more confidence in.

If you're curious about the original thread, it can be found here:
Jul 4, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
A🧵on studies attempting to infer the date of origin of the virus

<epistemic status: gathering datapoints, not drawing conclusions> Scientists from UK and Germany attempted to genetically map the earliest strands of SARS-CoV-2 in order to create a picture of the virus' evolution. Estimates first infection between mid-Sep and early December. cam.ac.uk/research/news/…
Jul 3, 2021 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
A🧵on athletes reporting illness at the Military World Games in Wuhan, October 18-27

<epistemic status: gathering datapoints, not drawing conclusions>

Sources:
[1]@BillyBostickson's thread:
[2]My thread:
[3]research from @Iseravi1 Mathieu Brulet, 🇫🇷 runner. Got bronze at Wuhan, but says he was ill.
[1] lechorepublicain.fr/chartres-28000…
[2] fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathieu_B…
[3] intensite.net/2009/actu2019/…
Jul 2, 2021 • 16 tweets • 3 min read
When you have a truly new idea, you *will* get pushback solely because the idea is new or different. While you should heed other feedback, you should immediately discard this kind. It exists only to stop you. It is so predictable I can list it without even knowing the idea: 🧵 "if it's so good, why isn't everyone doing it already?"

This implies that everyone is looking for great ideas and adopting them as fast as possible. But if everyone assumes it of everyone else, and treats absence of adoption as evidence of fatal flaws, who will do any adopting?
Jul 2, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Say you're the Chief of an anti-corruption agency. You're trusted with broad decision-making authority.

Your agency has a large budget, staff, career ladder, pension plan, union, &c

One day, a scientist shows you a button that will end corruption forever.

Do you press it?🧵 This thought experiment shows a number of things at the heart of our current civilizational predicament.

On some naive level, you'd expect the Chief of an anti-corruption agency not only to press such a button immediately, but to have been desperately seeking it already.
Jul 1, 2021 • 20 tweets • 7 min read
I was holding off on doing a🧵on Dr. Maxmen, as she seemed to back off after trying to gaslight everyone into doubting their own eyes. Given her self-admitted memory issues, I'd expect far more caution. Instead, she's back to bullying, and the memory issues are worse than ever. On the memory issues, here's a thread describing the incident, and her response underneath. Of course as the person replying to her says, the photo should have jogged her memory before the accused others of doctoring.

Now for those technical pieces.
Jun 29, 2021 • 21 tweets • 8 min read
I want to write a few things about Dr. W. Ian Lipkin or as we call him in my household, *Dr Lynchpin*. He is the in the middle of many networks in virology, but at the same time he is somewhat of a maverick. Plays the game, but eventually finds his way to doing the right thing.🧵 Lipkin, early in the pandemic, was *everywhere*. Just between Jan 20 and Jan 30, he was quoted on 18 different articles, some times 3 articles in the same day! This continued up until March, when the infamous "The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2" came out, with him as one author.
Jun 29, 2021 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
Widespread daisy-chaining will change hardware forever. Most peripherals connect back to a mainboard that must know the number of peripherals in advance, and everything must travel back all the way. Daisychaining fixes that.

