Here's an example that illustrates a shortcoming about how medicine has historically been practiced and how it might change with the advent of AI.
A person very familiar with me was having an interaction at a review board level at Stanford. They had this rare illness that they were treating and someone had the "bright idea" of suggesting of saying ... "hey, why don't we look at the ten other times we treated this exact illness and see what worked!" Everyone was delighted with this novel idea (discussion circa 2021). My person was a bit disgusted as this is simple feedback loop style improvement and WTF! they should be doing this all the time to get probabilistic style suggestions for many treatments. I know it happens within certain healthcare systems (e.g., Kaiser had full EMR back in early 2000s and saw right away that VIOXX was killing people. So, they stop prescribing it. citation: Kaiser panel member paraphrase at a healthcare conference in 2010). If you just observe the healthcare system, you can see that the healthcare systems and most EMRs don't typically capture the feedback loop (i.e, when's the last time a doctor followed up and said "did you feel better after the last treatment?" or measures the result.) AI itself can't solve this as it doesn't have access to the data feedback loop. However, maybe AI's within the EMR will help "suggest" evidence based treatments. I could go on and on, but as a math guy, I've often been shocked at the non-evidence based assertions some doctors make. My conclusion is that if you're not "in the fairway", they are typically just guessing.
My mom had cancer and she was on regular, suppressive chemotherapy. I put her info into an AI and it correctly noted that her chemotherapy had stopped being effective 2 months prior based on factual lab reports. She was unaware of this. I was able to be her health advocate much more effectively by respectfully asking her oncologist targeted questions. He was already on top of it and was addressing the issue. Our conversation was respectful and, due to my educating myself, went up another level. Ultimately, it was a positive interaction. I was satisfied that he was indeed expert at his craft, and he was satisfied that we were aware of the uncertainty of the new treatment with a risk-based understanding of the viability of success. This was a positive engagement with an expert. In parallel situations around non-health issues, I've found the ego of the expert seems to be the determinative factor in whether or not the interaction goes well.
Maybe a difference here is asking AI for conclusions. When I have it do a buyer's report for me, I ask it for "what questions should I be asking? What are typical things that go wrong with this type of vehicle?" I don't delegate conclusions to the AI but use it to educate myself. Then, I can gather further information to make MY decision .. to buy it or not.
I don't think so. LLMs tend to over-index on providing results in general whether it's a conclusion or not. When you ask it "What are typical things that go wrong with this type of vehicle?" you're forcing it to make a conclusion about which results to include and it will almost certainly provide results even if those issues aren't as much of a concern compared to typical issues with other vehicles.
For example, I just prompted Kimi-K2.6 with:
> I'm considering buying a used base model 2010 Honda Civic with 80k miles that's been garage kept. What are typical things that go wrong with this type of vehicle?
It listed 10 issues including the engine block cracking (which wasn't even an issue with 2010 Civics). Started a new chat and asked about a 2010 Toyota Camry, another unbelievably reliable car, and it listed 9 similar issues. Started a new chat and asked about a 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee, a notoriously unreliable vehicle, and it listed the same number of issues.
Sure it's data to make decisions on either way, but it really all comes down to how good your prompts are and whether or not you can think critically about the output, whether or not that output is a conclusion or just data collection.
From prior research, the hormonal interactions around the thyroid and immune system are complex. You've boiled it down fairly well here as related to zinc.
Wasn't there some discussion about hydroxychloroquine being effectively only in conjunction with zinc as the hydroxychloroquine encourages cellular uptake of zinc. Ergo, zinc is the key ingredient.
Further, I seem to recall the book "The end of alzheimer's" (high recommend) talked alot about zinc wrt neurological health.
I enjoy listening to some of Rogan's podcasts. I don't agree with all of his opinions (or his guests). Also, I'm not into all of his topics (e.g., MMA).
That said, I'm interested in the criticism of him and this "misinformation" that keeps cropping up. So, I read the articles and, importantly, the comments. Rarely do I see criticism beyond simple ad hominem attacks.
Asking this community as it seems reasonable, am I missing something here? What's wrong with debating ideas with a 50/50 weighting of left/right topics for discussion (i.e., old "equal time" rules)?
> So, I read the articles and, importantly, the comments. Rarely do I see criticism beyond simple ad hominem attacks.
My theory is that there is an ongoing media campaign being waged to discredit and demonize Joe Rogan. Ever since he publicly claimed his course of Ivermectin treatment he has been treated as some kind of public enemy by most news media. I find it strange because he has essentially promoted smoking DMT on his podcast - a practice which is likely quite bad for your health, but no really gave that any attention aside from a few memes. But he mentions taking an antiviral and everyone starts treating him like a serious threat to society.
There are a few issues with his last 2 years of the podcast:
1. He rarely pushes back on any interviewee if they're pushing an anti-vaxx position. However, he suddenly becomes very skeptical when any medical professional states their support for the vaccine, COVID protocols, etc.
