Ze!Team's Replication Crisis

The formulation of set theory without variables

Reproducibility: The ability of a researcher to repeat their own work or the work of another researcher (replication)

Almost all models, in fact, involve false claims. Ukraine is not Poland. Ukraine is not Sweden. Ukraine is not Spain. Rinse, repeat. Lebanon, perhaps?

So far, the models referred to by politicians for predicting when it will be safe to rub noses again have been self-serving and unconvincing.

For the exposition of the mathematics involved, very little in the way of prerequisites is needed - which is not to say that the models Ukraine’s epedimiologists cum politicians are using are easy to understand. For someone who just wants to get an idea what is going on, without investing a lot of time in checking their validity, the models can be skipped without losing the drift of the ideas, if there are any.

Ukraine’s COVID-19 disaster has given top politicians practice to see for themselves, er, like, “Oh, I made some simplified assumptions. That wasn’t a problem. That’s what allowed me to get the answer.” It has immunized them in some sense to certain kinds of spurious skeptical attacks, like Nazar’s 11-minute YouTube clip above.

Unfortunately, this kind of non-thinking has left us in the group of countries that need to take action to mitigate COVID-19 spread. Maybe the Ukraine’s top doctors are correct, or maybe they are poorly coordinated agents with bad ideas. The decision to ease quarantine measures, forgo mass testing, isolation and tracing indicates the latter.

Ukraine today is not unlike the Mohist equivalent of the trolley problem. Ze has told us, “We must pull the lever,” but he had already driven the country into a double-tracked curve in such a way that the rear wheel bogey jumped the rails and flattened the economy while simultaneously failing to prevent the grisly deaths of innocent civilians.

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Imagine the plight of Zelensky’s speechwriters. Putting words in the mouth of a man whose hole already overflows with words of his own must be frustrating.

Consider Zelensky’s YouTube monologue on May 4, when he said 120,000 Ukrainians would die by the end of the year if the quarantine is lifted tomorrow. The president then rambled on for six minutes about how he wants to help fix the country’s healthcare system.

It is unlikely Zelensky will step down or be removed. That means qualified pediatricians will either have to put up with his bullshit or leave the country.

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Recall what Zelensky said on January 31 about the pandemic.

Try to remember what Zelensky did to prepare for disaster in February and March.

cf. The Death of Healthcare Reform c/o Ze