What's so worrisome to the epidemiologists is that there's a large percentage of cases that require such care, so where we'll see a lot of deaths is when health systems are overloaded and forced into triage. — boethius

It really is an odd case. The virus seems to be harmless enough that it's unnecessary to worry about it on an individual basis if you're otherwise healthy. But it's dangerous enough that on a large scale, it will not only kill a significant number of vulnerable people, but also have negative side effects by overburdening systems and displacing other patients.

That it seems to be just on the boundary makes deciding on policy even harder.

Of course, Bloomberg and the economists are right, but only because of the structural precarity that capitalism places people under. If you want to govern based on the value of the stock market, it's needed from time to time to sacrifice large amounts of people on that flashy altar. — boethius

Since we're unable to do anything about that short term, it does seem reasonable to not shut everything down. Especially since the symptoms are indistinguishable from a common cold, at least early on, so you really would have to shut down everything.

Unless my numbers are wrong, CFR in South Korea is only about .7 % at the moment (over 5000 cases, 35 deaths). That suggests that, even if China is underreporting cases, there isn't any indication they have been underreporting deaths.

This may seem preemptively overly dramatic, but 700 million people are already in quarantine, self isolation or restricted travel in China, which is 10% of the global population and happened within the span of months; it's fairly reasonable to expect the same to happen to the rest of the globe within the next few months now that containment within China has completely failed and the rest of the world is where China was about 2 months ago. — boethius

The current plan seems to be to slow down the spread enough to delay the peak until summer, when warmer weather will make it easier to deal with.

I'd like to blow up that system too. It's part of the neoliberal consensus. The global elite suck the wealth of the world upwards from the middle classes. "Davos man." There is much merit in the socialist critique. Marx predicted most of what we know of as late stage capitalism. He saw the inevitable disaster that capitalism must become.

It's not the socialist theorizing I object to. It's the authoritarianism of leftists that I oppose. With Bernie the cure would be much worse than the disease. — fishfry

I feel like I am going to regret asking, but how do you figure Bernie is an authoritarian, or that his election would lead to authoritarianism?

That in a nutshell is the unholy neocon/neolib alliance that's destroying this country; that both Trump and Bernie oppose — fishfry

I think the unholy alliance is that of big business with the politicians. Trump is hardly opposed to that. Bernie won't really be either, I suspect.

Is that a Hitler specific thing? What if me zap guys like Trump, Duterte or Orban with the nicening ray?

So, can we pay off moral debt? Are we moral simply by having our moral acts (and all the good they do) outweigh the immoral acts (and all the bad they do)? — DingoJones

There is an interesting application of this idea with regards to punishment. We could consider punishment for past actions, like a jail sentence, a way of repaying a moral debt. You have incurred a debt by taking away someone's rights in some way, and now you pay for that by giving up some of your rights. Thus, the balance is re-established, albeit with everyone worse off.

If you could magically make Hitler into a good person (as in someone who will for sure do good going forward), his past misdeeds would not carry any weight on the appropriate moral judgement of him anymore. — Pfhorrest

That reminds me of another issue that gets debated concerning punishment: is it actually moral to change who someone is for the benefit of others? Not to encourage them to change, but to threaten them with (harsher) punishment if they don't?

If you could magically change Hitler into a good person, would you be destroying the previous Hitler, and would that be right?

Right, I was referring to the mortality rate.

Those are the raw numbers. But the actual infections are probably several times higher. Some say three times, some say 10 to 20 times. That's what I am reading in various newspapers anyways.

It's very unlikely that the case fatality rate is 2%. Most experts are guessing between 0.3 and 1% now, though there is large insecurity for the lower bound since it appears cases can go completely unnoticed.

What does this mean? Of course it is different than anything humanity has previously been through; if only because what humanity has previously been through is past, and hence already determined; whereas what humanity may go through is future, and hence indeterminable. — Janus

In the same way as whether or not the sun will rise tomorrow is indeterminable, yes. But obviously no-one would refer to that as a "religious faith" or "fantasy". It seems to me you're trying to sneak in negative value judgements by using those terms.

My argument is simply that there is no rational basis for the belief that human ingenuity will solve all problems, or that we will find the energy and the expertise, the resources, to travel to other planets. It is as much a mere faith without empirical support as any religion is. — Janus

But we're not talking about solving all problems, are we? It's a specific set of problems. And the rational basis in that case is simply that it's possible, and within our rational interest to attempt.