2. It's not a 50/50 split of left/right. Ever since he moved to Austin (and even before), he's typically brought many more center and right leaning people than left. Also, the same thing happens as point 1 in that he typically lets right-leaning folks off a lot easier with questions than left-leaning folks (this is hard to quantify, admittedly).
3. Politics aside, his podcast is far less interesting than pre-COVID. He's far more interested in pushing his own points and positions than listening and asking the interviewees for their positions. In the earlier days, he was much more inquisitive and focused on helping the interviewee discuss their area of expertise. In the last few years, it's more focused on Joe talking about his theories and asking the interviewee for their opinion.
I loved his older interviews about nutrition, health, etc. Every fucking podcast these days is only about COVID and how vaccines are bad, mandates are bad, and the Biden administration is bad.
The presentation of things that aren't really in question as being up for debate isn't great. At least not when the debate isn't well informed.
Like sure, it's important in science to question everything, but that means doing experiments to generate elucidating data, not getting high and rambling on Spotify.
> What's wrong with debating ideas with a 50/50 weighting of left/right topics for discussion
it’s not left/right issues. It’s non-quackery versus quackery. You’re actually asking What wrong with giving snake oil and consensus backed science equal time?
Galileo was a quack in his time. Most great scientists were quacks who were opposed by orthodoxy. There is nothing wrong with having Robert Malone on to counter government approved science in a podcast. He's not giving him equal time. He's giving them a modicum of time in the face of overwhelming government approved virological perspective.
It’s arguing with half truths to defend actual quacks being called out for purveying views that lack evidence to prior events when people with actual supporting evidence backing their work got pushback. Despite the church, Galileos work got support from a significant number of people when they were able to see and test reproduce his observations, something that quacks can’t stand up to.
The roles here are being mixed up. The quackery equal time supporters are like the church, wanting something to be true and heard simply because they like the way it sounds. The anti-quacks are simply saying look “here are the facts as to why that’s not true and show that’s snake oil”.
If Rogan had reviewed and assessed the claims and any support before hand, checking how they stand up to scrutiny, and only then conducted the interview then this would all be a non issue.
That way he’d call out garbage facts like his guests recently have had instead of making them seem legitimate by giving them equal coverage to real facts and he’s also be able to highlight a Galileo should those facts line up.
"Helicopter" Ben famously said that the Great Depression could have been averted by throwing $100 bills from helicopters to pump liquidity into the economy.
I believe the implementation of this concept via the Fed (bank of banks) is the real issue. Basically, liquidity goes to the banks. Anyone having a relationship with banks gets access to this liquidity and benefits. Of course, we plow these "gains" back into assets (hard or stock market), this drives up prices, and we get asset inflation. For the person renting an apartment, leasing a car, and with credit card debt ... well, they lose. The trickle down doesn't work. You can interpolate and extrapolate from this brief comment, and I believe that this is the fundamental source of the expanding rich/poor divide.
> Basically, liquidity goes to the banks. Anyone having a relationship with banks gets access to this liquidity and benefits.
Ding ding ding. This is a key issue. If you want to bail out the economy, you need to do it to increase aggregate demand, and therefore the best way to do this is to give money directly to the people. The programs in place since 2008 (1) benefit people with capital (2) leave the poor and the working class in the dust, and (3) are paid for by milking the taxpayers directly, or indirectly through inflation.
Banks are leacherous middleman in normal operation. Theoretically they are providing a valuable service of evaluating risk and allocating capitable to the most profitable ventures. But in practice the incentives are totally misaligned, since they do not get accurately punished/rewarded for doing a shit job. Not to mention old-fashioned corruption, understood as giving undue benefit to a party/parties due to their personal connections.
I imagine that's more of an issue now than during the Great Depression. Back then you could easily put that money into large pools of labor, whether assembly lines at factories or agriculture or infrastructure projects and gave a pretty good return on investment. Now a large pool of labor at a company is treated more like a liability, and yeah just putting money into real properties may get you a better return than anything that directly benefits any meaningful number of people. Even if the money goes towards something like infrastructure - the cost of equipment is one thing, but I imagine there are plenty of instances where a handful of lawyers and beaurocrats involved in a project get paid more than some massive crews that do the actual labor combined.
> Great Depression could have been averted by throwing $100 bills from helicopters
A lot of people don't know this, but the main reason Calvin Coolidge suddenly, and without warning, decided not to seek reelection in 1928 was that he couldn't find any helicopters. Hoover was set up.
The Fed cannot do helicopter money. It is not connected to the "real" economy directly, only through the banks as middle-men. Helicopter money comes via fiscal policy.
