Math in a time when there is little of math or time.

mathematical seriousness for everyone. I feel compelled to put this here in a somewhat irritating way because I’m seeing a lot of people I think are very bright post a lot of very non-thoughtful content. this is not a joke. and bad information right now is far worse than no information.

1) all models are wrong, some are useful.

2) prediction is impossible at this scale

3) “flattening the curve” is a generalized, idealized concept. The virus itself is not a continuous phenomena. while there is some ability to model population scale events as continuous, the thing itself is not and the math may work in weird ways.

4) the data being collected and presented is not uniform, is not being uniformly collected, is full of errors, and may be manipulated by process or by choice or by random error. law of large numbers may make some of that data fuckery moot, but don’t think for a second a virus that’s hard to detect in the majority of people carrying it and there being trillions of dollars on the line for being honest about the scope makes for high fidelity data.

5) virus/biology is complex, not static. aka THINGS CHANGE.

6) we do not have the best minds/best computers feeding you information through mass channels, including the public internet. reader beware, EVERYWHERE.

7) you have a moral obligation to be over-reactive and to avoid passing anything to anyone. Beyond that you have a selfish interest if you care about your own health and your own economics to do everything you can to avoid spreading this until we have far more information about how to treat it and how to navigate our new reality. you gain nothing by spreading the virus. you gain nothing by “predicting that we overreacted”. stay home. avoid clogging any health care or public service infrastructure.

8) if you feel compelled to continue sharing data I strongly advise you to read up on your statistics 101 and calculus. I’m not kidding. You also should study up on basic biology and how infection works 101.

I don’t want to point out on every thread where people are sharing bullshit. there’s a lot of it.