You might have heard that it wasn't tested for reducing transmission, i.e. whether the vaccines make it less likely that an infected, vaccinated person would transmit the virus to someone else... Which it wasn't, because uhhh... how would you?

They tested it for safety, reduction in symptomatic infection rate and reduction in infection severity.

You should set aside your conclusions for a bit and take an earnest effort at learning some of the details of this stuff if you want to "do your own research" etc. It is clear you are misunderstanding some pretty fundamental things that are actually easily understandable if you approach them with honest curiosity!

You can literally look up the trial designs and they just say right on them exactly what they're testing for and how they're doing it.

At some time you realize you can't repeat all the test at home, because it would be full of mice and transgenic plants and a huge particle collider and ... Also, there are a lot of very hard topics. So you must trust the system, but not too much.

* Big pharma wants to sell drugs and get money.

* The FDA wants to cover they ass and get money.

* Journalist want to publish bleeding stories and get money.

[There is also an optimistic version where all of them want the best for humanity.]

All of them together are making a quite good job, and you can go to the pharmacy at the corner and be quite confident that you will get the cure for a lot of illness with a low risk. In some threads people ask for most tests, in some threads people ask for faster approval. It's a hard trade off, and I'm happy I don't have to make the decision [3].

In 2020 there was a lot of misinformation in both directions. From politicians to youtubers, form individual crackpots to professors in the university. In many cases you realize they may not even understand the difference between a virus and a bacteria, in other cases they say that the "control group" is an unrelated bunch of guys in another city.

Science is about doing your own research, but doing your own research is super hard. As a rule of thumb, if the FDA and the European equivalent agree, it's probably ok [4], but cross your fingers just in case.

[1] Whatever "serious" mean. It's a hard question.

[2] And real "peer review", not a comment section in a web page.

[3] Somewhat related https://www.fortressofdoors.com/four-magic-words/

[4] Do you trust the contractor+regulations that installed the elevator at your building? It's another trade off of as cheap as possible and enough regulations to avoid appearing in the front page of all newspapers everyday.

Not for the average adult human on planet Earth, no.

Fifty percent of people are of below average intelligence. Of the 50% that remain only a fraction have access to the equipment necessary to replicate any given experiment, of that fraction only a small percentage will have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to accurately replicate any given experiment, of that tiny fraction only a much tinier fraction will have the KSA's to interpret those results in a meaningful way.

Science should replicate. That does not automatically imply that YOU should be the one replicating it.

For the average person science should mean knowing how to determine if someone is more qualified than they are and listening to them, or at least listening to the general consensus of those who are more qualified when such a consensus exists.

Yes, other peoples goals don't always align perfectly with yours, but the simple truth is that you aren't qualified or even capable of understanding everything in the world. When it comes to those subjects you must be adult enough to understand and work within your limitations.

Honestly, do you really believe that people who sacrificed large parts of their lives to become researchers are in it for the money, or out to get you? These are brilliant people who choose to take a career path that doesn't really pay well. When 99% of them tell you something is safe, Occam will tell that it's a pretty safe bet the weirdos on the fringe are just plain wrong.

They mean that they went online and found blogs and YouTube videos that agree with whatever crackpot view they already held.

The issue with picking people and organizations to trust (which you absolutely should do) is that the average person isn’t even able to evaluate what qualified means. And RFK jr. is the guy appointing the “qualified people” who run things. On paper many of them are qualified, but in reality they’re crackpots.

You have to dig a level deeper and understand that this set of qualified people are actually just nuts who essentially performed the scientific equivalent of a coup because their ideas couldn’t win on merit.

I agree. But how do you that without researching? Who makes the list of trustful institutions?

Let's pick homeopathy. The pharmacy in the corner of my home sells homeopathy too. There are even some curses in some universities [in Germany?] [I searched in MY university. Apparently there is no curse for human medicine, but there is a curse for veterinary https://www.fvet.uba.ar/?q=homeopatia .] Can we agree homeopathy is not real? How do you know?

