Always_Ask_Questions

@waterbury – I heard good things about it from graduates and read a short book by Rosh Yeshiva, he sounds like very much a mench.

philospher> Why do you think one side is more knowledgeable than the other side,
> you can decide who and how people can come to conclusions

I hear your concerns about government, and I agree with them. Every politician’s judgment is suspect, and every gov administrator is a politician, working and keeping his way up. I am all for skepticism, but it does not mean that we just need to weight equally everything you can google.

I personally have expertise and training in data analysis and that is what I am trying to judge.

>> “controlled studies” of medication takes years before it is allowed on the market while these so-called uncontrolled “studies” (they are certainly NOT controlled studies- the average Joe is the studied specimen) are merely months old

again, good questions that I am also concerned about. I reviewed history of multi-year vaccine controlled studies and follow-ups after that. Most of side effects are discovered early.

Uncontrolled studies seem to be strong, I read several. They work the following way – you match every vaccinated person to a similar unvaccinated one and do pairwise comparison on million of pairs. It is good technology. It is not as good as controlled study to get one single answer – 94% or 80%, but it is very good at fishing out multiple potential correlations and problems. This approach is more likely to generate false predictions that have to be later validated by controlled studies than to miss one. Note also that there are studies from different countries now – Israel, UK, EU. They all have governments, but still there is some diversity of views here, and many published as preprints before they get reviewed.

Most important, there are cases of caution and there are of trade-offs. For example, mask wearing, SD, online learning, outdoor minyanim are no-brainer from public health prospective – even when the government says – don’t worry, spend money, I want to be re-elected, we now can handle number of patients, you can be a little more cautious not to be one of those patients.

But, with vaccine, you have a trade-off: you risk either a vaccine or a virus. One is made in Western countries trying to save people, another – wild or made in China trying to hurt people. I am more worrying about the second. So, you need to weigh your exposure risk: if you have high chance of being exposed, I would choose vaccine any time. If you are not exposed and a teenager, the numbers are not so clear to me.

Jews were allowed in Russian Empire inside the “Pale of Settlement” – former Polish and other territories – Belorussia, Baltics, Ukraine. True, they understood where they are. During Napoleon wars, most Jews were pro-French, while “Alter Rebbe” bet on the Czar, not just because he did not like modernity”, but presumably he understood that his territory will still be part of Russia. He died while running away from Napoleon, I recall… Jews were allowed fully inside Russia proper after Czar.

Rabban Gamliel’s yeshiva. Tough entrance requirements that are impossible to fake: your outside = inside. Not sure whether this requirement was both for the Hebrew and Greek departments.

Am I following well Rambam/Aristotle’s “middle path” – as one person seems to attack me for disregarding authority and another for not allowing independent thinking?!

there is no one answer here:
> People are followers or independent thinkers.
you can’t be a thinker if you do not have information and do not know how to process it.

> Covid-19 has a 99% survival rate while we are getting no numbers on the supposed “vaccinations”.
There is a lot of research on vaccines, both Phase 3s and now uncontrolled studies. These numbers seem to be more reliable than COVID analysis: we know exactly whether and when someone got a vaccine, while we often do not know whether and when someone got COVID. I recently posted an estimate of vaccine side effects and compared them with COVID side effects. Decision may depend on how old you are, and whether you actively mix with other people, esp unvaccinated.

> it’s important to trust Rabbonim, doctors, and community organizers over doing the research yourself.

As I said, it depends on your capabilities and of those you are asking. I can make a professional judgment in some aspects, I can then ask those in other areas, in some areas I use my professional contacts to get information from researchers rather than “community organizers”. One of them walked me thru difference in technologies of different vaccine types and I indeed “trusted” her – because the explanation way beyond my knowledge. And nobody is perfect when you are asking, it is just a nature of things… I was on one mass zoom call where the person went through sanitary measures and I had to chat him privately, as he forgot to mention a couple of important things …

coffee, a good question. First, Europeans have different voters.
2nd – their life is more homogeneous and less eventful. If you can have a machloket in N dimensions (economy, religion, Arabs, etc), then you get a chance to create 2^N + 1 parties (one in the center) ..
3rd – who said European system works? Weimar republic fell, French are already on Fifth republic, Italians are having same balagan as Israelis. Brits seem to figure out parliamentary system.

> shomayim, they will demand a din vecheshnon on bitul torah be’kamus and b”eichus

I thought you first need to pass the question on whether you were honest in business?

Maybe you know of a separate gate.

Health > They took a pole of the Voters that went for Yamima, and 2/3s wouldn’t vote for them again, because of his actions to join Lapid.

Agree. I don’t think he is crazy (for power). I think he plans to earn his voters back, acting accordingly. Thus, I presume that his future actions will represents his community. I am not sure of that, we will see.

> [Lieberman] hates the Frumme, because his Son became a BT.

I don’t think so. He joined Israeli politics a while ago, his son was probably a kid. What is the back story – how did his kid do teshuva? did he let him go somewhere? did they argue? did something in the family values helped him?

