Our credibility and accountability are more important in the hyper-online, post-truth world than ever before. Our public conversations need more honest brokers and we need more transparent ways to demonstrate that quality. To that end, I believe it's important to clearly state opinions, outlooks and expectations about the world - and to do so in a public place that is open to scrutiny and resistant to cheating.
My goal with this page is to work towards that. I intend to prepend items to the top of this list and for each one to provide a link to a timestamped proof that the opinion or prediction therein was made on a particular date and hasn't been altered. As my stances on certain issues change, I will add new items, never update old items.
In this way, I hope that it will be clear how and why my position on certain topics has changed over time. We should be comfortable changing our minds as our inventories of values and knowledge change over time and as the world changes around us (and we should support other people changing their minds, as well).
Omicron will be more transmissible than previous COVID variants, but its virulence will prove to be lower. That is, fewer severe cases and deaths, after controlling for vaccination status.
I believe that the mainstream media will try to obscure this good news for as long as possible. Longer than scientific prudence warrants, at least.
This is the description of where I stand on this item and what has recently influenced this position.
You'll notice that if you follow the "Timestamp proof" link, the content of that GitHub Gist is identical to this element, and that its created date matches the date noted here (and that it has no revisions since then).