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Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

reuters.com

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Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#271

Post by webXL »

dwaltrip wrote: post #96
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #69

I feel like the topic of CFS is irrelevant to the story. Why is there such toxicity online creating these echochambers. If you point out anything that might question climate change for example, you will be called all kinds of names. Nobody looks at the points you are making. Let's test it right now. I'm sure I'll get downvoted and nobody will respond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... Ov…

I don't have time to research your contrarion claims right now. My priors suggest it isn't a good use of my time. But I have to ask: Why haven't the climate change researchers figured out what you have? Do they have rebuttals to these claims? If so, can you please link those rebuttals in the name of transparency? P.S. You are being downvoted for being wildly off topic as well as a bit inflammatory.

How is this wildly off-topic if the subject of the article is online harassment of scientists, and climate change is specifically mentioned? The implied direction of the harassment might not be what the OP was talking about, but it's certainly related to the topic.

As for the inflammatory bit, you might have a point there, but the kind of climate change that enabled humans to evolve might garner that fabled 97% of backing not only from scientists, but humanity in general. So in the proper context, climate change is good.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#272

Post by dragonwriter »

TulliusCicero wrote: post #82
dragonwriter wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As we decode and understand more of the genome, it is possible that our genes affect more of our behavior than what the partisans of the tabula rasa hold for truth What “partisans of the tabula rasa”? Activists of both the left and right seem more likely to be partisans of genetic determinism, though of which aspects of intellect, identity, and behavior varies between them.

I think the left is considerably less comfortable with many aspects of genetic determinism, and I say that as someone who is pretty far left on many issues (at least by US standards). For example, if stereotypical male/female attitudes and behaviors were found to have a substantial genetic component to them, I think a lot of socially progressive people would hate that. There's a lot of emotional investment for many i…

> For example, if stereotypical male/female attitudes and behaviors were found to have a substantial genetic component to them, I think a lot of socially progressive people would hate that.

I...disagree. I think you would find that most of the left takes as an article of faith (or, at least, a very strongly held belief) that gender identity and presentation (which necessarily includes stereotype-conforming as well as nonconforming identities and presentations) are very strongly genetically determined and that extreme distress results when people attempt (or are compelled) to mask what is genetically-determined in this area, and that that is fundamental to the belief that nonconforming identities and presentations should be accepted.

> There's a lot of emotional investment for many in the idea that stereotypically gendered behaviors are entirely or almost entirely caused by culture/social pressure.

There's a lot of emotional investment in the idea that the concept that there is a single acceptable relationship between external genitalia, gender identity, and gender presentation is a social construct, as well as in the necessary corollary that the particular relationship chosen in any particular culture that imposes such a single acceptable relationship is also a social construct. But that's intimately tied to the idea that each of those three things, while they may have some non-genetic contribution, is fairly strongly genetically directed, and while there may be some correlation between the genetic determinants of each, there is considerable individual variation, as well.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#274

Post by spinach »

Calling these people 'activists' seems a bit disingenuous, since they just appear to be harassers. They aren't respectful and dig into the personal lives of the researchers. Later in the article it's even mentioned they harass patients who got better with the proposed treatment. At some point you are just an asshole pretending to be a saviour.

Who would have thought that a by product the internet - social media - would actually hold science back.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#275

Post by ativzzz »

sandov wrote: post #248
kstenerud wrote: post #244

If you think it's bad now, wait until "activists" have easy access to AI that most people can't distinguish from real humans. It's simple: Just pick a target of your ire, be it someone with ideological, political, lifestyle differences, or just someone you don't like, point your AI bot to it, and watch it harass your victim and anyone associated with them, until they lose their job, reputation, friends, family, etc.…

That already happens, but instead of bots, it's dumb people with a political agenda doing the harassing, and they even do it with their own resources, you don't have to pay for bot servers.

