Twitter Considered Harmful To Swine-Flu Panic 383
judgecorp writes "Twitter is being criticized for spreading panic about swine flu. This is not just knee-jerk Luddism 2.0: it's argued that Twitter's structure encourages ill-informed repetition, with little room for context, while older Web media use their power for good — for instance Google's Flu Trends page (which we discussed last winter), and the introduction of a Google swine flu map." On a related note, reader NewtonsLaw suggests that it might be a good idea, epidemiologically speaking, to catch the flu now vs. later.
Life imitating art? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not sure if that's funny, ironic, satiristic, scary or just reality, but, you've GOT to wonder...
Re:Life imitating art? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah, Randall Munroe is simply this century's Nostradamus.
Not a hard prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, it's not a hard prediction. I mean, whole threads of uninformed and stupid people spewing stupidities... on the internet? Who would have guessed? ;) In related news, bears do poop in the woods, the pope is indeed a catholic, and the ocean is indeed wet.
On the other hand, to be fair, the internet only made it easy to run into such conversations which otherwise would have happened at the pub or at a street corner, with equally uninformed people nodding through and offering their own stupid advice. Just think of all the cabbies who can't manage their own finances, but are ready to discourse at length about how the government should fix the economy. Or of all the people who can't be diplomatic enough to their neighbour, but apparently know exactly what the president should tell France or Russia. Etc.
And occasionally whole "theories" have been formed out of such stupid-preaching-to-the-stupid situations.
E.g., historically "animal magnetism" was born out of weaker correlations than the "lick an autistic kid" in the comic. And some people still buy magnets and crystals as cures... although they were known to be scams at least as early as 1841 when Charles Mackay published his "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds."
E.g., homeopathy was born out of the observation that, basically, small doses of quinine cure malaria, but high doses of quinine cause the same kind of shivers as malaria. In the meantime we know why both happen, and it has nothing to do with "like cures like". But some people _still_ insist on believing in a cure that's intellectually on par with "lick an autistic kid" and born out of a correlation that was every bit as stupid and superficial. (In fact, just watch, I'm going to rub my crystal ball and predict that someone will promptly post a reply as to how wrong I am, and how homeopathy works and is proven and cures everything from hypochondria to cancer;)
But there is a difference... (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference is that we get a new sort of belief chain.
In the pub your degrees of freedom is 1 maybe 2, but on the Internet it truly becomes 6...
So while in a pub you will have people spewing theories, it will stay in the pub. Whereas on the Internet, a friend copies a friend, copies a friend and at the end we have the entire world believing things will come to an end.
In this stock market the reason why it was such a harsh drop was not because times were crap. But there was one thing new...
BLOGS... We have this huge echo chamber of how bad things are FROM third hand people.
If you were to say, "ok so how bad are times for you?" Most would say, "oh not so bad, but its really bad for some other folks."
Well do that enough you start wondering who these "other" folks are...
BTW I did buy heavily in this stock market drop! And I am actually positive for my ENTIRE portfolio for the year!
Still not exactly new (Score:2)
It's still not exactly new. Stupidities have occasionally spread out of control before too. E.g., the idea of curing everything with a magnet has happened centuries before blogs, and it spread world-wide anyway. And since we're talking the stock market, the crash of 1929 happened long before blogs.
Re:But there is a difference... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seeing as Slashdot isn't Australio-centric, could you explain what super is?
Googling for super isn't very informative, and there's very little context to make the search more relevant.
Re:Not a hard prediction (Score:4, Funny)
Homeopathy might well be the correct first-aid response to hypochondria: someone thinks they're sick but aren't, so give them a make-believe medicine.
And be careful with the crystal ball, it it gathers enough static electricity it might turn into ball lighting.
Randi? (Score:5, Informative)
How about the Randi 1 million dollar challenge?
Most preliminary tests are filmed (and everyone so far flunked the preliminaries badly) and looking at some of them, the requests weren't unreasonable, the test setup wasn't stacked against the claimant in any way, etc. I haven't seen any where it would even matter whether he's set to disprove those claims or not. Either you see auras through walls, or you don't. Either you can tell the history of an object by touch, or you don't. Either you can dowse or you don't. Those people just plain old didn't have the powers they claimed to have.
