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Coronavirus and Credibility

paulgraham.com

891–900 of 968 posts

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was unreasonable at that point. I'm no epidemiologist, but I understood exponential growth at that point to know that, because it wasn't being contained (no measures with a reasonable chance of containment were being taken at exactly the time when they really had to be taken), there was no stopping the exponential growth in the near term in the US. And especially once it was spreading in Italy, there was just not…

To be clear, these people have no credibility with me already - but your confidence in hindsight as to the obviousness of the current predicament in late Feb/early March is not one I share.

It was clear to me around February 20-22nd or so that we had a significant chance of a Wuhan-like situation. I put my money where my mouth was by going to the store and buying (a single but large container of) hand sanitizer and non-perishable food at that time (I didn’t hoard, but did buy ahead of time... before everyone else, thus giving the logistics system time to restock for everyone else). It’s not mere hindsight.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#892
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind it's not just Fox News which got this pandemic wrong. "It's no worse than the flu," "this won't be a global pandemic," "you don't need to wear a mask unless you are symptomatic or caring for someone who is," and other 100% wrong takes were also pushed by Vox, NYT, WaPo, and even WHO & CDC long past when they should have been.

Which is one of the reasons why I wish we, collectively as a society, would stop blaming the blame game in this crisis. Almost everyone got this wrong.

But not everyone, and that’s key. Some people and some entire countries got it right.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks someone else already found a few great examples.

You claimed that there were countless videos of "MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu." Which of course isn't accurate. You seek your redemption in some guy[1] listing a tiny selection of articles, having nothing to do with the partial travel restriction, arguing about the social effects. He links either contrarian articles, or articles talking abo…

None of your ad hominem counters the articles the other poster found.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks someone else already found a few great examples.

You claimed that there were countless videos of "MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu." Which of course isn't accurate. You seek your redemption in some guy[1] listing a tiny selection of articles, having nothing to do with the partial travel restriction, arguing about the social effects. He links either contrarian articles, or articles talking abo…

Did the news about the death counts flattening and missing projections by a lot today bum you out? I can’t imagine having my identity so wrapped in Trump losing the election that I would be hoping for hundreds of thousand dead and the failure of the American health care system. Enjoy the next 4 years of the Trump administration.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks someone else already found a few great examples.

You claimed that there were countless videos of "MSNBC and CNN criticizing the travel ban on China because the virus wasn't any more dangerous than the flu." Which of course isn't accurate. You seek your redemption in some guy[1] listing a tiny selection of articles, having nothing to do with the partial travel restriction, arguing about the social effects. He links either contrarian articles, or articles talking abo…

Im glad I scrubbed my HN profile I am sure you are the kind of human garbage that would try to Dox me over having a different opinion than you.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#896
post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't think travel from China should have been shutdown until later?

What travel ban ? 400k people traveled from China after the ban. Trump said as of 2 weeks back that everything will be open by Easter. Everyday he downplays the virus and peddle misinformation. How anyone can define a completely unhinged and unethical person, whose direct actions is resulting in thousands of deaths is beyond me

Obama didn’t replenish the stockpile of medical supplies used after H1N1 do you blame him too? How far are we going to be under projected death counts for Covid? A factor of 1000? Either what this administration did worked or it was a hoax you pick. You might want to look into mental help early in anticipation for Trump carrying 48 states in November. Maybe actually move to Canada this time?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvotes on your post demonstrate the left-leaning nature of this site. It's discouraging frankly. The thousands of conversations that occur daily on this site, without emotion or incident; but insult "the other side"'s politicians or news outlets as being biased? Downvote hell Yes, CNN and the like are just as bad as Fox news. The sooner you folks recognize that, the sooner we can have decent conversations abou…

The "both sides bad" mantra is really just lazy. The false equivalence between the validity of whatever DJT says and what critics say have let even basic decency be thrown out the window, let alone facts.

> The "both sides bad" mantra is really just lazy.

"Fox News is TEH EVILZZ AND CNN/CBS/NBC/MY HOLY LOVE ARE TEH ANGELZZ" is really lazy. Refusing to recognize how the other news outlets aren't bastions of honorable reporting is really lazy. Refusing to recognize that none of them -- any of them, not one -- have the public's (e.g. YOUR) best interest in mind, is really lazy.

Somewhere deep down you know that but there's some emotional need you're trying to satisfy that prevents you from recognizing it. You NEED something like Fox to be evil so that your views feel justified.

So a few days ago CBS trumpeted this crying nurse from NYC complaining about lack of masks and people dying and blah blah blah. Turns out? Never happened.

The hilarious part? I despise Fox News. I just equally despise all the others. They're all complicit in fascism and the march toward corporatist dictatorship.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#898
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far most data I've seen shows that people who were infected have some immunity. However, it's not clear yet what the annual effect of immunity will be - for example, we haven't sampled enough people/viruses to know in detail whether that immunity persists when the virus mutates. Epidemiologists are likely to know the answers to these sorts of questions in a few years.

Every single other known Coronavirus builds immunity. Hundreds of thousands of patients and no reports of repeat healthy patients. Preliminary studies with macaque monkeys show that an immunity is built. There's plenty of data to show that an infection is built.

*immunity to infection

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downvotes on your post demonstrate the left-leaning nature of this site. It's discouraging frankly. The thousands of conversations that occur daily on this site, without emotion or incident; but insult "the other side"'s politicians or news outlets as being biased? Downvote hell Yes, CNN and the like are just as bad as Fox news. The sooner you folks recognize that, the sooner we can have decent conversations abou…

> The downvotes on your post demonstrate the left-leaning nature of this site. Not really. If you post something that certain people dislike for whatever reason, but which is unremarkable to others, the votes will never break even; you will not get enough upvotes from the latter group to make up for the former. (Even given the fact that not everyone can downvote.) Whichever group's buttons you push then makes it seem…

Logically speaking what you say is true and is worth recognizing. My comment is based more on trends I have observed over the years (and HN is no more immune to the moving window than any other social media site, it's just slower here).

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#900
post #548

Do people appreciate that denial of the severity of this virus came from all political quarters? Here's one showing the mistakes of left-leaning media I found in 2 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=wVDPVBZF2Xg It's just as easy to find supercuts of Pelosi, DeBlasio, and other prominent Democrats telling people that they didn't need to start social distancing or that the virus wasn't airborne c…

It did come from all political quarters, however one political quarter stayed in denial much longer. Notice how many of the clips from your video are from January or early February. The POTUS was still publicly pushing the coronavirus = flu comparison in early March even after we saw what happened in Iran and Italy. Remember, he said on February 28 that being worried about the coronavirus was “their new hoax” from th…

I watched that video and no one on the left was making a joke of the coronavirus. They were all stating that the flu is more dangerous which while being clearly a miscalculation, not the same as calling it a left wing hoax so save your moral equivalence for another day.
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