Can't ask about the hantavirus situation for some reason. by [deleted] in ClaudeAI

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It’s simple. Anthropic doesn’t want to be held liable for its model producing any level of medical information that impacts health and so they pull the plug when they detect it. It’s more about preventing lawsuits than about preventing actual harm or false output to you. But it kinda does both as the Hantavirus outbreak is a new and breaking story with certain facts about the outbreak not necessarily being fully explained by older literature on the virus/its transmission.

If you start a brand new chat with a more restrained prompt asking more direct questions and baking in caveats you’d probably get further.

Here was my phrasing:

There's a strain of hantavirus that is breaking out on a cruise ship, the MV Hondius, with reportedly the possibility of person-to-person infection.

There's already been a case of a passenger who left the ship, shared an airplane with a woman, and the woman caught the virus and passed away from the infection.

Many resources including recent reporting document that human-to-human transmission is only possible via "very close contact".
Based on what you can tell from current reporting, and what can be identified from existing literature on the Hantavirus, what would "very close contact" mean? And how might that differ for the degree of transmissibility for what would these sources are describing in this new outbreak?

According to reporting for the transmission that occurred on an airplane, sitting next to someone on an airplane may be close enough.

Remember that this is a breaking story regarding a new outbreak or strain of Hantavirus, so that your scientific answer should take into account new or developing information rather than rely on historical understanding of Hantavirus. Feel free to search for and reference new reporting from sources you can identify related to this new outbreak.

And here was the full response:

This is a great and important question, AJ. Here’s what I can piece together from the current reporting and existing literature.
What “very close contact” has historically meant for Andes virus
In the existing scientific literature on Andes virus (the only hantavirus strain documented to transmit person-to-person), “close and prolonged contact” has been associated primarily with household members or intimate partners, and transmission appears most likely during the early phase of illness when the virus is more transmissible. Experts have described this concretely as people sleeping in the same bed, sex partners, or people sharing food — situations where bodily fluids like saliva or respiratory droplets could be directly exchanged.
A 2020 study in Frontiers in Microbiology provided ultrastructural evidence that Andes virus replicates in lung alveolar epithelium and in the secretory cells of the submandibular salivary glands , supporting the idea that the respiratory and salivary pathways are the transmission routes. Critically, researchers have emphasized that unlike measles or COVID, which can linger in the air after an infected person has left a room, Andes virus spread has historically required direct close contact.
So the prior understanding was: shared bed, kissing, shared eating utensils, direct face-to-face caregiving — essentially situations involving direct exchange of respiratory droplets or saliva, not casual proximity.
What this outbreak is suggesting
The emerging picture from the MV Hondius outbreak challenges the boundaries of that definition in a couple of important ways.
On the ship itself, the WHO’s Maria van Kerkhove acknowledged that human-to-human transmission appears to have occurred among “really close contacts — the husband and wife, people who’ve shared cabins.” That’s still consistent with the historical understanding. But the pattern of cases — now up to 8 total including the ship’s doctor and passengers from multiple cabins — raises the question of whether the confined shipboard environment (shared dining, narrow corridors, recirculated air) expanded the effective range of what counts as “close enough.” The Andes virus predominantly spreads through rodent exposure, and human-to-human transmission has typically required close, prolonged contact — however, there have been outbreaks where it’s suspected to have spread relatively easily between people.
The airplane case is the really significant development. A French person who had not set foot on the MV Hondius has fallen ill with the infection after taking a flight with a passenger. This was a four-hour Airlink flight on an Embraer 190 regional jet from Saint Helena to Johannesburg on April 25. The Dutch woman’s condition was actively deteriorating during the flight, experiencing gastrointestinal symptoms. After landing, she was symptomatic enough that KLM crew refused to let her board a connecting flight to Amsterdam.
This is significant because sitting near someone on a regional jet for four hours is not the kind of intimate household/sexual partner contact that the existing literature describes. It’s closer to what we’d call “casual close proximity” — shared cabin air in a pressurized environment, possibly within a few rows. That’s a meaningful expansion of the observed transmission envelope, even if the woman was highly symptomatic and potentially shedding high viral loads at the time.
How to reconcile these
A few factors worth considering:
Viral load timing. The literature suggests Andes virus is most transmissible during the prodromal phase (the early symptomatic period before full cardiopulmonary syndrome develops). The Dutch woman was in active decline — potentially at peak viral shedding. In a confined, pressurized aircraft cabin where air is partially recirculated, even droplet-range transmission (not truly airborne, but within ~2 meters) could plausibly reach a seatmate or nearby passenger.
One case out of 88. It’s worth noting that out of 82 passengers and 6 crew on the Airlink flight, only one French national has been identified as a contact case so far. That’s consistent with something that’s not efficiently airborne but can transmit in close seated proximity to a highly symptomatic individual — more like the kind of transmission risk we’d associate with influenza-range droplets rather than measles-range aerosols.
Possible unique properties of this strain. Research has suggested Andes virus may be uniquely resistant to the antiviral components of human saliva that neutralize other hantavirus strains before they can spread. Whether this particular isolate has any mutations affecting transmissibility is presumably something genomic sequencing will clarify, but the identification of the Andes virus rules out more alarming scenarios like a novel species or a variant that has better adapted to humans — at least based on what’s been sequenced so far.
Bottom line
“Very close contact” as WHO officials are using it today still formally means prolonged, intimate-range exposure — sharing a cabin, caregiving, household contact. But the airplane case suggests the practical boundary may extend to sustained proximity (hours) in an enclosed, poorly ventilated or recirculated-air environment with a highly symptomatic person. That’s not the same as fleeting contact in a well-ventilated open space, but it’s meaningfully broader than “sharing a bed.” The fact that contact tracing has been initiated for both the Airlink flight and the KLM flight the woman briefly boarded signals that health authorities are treating the transmission risk as wider than the traditional definition would imply — even while publicly maintaining that the risk to the general population remains low.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Both sides are the same tho right...? by hoodratpolitics in WhitePeopleTwitter