The fantastic religious belief I referred to is the faith that science and technology, our great human ingenuity, will solve all the currently looming problems, and that we will manage to keep growing economically while the population continues to increase, by exploiting the resources of the wider universe before we have totally used up the resources of the earth. — Janus

But what's fantastic or religious about that? You may disagree, or assigne a lower likelihood to it, but it's not, in principle, different from any other of the "revolutions" humanity has already been through.

is truly the irrationally imaginative stuff of science fiction; a kind of religiously adhered to fantasy. — Janus

I get that you're pessimistic about humanity's chances of survival, but what, exactly, is religions about the idea?

I don't see it as hysterical ( that may be the media I watch), the hysteria spreads readily. I live a long way from the nearest case of the virus and already I find myself modifying my behaviour, I was in my local supermarket today and people were clearly panic buying (discretely), including myself. And this in a country of 66 million and only 23 confirmed cases. Basic food stuffs had nearly sold out. Imagine what it will be like when there are a few thousand, or hundred thousand cases. — Punshhh

I think the big question is how much modification of behavior is warranted. There are a bunch of fairly simple methods which are effective at reducing the virus's spread. As long as people who have symptoms and are in an area where the virus is already known limit their contact with other people as much as possible and everyone else follows strict hygiene, it will probably remain manageable.

Limited prevention measures are also easier to keep up long term. If it takes until the end of the year for an effective vaccine to be developed, we'll probably have to deal with repeated waves of the virus as it keeps being re-introduced into areas. A complete shutdown isn't feasible for such a scenario.

What about the cases that cropped up with no known connection to infected population. In far away places. Italy, the USA even. The virus may be spreading also outside of human-to-human contact. — god must be atheist

I think the most likely explanation is that people with very light symptoms didn't realize they had anything other than a common cold and traveled.

That's another thing to consider concerning both the confirmed cases and the mortality. A lot of people may have had only very light symptoms that went away on their own. That makes the virus a lot harder to contain, but at the same time might mean the mortality is lower.

The Bostrom piece is mostly about late filters though, or rather how certain finds would make late filters statistically more likely.

Great filters themselves don't imply a limit to civilization.

I don't think any country will be able to prevent the epidemic spreading through their population. They might be able to slow it. But they don't want to shut their borders, which is what they will need to do. — Punshhh

The spread in China seems to be slowing down, which may be a sign that the preventative measures are having an effect. Granted, no european country is likely to enact similarly draconic measures, but everyone is now warned in advance. In that sense, the somewhat hysterical media reporting might end up being helpful, slowing the spread significantly.

That depends a bit on what additional assumptions we are making. If we're treating minds as immaterial and not necessarily determined by physical processes, there isn't much reason to assume you'd inevitably occupy every possible position.

If we're treating minds as a phenomenon that's determined by physics in some way, our current understanding would suggest that over an infinite timespan, every possible physical configuration would occur, including ones where you are a fan of FC Barcelona.

Of course, the notion of self gets confusing in these types of scenarios.

Could you explain this a little more? So their goal is to just continuously pump out misinformation and stir up distrust? So, for instance, since we've spotted Nosferatu, we might start suspecting other people?

How does it affect passers by? — frank

Well if I think about what a troll is doing here, of all places, my conclusion is this: The philosophy forum probably ranks fairly highly on google searches for philosophy, in general. It has a pretty large and active thread named "Donald Trump". So someone looking up something concerning Donald Trump, and maybe the word "philosophy" might end up here. And since almost everyone here is highly critical of Trump, they'd normally find a fairly undivided message: A bunch criticizing Trump and his decisions, and noting possible negative consequences etc.

Now, with our vampiric friend, what they'd instead find is a lively "debate", where every post critical of Trump is followed by a Trump talking point. If someone is already inclined towards a certain position, they can now pick and choose whatever they like. And if someone is inclined to doubt this story or that, they can find confirmation.

We've got more than enough for everyone, Artemis.

Why not just distribute it better...and without the requirement to work. Leave the work to those who want to work. They do a better job of it. And they will be paid better for their work...so that they can have more than just adequate. — Frank Apisa

But how, exactly, do we distribute it better? We'd need a system that accounts for people's needs and desires, and also presumably for their willingness to work, since someone still has to do all the work and distribution.

