MarginOfError

it offensive either way?

An unfeeling, ruthless machine hell bent on destroying humanity.....I think I'd be offended.

I have had a very recent struggle with this same issue, albeit from the other side of the spectrum. I had advised our bishopric to seek input from the general ward membership on what we could do to help each of them feel comfortable returning to church. Mixed in with the vast majority of thoughtful responses were a few "There's nothing you can do that will make me feel comfortable right now." and a few "people just need to stop being scared and take things back to normal." As you might expect, the "just stop being scared" comments triggered my thoughts of "what a blithering idiot." No sooner had I said that to myself than my mind was filled with this thought: For most of this month, I've been struggling with how to repent and be more charitable toward those with whom I disagree. It's hard. It's really, really hard for me. I don't have solutions. I don't think I've made any progress in my repentance. But know that you aren't alone in your feelings.

If you want the minimal risk of transmission, you can have each household bring their own bread and water. They can hold their emblems at their seats when they are blessed, and then consume them when the prayer is done. After that, sealed, pre-packed containers (as described by @prisonchaplain) are your best bet. If you're willing to tolerate a little more risk, there are countless ways you can manage passing the sacrament. How you manage this is highly dependent on what your goal is. If your goal is to balance minimal disruption with minimal risk, truthfully, careful hand washing (be everyone, not just those handling the sacrament) combined with having adults retrieve emblems for their young children is probably enough. But your risk profile has to include considerations for your congregation. Do you have any immuno-compromised members? How many of your members are elderly? If your goal is to make the ordinance comfortable for as many as possible, then you may find yourself making more alterations. My bishop made the decision that we would make every reasonable effort to make sacrament meeting as free-from-worry for as many people as possible. The process we settled on was that, for the bread, a single oyster cracker is being poured into a sacrament cup placed in a water tray where only ever other space is used. Those who pass the emblems will carry a second tray to collect the used cups. Similarly, for water, only ever other space is used in the tray, and a second tray is carried to collect the cups. Parents are being asked to retrieve cups for their young children. When developing your plan, remember that you have a great deal of flexibility. Scripturally, the only requirements for the ordinance are that 1) the priest kneels when saying the prayer, and 2) the words of the prayer are said exactly as recorded in Moroni/D&C (substituting the word 'water' for 'wine'). Everything beyond that is cultural/policy/whatever. (some of it is great symbolism, and I would be reticent to give it up forever, but we can survive for a period of time without it)

@carlimac, want to try again?

I have to admit that I am confused by some of the logic presented here. Today's youth have fewer of the characteristics that I value in the previous generation's youth, therefore they must not be among the more valiant souls....(paraphrased, I didn't take the effort to make a full and concise statement) What isn't considered, however, is the possibility that the trait's of today's youth are the very manifestation of their valiance. It's sloppy of me to do this, but I'm going to make claims without evidence, so consider it anecdotal. By and large, the youth today seem to be more empathetic, comfortable with nuance and complexity, and more prone to value social improvement over personal wealth. What if their willingness and determination to tear down long standing social norms is their valiance in action? What if their unwillingness to accept racial animus (for example) in scripture as divinely-directed is a sign of their valiance? In other words, we're often quick to judge others (including other generations) for their unrighteousness for no other reason than they have different values or priorities than we do. I would submit that doing so is a dangerous business if you don't fully understand what makes those people tick, and are unwilling to question whether your own perspectives might need some adjustment. Another perspective you can put on this all is to consider that the people that were the target of that "most valiant souls" comment are the very people that raised today's youth. So if today's youth really are so much worse, then it seems that it would be the fault of those most valiant souls for raising a bunch of screw ups. So before we go railing on how not-valiant today's youth are, maybe we should question whether those valiant ones were really as valiant as we thought, seeing as they obviously screwed up their most noble calling so badly......

I'm going to say this with the caveat that I am not going to engage further in this line of discussion as it falls outside the scope of this thread. I agree that I don't see it happen often. But the threat is there. Which also leads to all sorts of shenanigans and outright corruption to inflate scores to stay above the federally mandated thresholds. Honestly, it was a system I never really liked, but I understand the premise. As far as what to do about it....(shrug)...see Colirio's comment about broader societal issues. We've got lots or problems, and the solutions may not be the same. Again, if you look at the current event as a single incident*, then cutting budgets doesn't make sense. If you view it through a lens of a history of events, it starts to make sense that maybe a change in tactics is desirable. Whether or not you agree depends on whether you prefer preparing the police force to restore order or whether you prefer shifting their culture into better relations with black communities. * Keep in mind that by and large, the black community will tell you that these types of events are not new. What is new is that they are being recorded. Sure. But funding of what? Funding for more riot control equipment? funding for more overtime? funding for more community policing? If the mayor of LA can approve the size of the police budget but has limited ability to control what it is spent on*, then how else is he supposed to persuade the police department to spend their budget in line with his priorities? * I don't know the structure of these things for LA. I'm hypothesizing that if the mayor could direct what the money is spent on, then he'd do so.