I mean, seriously, when you see a group of Australia's best dowsers manage to average 1 in 10 guesses right for 10 pipes out of which only 1 has water, it's hard to take it as anything else than dumb guesswork. I don't see how Randi's agenda can affect the fact than when asked to guess the right 1 in 10, those people averaged 1 right guess in 10.
Some are really just smart people. You don't have to be a psychic to do _some_ predictions. E.g., since we're in a sub-thread about an XKCD comic, as I was saying, you don't have to be a psychic to predict that in any scare there'll be surrealistically dumb posts on twitter. (Or generally on the Internet.)
Some are just lucky guesses. Due to the nature of random numbers and events, if you have enough people rolling a die, someone out there _will_ get 10 sixes in a row.
Some are just vague enough that they can be interpreted to apply to a few billion different people, and to a thousand fundamentally different events. See, horoscopes, for example. Take some horoscopes and randomly change the star signs, e.g., take the personality description or daily prediction for a pisces and give it to a libra, and see if they notice. Invariably it's just as good.
Actually, both the USA and the Russians _tried_ using all sorts of paranormal stuff. None of them actually delivered any useful results.
Re:Randi? (Score:5, Insightful)
Randi's as bad as the hoaxers. No objectivity at all. I'd like to see an objective study using MRI scanning at the time a "psychic" makes a prediction, see if there's anything odd happening.
I'd like to see a "psychic" make a correct prediction before I start giving a shit whether anything odd is happening in their brain, unless it's to try to distinguish whether it's the "lie" center of the brain that's firing, or the "self delusion" center. Trying to figure out the cause before you've confirmed there is an effect is the definition of wild goose chase.
How you get that a mere lack of objectivity and a predisposition to disbelieve in psychic phenomenon, makes Randi as bad as people lying in order to scam innocent but gullible people out of their money is beyond me.
You do realize that many of the greatest experiments in history were performed by people who were not anything close to objective? Michelson and Morely were not objective in the slightest, they were absolutely convinced that the Luminiferous Ether existed and their experiment would prove it, and they re-ran it all over the world and with every modification they could think of to explain why they continued to get null results. They continued even after much of the scientific community had started to take their result to mean that the Ether wasn't real. Eventually they had to admit defeat and accept reality, reluctant though they were to do so. Yet at no point did their lack of objectivity actually effect the reality that the Ether doesn't exist.
So let me know when there's a douser who can identify water 9/10 of the time consistently, and Randi still denies that there's anything to it even after the guy passes every test he throws at him, and then I'll agree that a lack of objectivity is in some way relevant. Unless it's your theory that his lack of belief somehow interferes with the sprits' communications or the quantum-prediction-power or whatever nonsense you think is powering these "powers". Which I'm sure the shysters themselves will say. "Ooh your skepticism is putting the spirits off. I can only talk to them in front of completely credulous gullible idiots."
We've already seen how plants exploit quantum effects for their benefit, and I've heard theories (just theories mark you) of how an evolved response in humans where they'd use a quantum effect to ascertain probability, or even influence probability. And that's just pre-cognisance, one of the harder telepathic skills to explain. Telepathy, empathy, all of them are scientifically possible.
LOL. Yeah, QM interpretations based on puns on the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment, and ordinary chemistry that incorporates QM effects (which happens all the time), totally explain how pre-cognizance is possible. Psychic Invisible Pink Unicorns are scientifically possible, since we haven't proven that they aren't, we just have no reason to think they exist and all semi-plausible mechanisms by which they could exist show nothing, and none of the people who claim to be able to find them with ease can demonstrate this ability to anyone who doesn't already believe in them.
hence why some of them may exhibit the skill at home when they're not really caring, but might not work in a stressful environment when they *want* something to happen to get their grubby mitts on the $1 million.
Some? You mean all. You can use the same reason to explain why some people can't answer easy questions on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, but at the end of the day some people win. But there's not one person with paranormal powers out there who is confident enough in their ability to make it work for a million bucks?