A market economy happens to solve these issues, a well regulated market economy can even do so without a lot of terrible outcomes.

Just saying "there is enough for everybody" doesn't cut it, unfortunately.

1. Explore reasons for Russia's choices. — frank

To do that effectively, I think the first step would be to learn a bit about russian history, especially the transition from sovjet rule to Putin. I myself know little, but there are some obvious things like how dangerous Nato seems to many russians and how badly their first experiences with western capitalism and democracy went that many people don't consider.

Apart from that, I think the actualy strategy is fairly simple. Russia uses a mixture of direct military intervention, economic incentives an disinformation halt the advance of the EU and NATO, create a new system of client states around Russia, and regain superpower status. A weakened US is important for all of these.

2. Share ideas on how to resist divisiveness. — frank

Difficult. Technically, the best way would probably be talk to people personally, but that's not really feasible on a large scale. I think I remember that according to some early studies done, correcting the misinformation that trolls spread is at least helpful.

3. Show examples of known trolls. — frank

I guess you have already spotted one. Though I don't think spotting trolls is usually the problem. The troll doesn't rely on not being spotted by the "regulars". Their job is to create fake debates and insecurity that will prevent passers-by, who may just have done some google search, from discovering "untainted" sources of information.

You’re one of many self-proclaimed philosophers on this forum who believe I am a Russian troll without evidence — NOS4A2

Actually, Nosfertau, there is tons of evidence. You have 2,5k posts, and each and every one of them is a piece of evidence for you character and intentions.

The “Russian misinformation” canard is itself misinformation. Have you ever seen a single piece of Russian misinformation? Worse, this canard is being used to justify seizing control of social media. — NOS4A2

Well he just needs to look at your post history to see plenty examples.

Looking for information on identifying fake news and Russian bullshit and understanding the purpose behind it. For instance: why is Russia supporting Sanders? — frank

I am not sure there is much one can do on a reasonable time budget other than checking trustworthy fact checkers. Wikipedia, if you also look at the talk page, can at least make you aware of contentious issues.

There is also the old saying: to figure out the party behind an obscure plot, consider who benefits.

I understand that Kant’s a priori, defined by necessity and universality, is in its nature independent of empirical knowledge, but it seems like there needs to be some “experience” involved in the phase of “knowing the meaning of the words” in the first place to trigger the capacity of “a priori”(I feel like I am possibly making mistake here).
Under such conditions, is the “a priori” knowledge still counts as “a priori”? — Meichen Fan

The experience required here is experience in general. What a human mind needs to fully develop it's capacity for rational thought. It's not a specific kind of experience, e.g. "experience of space in and of itself".

Why do we see no aliens or evidence of them?
There aren't any. We're in a simulation. It would take too much computing power. — RogueAI

What's the predictive value? "God did it" is an explanation in the colloquial sense of the word. But it has no predictive value, so it's not an explanation in a strict sense.

The same is true for any kind of simulation hypothesis. It explains every possible observation, and thus explains none of them. It's not clear, for example, why one configuration of universe would be easier to simulate than another. You don't need to actually simulate the minds of alien civilizations to make it look like they are there.

Except we're already doing simulations, and it seems likely they're only going to get better and better. I don't think there's a violation of multiplying entities (simulated worlds/layers of reality) because those simulated realities/worlds already exist, albeit in a crude form. Simulation theory is plausible. It's even likely, if you buy Nick Bostrom's argument. — RogueAI

We're not doing anything close to simulating human intelligences. But the source of the complexity is that we either need to assume the simulation designers are (were) human, live in a galaxy with a large number of alien civilizations, and run ancestor simulations. Or we need to assume we are the random product of some entirely alien species. Both sets of assumptions are complex.

The idea that Earth is a very special place (so special life like us only comes along once in a galaxy or so) doesn't seem plausible. Those are really long odds. There aren't similar long odds in the simulation theory. — RogueAI

But despite the mediocrity principle, single rare events do happen, so I am not sure how you conclude it's "long odds".