I won't contest that there are broad societal issues that need to be addressed. Motivating police forces to deescalate is not a magic cure, but could be a valid and effective part of an broader strategy.

I'm not sure your belief that police aren't getting the same treatment as the schools is as solid as you think. To begin, the idea of cutting police budgets to encourage a move away from aggressive policing is new enough that I've only heard it discussed in theory in the past couple of years, and LAPD is the first force I'm aware of to actually do it. By and large, police budgets have been increasing. As far as schools, keep in mind that schools that under perform get less money from federal resources. So this new trend with police forces may be more consistent than you are thinking. Lastly, if it were demonstrated that increasing school budgets resulted in a physically more aggressive teaching force, do you really think we'd keep increasing those budgets? That is, the terms of comparison may not be completely equal.

so let me be clear...you've been hearing those ideas tossed around for decades.....but police budgets have generally been increasing for decades.... and things aren't getting any better.....so your proposal is to do more of the same?

It is, indeed, a matter of perspective. The militarization of the police force is one aspect of a policing system that has become increasingly confrontational, especially over the past two decades. (see sources below) There's still some work to be done in this field of research, but my impression is that police aggression has been increasing. Some of that may be related to militarization, and some may be related to qualified immunity, and some may be related to the move away from community policing. Underlying all of those effects, minority communities, and especially black communities, have a very long standing, tense relationship with law enforcement. This tension is a couple of hundred years old, and encompasses the fact that, pre-abolition, any white person could stop a black person and demand proof that they weren't a slave; it encompasses the Jim Crow era; it encompasses lynching and harassment that were ignored by racist law enforcement officers. The reality is that police treat black people differently. This is most starkly reflected in what white parents teach their children about interacting with the police versus what black parents teach their children about interacting with the police. so yes, if you look at this from the perspective of this is one incident that needs to be brought under control, then it is ludicrous to cut the budget. On the other hand, if you see this as just the most recent in a long line of incidents, then you begin to realize that this also won't be the last one. If we keep doing what we have been doing--increase the budget and continue amping up the crowd control--then it's quite likely that the next one will just be bigger. Reducing the budget, then, can be interpreted as a step toward deescalating tensions. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2018/07/05/evidence-suggests-the-militarization-of-police-forces-leads-to-more-civilian-deaths/ https://www.princeton.edu/news/2018/08/21/militarization-police-fails-enhance-safety-may-harm-police-reputation https://hub.jhu.edu/magazine/2015/spring/aclu-militarization-of-police/ https://journalistsresource.org/studies/government/security-military/militarization-police-reduce-crime-research/

One concern among those seeking law enforcement reform has been the militarization of police forces. Reducing a police force's budget is a tactic that, as I understand it, is premised on the idea that if police forces aren't able to escalate their tools, they will have to develop new (and ideally less confrontational) methods of maintaining order. in other words, the budget reduction forces the police force to consider what its priorities are. If they want to keep buying the militaristic equipment, they'll have to make cuts somewhere else, such as training, salaries, personnel, etc.

I don't think that was meant in a "I object to mask wearing" kind of way. More like a "I would be physically uncomfortable wearing a mask for that long." I'm not looking forward to wearing a mask that long either. I will do it, but I won't pretend to enjoy it. Then again, depending on what my ward decides to do, I may just refuse to go. We have a few yahoos in our ward that are adamant this is all a conspiracy, and I can see them deliberately not wearing masks and touching every surface in sight just to make a point. Hopefully I'll be able to talk my bishopric into a moderate approach to reopening (one has already floated the idea that we could fully open right now if we wanted to).

It is a deliberately vague set of guidelines. It wasn't intended to be a map of how to open church meetings, but a guide to work within local guidance and regulations. The letter I got had a little more guidance than what was in the newsroom. Essentially, if your local health guidelines limit you to less than 100 people, work within the phase 1 guidance. Otherwise work within phase 2. What each stake and ward actually implements will vary.

The appropriate response to those accusations is, "No, it is the fault of 1) the legislature for not extending the order, and 2) other idiots who misbehaved" Of course, to prove 2), you have to be willing to participate in contact tracing.