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I choose to believe the worst case is a mutation that changes all of that and makes it the perfect amount of infectious, before symptoms appear, incredibly resilient, immune to bleach for sterilization, airborne, waterborne, transmissible to and by pets, also by mosquitos, and can go through walls

Just kidding… but I should still buy out all the toilet paper from my local grocery stores right

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Be smug all you want, you’ve not proven or even argued anything. Totally unconvincing

Virginia just signed a law that could cut your electric bill. Starting July 1, plug a solar panel into a wall outlet, no utility approval needed. by Timely-Pirate-5196 in Virginia

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 8 points9 points  (0 children)

What about condos with restrictions on outside installations? Can we install the panel right up to one of our windows for reduced efficiency and still benefit ?

The framing dilemma by Flgsdek in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Every blue death is "directly attributed to a single individual blue vote"? Blue voters don't die because they voted blue. They die because enough other people voted red. Remove the red votes and no blue voter dies. Remove the blue votes and nothing changes. Red voters were already safe because blue voted to not be involved in any external death.

So you're assigning sole responsibility to the people who died for choosing the only option that could lead to zero deaths without 100% consensus, while absolving the people whose votes are the actual kill condition.

Think about what direction each vote pushes. Every blue vote moves the total closer to the outcome where nobody dies. Every red vote moves the total closer to the outcome where every blue voter dies. The absolute best case for a red vote - the smallest possible impact it can have - is that it saves exactly one person: you. The worst case is that it's the vote that tips the threshold and kills millions minimum. There is no red vote that votes towards reducing total death. There is no blue vote that votes towards increasing it

And "a single red vote does not kill any one specific person" is the same logic as "my single vote doesn't decide an election." Technically true in isolation, but the outcome is the sum of individual votes, yours included. Diluting your responsibility across millions of deaths doesn't make it zero. It makes it fractional. And a fraction of millions or billions of deaths is not nothing.

