Why are you getting so defensive?
Because you act all innocent, but you clearly asked that question not out of curiosity or to educate yourself, but to spread doubt and uncertainty of the cause. If you were genuinely curious, you didn't even take the first step to find answers. So, that was not what I consider a constructive contribution to the discussion. I get the feeling you're someone who likes to piss on people's parade. And now you seem to be playing me for a fool.
When I ask my company for compute resources, the first thing they ask is to justify why I should have them over someone else. I have to come prepared with an answer, not an insult.
That's not analogous. They ask you, because you're the one who knows best why you need it, and you're the one who's asking.
I agree that electricity and compute power is valuable, that's why I think it shouldn't be needlessly squandered,
Yeah, me too. So, if you have doubts about the project, why not do your own investigation. If, after that, you find concerns you want to raise or things you want to discuss,
then it would be appropriate to inject them into the discussion.
why I think people need to understand what they are donating to before they give it away.
I call BS on that. If you
really wanted people to understand the project's track record, then you'd have researched it and
then posted. Again, the only point of your post could be to spread uncertainty and doubt.
I'm encouraging the most extremely basic level of skepticism
No, you're promoting reflexive cynicism, which is toxic.
The questions are rhetorical. It's more polite than pointing out facts,
If your concern were
really to avoid wasting resources, then you'd focus on the facts of the matter and
not rhetorical arguments.
since the project is making people under house arrest feel good, like they're reclaiming control of some aspect of their lives.
Oh no! What a
terrible thing!
If the project really were a sham or a waste, exploiting people's fears and sense of helplessness, I'd be right there with you. But that's a strong accusation that you haven't even done the first thing to demonstrate.
People are out there saying Folding@Home cures diseases, they don't.
Prove it. Prove that no research that ever contributed to understanding or mitigating the diseases they've addressed meaningfully benefited from F@H. If you're unwilling or unable to prove it, then you'd better retract that statement.
They are saying Folding@Home will cure Covid-19,
Nobody is saying that. You're arguing against a strawman, which just shows you're being disingenuous.
They are saying Folding@Home needs more compute power, even though the project literally can't use it right now until they fix their back-end.
It's not broken - it just needs to be scaled up. Something like that can likely be migrated to use cloud resources, which could happen quite quickly. In the meantime, you don't want to turn away folks.
Right now, if they can't utilize 100% of the folders' resources, that's not really a problem, right? If they have way more folders than before, that's still an increase in real throughput, even if they're unable to utilize 100% of what's available.
Finally, it's not really wasting resources if they are idling some of the time, when they were idliing 100%, before.
A long term project to better understand the disease is a good thing, but we don't yet know if its the best thing.
Okay, tell me
which of their COVID-19 projects aren't worth pursuing now, and which should receive higher priority.
You're clearly arguing against something you don't understand, because you didn't even
try to understand it, since that wasn't relevant to your goal.
Covid-19 is definitely taking resources away from other priorities.
They have other work units, as well. And if you get new folders involved to fight COVID-19, some of them are going to stick around after it fades into the background.
That priority shift it isn't going to get anybody out of their houses any sooner.
How do you even know that? Really, tell me
which of their projects do & don't have potential to meaningfully contribute to treatments, vaccines, and more selective mitigations.
The roadblocks to validating and distributing the several proposed vaccines are almost entirely bureaucratic at this point-
That's not true. At all. It takes time to conduct trials and get the data needed to determine safety and efficacy of vaccines, and then it takes time to scale up production. Nobody working on a vaccine is twiddling their thumbs or jumping through unnecessary hoops, right now.
Moreover, vaccines aren't even the only medical intervention being investigated. There are numerous other antivirals, anti-inflammatories, and other medications being investigated for treatment, to help prevent people dying and reduce the strain on the medical system.
Also, there are basic questions still being investigated about things like the methods of spread and around pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission. Better understanding of these aspects can lead to better public health guidance, which
can potentially lead to more freedom and resumption of economic activity.
A huge panicked mob of people effectively DDoSing F@H for 2 weeks before permanently dropping off the project isn't actually going to help anybody do anything.
If that were true, then
they would be telling people to back off, and they're not.
If you're stuck at home with cabin fever, there's more important things you can do to regain control in your life.
If all you're concerned with is regaining control of
your life, then you're really missing the point. Contributing to a project like this isn't necessarily a selfish or a self-interested act. Most people do it for mostly altruistic reasons, even if they could potentially stand to benefit, as well.
You could hunt for a new job to replace the one you just lost, or call your local representatives or governor to let them know how you really feel about the messed up situation they put you in. Plus there are still ways out to get outside (for now) - you could borrow a dog to walk, or
How are
any of those things mutually exclusive with firing up F@H?
And I'm surprised you think simply complaining to politicians is going to accomplish anything. I mean, if it were to tell your House member to vote for the bill the Senate just passed, then sure. But that's actually telling them to do something
specific, not just whining.
make several small trips to they grocery store throughout the day to buy individual items instead of getting everything at once.
That is probably
the worst thing you've posted, in this whole thread. Every trip to the store involves a greater risk of transmission. This is actually
harmful advice, counter to the whole mentality of having people stay at home, and I hope no one takes it.
People should go to the store
as few times as possible, and ideally alone. If multiple people from your household all want to go to the store, then take turns, but keep the total number of trips as low as possible. Don't abuse the privilege of being able to shop, or else you're more likely to provoke a complete lockdown. It's not a punitive thing - it's just one of the few ways to reduce transmission, right now.
Aside from that, I'll just reiterate that you seem to confuse skepticism with cynicism. Beyond that, I don't know if you're jealous or just like to bring people down, but you're definitely not being constructive in any way. Not towards efficient use of resources or looking out for people's well-being. I suggest you think harder about your own motives, what you want to contribute, here, and the best ways to do that.
Overall, I'm just sad for you. You're a smart guy, but that post was just unhealthy.
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