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Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

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Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#141

Post by Alex63 »

whoisjuan wrote: post #20
Reedx wrote: post #3

Never thought we'd see wide support for book restriction or censorship again. Are people not reading history or considering the second order effects? Heck, you don't even have to go back that far. Just look how badly "official sources" handled Covid-19. For example, remember what the official word was, even despite being a self-contradiction: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. You may say that's a no…

Free flow of information is not the same as misinformation. Lack of understanding is not the same as misinforming. I 100% support restricting distribution of material that is based on conjecture and bullshit info. Especially when that information comes with a for-profit motive. This person can easily put their book for free on their own website if they really feel they have important information to share. Amazon can…

Someone is going to be busy...

Chariots of the Gods [1] The GMO Deception [2] How to End the Autism Epidemic [3]

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Chariots-Gods-Erich-von-Daniken-ebook...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/GMO-Deception-Corporations-Government...

[3] https://www.amazon.com/How-Autism-Epidemic-J-B-Handley/dp/16...

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#142

Post by Karunamon »

zpeti wrote: post #28

First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”... Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to see that once this door opens, it will only get worse. The pressure will increase to ban books and it will happen, whether or not it’s controversial or disinformation or whatever. I can only hope this will be enough of a market opportunity that someone else can b…

That will be terribly difficult given that payment processors are also on this ideological censorship train. I think there might be a valid argument as to a single seller refusing to sell something, but once you get three credit card companies towing that line, that's pretty much unavoidable unless you go to crypto (which eliminates most customers).

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#143

Post by pythonaut_16 »

clairity wrote: post #133
ksdale wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be similarly dogmatic, but there are degrees of correctness, and a world where everyone wears masks all the time is one with with much less coronavirus than one where no one except medical professionals wear them.

thank you for demonstrating the exact illusion of safety that's so pervasive around mask-wearing. no, masks are marginal , that's the point, they work at the margins. it's the distancing that's doing the work of "much less coronavirus". for your statement to be relatively true, we'd need to live in a world with no lockdowns and no distancing.

Do you have a source for your claim that masks are less impactful than distancing?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#144

Post by mcguire »

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #70
pen2l wrote: post #2

After a half hour long conversation with my neighbor last week of him trying to convince me that Bill Gates is behind coronavirus, please, for the love of our future, continue banning information that is blatantly put up on a bad faith basis. It's exhausting to see my mom and dad succumb to a new conspiracy every other day. I don't see how else we can curb this other than for the tech companies to start aggressively…

Wow...just wow. The only way to deal with people having bad ideas is censorship? Seriously? What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media? It really bothers me that there is a group of people begging for corporate overloads to control and think for the population. Its literally the opposite of everything this country stands for.

"What about improving education, building functional (and trusted) institutions, and having more independent (non-profit driven) media?"

Oh, my god! You want someone telling us how to think, only allowing the right groups to provide information, and having anyone else under the thumb of some financial interest?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#145

Post by ping_pong »

wwweston wrote: post #111
ceejayoz wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US Surgeon General: https://twitter.com/surgeon_general/status/12337257852839321... "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus..."

This is an instance of what I described in my above comment. "STOP BUYING MASKS" is not "Masks don't work," especially given the rest of the context of the statement where he's saying they're important to protect high-exposure roles healthcare providers. Which means he's also saying they work. "They are not effective in preventing the general public" might be reasonably interpreted as "masks don't work", but given th…

When one says that "masks are not effective", it's literally the definition of "masks don't work." Please don't try to weasel out of it by trying to argue basic definitions of words. That's like Bill Clinton arguing over the definition of what "is" means to try to save himself. Just admit that you're wrong and move on.

It's clear that the message in the early stages of the pandemic was that "all masks didn't work, but you should save it for the health care workers". The absurd contradiction of that statement was what made reasonable people such as myself no longer trust what they said, because it was obvious they were hiding things from us. It's obvious that if you have a respiratory disease, then wearing a mask will be effective.