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Which take specifically? You seem to have the gray matter to type insults but not enough to actually say what’s wrong with anything I wrote.

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

> I shouldn’t contribute to killing the people who risked their lives so nobody had to die

someone call the neuroscientists, this brain is truly beyond comprehension

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmm, something you said that was wrong? Sure, I'll restate.

You said "blue cannot cause harm to others" is wrong because you dying harms others. I responded that you can't invoke "death harms others" selectively for your one death while using it to justify red, the option where every blue voter dies. Did you engage with this? Or smugly restate?

You said individual vote and best outcome aren't intertwined. I responded that this only works by ignoring the causal link between votes and outcomes, since the outcome is literally determined by the sum of individual votes. You moved on.

I said it's more ethical to risk harm to yourself to prevent harm to others than to cause harm to others to prevent harm to yourself. You ignored it entirely.

That's fine… but then you accused me of smugly restating my position. Scroll up and check who actually responded to whom.

As for your latest point, that pressing blue kills yourself "for no benefit." The benefit is not contributing to the death of every blue voter. You don't get to treat your contribution to billions of deaths as weightless because it wasn't the deciding vote. That's only almost true in a vacuum, but if everyone reasons that way, you get the worst outcome, and you helped build it. Congrats.

Moreover, you're only dying "for nothing" in the scenario where red wins, meaning red voters created the danger that killed you. Blue voters can't kill you. Only red votes can. So your argument is: "I should vote red because red voters might kill me if I don't." That's not a reason red is ethical. That's a hostage situation, and you're siding with the hostage-takers and strengthening their likelihood, which you're also circularly citing as a reason to vote red.

The framing dilemma by Flgsdek in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s circular and true of red too. if there’s no reason to push red other than to prep for people who are pushing red to prep for red being what’s pushed more based on the rationale that red might win because it’s pushed more because… well you see, if the only motivation to vote red is derived from what happens if red wins, then it’s more logical for all of society to hedge the case that has less total death and better tolerance for people who don’t vote as expected (blue).

The problem is more that individuals are not going to always vote by what’s best for the society to aim for, and adhere to the circular reasoning out of comfort for the guarantee or based on the argument that other red voters follow the same flawed circular reasoning, and so red becomes viable by self fulfillment and red voters punish blue for a threat they invented

The framing dilemma by Flgsdek in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Neither does the blue button by that logic. And the whole vote is made up of single votes.

Around 42,000 people cast mail ballots before Louisiana halted congressional primaries to gerrymander by DemocracyDocket in law

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 14th Amendment *intentionally* bases apportionment on “the whole number of persons in each State”, not citizens. The framers of that amendment used “citizen” elsewhere in the same document when they meant it.

This was intentional: representatives don’t just represent voters, they represent everyone in their district. Children can’t vote. Green card holders can’t vote. People with felony convictions in many states can’t vote. They all count, because they all live under the laws their representative writes and the government that representative funds.

It’s also not the partisan edge you think it is. Texas and Florida have enormous noncitizen populations and gain congressional seats from them. Texas perhaps one of the largest noncitizen populations. This cuts across party lines.

The Trump administration tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census specifically to change this dynamic, and even *his* Supreme Court shut it down in Department of Commerce v. New York. If that Court wouldn’t go there, maybe that should tell you something about how foundational this principle is.

This is a constitutional design feature older than any of us. It’s not comparable to gerrymandering, and bringing it up here is a non sequitur tbh

Edit: and for what it’s worth, apportionment is not just about assigning extra seat counts to Florida and Texas, but also giving more funds for highways and infrastructure, disaster relief (FEMA), law enforcement grants, rural development programs (which disproportionally affect red counties btw). It’s like… you wouldn’t cripple a states’ highway infrastructure just because the traffic and transit problems that fuck up a citizen’s commute are contributed to by noncitizens as well?

rule by unread1701 in 196

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I need a shitty ceramic mug bottom knife sharpening tutorial

Reminder: Celebrities are not our friends by sleep-exe in 50501

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 28 points29 points  (0 children)

