Philosophical Vegan Forum

brimstoneSalad wrote:I can't speak to specific words or assess the obviousness of anything with regards to its linguistic roots.

I think that what's going on is that something like folk-etymology (not necessarily "folk-etymology" in the technical sense of that word) is common in river names, and that's why many river names appear to be explicable by Croatian. To somebody who is unaware of the history, the name of the river name "Vuka" appears to be explicable as if it was coming from "vuk" (wolf), but, in reality, it derives regularly (not even via folk-etymology in the technical sense of that word) from the ancient name "Ulca". To somebody who is unaware of the history, "Karašica" might appear to derive from a rare Croatian word "karas" (crucian carp), but, in reality, we have the name "Karašica" attested in the 13th century with a non-Slavic suffix as "Karassou", making a Slavic etymology unlikely. That's why I think it doesn't make sense to exclude "Krapina" from my calculations just because it appears to come from "krap" (carp). What if "Krapina" comes from an Illyrian name such as *Karpona, or, less likely, something like *Kurrippuppona? I think that an apparent Croatian etymology of some river name is, at best, a weak argument to exclude it from my calculations.

brimstoneSalad wrote:However, if you're asking if any randomly selected expert in linguistics is probably right with regards to a criticism of your work, the answer is yes, probably.

It suggests much more that my work is slightly revolutionary, that nobody used this methodology (of attempting to apply information theory to the toponyms) before, than that it's wrong. It's different from anything the experts in toponymy have seen. The experts in toponymy even admit not to know much about information theory.
Now, whether my methodology is better than the mainstream methodology, I'd say yes, because mainstream methodology appears to be based on mathematically unfounded principles. One of the basic principles of mainstream onomastics is that etymologies from languages we know a lot about are more probable than etymologies from the languages we know little about. What is the mathematical foundation for that principle? It seems to me that there is no mathematical foundation for that principle. Furthermore, following that principle gives results which appear to contradict information theory. Mainstream onomastics gave the result that this k-r pattern is a coincidence, but basic information theory strongly suggests it is statistically significant.

brimstoneSalad wrote:First, perfect lockdowns must work to eliminate a virus -- if you isolate all infected persons until they are no longer contagious, the virus is gone.

But any real lockdown will have some people excempt from the lockdown, namely, the "essential workers". And it goes without saying that the virus will spread through them and that they will be hit by the virus the most. So, even in theory, a lockdown cannot eliminate the virus. I don't know whether focused protection would work in praxis, but at least it makes more sense in theory to expose the low-risk people to the virus than to expose "essential" people to the virus.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Whether lockdowns are successful in practice to slow viral outbreak (which was the point of them, to prevent hospitals from being overloaded) depends on how well they're followed by the people voluntarily locking down.

And isn't it obvious that a significant percentage of the population was not responding to the lockdown by staying home, but rather doing the opposite of that? Deaths from car accidents increased in 2020 compared to 2019. If people on average stayed home during the lockdowns, we would expect them to have decreased. And many mobile phone networks got overloaded in 2020. If people on average stayed home, we would expect, if anything, that the landline telephone networks get overloaded.

brimstoneSalad wrote:Then you need to compare them against other effects like depression and suicide that lockdowns could theoretically cause

Lockdowns are not the main cause of the mental health crisis. The country with the highest rise in suicide rate in 2020 was Japan, and Japan had no lockdown. Suicides also rose in Sweden, which also had no lockdown. If I had to guess, I'd say it's the media which are causing the mental health crisis.

brimstoneSalad wrote:not known confounders

But to me it seems that's precisely what the authors of those studies are doing when claiming to control for the distance from the equator or the rates of type-2 diabetes. It's not at all obvious those things play a big role. Distance from the equator? Take a look at Sweden or Norway, which are very far from the equator, but were hit relatively mildly with COVID-19. Rates of type-2 diabetes? Take a look at Sudan, a country with very high rates of type-2 diabetes, yet was hit by COVID-19 relatively mildly. Adjusting for those things appears to be unjustified p-hacking.

brimstoneSalad wrote:I would say talk to your therapist about it, but your therapist probably doesn't understand scientific methodology so probably would not be able to give sound advice on the topic.

Well, I gave a copy of my paper to my psychiatrist, and she told me it seems excellent to her.