It doesn't violate the mediocrity issue, that's the point. Simulation theory doesn't assume any specialness. Quite the opposite: we're one of countless simulations being run. There are plausible reasons why simulation designers would want to save on computing power. — RogueAI

But doesn't this contradict itself? I'd the designers want to save computing power so badly that they need to save the relatively tiny extra power required to simulate aliens, why are they running so many simulations? Are they running all their simulations without aliens? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of running all these?

Sorry, but I consider them to be the same model, both metaphysical interpretations of space and time. — noAxioms

If that's the case, why is it of particular note what the majority of physicists thinks?

So the question is: why should we believe we're the product of a fantastic lottery when there's a much more pedestrian explanation of things? — RogueAI

Well for one, the "explanation" isn't really one. It's just a convenient way to bypass the question. It's like a god of the gaps.

For another, a hypothesis involving a simulation is not simpler, because we have to add a complexity penalty for assuming multiple levels of "reality".

Lastly, it doesn't solve the mediocrity issue since we'd still have to ask why this specific simulation is being run. For example, the designers could just as easily simulate evidence of aliens as they simulate the absence of it.

OK, you didn't say 'demonstrate', but it very much suggests it anyway. The vast majority of non-religious physicists that know their relativity (many (most?) probably don't) hold a block view. The view is semi-incompatible with the promises of major religions, and thus meets significant resistance without actually admitting the reason driving the resistance. — noAxioms

But what's the relationship between the block universe (a physical model) and the metaphysical interpretation of time? It seems to me that there are two different "natures" of time: how time operates in our best predictive models, and what this means. Those two shouldn't be mixed.

The mediocrity principle implies that we should regard our habitable situation as "average". The rare earth hypothesis violates that. It claims our habitable conditions are/were exceptionally NOT average. Is there a good justification for this? — RogueAI

The rarity of our own conditions for being is a self-sorting problem. For these kinds of problems, the mediocrity or Copernican principle causes seemingly absurd conclusions, see the doomsday argument for another example.

Whenever you are using your own existence as the input data for a statistical analysis, you have to consider the anthropic principle as well: no matter how rare the earth is, you can only ask the question once it exists.

I'm sure some sci-fi author must've taken this up somewhere already? — Artemis

Altered Carbon is on Netflix, though I did not really like the plot.

I just want to hear people's take on telomeres. Instead of creating the coronavirus why aren't we creating a solution to stop our DNA from dissolving. — Witchhaven87

There is plenty of research ongoing, but there isn't a single button to stop you from aging. In fact, the biggest problem is that we haven't yet figured out what aging is, exactly.

I'm 29 years old. I'm not gonna die because people can get it together. — Witchhaven87

I'd put our odds of figuring out aging in the next 50 years as 50/50. So you actually stand a decent chance.

So, Trump continues to dismantle American institutions, now the impartiality of the legal system.

I wonder if those moves increase or lessen his support on the part of the capitalist elite.

Ok, I think I understand you position better now having read that. I do disagree though. Basically I'm a social contractarian. I think morals originate in communities where dialogue, negotiation and agreements etc... are a vital part of how morals come to be. I don't think this proces can be replicated entirely from a research desk. The role of the philosopher IMO shouldn't be to devise morality like a scientists develops scientific theories... I think the philosopher can play an important role in the proces though, by facilitating and elucidating the dialogue in a community. But so his interventions in that view would necessarily be more topical, rather than systematic and academic. — ChatteringMonkey

Perhaps it's also important to bring up the distinction between morality and legality here. What you describe sounds more like democratic law-making than personal morality.

I think you're right though that a moral philosophy is not an entirely theoretical project. It does require engagement with the restrictions of actual reality, just like the scientific method does. Perhaps, as an analogy, we might say that the scientific method uses what we observe in the present to predict the future. A moral system would use what we observe in the present to prescribe a future.

I am glad you agree the IPCC should not be taken too seriously. So why do we argue? — Nobeernolife

*yawn*
Is that all you have to offer? Sorry, not interested.

That would depend on the book. In the event, she writes about her experience inside the IPCC, which speak for themselves. And she is not the only one. — Nobeernolife

Again evading the question. A pity. Why so scared though?

Anyone who takes a closer look at the workings of the IPCC knows we should not take the IPCC reports as bible. — Nobeernolife

No-one has suggested we should. Unfortunately, this kind of straw-manning is all anyone ever seems to do in these discussions.