McConkie, Joseph Fielding Smith, and Joseph Smith Jr seemed to have been of a school of thought that between "restoration of all thing" and "God is unchanging", that any practice of worship that was given to the modern church must have existed in both ancient Christianity and Judaism. On this premise, they assume that if there is no evidence of such practice, it must have been lost from the record. Personally, I don't find that line of thought particularly convincing. I think it's perfectly reasonable for the concepts and principles to have existed throughout history, but the form and practice to have changed with culture and technology. It would seem unlikely to me that the Israelites were practicing baptism for the dead prior to Christ's death. They had some parallels, but nothing quite like baptism for the remission of sins. Instead, their equivalent to baptism was more along the lines of restoring their ability to enter the the temple and participate in rituals there. Under our understanding of the temple, that may not seem like much of a difference, but for them atonement and freedom from transgression was gained through the sacrifices at the temple. Baptism as a symbol of conversion didn't become popular until after the Babylonian captivity. As a symbol of repentance, I doubt it was new or revolutionary by the time of John the Baptist, as not even the Jewish leadership of the time really objected to it. So sometimes between the Babylonian captivity and John the Baptist, it had evolved into a recognized and accepted custom. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_baptism) But under either premise, there really isn't reasonable way to get to ancient Israelites performed baptism for the dead.

Under the new handbooks, I actually fit the definition of apostate. Oh well.

I don't consider this an either/or proposition. You can be a guardian of religious liberty and a bad citizen at the same time. I actually agree with the court ruling. I don't object to executives having emergency powers that permit them to act rapidly. But those powers need to be limited and subject to review by legislatures. I think a 28 day review is prudent, and since the legislature didn't uphold the emergency declaration, it should be terminated. It would be nice if the federal government operated similarly (for most emergencies at the federal level, it seems the legislature has to override the declaration, or else it persists indefinitely). But just because I agree with the court ruling doesn't mean I think it's wise or responsible to meet in large groups.

Let's clear up a few things. Estimates for how many people in the US contract the flu each year vary from 5% to 20%. (Source) That includes asymptomatic carriers. In real numbers, that is 16.4M to 65.6M US citizens per year. Flu kills 12,000 - 61,000 in the US each year (source). That puts the upper limit of total infection mortality at 0.093%. SARS-nCOV-2 (Covid) currently has 1.5M confirmed cases with 89,000 deaths (source) as of 16 May. @Plein Air's research indicates that the actual number of infections may be 20 to 50 times higher, or 30M to 75M cases. That yields a total infection mortality rate upper bound at 0.112%. That places the Covid total infection mortality upper bound at 1.2 times the flu upper bound. ------------------------------------ Another way to look at this is look at the number of symptomatic cases only. With the flu, the US sees between 3 - 11% of the population present with flu symptoms (source), or 9.8M to 36.1M cases per year. Covid, by comparison has 1.5 million cases so far (source) as of 16 May. These numbers put the upper bound of symptomatic mortality rate at 0.17% for flu and 6.93% for confirmed Covid. What we are missing here is a symptomatic Covid estimate (total - asymptomatic). Estimates for how many cases are asymptomatic range from 3% to 80% (source). Continuing to use worst case numbers, if 80% of 75M total Covid cases are asymptomatic, then 15M are symptomatic. This would put the upper bound of symptomatic Covid mortality at 0.593%. much lower than the confirmed case mortality, but 3.5 times higher than the flu symptomatic mortality rate. ------------------------------------------ But wait! How can the total infection mortality rates be so similar but the symptomatic infection rates be so different. That difference describes how Covid behaves differently than flu. Covid is more transmissible, more likely to lay dormant, but more likely to be severe when the immune system fails to suppress it. So, mortality isn't everything. Virulence also plays an important role. And in four months, Covid has infected more people than flu does in a year. Or a moderately more fair comparison, we've only been looking at Covid for the last half of flu season. So it's reasonable to expect Covid to infect twice as many people as the flu. Even at comparable total mortality rates, that is twice as many deaths. --------------------------------- Regarding the difference in response between swine flu and Covid, consider the following worldwide metrics: (source). Duration of pandemic: 20 months Total confirmed cases: 491,382 Total suspected cases: 1.4B (upper bound, 70M per month) Total confirmed deaths: 18,449 (922 per month) Total estimated deaths: 575,400 (upper bound, 28,770 per month) Now look at the worldwide statistics for Covid: (source, as of 16 May) Duration of pandemic: 6 months (including December 2019) Total confirmed cases: 4.64M Total suspected cases: 232 M (upper bound calculated as 50 times confirmed, 38.7M per month) Total confirmed deaths: 312,000 (52,000 per month) Total estimated deaths: too early to tell To be frank, swine flu wasn't as big a deal as Covid. It looks like swine flu may have been more virulent, nowhere near as deadly. By the numbers, it seems like the "lack of response" may have been appropriate.

