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On December 24 2019 00:34 IgnE wrote:Smoking is obviously bad, and I think teenagers vaping the equivalent of multiple packs a day of nicotine is not good. But I am less sure that moderate nicotine usage for adults older than their early 20s (as distinct from tobacco usage) is all that terrible. I am inclined to think that gwern’s analysis of pubmed up to 2015 is fairer than that of this Indian journal of pediatric medicine.
That's not a peer reviewed publication or done by anyone who's an actual medical acadenic. It's a blog and "freelance researcher". Person is literally anonymous and has no credentials, not sure why they'd be more reputable than an actual medical journal. I'm also trying to figure out why something written into the Indian Journal of Ped. Med. Is somehow not credible, unless one is sustaining a bias against foreign medical journals here. It does a fair summation of the long term health consequences of nicotine.
There's plenty of research on and on negative effects of nicotine and it's health effects. While current causal links between juuling and health risks are not established (even if health risks of nicotine are known), academia is beginning to catch up. A quick look at Google Scholar can readily confirm this.
Some recent abstract examples, published in the last few days/months:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ppul.24612
https://www.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/japplphysiol.00717.2019?journalCode=jappl
The former is what I personally am concerned about (especially with numbers that are essentially pre-1998 defeat of the Tobacco lobby, in terms of youth juuling) and to this arguably an increased age limit helps, since enforcing it against vaping corporation's is a better prospect than against 14 y/o.s. Highly unlikely, but yes.
Its also become quite clear to me that there's not really much point in trying to continue the conversation, but I'm genuinely curious. What do you believe the overall consequences of raising the military recruitment age, to say 21, would be? Not just the first order consequences (e.g. enlistment starts at 21, military manpower shortage, etc.), but second- or even third- order consequences? Positives and negatives of it as a serious policy proposal, beyond using it to claim moral superiority over others?
If you can put together a compelling policy case for why it wouldn't adversely affect lower income communities and has significant, positive benefits (and ways to mitigate negative consequences), I'll change my mind and be fully in favor of such a policy proposal.
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I don’t want to raise the age to join the army. I am just commenting on nicotine. I don’t want teenagers vaping Juuls anymore than you do, just as I don’t think teenagers should be binge drinking or smoking marijuana 24/7. I think Juuls are probably designed to be maximally addictive to boot. No argument there. I just prefer an even-handed stating of the case for and against, and insofar as the target is “nicotine” rather than something more specific I just don’t think it’s any worse than a lot of other things people use, and use for defensible reasons. I think energy drinks are also a travesty but you wouldn’t catch me saying that coffee should be banned. And of course I know that you haven’t said nicotine should be banned. Or at least I don’t think you have.
As for the “he’s anonymous and non-credentialed” line of argument, interpret it however you want. The first study you linked is a group of doctors affiliated with an institution that has it own biases reviewing a bunch of other people’s animal and in vitro studies. Gwern goes through a lot of the same material in what I think is an open yet skeptical manner, and frankly I don’t think he’s any worse at interpreting medical studies than a random doctor. If you think there is a lot to be gained there then fine, there’s not much more to discuss. But I’ve seen enough science to know that little toy lab models are not very helpful in determining actual human impact, let alone helpful in making complicated decisions about tradeoffs. I am open to the possibility that future studies will show nicotine to be a nearly unmitigated evil, although I think based on the current evidence that is unlikely.
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On December 24 2019 07:32 IgnE wrote:
I don’t want to raise the age to join the army. I am just commenting on nicotine. I don’t want teenagers vaping Juuls anymore than you do, just as I don’t think teenagers should be binge drinking or smoking marijuana 24/7. I think Juuls are probably designed to be maximally addictive to boot. No argument there. I just prefer an even-handed stating of the case for and against, and insofar as the target is “nicotine” rather than something more specific I just don’t think it’s any worse than a lot of other things people use, and use for defensible reasons. I think energy drinks are also a travesty but you wouldn’t catch me saying that coffee should be banned. And of course I know that you haven’t said nicotine should be banned. Or at least I don’t think you have.
As for the “he’s anonymous and non-credentialed” line of argument, interpret it however you want. The first study you linked is a group of doctors affiliated with an institution that has it own biases reviewing a bunch of other people’s animal and in vitro studies. Gwern goes through a lot of the same material in what I think is an open yet skeptical manner, and frankly I don’t think he’s any worse at interpreting medical studies than a random doctor. If you think there is a lot to be gained there then fine, there’s not much more to discuss. But I’ve seen enough science to know that little toy lab models are not very helpful in determining actual human impact, let alone helpful in making complicated decisions about tradeoffs. I am open to the possibility that future studies will show nicotine to be a nearly unmitigated evil, although I think based on the current evidence that is unlikely.