Fine. Then send them my way and I'll give them some practice. I'll give them $20 and a six pack if they can demonstrate their ability, and I promise not to record it so they won't be embarrassed in front of anyone but me when they fail. Oh wait, that lacked objectivity -- I meant if they fail. I hope that slip-up didn't nullify their powers!
Re:Randi? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is related to how voodoo dolls work through quantum entanglement. Basically, if you have something from the four basic voodoo groups - something from the Head, something from the Dead, something of the Body and something of the Thread - and combine them into a voodoo doll, their combined effect superimposes their combined quantum superposition over the targets, thus forcing the target to collapse its wave function in the same way as the doll.
Future advances in the field also show great promise: given any animate part of a quantum system, such as a beard that's still twitching, it should be possible to re-synthesize the entire quantum state of the system. This was originally suggested by an unknown user going by screen name "Largo", who apparently had some success there, but he seems to have been sucked into another dimension. I guess quantum research still has its dangers and will demand its victims, the same as early research into radioactivity.
But seriously: why do some people insist on perverting Quantum Mechanics into Quantum Mysticism and treating it like magic?
Re:Life imitating art? (Score:5, Interesting)
The xkcd forum users actually registered and recreated those tweets on the comic: listing [echochamber.me].
Re:Life imitating art? (Score:5, Funny)
false information in comic (Score:5, Funny)
However, you can get revenge that way.
Thank God - I'm safe, I'm a vegetarian (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
lol - you wish!
(It's not caught from eating pork)
Apparent damage to sarcasm duly noted.
So tell me, did this damage to your sense of sarcasm happen because of the swine flu, or just hanging around here for years?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Autism (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Autism (Score:5, Funny)
Not as safe as if you move,... to Madagascar!
Re:Madagascar (Score:2)
I'm thinkin' you're thinkin' this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A45jv8uhZwo [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Don't you know that a licking kid [imgur.com] is what started this?!
Re:Autism (Score:4, Funny)
If you're an American, you can easily be even safer. Since influenza is spread by people sneezing, just look out for anyone near you drawing a deep breath: they're about to sneeze and spew deadly microbes in your direction, so shoot them first!!! The jury, being your peers, will certainly acquit you on grounds of self-defense, and the police will even help arrange the corpse so its mouth is open wider to make it look better for you in the photos, at least if you live where cayenne8 [slashdot.org] does.
And remember to get plenty of sleep so no one shoots you by accident when you yawn.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok then, here's the /.-ism:
I'm autistic, you insensitive clod!
Feel better?
-dZ.
Difficult (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Difficult (Score:5, Funny)
People using twitter, or people blaming twitter. What's the word I'm looking for?
crap
No its official (Score:2)
Re:Difficult (Score:5, Insightful)
People who use Twitter, or astroturf about it, are called twits.
A better idea (Score:5, Funny)
might be a good idea, epidemiologically speaking, to catch the flu now vs. later.
That's silly: why would the solution to eradicating a disease be catching it when it's already out there?
A better solution would be to treat the causes of the disease in the first place. In this case, H1N1 is a variant of the Spanish flu. Spain, Mexico? see a pattern? Of course, the solution is to ban Spanish and classical guitar worldwide.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense, check out the google map. The flu hasn't made it to Madagascar and I doubt it will due to the lack of airports in the country.
I suggest you get on the next boat to Madagascar post haste before the port is closed.
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense, check out the google map. The flu hasn't made it to Madagascar and I doubt it will due to the lack of airports in the country.
Right. But then what of people coming by train ? huh ?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
That's silly: why would the solution to eradicating a disease be catching it when it's already out there?
I reached the same conclusion (that catching now would be better than later) but for different reasons. Assuming you are going to catch it at some point, if you caught it right now then you'd be one of a very small number of infected people, and you'd receive a lot of attention and a lot of care. If it spreads and pretty much everyone gets it, then good luck getting any sort of access to health care (if you actually need it - most people have gotten better without special care)
I think one of the biggest challenges we'll face in a pandemic is educating people to stay away from hospitals unless they are really really sick. Based on what i've seen in the past, everyone will be marching up to the hospital at the first sign of the sniffles... you're more likely to get beaten to death by an irate parent trying to get their child seen to than to actually get help :)
Re:A better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason the idea is dumb is that as time passes, diseases tend to evolve to become more infectious, but less pathogenic. It's an obvious bit of natural selection: you will avoid people you know to be sick, and hence you are more likely to be infected by a less ill person.