L seems to be an example of a politician changing voter base – I think he was first a Likudnik, then started representing Russians in general, mostly economically, and later turned more to opposing Haredim. Maybe because Russians who were assimilating either into religious or secular cultures were switcing to other parties, and he ended up with the “core” un-assimilated group and also added other anti-religious? I wonder whether he can sit down with his son and develop a positive program for Charedim – focusing on literacy, work, doing it gradually without oppression, and less on “hot” issues for his supporters – shabbat, kashrut.

Syag, look at what a “metaphor” is. I am just thinking for myself.

As an analogy, I was driving on a road where my car was kicking stones to the side, and there is a sidewalk below the highway that I can not see. So, I don’t know whether I killed anyone, but newspapers say that there are people killed by those stones every day, and I can compute probability of my stones killing someone. I would not be able to sleep at night, or continue driving that road, or say “funny, I do not know anyone hit”. And if other people can, I do not understand why.

bk613 > You should read up on the topic a bit mor

people often make sincere arguments without knowing that they are not right. There are 2 issues here:

1) need to know basics of sciences. R Avraham Twersky Z’L suggests learning physiology to appreciate the beauty of Hashem’s creation

2) how do we operate in the environment where our knowledge is incomplete:
how do we evaluate our (lack of) chochma; what authority we trust and how do we evaluate quality and biases; how do we treat cases of safek; how do we make sure not to create danger to others and hillul Hashem by our incomplete knowledge.

In theory, Gemora and halakha education should prepare people to answer such questions. I once attempted to repeat one of the Kanneman/Twersky experiments on biases due to anchoring (one questions leads person to think a certain way, and this affects an answer to a second question which has a totally objective measure). From a small sample, it looked like people who learned Gemora had smaller bias than professors, software engineers, and undergrads. But I realized later, those learners were pre-selected from a group I interacted with, not average learners.

And as we see in some cases, the result might be opposite: we feel that after resolving macholkes bein Abaye and Rava, we can decide medical and public health issues without Biology 101 or bothering to look up statistical sources. See Maharal Netivos Olam on Bavli as we discussed some time ago for explanation of this unfortunate phenomenon.

Syag > Or a retraction of calling people murderers

According to all statistical information I have so far, people who were not careful lead to extra deaths. I acknowledge that I owe you a more specific analysis.

I also did not see any scientific argument that proves that it was safe to behave that way except anecdotal references that nobody died on this or that shul. Most of the proponents of this theory usually resort to “your argument is incomplete”, “why do we trust XXX”, etc.

A chareidi Rav I know, when asked by married people, recommends to go first on a solo trip, arrange for parnasa and place to learn, and only then move the family

Syag, the Rav made a logical argument, not a halacha miMoshe mSinai, so I can try to use logic to further his statement. This is a normal thing to do. I clearly give a source and, separately, my thoughts. Everyone here can point that my logic is faulty, I will listen with interest. I suggest you ask your halakhic authority whether it is preferable to rebuke people from discussing rabbinical statements. None of the rabbis I know get offended if I suggest a collolary to their statement.

Greater Lita, if you wish – from Latvia – Riga (more Yakkish) and Zhagori on Lithuanian border, as well as Minsk gubernia.

That elderly gentleman was, I think, either from Moldova or from Western Ukraine. You tell me which dialect it is, but he did say “buru”. I can’t forget this moment.

>> is that they all hate the Frumme.
Health,
while there are some groups in the government that it is right to oppose, there is something wrong with the picture that you feel opposed by Bennett, who represents shomer-shabbat Jews who are riskign their lives for Eretz Israel, and Liberman, who represents survivors of Soviet and Nazi occupations that were miraculously saved at the last step before total annihilation and assimilation. If Hashem had your attitude, he would end up leaving us in Mitzraim with all the despicable habits we picked up there, and just started a new nation with Moshe.

philosopher, DNA/RNA/ARR – we clearly do not know what we are talking about. Let’s just acknowledge a legit fear of unknown. There is a lot to feat – there is a plot of COVID R0 rate – gradually growing from < 2 for the original Wuhan, to 2_ for Alpha and 4+ for Delta and would be expected to grow while there are billions of untreated people available for experiments. Plus, what if some lab will decide to experiment further. It is much easier to improve existing thing than create a new one.

I agree w/ kollelman on despicable delay of reporting vaccine trials. There were already a lot of indications that things are going well, but nobody could believe that it will that successful. I don’t know whether Phizer CEO is (completely) at fault. Maybe FDA insiders forced him or changed the rules. Hard to argue with the government.

by 99. I mean people who passed away, unfortunately. I know I owe you a detailed analysis. Sorry, end of an online school year is tough on parents.

kollelman has some interesting ideas, but he can not be 100% right because he is mis-interpreting 1-2% numbers in Lancet article paragraph 2. Paragraph 3 explains that ARR = 1% means that vaccinating 100 people will prevent one case of COVID _during_ the study period. ARR for the same vaccine is higher when virus is prevalent and lower when it is not, and real benefits continue well past the time of the study. When you understand these numbers, you just need to weigh risks of COVID v. risk of vaccine. Both are approximately known, not precisely, but to the order of magnitude. I did this analysis on this site several weeks ago. I would welcome your comments.