Giving the same authority to someone who is anonymous, uncredentialed, and not peer reviewed as you do to established professionals that have supposed biases "just because" doesn't do your argument any favors.
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Purely on the case of "the Indian Journal of X" vs some guy's blog:
There is a lot of very poor science going around, and meta-reviews in regional low impact-factor journals are the sketchiest thing out there. That paper is likely to be a first-year doctoral student's thesis introduction. It may be fine, but it's not a particularly convincing authority to appeal to.
For the record, I wouldn't put "the Australian Journal of X" any higher. Aside from a few British/American ones with a hundred years of prestige behind them, these publications often function as landing pads for work from the local societies that couldn't make it into anywhere better.
From their methods:
A computer aided search of the Medline and PubMed databases was done using different combination of the keywords [snip]. Initial search buildup was done using “Nicotine/adverse effects” [Mesh], which showed 3436 articles. Articles were analyzed and 90 relevant articles were included in the review. All the animal and human studies that investigated the role of nicotine on organ systems were analyzed. Studies that evaluated tobacco use and smoking were excluded. All possible physiological effects were considered for this review. We did not exclude studies that reported beneficial effects of nicotine.
Basically, "we googled it and picked the results we thought were relevant". Despite their qualifiers, I need to have a lot of faith in the authors of a study like this to trust the results, but then we're back to point one.
Personally, if an anonymous author goes through his reasoning in a transparent manner, I'd weight that about the same as (ostensibly) peer-reviewed authors who use nontransparent decision-making to produce a table that they then analyse as if it were primary data.
To be clear, there may be a hundred better studies showing the same results very convincingly. I have not read them and do not have an opinion on whether nicotine is dangerous. My point is only that a study managing to get published in a random journal does not mean it is reliable, nor that it has been rigorously tested.
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On December 25 2019 06:29 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On December 24 2019 07:32 IgnE wrote:
I don’t want to raise the age to join the army. I am just commenting on nicotine. I don’t want teenagers vaping Juuls anymore than you do, just as I don’t think teenagers should be binge drinking or smoking marijuana 24/7. I think Juuls are probably designed to be maximally addictive to boot. No argument there. I just prefer an even-handed stating of the case for and against, and insofar as the target is “nicotine” rather than something more specific I just don’t think it’s any worse than a lot of other things people use, and use for defensible reasons. I think energy drinks are also a travesty but you wouldn’t catch me saying that coffee should be banned. And of course I know that you haven’t said nicotine should be banned. Or at least I don’t think you have.
As for the “he’s anonymous and non-credentialed” line of argument, interpret it however you want. The first study you linked is a group of doctors affiliated with an institution that has it own biases reviewing a bunch of other people’s animal and in vitro studies. Gwern goes through a lot of the same material in what I think is an open yet skeptical manner, and frankly I don’t think he’s any worse at interpreting medical studies than a random doctor. If you think there is a lot to be gained there then fine, there’s not much more to discuss. But I’ve seen enough science to know that little toy lab models are not very helpful in determining actual human impact, let alone helpful in making complicated decisions about tradeoffs. I am open to the possibility that future studies will show nicotine to be a nearly unmitigated evil, although I think based on the current evidence that is unlikely. Giving the same authority to someone who is anonymous, uncredentialed, and not peer reviewed as you do to established professionals that have supposed biases "just because" doesn't do your argument any favors.
idk man, that sounds like something sheeple say
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On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT:
https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6
Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key.
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On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key.
I can't construct a scenario where those in power aren't aware of this and haven't made their choice. It's not to mitigate our impending ecological disaster.
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On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key.
Interesting tool.
Welp, if trump gets reelected thats 4 more years wasted. One could hope that if a democrat wins they'll follow Obama's policy on that.
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On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key.
So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork.
Whatever brings the headlines...
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Politico ran an article earlier today in which the author claims that Sanders has a legitimate chance to win the Democratic nomination. Given that outlet’s prior reticence in terms of saying positive things about Sanders, I’d say that bodes well for Bernie 
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On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines...
I think they're trying to bring some quantification to the long term effects and consequences of our sustained human behavior
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On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines...
