WARTIME EPISTEMOLOGY

1/x

Information sources have 3 levels:

LEVEL 1 — Institutional. Certifies incredibly obvious things once they become incredibly obvious. Before things are incredibly obvious, institutions are often wrong or downright misleading.
2/x

LEVEL 2 — Credible/Useful. Comes from credible individuals who have proven NOT beholden to institutional narratives. Ideally, at least 75% of prep action is based on information of this level of obviousness or below.

COVID19 @ScottGottliebMD
PREP: @jonst0kes
ECON: @RaoulGMI
3/x

LEVEL 3 — Exploratory. The best information arrives here first, hidden in a vast stew of bullshit. But it is always here first. Anonymous message boards, conspiracy discussion forums, etc. I do have some good leads in this department (available upon request).
4/x

Level 3/Exploratory information is valuable in "surprise reduction."

Everything is already uncertain.

Nobody, no matter how expert, knows "what& #39;s really going on" or "how it& #39;s all going to go."

Even if they did, you or I would have no particular reason to believe them.
5/

UNCERTAINTY IS INEVITABLE.

SURPRISE ISN’T.

We can familiarize ourselves early with a wide variety of hypotheses, so that if confirmatory evidence for any of them starts to pile up, we don& #39;t need to spend time adjusting emotionally and shaking ourselves out of disbelief.
6/

In a crisis, “what’s really true” matters MUCH LESS.

Read that again.

TRUTH matters LESS in a crisis.

History can debate “what really happened” over the next thirty years.

But we need to act now.

So the most important question for us is this:
7/

The question that matters for us, in the midst of a crisis:

1) What COULD BE true?

Followed closely by:

2) How much could it hurt?
3) How can we reduce that hurt?
4) Is it worth it to do that right now?
8/

Example: “Masks are important for everyone, not just doctors”

1) In my judgment, how likely is this to be true?

(80%)
9/

2) If I& #39;m wrong, what are the chances of something terrible happening —dying, infecting someone, losing all my money, etc.?

(10-20% at least, especially if I’m in a big city)
10/

3) How much would it cost to reduce this likelihood, so that it doesn& #39;t matter whether I& #39;m right or wrong?

(The cost of a mask — maybe $40 at this point for a solid N95 until someone makes more)
11/

4) Is significantly reducing the answer to #2 worth the cost in #3?

(Yes. I& #39;d pay $40 to reduce the chance of something terrible happening from 10-20% to much, much lower.)
12/

So there you have it. If you take away one thing, make it this:

When time-sensitive action is required, think of information in terms of “likelihood vs cost of being wrong.”

“Facts vs myths” is for historians and spoiled whiners. That’s not us — not anymore.

https://abs.twimg.com/emoji/v2/... draggable="false" alt="🙏" title="Folded hands" aria-label="Emoji: Folded hands">
You can follow @harmonylion1.
Tip: mention @twtextapp on a Twitter thread with the keyword “unroll” to get a link to it.

Latest Threads Unrolled: