
Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests Are ‘Completely Garbage’ - emptybits
https://www.wired.com/story/bill-gates-on-covid-most-us-tests-are-completely-garbage/
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vikramkr
This is a really disingenuous and dangerous title by Wired and they should
change it immediately. It does not reflect the content of the article and what
Gates actually said in their own interview. Gates does not say the tests do
not work. He says they take too long.

Gates is saying tests are garbage because they take too long to get results
back so they aren't actionable. This has nothing to do with the
scientific/diagnostic/technical capability of the tests (which is a separate
issue with antibody testing but not with PCR testing, which is what Gates is
discussing). I get that it gets more clicks, but the obvious interpretation
for the person who looks at the title and doesn't scroll over halfway down the
page is that "Gates says COVID diagnostic tests don't work, so I guess if he's
right, then there's no point trying to scale up testing or anything since the
tests are garbage anyway." The takeaway is the opposite - the results aren't
getting back fast enough, we need better prioritization and capacity.

Especially with how much misinformation is spreading regarding this pandemic,
and how many lives are on the line, Wired should reconsider its title policy
and change the headline to reflect the content in their own article rather
than imply dangerous misinformation to grab attention.

Edit: On the offchance that the title on HN or on Wired gets changed, the
original title that I am referring to is "Bill Gates on Covid: Most US Tests
Are ‘Completely Garbage’"

That title is not reflective of the content of the article or the context of
Bill Gates' statement in the interview.

~~~
bmitc
I agree regarding the title after reading the article. I had assumed that the
tests weren't accurate. Also, it actually hurts the viewpoint in the article,
as Gates has found his actionable advice is ignored in the wake of social
media conspiracy theories and the administration's unwillingness to listen to
anything.

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mchusma
Agree. When I saw the headline I thought it meant almost the opposite. The FDA
needs to aggressively allow more tests so long as they are not misleading
about their efficacy. I know fast cheap tests are stuck pending approval right
now because the FDA doesn't like that they are less accurate. (I think better
messaging from the test would no say positive or negative, rather: You have 1
in 3 chance of having covid vs you have 1 in 200 chance of having covid,
instead of positive vs negative, something like that).

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bmitc
There are a few things that stand out to me in this interview. One is the CDC
saying something to the effect of "they said that leadership has to be a model
of face mask usage" and yet, both our president and vice president are
parading around without masks. This is really scary stuff that reflects the, I
don't even know what the word is, idiocy or stubbornness or narcissism maybe,
of our government's so-called leaders.

The more scary thing is this:

> And that makes me feel like, for the rich world, we should largely be able
> to end this thing by the end of 2021, and for the world at large by the end
> of 2022. ... Now whenever we get this done, we will have lost many years in
> malaria and polio and HIV and the indebtedness of countries of all sizes and
> instability. It’ll take you years beyond that before you’d even get back to
> where you were at the start of 2020. It’s not World War I or World War II,
> but it is in that order of magnitude as a negative shock to the system.

The long term effects of the U.S. government's handling of this is very, very
scary. What's scary about all this is that everyone is assuming that if and
when we get a vaccine that everything will just restart back where it left off
or even ahead. This is not the case. We are doing two things: delaying nearly
everything into the future and reverting progress on the other things.

Other long terms effects are happening. I have friends in China. I have
Chinese friends, well educated and talented friends, moving back to China
because either they want to (makes sense at this point), are being kicked out
due to H1B issues or can't get back in, or can't find jobs here. China,
outside of viral hotspots, is essentially back to normal. We're losing talent,
people who were obviously keen on the U.S. but unlikely to be now, and
diversity in the process and feeding back those people elsewhere. This is
repeating across many immigrants and non-immigrant workers. The U.S. is slowed
down across all vectors. Not only are millions getting the virus and hundreds
of thousands dying, we have unemployment, slowed economy, slowed travel,
stunted government doing literally nothing of any use on the virus or anything
else, etc. It is quite scary to understand the long term effects of this and
that we have a very real chance of being leapfrogged in the process, letting
this thing drag on for decades in terms of the reverberations throughout
society.

One of the examples of the attitude in the U.S. is that many just shrug it off
with this is just another flu. Even if that was the case, which it
emphatically is not, who the hell would be okay with another flu? The flu
costs approximately $10.4 billion in direct costs alone every year. We're
losing much, much more than that due to the effects of and the response to
COVID-19.

The last thing is Gate's comments on encryption and the explosion of viral
conspiracy theories and false knowledge on social media. We are in real
trouble in the U.S. with social media running rampant. I think this ideal of
sticking to the guns of no censorship and supposed safety of data is naïve in
this age. I think we are in real trouble if we allow YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter, etc. continue to allow users to run rampant on their platforms. What
is extra scary is that it's not like our government and leadership is immune
to these conspiracy theories and false knowledge. In fact, our government
leaders are sources and amplifiers of these things! This is very concerning
and dangerous. Adam Curtis' documentary _All Watched Over by Machines of Ever
Loving Grace_ covers the Silicon valley dream of the Internet and technology
liberating us, when it is in fact caging us with chaotic misinformation and
control.

I think the world will find that we do need a model that's a cross between the
U.S. and Chinese model of Internet censorship or other innovation to control
the spread of viral false knowledge. I am personally perfectly willing to give
up so-called privacy (which I honestly don't think even exists anymore anyway)
in exchange for these conspiracy theories and viral false knowledge being
suppressed, as these later things are far more detrimental to my life and all
of our lives. These technology companies have got to check the systems they've
built. Twitter should have banned Trump long ago for spreading misinformation
and blatantly false information just as they should for others doing the same.
That's why this GPT-3 is not exciting but scary. It's dumb but people think
it's smart, and it and other tools will allow the deep viral spread of
dangerous ideologies and misinformation.

In 100 years, without more control, we're going to be swimming in a pool of
not knowing anything and fighting about what's true or not while not
addressing any actual problems, which is already happening in the U.S. Without
addressing these issues, we are very quickly heading for a long-term downturn
and a cesspool of misinformation in which nothing gets done because we're all
just trying to survive the turbulence.

~~~
nick_kline
Neil Stephenson's book "Reamde" talks about almost our current reality, where
ever more effective disinformation campaigns lead to many people not
understanding actual reality, leading to the internet being the "miasma". When
I go on social media I have the feeling of being exposed to endless crackpot
and misleading comments, basically the miasma.

~~~
Nasrudith
The miasma existed long before the internet. We haven't hanged any monkeys as
spies in the internet era for one.

~~~
bmitc
The Internet and other technologies amplifies it though and gives it a new
medium through which to take effect.