The classic example is from Samoa in the 1918 influenza pandemic. Then, 25% of the population of Western Samoa died of flu. The American Navy maintained quarantine around American Samoa, and the flu didn't get there for about a year. Only a small fraction of the (nearly identical) population died.
So if there's a nasty flu about, get it late.
Re:A better idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Could that be because the navy was there to provide medical facilities and treatment to the people on American Samoa?
Re: (Score:2)
The flu's a virus. We've only had the facilities to treat the actual virus itself for a very short time (and even then, they're somewhat rarely used).
However, we've had the tools to treat the symptoms for quite some time. I don't doubt that they were considerably more primitive in 1918, although even the most basic treatments could mean the difference between life and death.
Re: (Score:2)
The flu's a virus. We've only had the facilities to treat the actual virus itself for a very short time (and even then, they're somewhat rarely used).
Most people who die from influenza die from subsequent bacterial pneumonia, not from acute viral infection. That was the case in 1918 too, and if 1918 flu hit again now, most deaths would be averted by use of antibiotics.
However, we've had the tools to treat the symptoms for quite some time. I don't doubt that they were considerably more primitive in 1918, although even the most basic treatments could mean the difference between life and death.
Well, antibiotics are the main ones, so they were more primitive in 1918.
Your theory is kind of nice, but I really don't think the US Navy played nurse to the population of American Samoa. The same pattern is true elsewhere in the world: Australia kept it out till late too, and also had
Re:A better idea (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason the idea is dumb is that as time passes, diseases tend to evolve to become more infectious, but less pathogenic. It's an obvious bit of natural selection: you will avoid people you know to be sick, and hence you are more likely to be infected by a less ill person.
Interesting -- I had the same fact in my head (diseases tend to become less debilitating/fatal as time goes on) but with a different bit of (equally "obvious"?) natural selection as the explanation: a disease which keeps its host alive and even healthy will be more successful at spreading than one which incapacitates and/or kills its host during the period when the host is infectious. While it is true that dead bodies can be a vector for the spread of disease, a living host can potentially spread the disease for much longer.
In fact, to anthropomorphize the disease a little, the goal it should strive for is not to cause any negative reactions in the host (which implicitly means it can't be triggering the immune system to attack it), and so to benignly infect every human on the planet from now until doomsday. For real overachieving diseases, they should strive to form a symbiotic relationship with the host so that there is selective pressure against being "immune" to the disease, as well as against lifestyle choices that are detrimental to the disease's population in the host. (Of course, when it no longer causes any negative effects in the host, we usually don't call it a disease anymore.)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
and also, if healthy people start congregating around hospitals they're more likely to catch the thing - you know, cause hospitals are the places where all the sick people are
Re: (Score:2)
you're more likely to get beaten to death by an irate parent
I read that as "irate pirate". Aaaaarrrrrr.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Nobody expects the Spanish flu!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd have thought catching ANY disease early would be a good thing for all of the following reasons :-
1 - You are likely to receive more (medical) attention early on before the finance departments start making "risk assessments" and other evaluations to decide IF a certain person should even receive vaccines / treatment.
2 - You get a chance to build up an early resistance to it, so even if it mutates, you won't be hit as hard, if at all, the 2nd time around.
3 - You also get a chance for the antibiotics etc t
This just in (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving people a voice spreads panic. Film at 11.
People want to be heard. And they learned from the news that bad news get the most attention. So what do you do when you want the most attention? You spread bad news. You invent them where necessary, because everyone else does it too and you gotta outdo them.
We, in the free world, didn't learn the lesson that people with tightly controlled media learned a long time ago: Just because you may say the truth doesn't mean that you have to. We grew up with free press and the idea that you can tell it the way it is. The fallacy was to assume people would do just that.