I won't say that I love mediocrity, but it's okay.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where the "must kneel on two knees" thing comes from? My stake presidency started getting on our case because they would occasionally see missionaries in our ward kneel on one knee and wanted us to correct them. I always refused to do so because I've never seen anything that states two knees is a requirement. Seems like such an odd hill to die on. That being said, @Ironhold, barring anyone being able to provide documented evidence that two knees is the only way that comes with God's approval for performing this ordinance, I'd tell your father to get over himself (or, perhaps more tactfully ask him to show you where two knees is a requirement). Personally, I'm of the persuasion that if kneeling causes a person anything more than fleeting moderate discomfort, they are exempt from the expectation to kneel. My opinions don't carry a lot of weight in Church administration, but they are right!

Did you randomize who gets to know you and who doesn't? Maybe we should do a crossover design

I can't say I find much sense in this theory. Old people tend to suffer more from common maladies simply because their bodies are run down from having been alive for so long. I forget what the exact number is, but something like 80% of our elderly in the U.S. die within a few weeks of having a surgical procedure in a hospital. They just don't recover. Their deaths are typically classified as cardiovascular death. But that doesn't appear to account for the fact that the recovery time for elderly patients tends to be longer, harder, and riskier than it is for younger patients. When a respiratory disease come around, the elderly have always been the most effected because they tend to have more difficulty getting adequate exercise to have a strong enough respiratory system to withstand a disease. It sucks, but it is reality. The thing that is remarkable about SARS-COV-2 is not its mortality rate, nor its severity, nor its impact on the elderly population. The thing that is remarkable about this disease is its transmission rate. This thing spreads easily, and when combined with it's long incubation period, spreads fast. We're actually rather lucky it isn't a more severe disease or we'd really be hurting. (for flu vs SARS-COV-2 comparison, consider that flu kills about 60,000 each year in the U.S., while in the past two months, SARS-COV-2 has killed almost 50,000). If this thing had the even half the mortality rate among the 30 - 50 crowd that it does among the elderly, we'd be looking at Spanish Flu levels of death.

Having only used males is actually a benefit to this study. If they only had 17 females available, it would have been difficult to extract any information of statistical value while adding another layer of noise. The thing that isn't stated clearly in the abstract is that the results should not be extrapolated to the female population. I'm not too concerned about the unrelated medical conditions. When performing the analysis, they adjusted the hazard ratios for "propensity score." What this means is they run the analysis in two models. First, they use all of the demographics and descriptors they can in a preliminary model to predict the probability of each person dying from factors unrelated to SARS-COV-2. Then they use that predicted probability as a moderating term in the primary model. While this methodology is known not to eliminate all of the bias associated with those demographics, it has been found to be successful in significantly reducing those biases*. So what's my take on this study? I wouldn't put too much weight on this one single study. Instead, you add it to the pile. Retrospective, observational studies were my bread and butter when I worked in the health field. They are rarely (never) conclusive on their own. But when studied in conjunction with other similar (or slightly dissimilar) studies, you can actually learn a fair amount. The big thing you look for in concordant and discordant results. If you have six or eight studies that study a similar outcome and have similar premises (they don't have to be identical, just similar) and they all show pretty similar results, then it typically ends up that a proper, randomized trial will confirm those results. In my experience (anecdotal), this will hold when the smaller studies are about 80% concordant. Less than 70% concordant, and you get into the "mixed results" range, which makes it harder to guess what the outcome of a clinical trial will be. Based on the number of studies I've heard of studying this drug and the mixture of results, I'd guess that the drug isn't likely to prove very effective. With enough research, we may find some marginal effect in some portion of the population that will benefit from the right dose. But it will take a pretty long time for us to be able to tease out effects with that kind of granularity. So it seems unlikely this is some kind of miracle drug. At best, it's a tool that can be used to some undetermined benefit when used carefully in the right circumstances that we don't yet understand. * some would argue that you should adjust for those factors directly. Well, it turns out these kinds of models can only support about one predictor variable per death, not per patient. So with only about 50 deaths total in the cohort, you get five terms, or degrees of freedom. With three study groups, you'll eat up two of them. So you've only got three to play with. Using the propensity score gives you the best balance of demographic adjustment while still having a model with good statistical characteristics.

I might be too specific on the details, but I think the general concept is sound. Oil companies aren't able to store all of their supply and are having to pay people to take away the excess. That gets reflected in the stock price as a negative value. Probably a better description here: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/124269/what-does-it-mean-for-the-price-of-oil-to-be-negative As far as the difference between paying someone to store or paying someone to take it away, I would imagine that in many cases, the people taking the oil away are planning to store it until the price of oil goes back up, at which point they may sell it back to oil companies. So, I may get paid $37 per barrel to take it away from Company A. I sit on it for six months, and when oil is back up to $50 per barrel, I sell it to Company A for $40 per barrel. I've made $77 per barrel, minus my storage costs. Yeah, what's happening right now is a little bizarre.