🧵of daisychainable protocols: Quick review in case you think daisy-chain is something to do with flowers: The daisychaining pattern is to connect many devices together not by connecting each to a central hub, but by connecting each to the previous one, somewhat like the links in a chain.
Jun 29, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
... aaaaand @ComicDaveSmith jumps the shark. Dave, you're doing great with your work with Mises caucus. And in principle objections to lockdowns are understandable. But *do not* tell people the delta variant is not more dangerous. At the very least the science is not clear yet. If your philosophy is that lockdowns or restrictions are unacceptable that's totally up to you, or if it's that the government can't be trusted to implement them, again fine. It's irresponsible to say the data is somehow exaggerated. We don't yet know, it's too new.
Jun 28, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Do we have examples where a paradigm shift in a field came from the core members / inner circle of the field itself? Semelweis' Germ theory came from an "assistant" doctor at a hospital in Vienna. The field rejected his findings (and the implication that they were at fault) so strongly that his mental health broke down and he died in an asylum at 47. explorable.com/semmelweis-ger… Image
Jun 28, 2021 • 13 tweets • 5 min read
Fascinating interview, mostly because Anderson contradicts things we know for a fact from the researchers in WIV themselves. Principally, she insists work was done in BSL-4, when in fact Shi Zhengli has clearly said the work was being done in BSL-2 and BSL-3. Who do we believe? sciencemag.org/sites/default/…
Jun 27, 2021 • 47 tweets • 14 min read
After digging into December 2019 COVID-19 events, a significant cluster of... shadows relating to September and October 2019 emerged. This is the thread in which we'll gather everything unusual from August 2019 to mid-December 2019, just so we've got a net wide enough. This is a refinement of the thread here , focusing mostly on conversation with @tehknein @lab_leak @scotub.
Jun 27, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
To all the credentialists, my domain of expertise is generalism. But if we do go by your rules, don't gatekeep unless you have a phd in the field of gatekeeping, if not tenure. I would prefer no human self-limits, but if you are going to, don't push stupid memes on others too. The depth of this idea cannot be overstated.
Jun 27, 2021 • 26 tweets • 8 min read
This is a thread to collect all early knowledge western scientists had of the outbreak in Wuhan. I want to try to understand any pattern of information spread that can be extracted, if there's something there. Ron Fouchier, Deputy Head of the Erasmus MC department of Viroscience in the Netherlands, claims to have known about the virus during the first week of December 2019:
Jun 24, 2021 • 23 tweets • 6 min read
Variants are evolving. It may get better or worse.
Supply chains in chaos. Waiting times for some components now touching 2 years. It may get better or worse. As we hope for the best, let's plan for the worst. What happens to supply chains if a variant mostly escapes vaccines? If our electronics ecosystem of 2019 was like an animal evolved for times of plenty, what does an electronics ecosystem evolved for famine look like? There will certainly be disruption and short term chaos, but afterwards, I suspect things may not be as bad as we fear.
Jun 23, 2021 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
Can we use advertising to end advertising? Hear me out:

Here's Twitter's ads targeting page: business.twitter.com/en/advertising…

I can target by all sorts of demographic characteristics: location, language, device, age, and gender. I can target by audience: interests, keywords, movies...🧵 If we go deeper into their product, I can target by "custom audiences", which boils down to certain lists. business.twitter.com/en/help/campai…

I can literally make a list with the people I want to target, and buy ads to target them. So... what if I target myself?
Jun 23, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
So, not a doctor here, and I know nothing about Ivermectin. But I have a few questions for anyone willing to engage. I promise I won't press too hard, I appreciate anyone trying to honestly engage. 1. What would have to be true for 60 controlled trials, 30 of those randomized, no matter the size, to all be pointing in the same direction? What's our alternative explanation here?
Jun 23, 2021 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
Take people who are supposed to be our foremost independent thinkers, put them in a structure that suppresses independent thought, and let's see what happens. I'm increasingly getting convinced that we need a truth-accumulation structure that is outside and beside what is called science today. And to get this out of the way, I've got a PhD and a double-digit H-index.
Jun 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
This is a 🧵collecting signs of the coming Recursively Self-Improving AI Apocalypse.

I've recently started to worry that the people supposed to be looking out for this stuff may be asleep at the wheel, so it's worth at least a twitter thread, you know, just in case. The first "oh fuck" moment recently: GPT-f, using deep learning on automated theorem proving. In the words of the authors: "the first time a deep-learning based system has contributed proofs that were adopted by a formal mathematics community" arxiv.org/abs/2009.03393 Image
Jun 21, 2021 • 5 tweets • 3 min read
Starting to think Gary is an entrails reader. Midday, he's like "btc affects Tesla". After close? Different story. Look for the attitude just 3 hours later... Image
Jun 21, 2021 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
Media should be free to title their articles whatever they want without constant second-guessing

Readers should be free not to have their limbic system hijacked with linguistic patterns that smuggle in unstated premises

The solution to the paradox? Headline Neutralizer (TM) 🧵 How does it work?