Those trials unequivocally showed extremely high effectiveness and extremely high safety.

The people who say otherwise are simply wrong in this case. No matter how much philosophizing you or they want to do on epistemology. If they want to demonstrate otherwise, they need to conduct their own trials, ideally large, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trials.

> in other cases they say that the "control group" is an unrelated bunch of guys in another city.

This is not how trials work and you should go "do your own research" on the basics of the methodology before you opine on higher-order things like vaccines etc.

If you want to ruin your day, take a look at the hydroxychloroquine [retracted] paper by Raoult. Who is the control group? Why was it reported in the press as a 100% cure if the only death was in the trial group?

I agree that the trial to prove the effectiveness and safety of the covid-19 vaccines were much better designed. One of the reasons is that to get the approval of the FDA they must dot the i and j and cross the t and f.

So my standard at the time was that I’d take it if the FDA and at least one other developed country approved it.

But as mentioned elsewhere in the thread, everyone knows that it's possible and take measure to mitigate it.

A paper that said those mitigations were insufficient or empirically found not to work would be interesting. A paper saying "you should mitigate this" is... not very interesting.

From the article:

> They found that on average, the gloves imparted about 2,000 false positives per millimeter squared area.

I dunno, that seems like a lot of false positives. Doesn’t that strongly imply that overestimation would be a pretty likely outcome here? Sounds like a completely sterile 1mm^2 area would raise a ton of false positives because of just the gloves.

Then the tested result is Actual Sample Result - Negative Sample Result.

So you'd expect a microplastic sample to have 2,000 plus N per mm^2, and N is the result of your test.

https://www.onthewing.org/user/Bonhoeffer%20-%20Theory%20of%...

When Russia invades Ukraine or Iran cuts the straight of Ormuz energy prize go up instantly, chocking the entire world economy in the course of a few weeks. Even if China stops exporting rare earths, it would take years before it affects the energy market.

It's absolutely incomparable.

Cuba is a good example by the way: a country can survive for decades while being cut from most technology import due to sanctions, but if you cut its access to oil, it becomes dirty real quick. And because Cuba has been stuck in the middle of the 20th century, it's actually much less dependent on energy than most developed or even developing countries.

That's not the entire point. You still rely on global supply chains. Those semiconductors in your MacBook Pro are made in Taiwan - many steps (perhaps most) in that supply chain to go from raw material to MacBook Pro, or EV, or fresh produce rely on oil. When Iran holds 20% of the world's oil supply hostage then prices go up for you too. Even if you are 100% renewables you are still dependent on oil for your economy.

Even the renewable power grid relies on fossil fuels for maintenance and service, many parts and components are built using materials made from oil (hello plastic), &c.

Sure China. But unless they send in an army to retreive previously sold panels, or block the sun they can only harm future increases to supply.

Depends on the country.

> UK power grid doesn't give a fuck about this war.

Power grid =/= economy. You're missing the point. Rising prices affect the United Kingdom economy even if it was fully run on renewables. The ships bringing products to the country don't run on renewables, the cars mostly don't, your fighter jets don't, your fertilizer doesn't. &c.

It's important to not be dogmatic and be practical about this stuff. Every country on the planet needs and utilizes oil and gas and that will remain true for the foreseeable future because of globalized supply chains.

> Sure China. But unless they send in an army to retreive previously sold panels, or block the sun they can only harm future increases to supply.

Which, in the case of a war with the US would be true because the UK will be involved and sided with the US and/or certainly assumed to be by China. (This is indisputable). So sure you build up those panels, but then you see a war and now you lose access to those materials and if it isn't solved in the near term you have to switch all of your energy back to fossil fuels. No new EVs during the war, for example.

1. It’s closer to 50 years, and even a partially degraded panel will work, just with less output

2. Even if we say 20 years, that means that you only need to buy panels once every 20 years! Not continuously. A complete and total interruption of solar panel production lasting 4 years will only mildly interrupt current output. How long can we last with a total disruption to oil supply chains?

The key would be to simply not ignore all the other dimensions of dependency.