Maybe this, along with other similar "problems", will teach us that, surprise, surprise, people lie to you when they think they gain an advantage out of it. Just don't believe everything you hear.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
We, in the free world, didn't learn the lesson that people with tightly controlled media learned a long time ago [...] We grew up with free press and the idea that you can tell it the way it is.
How quaint. You have free press? Please let me know where your free world is, I'm moving today.
Seriously though, the press in "the free world" - which is for you, I'm assuming, roughly whatever rich country that didn't fall under Soviet influence at the end of WW2 - isn't free or impartial by a long shot, because mos
Re:This just in (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This just in (Score:4, Funny)
I'm not a part of a conspiracy or the Illuminati
That's just what you want me to believe. Anyway, what's a newspaper?
Re:This just in (Score:5, Insightful)
[we]pick wire stories based on what people are interested in and what folks need to stay informed.
The first part of that sentence is certainly true, whilst I can't speak for your newspaper the second part doesn't necessarily follow. People tend to be interested in the latest celebrity gossip, so papers print celebrity gossip because it sells newspapers. I don't call that keeping people informed (note: I'm from the UK that's how it works here if the USA is different then I apologise).
Re:This just in (Score:4, Interesting)
I am certain you do your best to be a good, honest journalist. However, I'm also quite sure that, if it hasn't happened already, you will find it difficult to run a story on things like, say, Palin or Exxon unabridged, if at all, depending on your newspaper's political leanings and those of its owner(s). You can't possibly tell me your stories haven't ever been edited, and/or you haven't been told to "soften up" on this or that by your editor, right?
As for supposed illuminati, free mason or jewish stranglehold on world affairs, I don't believe in any of that crap, but that doesn't mean one can't be realistic about the partiality of the media.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't really have anything to do with a conspiracy. I know some people will immediately go in a frenzy for me even recommending this but if you haven't consider reading some of Chomsky's political stuff such as Manufacturing Consent [wikipedia.org] or Media Control. Then to balance everything out take a look at the criticism section [wikipedia.org] from Wikipedia's article on Chomsky. But most important of all, stay critical and form your own opinion.
Re:This just in (Score:4, Insightful)
You needn't lie to cause a panic. You needn't invent things to turn a harmless information into a horrible (and potentially dangerous) hype.
Assume this comes over the ticker (I'm inventing numbers here, it's an example, ok?): "Ten cases of swine flu in Texas. After about 80 reports in Mexico last week with 2 fatal cases, the swine flu has now reached the USA. Also, two cases have been reported in Europe, namely in Spain and Scotland. Doctors consider the thread as "potentially serious", generally though they estimate to have enough serum at hand to avoid a pandemic".
Newspaper article: "Swine flu crosses pond! After sweeping through Mexico with almost 100 infected, some of them seriously sick or already dead and spreading through the south of the USA through the weekend, reports have been confirmed that the deadly Swine Flu has now crossed over to Europe. Cases have been reported in Spain and Scotland. According to experts, the disease and its spread can only be described as "serious", whether there is enough serum to keep a pandemic from sweeping through Europe and maybe even Asia is anything but certain"
Same information, ain't it? It's all in the delivery...
Re: (Score:2)
It is left as an exercise for the reader to identify the corporate interests of the owners of the BBC and the Scott Trust which owns The Observer and The Guardian in the UK.
Re:This just in (Score:5, Interesting)
You, too, are under the impression that "free press" equals "telling the truth". This is, by its very definition, not the case.
Free press means only that the state or government does not dictate what you have to write. In our country, there is something called "press aid", a grant that for some odd reason only newspapers that don't criticise the government too much are entitled to (there are "official" qualification criteria like "being important for the general information"... go figure), but you may still write whatever you please (and do without the grant).
Free press does NOT mean that the press is forced to print only the unbiased, undiluted truth, without a speck of commentary or opinion. Most people are under the impression that this must be the case. Because, so their train of thought, if nobody dictates that they have to write something, they can do their "job" and deliver true blue information.
The difference between a dictatorship and a democracy? In both, both government and the press lies to you. The difference is that in a democracy, they tell different lies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, but you are free to start your own press, and say whatever you want.
Of course, you may want to incorporate for your protection. It seems that you feel the act of incorporation adds evilness and bias to your reporting. But bias is there prior to incorporation.