ADHD, I admit that chess is addictive! I was .. then, I grew up, and used skills that I developed there for other things. I understand what you are saying how computer games work for you. You just need to pre-plan your divergence so that it is doing something productive for yourself and others. for example, chess worked for me as a kid – it develops logical thinking, teaches you to evaluate your capabilities objectively (if you don’t, your opponents will, and it is hard). So, if catching monsters or flipping geometric figures is useful for you in some way, then play those. Or, find a game that will be help to you and kids. there are, for example, typing games with letters falling off the ceiling, use it to teach yourself and kids to type with 10 fingers blind. Then, same in Hebrew. Make up problem for kids – Find all cities that start with A in atlas, or count all “es” in the Humash until”yere es Elokim” … One of my kids took a test in response to school chachamim’ “concerns” – he first was asked to repeat numbers and he did below average, then he was asked to repeat numbers backwards – and he was at 98% range … so challenge yourself and kids the right way and enjoy it

just as a factual reference: Israeli GDP per person was 100% of OECD during Bibi’s first term – 1996-99. Then, went into a free fall in 2000-2008 to 80%, and started increasing back when Bibi became prime-minister again in 2009 at average rate of 1% per year, now being at 91% of OECD.

Unemployment rate was 9%, 2% over OECD in 2005, reached OECD in 2008, and is by 1.5% better than OECD from 2010 till now (3.8% in 2019).

In 2009, 20% of Israeli and OECD unemployed were “long term”. In 2019, it is 6% in Israel, 26% in OECD. 40% in France. 57% in Italy. 19% in US (after reaching 30% in 2010). So, Israel does not have long-term unemployment. At least according to official stats …

Average wages, though, are lower and again correlate strongly with Bibi’s reign:
increasing from 82 (or 77, a suspicious number in OECD stats) to 86% of OECD from 1996 to 2001, falling to 76% in 2004, up to 78% in 2007, down to 73% in 2010, then almost straight up to 81% in 2019, 1% per year increase.

To summarize, Israelis work as Americans and live like Italians.

>> So our productivity and ability to connect is through the roof, but it also has created a generation of very mentally stressed out people.

this is indeed true. So, we now have a potential, so it is silly to complaint to Hashem that there is no water in the desert – just open waze and see directions to the store. If we can’t reach that potential, it is our problem. Maybe, when we daven, we need to focus more on “honen hadaas” to be able to use what we have than on asking for parnasa and other things directly.

a technical note on software: my father O”H, a chemical engineer, said that it will take time for computer tech to become easy to use – it took chemists several centuries to figure out most convenient vessels for each type of chemicals. So, wait a little (or help make it better). But software does illustrate what is happening with society in general: for now, most are using extra resources not always to do more, but to do it cheaper or to extract more money from customers.
Many tools take 1000x time more spaces than they did 20 years ago and do basic functions worse.

akuperma, I am not sure whether current coalition agreement would allow Bennett to change his coalition unilaterally without Lapid’s agreement. Anyone read thru the fine print.

but we know one bet: it is reported that Bibi is staying in his residency for a couple of weeks. Probably, this is how long he thinks the coalition will last, and does not want to bother going back and forth!

ADHD, do not try to be like the others. It will depress you … One possible explanation of ADHD is that neural signals fire at multiple places instead of one. That non-ADHD people will be happy doing an assigned task, whether it makes sense or not, an ADHD person will insist on doing something more interesting. There are (unfortunately?) enough people who will do dull routine activities, memories pages by heart. You don’t have to do the same. Contribute what your personality gives. As mentioned above, find what is stimulating in learning, family, just direct it towards the good things. Say, instead of video games, play something more educational or good for their brain, play with alefbeis, chess, bring challenging questions, not sure how old your kids are. You don’t have to do “kamatz-alef” with them, just do what is exciting to you and kids.
In your learning, take a topic that connects multiple issues together and try to resolve them, instead of going systematically through all items. Look at books by Edward Hallowell, I think latest is ADHD 2.0, I found his approach very reasonable.

IYK, I am not sure why you think a professional job does not pay expenses for a family. In my experience it did, And you do not have to be a slave. Get some experience or an experience partner/advisor and start your own business. I did.

I understand that we all can find reasons to complain and worry about future –
but note that each of us is richer than the King of England two hundreds years ago in terms of ability to travel, communicate remotely, access information, even eat exotic food from far away locations. We all have millions of slaves, literal who pack the food for us, and golems that keep lights and heat on. when you do work, you have computers, internet, Amazon Marketplace all designed to make you ore efficient. We are even for now far away from tyrannical regimes of the past – Crusaders, Tzars, Nazis, Commies. If this generation complains …