Well the bounds of what can be done through policy and the inertia of warming is reasonably well understood. If you dont think the sliders are accurate, you can change the underlying parameters inside the sub menus. For a layman like most of us, it's just useful for getting a high level view of how much government intervention and effort is required globally to keep under 2C of warming, or even 3C
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On December 27 2019 02:20 Lmui wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines... Well the bounds of what can be done through policy and the inertia of warming is reasonably well understood. If you dont think the sliders are accurate, you can change the underlying parameters inside the sub menus. For a layman like most of us, it's just useful for getting a high level view of how much government intervention and effort is required globally to keep under 2C of warming, or even 3C
How has that high level view informed your ideas on what it will take to get that level of government intervention?
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On December 27 2019 21:26 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2019 02:20 Lmui wrote:On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines... Well the bounds of what can be done through policy and the inertia of warming is reasonably well understood. If you dont think the sliders are accurate, you can change the underlying parameters inside the sub menus. For a layman like most of us, it's just useful for getting a high level view of how much government intervention and effort is required globally to keep under 2C of warming, or even 3C How has that high level view informed your ideas on what it will take to get that level of government intervention?
You would need a second simulator with sliders labeled "long-term international cooperation", "perceived damage by climate change", "public acceptance of climate science", etc. Then you could crank these around and get a % chance of government intervention.
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On December 27 2019 21:50 Sbrubbles wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2019 21:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2019 02:20 Lmui wrote:On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines... Well the bounds of what can be done through policy and the inertia of warming is reasonably well understood. If you dont think the sliders are accurate, you can change the underlying parameters inside the sub menus. For a layman like most of us, it's just useful for getting a high level view of how much government intervention and effort is required globally to keep under 2C of warming, or even 3C How has that high level view informed your ideas on what it will take to get that level of government intervention? You would need a second simulator with sliders labeled "long-term international cooperation", "perceived damage by climate change", "public acceptance of climate science", etc. Then you could crank these around and get a % chance of government intervention.
I suppose it would have to in part be modeled on the Paris accords which was inadequate and unfulfilled by pretty much everyone that signed it and outright abandoned by the US.
Till MIT adds those features, my 8-ball says "outlook not so good"
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On December 27 2019 22:10 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On December 27 2019 21:50 Sbrubbles wrote:On December 27 2019 21:26 GreenHorizons wrote:On December 27 2019 02:20 Lmui wrote:On December 27 2019 00:09 Slydie wrote:On December 25 2019 11:11 Lmui wrote:On the climate change topic, I just came across this site, built by some scientists from MIT: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.6Playing around with sliders, you can see what's likely required to keep warming to 2 degrees or less. It requires a ton of work, across a lot of different fields, ranging from government policy to new tech. The current path is pretty dire, but reducing the severity of it is key. So they are trying to sell the illusion that we can control our climate like a Sauna thermostat? They know it is wrong, and there are so many unknown factors a slider like this is pure guesswork. Whatever brings the headlines... Well the bounds of what can be done through policy and the inertia of warming is reasonably well understood. If you dont think the sliders are accurate, you can change the underlying parameters inside the sub menus. For a layman like most of us, it's just useful for getting a high level view of how much government intervention and effort is required globally to keep under 2C of warming, or even 3C How has that high level view informed your ideas on what it will take to get that level of government intervention? You would need a second simulator with sliders labeled "long-term international cooperation", "perceived damage by climate change", "public acceptance of climate science", etc. Then you could crank these around and get a % chance of government intervention. I suppose it would have to in part be modeled on the Paris accords which was inadequate and unfulfilled by pretty much everyone that signed it and outright abandoned by the US. Till MIT adds those features, my 8-ball says "outlook not so good"
It is so different living in Scandinavia when this topic comes up. We (mostly) try to achieve the Paris accords and put pressure on others. People discuss the difficulties and downsides while still slowly starting to adjust to it. Here I am cautiously optimistic that we will reach or get close to our goals and will put pressures on others to do the same in our supply chains.
Simple things like putting in FSC requirements when buying packaging or shifting to recycled plastic where possible is happening right now. Still a lot of things to do but things are moving in the right direction (maybe a bit too slow).
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Well he's just testing the limits, like always.
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Not hard to see how having someone like that loyal to you for saving their future for doing what they see as what they were trained and ordered to do will be useful for Trump in the future.
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I'm sure that if you needed a killer, your first choice wouldn't be the guy that kills civilians for fun
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EPT