Yes, we tend to underestimate just how much energy, time, and money people are willing to contribute to harassing someone whose ideas they disagree with. Many times I find myself wanting to debate something online but the consequences of accidentally stepping on someone's toes who is willing to dedicate their life to destroying mine makes it just not worth the risk.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#276

Post by prepend »

twentythree wrote: post #190
dTal wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, I think science is a lot more capable of converting "is" into "ought" than it is commonly given credit for. I think there's room for a kind of "moral pragmatism". After all, our morals all came from somewhere - some type of reasoning drove their creation, be it conscious or evolutionary. There's a rock bottom, and science can expose contradictions between our core axiomatic beliefs, and our more shallow cac…

> cost savings compared to life imprisonment Minor nitpick: it's actually more expensive to execute someone than to imprison them for life, mostly because of the increased legal costs.

But isn’t that a cost that could be eliminated with efficiency. It seems the legal costs are a result of the moral differences of population segments.

If this different went away and everyone had the same morality, the legal costs would be really low.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#277

Post by sleepysysadmin »

dwaltrip wrote: post #206
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't have time to research your contrarion claims right now. My priors suggest it isn't a good use of my time. But I have to ask: I think you've just proven my real point I was making. >Why haven't the climate change researchers figured out what you have? What happens when your research provides evidence or an argument that doesnt fit the story of climate change? You get labelled a climate denier and nobody will…

Saying "there is nothing to rebut" is not a response. You are claiming that the consensus view of climate change has literally nothing to say in response to your points? I find that very hard to believe. Have you done your due diligence and actually searched for any rebuttals?

We're talking facts here; and this data is from climatologists and backed up by studies. The conclusions are also not mine.

What is there to rebut?

This isn't the point I was making. Climate change doesnt matter.

I was illustrating the point of the article. Nobody will want to discuss climate change if there is such hostility and alarmism. By definition creating climate deniers.

If the climate change folks are correct, and they very likely are correct, the point I was making was perfectly proven just now.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#278

Post by sleepysysadmin »

phonypc wrote: post #250
sleepysysadmin wrote: post #69

I feel like the topic of CFS is irrelevant to the story. Why is there such toxicity online creating these echochambers. If you point out anything that might question climate change for example, you will be called all kinds of names. Nobody looks at the points you are making. Let's test it right now. I'm sure I'll get downvoted and nobody will respond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_temperature_record#/m... Ov…

You'll be downvoted for being off-topic, excessively contrarian and uttering non-sequiturs. Paleoclimatology bears no relevance to the effects climate change will have on human civilization, and extant life more generally. i.e. it does not follow from the fact that life has (and could again be) adapted to Eocene-like conditions, that "climate change is good".

>You'll be downvoted for being off-topic, excessively contrarian and uttering non-sequiturs.

Thanks for once again proving my actual point; which had nothing to do with climate change.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#279

Post by hisnameisjimmy »

mcv wrote: post #204
hirundo wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Sarno's theory is that such pain is indeed caused by physical mechanisms ... which are triggered by psychological mechanisms. Such things are common, like a blush to the cheeks, hair on your arm raised by fright, erections and other sexual responses, etc. He was also clear that this is not always the case, and that direct physical causes should be looked for by a specialist before pursuing psychological remedies…

You mean that stress can play a factor in RSI? I don't think that's in any way controversial, but that doesn't make it in any way less real, or less physical. Although in the case of RSI, there are a lot more factors than that: bad posture, lack of exercise, and most importantly of course repetitive motions that very slowly build up strain on surrounding tissue, wrists, shoulders, back, etc.

The implication by Sarno is that stress, or other psychological factors, is the whole reason for the physical pain. Not always, but in many (if not a majority) of cases.

The idea is the pain is very, very real, and very, very painful. But that the cause is psychological.

The reason why RSI and back pain type issues persist is because psychologically they are very easy to justify. Of course we put load on our backs! Of course we do repetitive things! So it's easy to draw the conclusion that this is the cause, especially for your brain. This prevents people from exploring a root cause.

It's interesting material, but I think you have to be pretty open minded to consider it.

Re: Online activists are silencing us, scientists say

#280

Post by elefanten »

One actionable move would be to reach out to the Berkeley School of Public Health and inform them that their Senior Fellow David Tuller is engaged in unprofessional mob-wrangling behavior. Could contact the New York Times as well. I made a comparison to the behavior of anti-vaxxers, which seems like a pretty reasonable reference point which will communicate the issues quickly.

It could be helpful to the harassed researchers to at least establish a base of official complaints going the other way. Especially if they are written in a reasonable and evidence-based manner.

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