Pretty easy!

It doesn't serve us well to act like this administration is anything other than extremely aberrational.

But scapegoating any single politician for the systemic problems of aviation is as unhelpful as scapegoating the controller for the crash at Laguardia.

Leaded gasoline? Illegal to use in the US - unless you're putting it into an old plane, where it's not likely legal to put unleaded in.

ATC? Done with old radar screens and physical cards.

Ground Control? Someone has to be standing in the tower with a pair of binoculars.

The US has an extremely safe aviation system, but the price for that safety has been technological stagnation. If I spend $70k on a small airplane, the best that'll get me is a 1975 Piper with a lawnmower engine and analog gauges. Replacing those with digital instruments will run ~$20k - the instruments themselves are only $7k, but the regulatory burden is quite pricey.

Reagan didn't do the US any favors when he treated ATC as disposable, but the truth is that the volume of flights has increased enormously and the job of ATC has gotten much harder while at the same time controller staffing has been screwed by budget fights in Congress and a couple years of one very misguided DEI policy.

The US needs to automate more of ATC. Human beings should be dedicated to emergencies, not issuing the exact same clearance 300 times a day.

You proceeded to list a bunch of things that have absolutely nothing to do with ATC being overworked and underpaid.

"Automating more of ATC" would change absolutely nothing about the fact they're overworked and underpaid, there would just be fewer controllers with the same workload because they lost all ability to collectively bargain with Reagan.

Name an industry that has automated, and the end result was they kept the same number of employees, but paid them more and reduced their hours. Oh, and it can't be a unionized industry. I'll wait patiently wait for that list.

I'm not providing that list because it's stupid. ATC is not a jobs program; it's a profession that exists to solve a problem. The goal is not to pay ATC more, the goal is to safely manage air traffic at a reasonable price.

There is a ton of low hanging fruit because ATC is done today via phone calls and analog radio despite digital radar and mandatory transponders. It would substantially reduce controller workload, because important yet brainless tasks like "don't issue a clearance to cross a runway with landing traffic" are trivial for a computer but require the same amount of synchronous focus for a human as managing an emergency landing.

Clearances to cross a runway are given by someone with a radio and a pair of binoculars right now, which is how this was possible. With another few controllers it would have been less likely.

With a few traffic lights and computers controlling them? This wouldn't be possible at all, because the controller could focus on the emergency and the rest of the traffic could just run as normal.

The number of flights in the US is enormous and still growing. ATC, as a job, really sucks because you have to spend years in school and then commit to a career where the government can just decide where you're going to live on a whim (no, a union would not fix this, because everywhere needs ATC but not everyone wants to live everywhere). You have criminal liability if you make a mistake and while you can make six figures, it's very hard to make as much as you would at a similarly stressful and intellectual job because anything in the private sector that's this critical just gets automated ASAP.

I have a pilot's license. I can tell you with certainty that even when ATC is staffed for conditions they still make mistakes fairly often. That's just the nature of the problem no matter how much you pay them or how many controllers you hire. When you're landing a 200mph jetliner every 60 seconds there is too much room for error in a human brain.

Is it still an aberration the second time 'round?

Future historians are going to laugh at us- provided there will be any.

It sounds like you're not asking anything at all

Just to play it out a bit, are you imagining that a pilot would be reporting a mechanical failure upon descent into busy airspace to some type of like AI voice agent, who will then orchestrate other aircraft out of the way (and not into each other) while also coaching the crippled aircraft out of the sky?

Are you imagining some vast simplification that obviates the need for such capability? Because that doesn't seem simple at all to me.

It takes all of two minutes of Wikipedia reading for me to understand why this isn’t simple; why it's actually extremely not simple! If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?

Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons. If they are so important, it leads to a question: what existing automated systems can we improve by adding similar constraints?

If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.

I would like to say, "Because knowledgeable people have explained the difference to me." But again, this has come up before, and no explanations are ever provided. Only vague, reactionary hand-waving, assuring me that humans -- presumably not the same ones who just directed a fire truck and an aircraft onto the same active runway, but humans nevertheless -- are vital for safety in ATC, because for reasons such as and therefore.