My opinion is that your "Score:5 Insightful" post is a load of crap, and that's the beauty of a free society. I c
Sensationalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Reminds me of my local Fox News station that carried an official statement from the government about how people shouldn't panic. Then immediately followed it with a report of the number of cases around the country, then an interview with one of the victims saying how awful it was to vomit for hours on end. And then all the places and all the ways you can catch the flu, and what you should do if you do.
Fair and balanced once again.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sensationalism (Score:5, Funny)
Twitter and vomit (Score:5, Insightful)
one of the victims saying how awful it was to vomit for hours on end.
Maybe just a strange coincidence, but Twitter itself seems to me like a place where people are vomiting continuously.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sensationalism (Score:5, Insightful)
nuff said
Re:Sensationalism (Score:4, Informative)
If it's any consolation, I read this story on CNN and had the same reaction: Pot, meet Kettle. What the GP doesn't seem to grasp is that local Fox station != Fox News.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Fox News tends to have a right wing agenda. Fox was on when I was at the gym yesterday afternoon. They were interviewing some ex-mayor from someplace in New Jersey who was advocating closing the US/Mexico border and was basically claiming that we needed to crack down on illegal immigration because, you see we have hundreds of thousands of these Mexicans sneaking into our country and the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, they claim to be "fair and balanced" while those other networks don't. There was a study released that also found that people who got their news from Fox News were significantly misinformed about important issues (Iraq involvement in 9/11, WMDs, etc). They're pretty blatantly biased, and while that's hardly noteworthy for a news network, claiming to be "fair and balanced" sets off the bullshit sensor spectacularly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well that is fair and balanced, isn't it? Here's what the federal government is saying, downplaying it. Here's what's actually happening and what the victims think about it.
If they cut the story off right after the official statement it'd be a lot like a cover-up, wouldn't it? You get the official federal propaganda piece and that's it. That's actually what you want?
Re:Sensationalism (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, we all need to know the symptoms of the goddamn flu.
Mob Mentality (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Mob Mentality (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure what the problem is with the #amazonfail thing. People make mistakes. It wasn't a lynch mob. It was a bunch of people discussing something on Twitter with a hashtag. Big fucking deal. Go on to Twitter Search and type in the name of a game or a programming language. Are all those people part of an angry mob?
I remember the amazonfail. Most of the posts were pretty sceptical. They were like: this is a bit weird - Amazon have deranked all the gay-themed books. If this is legit and not a hack, Amazon aren't getting any more business. (Note the conditional word "if".) There was also some discussion about how much of our lives are stored on Amazon servers - pointing out that if #amazonfail turned out to be true, it might actually be quite a bit of work to untangle all the Amazon Web Services stuff (S3, EC2 etc.). Thankfully, it turned out to have a perfectly reasonable explanation. I think the level of belief on Twitter was pretty proportional to the evidence.
Is this going to lead to racial profiling? (Score:4, Informative)
Does anyone recall the "racial caution" given to asian people (and by asian, I mean oriental, not the rest of asia that is usually ignored when people say asia) when SARS was the big worry?
Now it will be avoiding anyone of hispanic decent and of course anyone would just couldn't keep away from "spring break fever?"
In any case, looking at the google tracking information so far, it's pretty darned slight. Given that there are plenty of people who have already recovered from it, I would have to estimate that this is still little more than an ordinary flu.
People die more often of other diseases that are more easily treatable than this. I think the usual fatalities will apply -- the extremely young and extremely old. A vaccine will be put out before too long but I think with all the quarantine activity going on, it is already pretty well contained. (There may be times when the directed focus of the people is useful... now if we can just direct the focus of the people on civil liberties and the governments gone wild problems something might be accomplished.)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is this going to lead to racial profiling? (Score:5, Informative)
- there is evidence of person to person spread (unlike bird flu, which seemed to be just animal-person)
- the people dying are over-represented in the 20-40 age group (unlike most flu)
- mortality so far has been around 7-8% (probably lower as a lot of cases probably never present for medical care and so are not included in the survival statistics
- the viral genetics are a mix of 4: human flu, swine flu, avian flu, and human/swine flu (apparently a separate one)
This might be bad news
Information source for anyone interested: I am an emergency doctor, we had a presentation this morning from a public health specialist and an infectious diseases specialist detailing the regional response plan for swine flu, so it's about as up to date as is available.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The lack of deaths in the US is promising. The flu is being reported as much milder outside Mexico. Not to jump the gun too much, but it's possible the deadliest strain of the flu killed itself off by being too severe. Leaving a much weaker (but higher fitness from an evolutionary perspective) version to make its way around the world.