Since then, it has come out that masks are actually extremely effective in preventing spread.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#146

Post by Will_Parker »

dougmany wrote: post #114
darawk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC and WHO both at various times recommended against the general public wearing masks. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-coronavi... This advice was wrong. It is not just sick people that benefit from wearing masks. It is not true that people are flattening that into "masks don't work". Masks don't work was repeated many, many times by these organizations. Here's an example: https://www.cidrap.…

At least two of those links had nuanced reasons that matched the parent's remarks. One even literately had a three point explanation: * There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission * Their use may result in those wearing the masks to relax other distancing efforts because they have a sense of protection * We need to preserve the supply of surgical masks for at-ris…

> There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission

It's a disease spread by exhaled droplets. How the heck could masks _not_ work? Why has common sense, as an acceptable way to obtain knowledge, died in the general public?

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#147

Post by wwweston »

nonbirithm wrote: post #120
wwweston wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an instance of what I described in my above comment. "STOP BUYING MASKS" is not "Masks don't work," especially given the rest of the context of the statement where he's saying they're important to protect high-exposure roles healthcare providers. Which means he's also saying they work. "They are not effective in preventing the general public" might be reasonably interpreted as "masks don't work", but given th…

The problem is not all people in the public at large will apply that same logic and just take the statement at face value at first glance. Masks don't work. Don't buy masks. When you ask them the question of "what did they initially tell you" later, their response would be "masks don't work." With someone in such an official position, misinformation can do great harm for people that know no better. Anyone who doesn't…

Totally on board with criticism of how effectively (or not) the tweet communicates key ideas. There's some hazards, and we could reasonably expect that people who are appointed to provide clear public leadership would be better at that job.

But that reinforces the importance of well-curated communication, which is the context for this discussion, where apparently some are criticizing Amazon for refusing to release communication that is not only not-well expressed, as the tweet arguably is, but is actively disinformative to delusional.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#148

Post by ping_pong »

grahamburger wrote: post #134
dahdum wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an extended quote of his, found on Snopes fact check. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/surgeon-general-against-ma... > One of the things [the general public] shouldn’t be doing is going out and buying masks … It has not been proven to be effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus amongst the general public … Folks who don’t know how to wear them properly tend to touch their faces a lot, and actually ca…

I'm pretty sure all of that is still true. In some cases, for some people, wearing a mask can be neutral or even net-negative. Maybe we learned enough to find that for the population at large wearing masks is better than not, but it's still a trade off.

It's completely untrue. Multiple studies have come out afterwards saying that masks are very effective at reducing spread. It is an overwhelming net positive to wear masks.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#149

Post by dionidium »

dougmany wrote: post #114
darawk wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC and WHO both at various times recommended against the general public wearing masks. https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/4/13/21214114/media-coronavi... This advice was wrong. It is not just sick people that benefit from wearing masks. It is not true that people are flattening that into "masks don't work". Masks don't work was repeated many, many times by these organizations. Here's an example: https://www.cidrap.…

At least two of those links had nuanced reasons that matched the parent's remarks. One even literately had a three point explanation: * There is no scientific evidence they are effective in reducing the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission * Their use may result in those wearing the masks to relax other distancing efforts because they have a sense of protection * We need to preserve the supply of surgical masks for at-ris…

Yes, those are indeed the reasons they lied about mask-wearing. Their reasons for lying are not in dispute. You may even agree that those are good reasons to lie. But what's also not in dispute is that they did lie. (Perhaps the most charitable thing you could say about your list is that they leaned heavily on the first point in public to justify conserving masks in light of what they believed about the latter two points in private.)

Some of you seem to think lying isn’t lying if your heart is pure, but it’s an ordinary word with an uncomplicated meaning.

Re: Amazon refuses to sell book on Covid-19 and lockdowns

#150

Post by virtualritz »

zpeti wrote: post #28

First they came for controversial right wing views... then they came for Covid “disinformation”... Putting the joke aside, I really think we are starting to see that once this door opens, it will only get worse. The pressure will increase to ban books and it will happen, whether or not it’s controversial or disinformation or whatever. I can only hope this will be enough of a market opportunity that someone else can b…

We are living in an age where you can soon write a service running in the cloud that pulls text snippets from your favorite conspiracy theorists blogs, compiles them into books with sensationalist titles and automatically and constantly submits them to Amazon for publication to have unsuspecting buyers succumb to the resp. promoted world view.

Essentially what people are already doing with public domain works or Wikipedia articles only with the intent of disinformation rather than profit (or at least both).

Then Amazon will need more sophisticated tools to detect and filter those out ... you see where this is going.

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