Read the book by Donna Laframboise who actually worked there and saw how these "reports" are compiled. It is an eye-opener.
The IPCC is funded by politicians with the goal to promote a political agenda. If it does not produce the desired results, it loses its reason to exist. — Nobeernolife

Question: if Donna Laframboise wrote a book about how everything was fine with the IPCC and we should all listen to them, do you think that would sell as well as her criticism?

IPCC is a political orginization with a political purpose. You might want to read one of the exposees about it. — Nobeernolife

You're not answering the question. Does the IPCC employ experts that write their reports?

I do listen to experts. The experts have varying and nuanced opinions, as is to be expected. What I do NOT do is take opinion articles from the propaganda media and then go lecture other people about "science". — Nobeernolife

So, the IPCC reports, are those expert reports or "propaganda media"?

Reading opinion articles and repeating them is not "research". I am not qualified to do climate research myself, and neither are you. — Nobeernolife

So, since you're unqualified to do the research, and unwilling to listen to the experts, what do you do?

That is an entirely different thing. Costly consequences is an economic term. Certainly the activists policies promoted by the climate activists are extremely costly. Bjoern Lomborg addresses this aspect, if you have not heard of him, look him up. — Nobeernolife

What exactly is your position? That Climate change isn't a problem or that it is a problem, but any solution would be worse?

When I talk about "globalism" I refer to the set of ideas that by and large the Western elites have bought into, and that are layed out in books such as "The Pentagons New Map" by Barnett or "George Soros on Globalization". Talking about the latter, look up all the activities that his "Open Society Foundation" is involved in, and you see everything that the Western elites love, and the people of their nations have to suffer from. — Nobeernolife

I always find it bad manners to expect people to read entire books or do time consuming research just to be able to engage with you in an internet forum. If you have a position, you should be able to summarize that position for us. Give us the basics on "Globalism" an "Elitism".

In any event, the conclusion I've drawn largely based on this is that, on a long enough timeline, your actions have absolute no consequence to both yourself and the world around you. The end result is the same. As such, if an act has no real effect, and if all roads lead to the same destination, that logically undermines any motivation to do anything. Nothing is ultimately worth the effort because any particular action and even no action all have the same ultimate effect. — runbounder

I don't quite see how that follows. For yourself, that may be true. But actions could still have consequences, and those consequences could be permanent.

However, the idea that nothing can be meaningful because of it really bothers me. Which is why I want to be wrong. Can someone break my logic? — runbounder

The question is, can "meaning" or the absence of it really be established by logic? What conditions do you think are required for actions, or life in general, to have meaning?

I'm definitely not depressed. — runbounder

That's good. What's your secret?

But aren't we perceiving multiple stimulae simultaneously already? When you hear and see something at the same time, it doesn't take longer to process those two just because it's two different senses. You can feel someone touching your hand even while you're tasting something.

Wouldn't a brain with infinitely much processing power be able to perceive infinitely many things (or stimulae coming from infinitely many "senses") simultaneously? — Samuele

I'd say that perception is more than simply receiving stimulus. It also has to be processed, and that requires operation by the brain, which requires some amount of time.

Of course one might get around this by stipulating a brain that can do infinite operations in parallel, but using one Infinity to get around another doesn't help much. The impossibility stays the same.

However, can something really exist outside of any organism's field of perception? — Samuele

Well, in one sense, reality isn't obligated to make itself known to us. In another sense, the (possible) existence of unobservable things is empty. If they have no properties, what does it mean to say they exist?

If we somehow expanded our set of senses to sense everything, would the number of things that we could perceive still be finite? Would that set coincide with the set of everything that exists? — Samuele

Aren't we already doing that, by using technology?

Anyways, the number of things we can perceive has to be finite, since perceiving an infinite number of things would take infinitely long.

Given a brain with infinite computational power, would such a being "benefit" from being able to perceive everything? — Samuele

Benefits are relative. It would depend on the situation.

It feels like reality is just all that we can perceive. It sometimes feels to me like it's not independent of our perception. Would anything even exist if there were no observers out there to *feel* it in some way? What does the universe really "look" like free of limitations in perception by imperfect beings like us? — Samuele

You can read entire libraries on that topic. The opinions range from radical constructivism to naive realism and probably a bunch of other things I don't even know about.