As for so-called "asset inflation", I like Cullen Roche's take:
> In any case, I would argue that most of the asset price appreciation of the last 10+ years appears largely rational in the sense that it is supported by corporate fundamentals (record profits, record GDP, etc) and other robust economic data that is consistent with a growing economy. It isn’t just a fictitious boom as many “asset price inflation” narratives like to imply.
> As for inequality – asset price inflation would tend to exacerbate inequality since it will disproportionately benefit those who own assets. This makes sense. But as I like to always point out, inequality is a policy failure, not a market failure. After all, a capitalist economy will always veer towards monopolistic behavior if we allow it to. The extent to which we allow that to happen is not a failure of capitalism, it is a failure of policy makers to contain capitalism.
> The Fed cannot do helicopter money. It is not connected to the "real" economy directly, only through the banks as middle-men. Helicopter money comes via fiscal policy.
Exactly. All those people talking about money printing don't understand that money doesn't exist in a vaccum. Every dollar created is backed by one dollar of debt which ads up to a net worth of $0.
So the Fed cannot helicopter money for the obvious reason that they cannot ever pay that money back. The government can borrow and spend money into the economy because it can tax its citizens. The money will come back one day.
> In any case, I would argue that most of the asset price appreciation of the last 10+ years appears largely rational in the sense that it is supported by corporate fundamentals (record profits, record GDP, etc) and other robust economic data that is consistent with a growing economy. It isn’t just a fictitious boom as many “asset price inflation” narratives like to imply.
The PE ratio for the S&P 500 is currently ~28X, which is roughly double it's historical average and ~50% more than the average from 2010-2020. Is it really supported by corporate fundamentals?
- a mandated MLR of 85% means the insurance companies have zero incentive to reduce the cost of items. In fact, their toplines and real (non%) profits increase as healthcare gets more expensive.
- industry profitability for insurance companies is around 3%. So, their overhead is around 15%-3% = 12%. They have an incentive to do their job cheaper. This pales in comparison to the 85% cogs.
- the small company cfo (me) has negative incentive to get involved in my employees' healthcare decisions. In fact, even being aware of cancer, pregnancy, etc. can be used against management in an employee lawsuit. No thanks. We just accept the situation and pay the bill.
- huge companies that can afford to self-insure can do it as they can firewall healthcare information from employment decision makers.
So, who in this system is going for cheaper healthcare:
- employees ... no
- insurance companies .. no
- healthcare providers ... no
- business paying the bills ... no
This bullshit billing structure is the tip of the iceberg. We have no freemarket incentives to keep down the cost of healthcare (i.e., carveout for high deductible insurance plans). Why would we expect otherwise?
The solution is to make the consumer participate in driving costs down. One employer I know of has an excellent solution to the problem: Make employees pay 100% of the bill up to a certain amount, such as $6000. That's a large amount, but the employer then contributes a large amount to your Health Savings Account (HSA), such as $4000. This amount is for you to keep regardless of whether you have any health bills or not. (This money can be used for medical expenses only, but can be used any time, including after retirement). So the maximum you will spend out of pocket per year is $2000. How does this encourage the consumer to scrutinize and control medical expenditure? Because the first $6000 of medical spending in a year is "your money". This is money you'd be able to keep in your HSA if you didn't have any medical expenses. This gives the consumer a strong incentive to reduce costs, question charges, avoid unnecessary services, and so on.
Also, I think emergency healthcare should be contemplated differently than ... I'll call it "premeditated healthcare". In one instance, the individual can make a deliberate shopping decision and weigh cost/benefit. That's fundamentally different than an ambulance taking you to the ER when you're bleeding out ... no price shopping then.
I've worked in healthcare my whole career and you hit the nail on the head. Costs keep going up because nobody involved in healthcare has an incentive to make it cheaper, including the patients. We've designed a system that is doomed to fail and nothing short of tearing it down will fix it.
A person very familiar with me was having an interaction at a review board level at Stanford. They had this rare illness that they were treating and someone had the "bright idea" of suggesting of saying ... "hey, why don't we look at the ten other times we treated this exact illness and see what worked!" Everyone was delighted with this novel idea (discussion circa 2021). My person was a bit disgusted as this is simple feedback loop style improvement and WTF! they should be doing this all the time to get probabilistic style suggestions for many treatments. I know it happens within certain healthcare systems (e.g., Kaiser had full EMR back in early 2000s and saw right away that VIOXX was killing people. So, they stop prescribing it. citation: Kaiser panel member paraphrase at a healthcare conference in 2010). If you just observe the healthcare system, you can see that the healthcare systems and most EMRs don't typically capture the feedback loop (i.e, when's the last time a doctor followed up and said "did you feel better after the last treatment?" or measures the result.) AI itself can't solve this as it doesn't have access to the data feedback loop. However, maybe AI's within the EMR will help "suggest" evidence based treatments. I could go on and on, but as a math guy, I've often been shocked at the non-evidence based assertions some doctors make. My conclusion is that if you're not "in the fairway", they are typically just guessing.