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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

#161

Post by Will_Parker »

mcguire wrote: post #112
benjohnson wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep.. now people to can say "They" don't wan't you to know the truth.

There was an article on the front page yesterday about the retraction of one of the hydroxychloroquine papers; all of the comments on the original article were of the "they don't want you to know the truth" sort. You cannot win against true believers.

> You cannot win against true believers

I'm a true believer in the drug's seventy year safety record when given as a prophylactic for malaria prevention millions of times and over the counter in many places.

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

#162

Post by JPKab »

nmakow wrote: post #33
miguelmota wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fact based Does it represent both sides of the controversy equally or is it only nitpicked facts?

When did we forfeit our ability to think critically and judge sources on our own?

In the minds of the political elites, when Trump won the 2016 election.

I hate the guy as much as anyone. My wife was crying. It was a shock.

The DNC could have examined why they lost the key swing states by the thin margins they did in a deep, meaningful way. But that would have required acknowledging mistakes made by their highly paid political consultants and their own power brokers. But who wants to be the person to admit they screwed up and lost to a tangerine/chicken strip/cheetoh?

"Nah, let's just blame the Russians. They hacked our emails, they put out ridiculous lies on social media..... yeah, that's it.... the Russians and dumb morons who believed them."

At that moment, the party that has always defended civil liberties, always fought censorship by the right wing theocrats, suddenly decided it was just too dangerous to have uncensored speech. They pointed the finger at Twitter and Facebook, and threatened them. They whipped up the tech employees, making them feel responsible for the tangerine, when it was their own horror show of a primary process that doomed them.

What's really weird is that if you think about it, the people who they think need curated, safe, censored information are the people who voted for Obama in 2012, but voted for Trump in 2016, or stayed home. They think their own voters in 2012 are too dumb to weed out misinformation themselves.

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

#163

Post by dahdum »

wwweston wrote: post #67
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…

> Remember what the official word was for all too long: masks don't work, but save them for health workers. Who said masks don't work? What I recall people saying is: * most masks provide marginal protection to the wearer * the masks that provide effective protection should be saved for those in situations where they need them (and can be knowledgeably used) * most people probably don't need those masks There's a wor…

Asymptomatic spread was confirmed as significant the end of Feb when they tested the cruise passengers, and most of Asia already had some form of mandatory mask order in place. Widespread mask usage was shown in at least a few NIH studies to reduce transmission, though most looked at getting a virus versus transmitting it IIRC.

To me it looks like CDC/WHO hubris caused them to completely disregard Asia's approach until they could "discover" it themselves.

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

#164

Post by JPKab »

rb808 wrote: post #116
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…

Not only behind Corona virus but also the vaccine implants microchips to track you. The real story is not that a few nut jobs believe it - a huge chunk of the population actually believes it. https://news.yahoo.com/new-yahoo-news-you-gov-poll-shows-cor...

The real story is that you think this is a remotely valid poll.

YouGov is a joke. Massive selection bias in their polling.

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

#165

Post by jdc »

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…

First, let's (not be tedious and) agree that the reason healthcare workers wear masks is to prevent airborne infections, especially of SARS-Cov-2.

Now clearly your first and second points contradict each other.

Furthermore the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

Cf. Peer reviewed studies, or lack thereof, supporting the 6 ft "social" distancing protocol and, up until recently, the use of parachutes while jumping out of a plane.

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

#166

Post by dionidium »

darawk wrote: post #155
dougmany wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Point one is equivalent to saying "masks don't work" when communicated in that way to the general public.

It's also a remarkably vacuous thing to say. Of course there's not always scientific evidence for how to respond to new threats in real time. It's perfectly reasonable to make the best decisions you can with the information available. To say what they said is to try to weaponize the totally sensible dictum to "listen to the science" in a context in which they damn well knew that it made no sense (and without any indication that they thought through how their actions might potentially erode public trust in that injunction).

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

#167

Post by dougmany »

Will_Parker wrote: post #146
dougmany wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I am always amused at how effective the There is no scientific evidence line is. That just means it has not been studied. No one has studied masks on this specific strain? It's new for crying out loud.

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

#168

Post by StuntPope »

natechols wrote: post #94
urthen wrote: post #9

[flagged]

Are you sure Berenson is a libertarian? He seems to be a much bigger fan of drug prohibition than any self-proclaimed libertarian I've ever met.

Berenson isn't a libertarian, the guy who wrote the article (me), is. And I grapple with the dissonance between free market libertarian principles and big tech "take-it-or-leave-it" control over discourse all the time.

As Voltaire says... "uncertainty is an uncomfortable position, but certainty is an absurd one".

Every ideology has these complicated areas within them and you're either aware of them and grapple with it or you ignore them and go full dogmatic.

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

#169

Post by dmwallin »

If you are worried about a private company "censoring" your speech, you should take this as a sign that you've allowed said company to get far too big. Restricting private speech by increasing the reach of government to limit it will only backfire in the end if your goal is freedom of speech.

The right approach for free speech is smaller companies AND smaller government.

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

#170

Post by ex3ndr »

Will_Parker wrote: post #146
dougmany wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Actually it was studied for flu and N95 masks made no difference at all: tested on nurses during a year.
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