Headline Neutralizer (TM) is a non-existent service that applies preset linguistic transformation rules designed to retain explicit meaning (which media is liable for) while silencing implicit meaning (which media is not liable for)

Let's try an example:
Jun 18, 2021 • 22 tweets • 9 min read
VIDO-InterVac, the new employer of Angela Rasmussen, enforcer of the anti-lab-leak narrative, lists not one but 5 obviously China-linked organizations as funding contributors for 2019-20, their lastest report. Amounts not disclosed. Has this conflict of interest been declared? Image Interestingly, they make it hard to get clarity. Their about>partners page is supremely uninformative but points to the annual reports. The last annual report simply has this alphabetic list on its last page, with no further info or amounts contributed. vido.org/assets/upload/…
Jun 17, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
I didn't realize how insane YouTube's guidelines were until I read them. First, you might not realize that there is a specific page for covid guidelines. It's not about medical misinformation generally. You can recommend homeopathy or celery, so long as you don't touch covid-19 Image Secondly, the guidelines specifically call out specific treatments that should not be discussed as effective. Not "treatments that are not approved" in general. Specific ones, by name, regardless of expert consensus: ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine Image
Jun 14, 2021 • 55 tweets • 20 min read
Who killed the lab leak hypothesis?

Jeremy Farrar got news of the outbreak early, he hand-picked experts to advise world leaders, and made sure institutions spoke as one: "There was no leak, the virus emerged naturally".

On 2019's last day, the head of China's CDC called him... As he described to Alan Rusbridger, "an old friend" called George Fu Gao, now head of China's CDC, called him to tell him of a cluster of lung infections in a city in China, and that they knew it wasn't SARS.
Jun 7, 2021 • 28 tweets • 10 min read
The Lancet letter of Feb 18, 2020, sent a message to scientists the world over: Investigate a lab leak, and you will be tarred as conspiracy theorist. Was it a honest outpouring of support? Or astroturfing? To start, of the 27 signatories, 7 were affiliated with EcoHealth... 🧵 Image ... Alliance: Peter Daszak (President), Rita Colwell & James Hughes (BoD members), William Karesh (EVP for Health and Policy), Hume Field, Juan Lubroth, John Mackenzie (Science and Policy Advisors). The fact that a quarter of the signatories were affiliated with EHA was hidden.
Jun 6, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Today I'll work on a project to make inexpensive brick-like objects with coke cans, loctite, and heatshrink plastic. Step 1 is curing as we speak. Loctite "BIG GAPS" appears to be living up to its name. Results in an hour. Image Day 1 was a horrible fail, as I didn't realize loctite melts when heated, and I was putting on the heatshrink after the loctite. 🍯 Today it's heatshrink first, with new technique, and the loctite last. Now it just has to set, and we'll see how much weight it can take. ImageImageImage
Jun 4, 2021 • 16 tweets • 4 min read
Fauci's emails surface an odd twist:

K. Andersen, Jan 31: "Eddie, Bob, Mike, and myself all find the [SARS-CoV2] genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory"

K. Andersen, Feb 4: Lab leak concerns are "crackpot", "fringe theories"

What changed in 4 days? "Eddie" is Prof Edward Holmes, from U of Sydney, who on also Feb 4th, likely sharing a draft of the Lancet letter wrote:

"Did not mention other anomalies as this will make us look like loons".

Jun 2, 2021 • 41 tweets • 17 min read
The lab leak hypothesis engulfs biology, technology, media; superpowers competing and cooperating.

Let's untangle its twists and turns:

In Dec 2011, Anthony Fauci & Francis Collins in an op-ed, backed creation of highly infectious viruses in the lab to prevent pandemics.🧵 ImageImage Meanwhile in China, a team of virologists from Wuhan Institute of Virology, led by Shi Zhengli, traveled 1800 km to Yunnan province to sample bats in caves for coronaviruses, in a quest to get ahead of the virus family that had caused the outbreak of SARS a few years earlier.
Oct 9, 2020 • 18 tweets • 8 min read
Machines are making beautiful things without even trying to. We ask them to make something that optimizes for our requirements, they give us something back that looks surprisingly like nature. What is going on? A Thread Here's how humans design a floorplan, and here's how machines design one, optimizing for minimal walking time and easier fire escapes
joelsimon.net/evo_floorplans…
Sep 13, 2020 • 18 tweets • 5 min read
Tesla is continually misunderstood by markets & media because it's hard to model a feedback loop that cuts across functional silos in excel. Linear models and systems thinking are oil and water. To help our analyst friends, I'll list out 10 feedback loops that Tesla has going: 1. Cars sold emit data, which accelerates motor & battery software optimization, which improves power efficiency, which reduces batteries needed, which reduces cost, which reduces price, which increases demand, which increases cars on the road, which emit even more data, & so on.