Twits considered harmful (Score:2)
Quick! Before it's too late! Remove them from the language spec, along with GOTO!
Uninformed opinion worthless (Score:5, Insightful)
News at 11
The rapid dissemination of information that twitter provides can be a good thing (or at least so I read on Bad Astronomer [discovermagazine.com], I still haven't been to twitter after the first time I went there to see what it was), but seriously, the same rules apply as with anything you read on the Internet.
If you're a twitter user and you feel the need to let people know about things, at least link them to a reputable information source. No, an obvious conspiracy site saying this is a terrorist attack is not an information source.
It isn't just that (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet adds two thing on to of just giving voice to people who are uninformed:
1) Giving voice to the crazies. There are lots of crazy people in the world. Many of these crazy people like to predict doom at every turn. While there are some historical examples of the doomsday prophets that got a widespread voice, most were just ignored. Now the Internet lets them publish to a world wide audience, and to find other crazies like them to reinforce their views. It isn't just that they are uninformed, it is that they actually want the doomsday scenario to be true.
2) Anonymity. Part of the problem of calling out doom in the real world is that if you end up being completely and totally wrong, people may decide to ignore you, ridicule you, maybe even pop you in the mouth. You become the crazy guy that nobody will invite over and so on. Well not on the net, there's basically no consequences for your actions. In another forum I saw someone who has said that for sure, this is The Big One(tm). (S)he threw out a whole bunch of "This is what's gonna happen," statements, with no backing. However when (s)he's wrong, as is almost certainly the case, there'll be no repercussions. (S)he can pull the same shit during the next big thing.
So the next just creates this perfect storm for doomsday hysteria: The information is spread instantly, there's no credentials check so there's lots of uninformed people, the crazies can talk all they like, and nobody is held accountable. Thus it becomes real easy for "A man in Brazil is coughing," to be blown up in to "All of Brazil is infected and now has a zombie apocalypse," in a matter of hours.
My advice to everyone is same as always: Trust the experts, in this case the CDC and WHO. Wash your hand often (this is a good idea no matter what) and make sure you've got some soup and acetaminophen on hand since if you get sick, you aren't likely to die, but you probably won't feel like shopping and will likely want those two things.
Re: (Score:2)
There's a problem with your thesis: Wouldn't those two reasons be precisely why such people should be ignored? I mean, if the Internet has a low barrier to entry for the "crazies", and most of them speak their blather anonymously, you would imagine that the rational person would not put much credence in their pronouncements.
The fact that this isn't the case means that the problem may not lie in the medium, but on the gullible and uninformed masses, reacting to everything they read.
Huh? (Score:2)
Am I the only one that finds is somewhat amusing to see a blog post criticizing the new social media star Twitter of misinforming people?
On another note, blogger Kragen Javier Sitaker, @kragen [twitter.com] has written an interesting entry on How False Rumors Can Cost Lives in light of the #swineflu crisis on Twitter by discussing the aftermath of Tuskegee on the African American community. Although I agree with many items on his personal responsibilities list, it seems almost impossible to stop inane comments from takin
Twitting (Score:2, Insightful)
Spreading panic (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Panic, unlike influenza, can be "spread" only to those who willingly accept it.
I wonder if that's an attempt at originality or you've stumbled across a book of quotations from 19th century philosophers.
Either way, I'd suggest that next time you're sitting with friends or coworkers, offer up a convincing display of emotion (laughter is good, but a yawn would suffice) and see how many people don't join in. The trick, however, is recognising that those manifesting the lack of will you're alluding to will, whe
And the "professional" media? (Score:5, Interesting)
It is theatre at its best. It makes "alarmist" twitter look boring.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite the fact that I agree that the media in general is doing it's fair share of fearmongering..