There you are doing it in order to avoid engaging with the substance of what people are saying.

There is no substance in the replies. There never is. Only unanchored FUD.

"Because it's always been done that way, and that's what the regulations say," will not be accepted, at least not by me.

(Really, my question is more like why humans will still be needed in the loop in 2036. If we started automating ATC today, that's probably how long it would take to cut over to the new system.)

   That... sounds like a simple problem.

   If you ignore the incumbency, the regulations, the training requirements, the retrofitting, the verification, the international coordination, and the existing unfathomably reliable systems built out of past tragedies, then sure, it’s "simple". But then, if you're ignoring those things, you’re not really solving the problem, are you?

   Those are excuses and encumbrances, not reasons.

   Ok. You have shared that what some say are reasons, you say are excuses... I maintain that this is not a simple problem.

    I just want what I've been asking for: someone to explain to me why, in 2026, humans still need to be involved in the real-time aspects of ATC.

On the heels of tragedy, you reasoned this could've been avoided simply. We are all ears. And yet, at no point did you demonstrate any understanding of the problem containing real world constraints, and instead demand that it be explained to you how the world works and how systems are implemented.

If you want to discuss an idealized system in a vacuum, then say as much; I would find that interesting. But do not demand to be given an explanation when you do not understand—and cannot accept—why things are the way they are.

Let me summarize it like this: you may very well have the best solution in the world, but if it doesn't include a strategy for how to share it (let alone implement it), then I maintain you do not understand the problem and therefore cannot claim it is simple.

I have no solution at all, for the 35th time.

This conversation is over; it's clear I'm not going to get what I asked for. If someone could answer my question, they would have by now, rather than throwing one smoke bomb after another.

Can you please explain how specifically you imagine a scenario like this getting automated?

"Design an automated ATC system" isn't a valid answer to "Why can't ATC be automated?"

Me: [ insert specific example of currently intractable problem ]

You: sounds like an excuse

Me: okay... can you explain how it could work?

You: THAT'S NOT HOW THIS WORKS

okay

Me: Why don't we use radiation to treat cancer?

You: Radiation is dangerous

Me: Sounds like an excuse

You: OK, design a medical-grade synchrotron

Me: That's not how this works

You: LOL pwned

...insert specific example of currently intractable problem...

What makes the problem intractable? We can now do both voice recognition and synthesis at human levels, and any video game programmer from the 1980s can keep some objects from running into each other.

When an emergency is declared, keep the other objects in a holding pattern and give the affected object permission to land. Then roll the fire trucks. Preferably not routing both the trucks and another aircraft onto the same runway, as the humans apparently did here.

People’s lives hang in the balance of a system built of corner cases. And you trot out radiation treatment as your metaphor? As if we didn’t royally fuck that up and kill a bunch of people at first.

You'll lose this argument sooner or later. I just hope it happens before several hundred people find out the hard way that humans no longer have any business in a control tower. With your attitude, Therac-25 would have been seen as grounds to shut down the entire field of radiotherapy.

No one thinks that the difficulty with automatic ATC is that computers have trouble counting 1000 things.

I mean, you're the one who said it...

Great point!

It must be that despite the reliability, obvious advantages, and accessibility to "any video game programmer from the 1980s", everyone else is just choosing not to do it.

Alternatively, these things are not as simple or as reliable as you, a person who has no familiarity with the problem, assumes them to be.

I guess we'll never know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

If these are just "excuses" and not "reasons," then explain how you have determined them as such.

This is just not how complex systems work. N of 1 events happen regularly, which is exactly what makes them challenging.

You simply asserting every scenario has been seen before does not actually make it so.

Nearly every state routinely does statistical audits of voting machines compared with paper records.

People hate to hear this but: statistics work. You can randomly sample a portion (say, 2% to 5%) of ballots and have effective certainty about how much fraud or error there is in your voting system.