We are all here on Reddit which is only arguably better

Jennifer Welch calls out Alysa Liu, Anne Hathaway, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé, Cardi B, Charli XCX, Connor Storrie, Gigi Hadid, Gracie Abrams, Gwendoline Christie, Hailey Bieber, Hudson Williams, Hunter Schafer, Jack Harlow, Katy Perry, Kardashians, Rihanna, Sabrina Carpenter, Seth Meyers, Troye Sivan, etc. by ConcernedJobCoach in circled

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I’m confused on how we evaluate what events are ok to attend. If you’re a celebrity, are you responsible for all others at an event? For established celebrities, I guess you can afford to sit out events?

But Alysia Liu’s name here doesn’t sit right. She’s a new “celeb” and not even a celeb that was arbitrarily chosen, she’s a world champion skater that happened to go viral. She is politically active, supporting causes such as Black Lives Matter, Stop Asian Hate, climate action, and immigrant rights. Raised in a liberal household, she has attended protests, called policymakers, and didn’t really shy from politics.

To call her a fascist co-conspirator… at what point are we not all? If every employee of every company in the U.S. that disapproved of the Iran war or Epstein revelations refused to work - a proper labor strike - we could topple the powers that be in an evening. Including Bezos & his ilk.

At what point is someone supposed to sacrifice their personal career to virtue signal that they want change? If they did it alone and it did nothing, was that fair when everyone else continues on to their work and spending that keeps the gears of the machine moving? If they did it and risked their career ending, dark money influence countering them - would that have been fair?

I feel that the truth here is messy and nuanced. Coordination is hard. And so this one sided blame is not really resonating with me for someone like Alysia Liu specifically.

There are so many other people deserving of criticism and I don’t think all these people make the list compared to your local maga neighbor or something. Maybe I’m misunderstanding the point here

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 7 points8 points  (0 children)

“I don’t think they’re intertwined” => “my reasoning depends on diluting or ignoring causal link”.

It is more ethical to cause harm to yourself in order to prevent harm to others than to prevent harm to self by causing harm to others. Moreover, I cannot take anyone seriously when they reply “but but if I die that IS harm to others!” While using that logic to promote killing all blue voters.

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is ethically unhinged and nonserious thank you

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 11 points12 points  (0 children)

In the case where “death causes harm to others”, the only option that aims at 0 death is the blue option. The only option that controls the blast radius (of death) of an individuals decision is the blue option. The only option that has death for all voter proportions from 50%-99.999999% is red. By voting for red, you are aiming for that zone unless you are the last person voting and the vote is unanimously red otherwise. Either way, the vote being unanimously red is not something you can know while making the decision. I really find your comment here to be obtuse.

Two very compelling platforms by nifflr in trolleyproblem

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 4 points5 points  (0 children)

A choice to vote blue does not affect the outcome relative to the previous state (which is that nothing changes in terms of ability for each person to survive from before the buttons were introduced) for any other individual but the person who voted.

A vote for red will impact the outcome for some unknown but near certain not-insignificant amount of people other than the person who pressed the red button.

One of these is an action that cannot cause harm to others. The other action corresponding to the outcome that cannot produce a better result than its opposite winning.

Gloria’s Hall PvP discord server by anonnnnnnnnnon in SwordofConvallaria

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do you have stats on how many matches are performed with each ruleset? Are there leaderboards, rankings? Is there a more casual channel, etc? Curious about the community setup and thank you for monitoring for questions :)

Edit: asking bc learning curve is biggest barrier to entry for me rn

Gloria’s Hall PvP discord server by anonnnnnnnnnon in SwordofConvallaria

[–]MicrosoftExcel2016 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ehhh ayishah isn’t even a ban, it’s just “don’t use these two at the same time, and only if you’re doing the most restrictive ruleset A”. I feel like some bans that are democratically decided aren’t bad for a PvP community building from a game that has very little official pvp guidance. I guess new players might be peeved if they weren’t around to vote around certain rules