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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.

Great comment.

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.

What is the best alternative to google maps on my iphone that doesn't sell/store my location data?

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)?

Hoffman Process is life changing

14/2 or 12/2 :-)

"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.

100% agree. It's a good start.

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 studied this years ago for years. My summary:

- 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?

Is this really about privacy? I'm skeptical that Apple doesn't track the hell out of me; I think they just want to sell more phones and don't want others to track us.

Instead, I think this is about asymmetric, non-negotiable contracts. Think about it.

Sure, I "consented" to the Apple EULA just like I "consented" to be tracked by all these websites. This brings up 2 points:

Fairness - Can this really be a fair contract if there is a vast power difference between the parties and a lack of alternatives?

Transparency - details hidden in the fineprint (50 page EULA or on a cookie consent form only available a click away)

I'm not usually one for govt regulation, but that seems the only solution here.

I'm an admirer of Tesla and enjoy a P85D.

I'm curious about what Tesla will do to new car sales (across the industry) as the sold fleet ages. Traditional car companies intentionally balance their costs against consumers proclivity to buy new cars in the 4-8 year range. As such, they'll spend $10 less on a part that goes to 100K miles instead of 500K. These Teslas are going to last longer that people realize and won't age out as early as other cars. How will that impact new car sales?