The Post For Stuff You Wanna Tell People

[ergative]

Thanks, everyone!

The news today is even better: they made a mistake with my placement on the salary scale. I'm actually a step higher, which means another $3k!


Well. Until I see the tax bill!

Bravo! That's an $18k bump altogether then? Fortunately, since the logic of marginal tax increases do not actually result in a lower net income when you make more money, you're coming out ahead no matter what bracket you end up in.

(I recognize that you probably know this, but it needs saying anyway.)

[Parasaurolophus]

Thanks, everyone!

The news today is even better: they made a mistake with my placement on the salary scale. I'm actually a step higher, which means another $3k!


Well. Until I see the tax bill!

Bravo! That's an $18k bump altogether then? Fortunately, since the logic of marginal tax increases do not actually result in a lower net income when you make more money, you're coming out ahead no matter what bracket you end up in.

(I recognize that you probably know this, but it needs saying anyway.)

Yeahyeah!

It's also not quite as impressive a bump as it sounds, since it merely makes my salary go from paltry to decent. But it's a well-timed and welcome boost!

[Puget]

Thanks, everyone!

The news today is even better: they made a mistake with my placement on the salary scale. I'm actually a step higher, which means another $3k!


Well. Until I see the tax bill!

Bravo! That's an $18k bump altogether then? Fortunately, since the logic of marginal tax increases do not actually result in a lower net income when you make more money, you're coming out ahead no matter what bracket you end up in.

(I recognize that you probably know this, but it needs saying anyway.)

Yeahyeah!

It's also not quite as impressive a bump as it sounds, since it merely makes my salary go from paltry to decent. But it's a well-timed and welcome boost!

Congrats! Well timed indeed, since as I recall you are in the process of hatching an egg?

[Parasaurolophus]

Thanks, everyone!

The news today is even better: they made a mistake with my placement on the salary scale. I'm actually a step higher, which means another $3k!


Well. Until I see the tax bill!

Bravo! That's an $18k bump altogether then? Fortunately, since the logic of marginal tax increases do not actually result in a lower net income when you make more money, you're coming out ahead no matter what bracket you end up in.

(I recognize that you probably know this, but it needs saying anyway.)

Yeahyeah!

It's also not quite as impressive a bump as it sounds, since it merely makes my salary go from paltry to decent. But it's a well-timed and welcome boost!

Congrats! Well timed indeed, since as I recall you are in the process of hatching an egg?

Yessum!

[apl68]

Belated congratulations!

[polly_mer]

Probability is really fun in some ways and it's clear that many don't understand some implications.

When a specific action has a very low probability of a particular negative side effect occurring (e.g., less than 1%), but millions of people take that action every day, that particular negative side effect will happen many, many times every day, but, true, most of the people won't experience it directly every time.

Thus, much of the advice I'm seeing is along the lines of "Well, you shouldn't drive drunk.  But if you do, wear a seat belt, consider getting a helmet, and be sure your headlights are aligned so as not to blind oncoming drivers".

The reduction in the AIDS deaths is primarily due to better treatment, not doing risky things and then insisting they aren't risky.

The reduction in births to teenagers is primarily due to fewer teens having sex, not better birth control usage.

If you feel bad about violating the rules, that's the little angel on your shoulder to whom you should listen and stop violating the rules.

If you think calling out individuals for being sexist, racist, transphobic, or whatever can change behavior, then you are logically inconsistent if you don't believe that telling people to stay home to avoid overwhelming the medical system, to wait for the vaccine that's on the horizon (although a year is more realistic than a couple months), and to wait for improved treatments could change behavior in necessary ways.

Thus, it'd be nice if people who insist they teach critical thinking would actually follow the math and science in this case instead of the philosophers who refuse to admit the distinction between a physical reality and a social nicety.

[Parasaurolophus]

...what philosophers?

[polly_mer]

...what philosophers?

There's a Harvard philosopher and collaborators who are getting a lot press this week for saying that people won't follow the rules and therefore we should give into making those people's feelings instead of focusing on the physical realities.

This comes after a steady stream of advice through the year of people who are at least arm chair philosophers on the individuals' feelings instead of the realities of community spread and community risk.

[Parasaurolophus]

There's a Harvard philosopher and collaborators who are getting a lot press this week for saying that people won't follow the rules and therefore we should give into making those people's feelings instead of focusing on the physical realities.

Wow, I totally missed that. Thanks for clarifying. I'll have to have a look, because I seldom miss an opportunity to adjust my view of that department downwards.

[polly_mer]

There's a Harvard philosopher and collaborators who are getting a lot press this week for saying that people won't follow the rules and therefore we should give into making those people's feelings instead of focusing on the physical realities.

Wow, I totally missed that. Thanks for clarifying. I'll have to have a look, because I seldom miss an opportunity to adjust my view of that department downwards.

Valuing the elite affiliation instead of relevant expertise has been one of the interesting/sad parts of watching the pandemic unfold in the media. 

The view one gets from watching the ongoing discussions in relevant science-for-scientists (including social science) outlets (e.g., Physics Today, Chemical and Engineering News, Nature has a new Covid newsletter that is particularly good at pointing to science-for-scientists-but-not-experts-in-the-field articles in many science outlets) is very different from the one-off articles in the mass media where the goal is to tell a story that people will read to provide more eyeballs for revenue.  The science outlets tend to write for non-experts in the exact fields by delineating the known science, the current progress on open questions with a lot of discussion and hypotheses to test, and the new questions to be asked as new information rolls in.  The "overviews in not your field" science outlets have a goal of informing non-experts; the mass media outlets are selling a new article regularly to keep the money flowing instead of informing.

A few months ago on these fora, we had a discussion on why the general public doesn't value science with many forumites asserting that they value science, but then those same people would write multiple items that disprove their ability to use scientific knowledge in their daily lives appropriately.  More than once on these fora, people have asserted that they don't need math or quantitative reasoning in their daily lives.  They may not need to write equations (even I seldom write equations for non-work tasks), but they are making ignorant decisions by not having a good grasp on the implications of probability, statistics, and exponential growth (e.g., by the time the results come back as alarming to even the casual eye, it's usually too late to do anything in the short term; the time to have acted was much earlier when it was the good models that were predicting alarming results).

It's both amusing and sad to see how many academics assert that general education and critical thinking are really important, but then don't have the necessary general education knowledge and skills to be able to succeed in critical thinking that directly matters.  The pandemic has certainly highlighted a lack of those skills even among people who assert that's their career and expertise.

[marshwiggle]

There's a Harvard philosopher and collaborators who are getting a lot press this week for saying that people won't follow the rules and therefore we should give into making those people's feelings instead of focusing on the physical realities.

Wow, I totally missed that. Thanks for clarifying. I'll have to have a look, because I seldom miss an opportunity to adjust my view of that department downwards.

Valuing the elite affiliation instead of relevant expertise has been one of the interesting/sad parts of watching the pandemic unfold in the media. 

The view one gets from watching the ongoing discussions in relevant science-for-scientists (including social science) outlets (e.g., Physics Today, Chemical and Engineering News, Nature has a new Covid newsletter that is particularly good at pointing to science-for-scientists-but-not-experts-in-the-field articles in many science outlets) is very different from the one-off articles in the mass media where the goal is to tell a story that people will read to provide more eyeballs for revenue.  The science outlets tend to write for non-experts in the exact fields by delineating the known science, the current progress on open questions with a lot of discussion and hypotheses to test, and the new questions to be asked as new information rolls in.  The "overviews in not your field" science outlets have a goal of informing non-experts; the mass media outlets are selling a new article regularly to keep the money flowing instead of informing.

One mind-numbingly irritating example of this is reports that in the UK, "two people had allergic reactions to the vaccine".

OUT OF HOW MANY VACCINATED????????????

What kind of morons don't think that basic information matters?

[Parasaurolophus]

I just noticed that mamselle's post count has overtaken polly's.

[marshwiggle]

I just noticed that mamselle's post count has overtaken polly's.

That happened a while ago.

[mamselle]

Gee, and here I was holding back so as not to make anyone feel bad....

;--}

M.

[Parasaurolophus]

Got a referee request today from the one specialist journal that keeps on rejecting absolutely everything I send them (including some papers which were accepted, virtually unchanged, in the highest-ranking generalist journals, or the other top specialist journal in my subfield).

I know there's nothing weird about that, but it stings a little. =p