Astral Codex Ten

Delta

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Delta

Article

Delta is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between July 18, 2021 and November 29, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “the little I know about Delta is really concerning”; “The Delta variant was probably around 5”. It most often appears alongside Byrne Hobart, effective altruism, existential risk.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: July 18, 2021
  • Last seen: November 29, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Open Thread 181
July 18, 2021 · Original source
2: Some good comments on the most recent prediction market post (also some less good ones - before you hit “post”, see if you’ve accidentally proven the stock market can’t exist). See eg Shaked running some of the numbers and finding it might work for a few very important people/issues, but maybe not for smaller things. Also, apparently Byrne Hobart had a similar (though less crazy) idea two years ago; I regret unintentionally copying him without credit. 3: “Comment” (or whatever) of the week is this post from the subreddit: I Believe We May Be At Another Point Like March 2020 With COVID. I haven’t looked into this as much as I want to, but the little I know about Delta is really concerning.
Inline links: running some of the numbers, two years ago, I Believe We May Be At Another Point Like March 2020 With COVID
MM: Omicron Variant
November 29, 2021 · Original source
R0 is a measure of how quickly a disease spreads under certain ideal conditions. The original Wuhan strain was probably around 2.5, and the Delta variant was probably around 5. So if this number is higher than 5, it’s more transmissible than Delta. The community prediction is 7.31, so Metaculus predicts it will be significantly more transmissible than Delta.
Inline links: original Wuhan strain, the Delta variant
(source: Metaculus) Metaculus didn’t want to wade in to precise lethality statistics, so they just asked for a yes-or-no answer on whether it would be deadlier than Delta. Forecasters say there’s a 34% chance it will be.
Inline links: Metaculus
Metaculus didn’t want to wade in to precise lethality statistics, so they just asked for a yes-or-no answer on whether it would be deadlier than Delta. Forecasters say there’s a 34% chance it will be.