I don't blame the cameramen in this case. The only thing they know are:
There is a new type of flu, a fair number of people *have* died from it. Full details of severity in general are not known yet. So yeah.. i'd be very carefull to if I had to talk to one of the suspected victims. Caution is a virtue.
hate (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Can we also keep the LOLCATZ? I'm rather fond of that.
I mean, separated from the pr0n. Well, most of it at least; to each his own, I say.
-dZ.
Ill informed repetition? just like normal News (Score:2)
That pretty much sums up every news item (and it's been the headline story, too) for a couple of days. Either the BBC news thinks that anything more technical would be too difficult for their journalists to explain, or that it would be "elitist" by excluding stupid people from understanding it. I'll know that they've descended to t
I have to wonder (Score:2)
Is it really a bad thing if Twitter addicts wind up charging off a cliff in an ecstasy of pointless panic? This is Social Darwinism at its best. Everybody wins.
as oppose to what? (Score:2)
Critizing Twitter for that is the same as ... (Score:2)
claiming that the (snail) mail is responsible for mail bombs. Twitter is just the media, it's still the people that cause a hype or a panic.
A media can make it easier for a panic to spread but would you charge the manufacturer of a knife if someone uses it to kill a person instead of preparing a filet?
Harmful? (Score:4, Insightful)
Far from being harmful to the panic, I would say that twitter is helping the panic considerably.
But isn't the Government clueless always (Score:2)
Governments ALWAYS have only reacted when forced to do so by people: to any crisis.
Whether its Katrina or SARS or insurgency in Iraq, the Government does NOT ever take proactive action until its too late or very late.
Twitter helps to give a swift kick in the Government's A$s to get it going quickly.
Unfortunately, the Government hates Twitter for its visibility. After all billions of tax payers dollars are shovelled out to FEMA and CDC for hogging the limelight.
Now, a small kid like Twitter which the governm
Swine flu spreads via Twitter! (Score:3, Funny)
RT: @obojbaljsb @ljsndljsd @ksahbksjbdv Swine flu spread via Twitter! http://example.com/ [example.com]
RT: @hbs9yho3u @9jbkjsrg @jkbs8h3g @kbhjs89 @kjbiugs3e Swine flu spreads via Twitter!
Swine flu killed my friend via Twitter!
Fail Whale.
Sprint depiction of Twitter pretty much nailed it (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you seen the first of Sprint's current snarky commercials about its 3G network, in which it visually depicts the Twitter network as a mob of little blue birds all chirping "me!"...?
I'd say that pretty much nails the whole narcissistic utility of Twitter.
Re:1st it was bird flu, now its swine flu: load of (Score:2)
Which, you are completely, utterly, incorrect.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mortality_from_H5N1 [wikipedia.org]
If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, how about you go find some H5N1 and let us all know how happily safe it is!
Re: (Score:2)
It really does not scare me. Did you actually read the numbers and put them in context? Here, let me help you:
That means that in about seven years, throughout the expanse of the planet, 421 people have contracted the desease, of which about 60% died.
I'm not really impressed by that number. Sure, it means that the infected have higher than 50% chance of dying, but it also means that there is very little chance of becoming infected. Then, you also h
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
The "no context" is not an inescapable consequence of the infamous 140-character medium -- the web has a useful, low-character, way to sprea
Sorry, I had to stop reading after 140 characters, so I will assume the web is spreading this disease with a low-character method: Twitter!
Re: (Score:2)
There are so many diseases here like cholera/typhoid/TB.... that the swine flu will have to get in line to infect It will be well over a 100 years before it gets a chance to clear the waiting list.
Sorry, diseases switched to parallelism eons ago.
Re: (Score:2)
The GP has a point. Nobody in India gives a flying &$Â* about swine flu and never will, even if it kills more people than those other diseases.
I may be no safer in India, but at least I'm spared the hysteria.
Re:XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
Why all the xkcd related posts lately?
Where do you think slashdot editors get their news?
Re:XKCD (Score:4, Informative)