“YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs” • Hacker News Board

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#91

Post by ALittleLight » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:45 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #83

ALittleLight wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to say his proposed "Theory of everything" is lacking in several regards and not a good candidate for scientific or academic research. I don't see how that makes him a clown. He's interested in physics, educated in it, and made some effort to contribute that doesn't seem to have panned out. That strikes me as laudable behavior and not like a "clown". Perhaps you'll say he is a clown because he really belie…

The same could be said in praise of every crank. Presumably if he's a crank about physics, he could also be one about Covid.

The same should be said for everyone who makes a good faith effort to contribute to human knowledge. Trying to contribute in a productive way is laudable.

As I understand it Eric has his theory, he wrote it up, and published it on his YouTube channel or a similar platform and a few interested people critiqued it. Great. It would be one thing if he was emailing the editors at Nature every week with a new crazy idea, that would be "crank" territory. That doesn't seem like what happened.

Regardless, this tweet is about Eric's brother who had a conversation with a doctor about possible use of ivermectin to treat Covid. Entirely separate from Eric Weinstein's physics credibility.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#92

Post by renewiltord » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

jb775 wrote: post #77

callesgg wrote: post #13

While ridiculous, Eric Weinstein is a bit over the top with his accusations from time to time. For example Blaming the physics community for not looking in to his personal “unity” theories more.

Sounds like the physics community wrote him off without actually considering his ideas because he didn't fit the charlatan-leftist mold of your typical physicist academic. Per Wikipedia[1]: The paper qualifies that the author "is not a physicist" but an "entertainer", and it has received strong criticism from the scientific community [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein#

This guy doesn’t fit the mold? He’s got all the crank characteristics: you have to subscribe to his newsletter to download the draft of this so called GU model, it apparently says he’s an entertainer not a physicist, etc.

I’m happy to oppose placing YouTube in the position where they have to censor stuff.

But that doesn’t change that this guy’s behavior is pure bozo bit setting. And sure he’s the brother or whatever but that’s who we’re discussing.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#93

Post by realce » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

dash2 wrote: post #83

ALittleLight wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to say his proposed "Theory of everything" is lacking in several regards and not a good candidate for scientific or academic research. I don't see how that makes him a clown. He's interested in physics, educated in it, and made some effort to contribute that doesn't seem to have panned out. That strikes me as laudable behavior and not like a "clown". Perhaps you'll say he is a clown because he really belie…

The same could be said in praise of every crank. Presumably if he's a crank about physics, he could also be one about Covid.

So now you have to be 100% correct about every field of everything to have any opinion? I'd love for that standard to be applied to anyone religious.

There's no way I'd let that Christian doctor try to save my dying child, their beliefs about a zombie savior that flew to heaven are "crank" like so they're disqualified.

Seriously - a crank about physics? The majority of those people are crazy in some regard, that's why they love physics!

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#94

Post by acituan » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:46 PM UTC

yokaze wrote: post #29

micouay wrote: post #7

What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo? Bret (Eric's brother, biology PhD) had a 2h long conversation with Pierre Kory (MD) and it was taken down by YT. One of the things they talked was the recommendations of WHO and other organisations to focus on supportive care only (supporting the patient while their organism fights the disease by itself). They insist on not using other treatments outside…

> They insist on not using other treatments outside clinical trials. The argument that running experiments would cost lives doesn't seem coherent. Clinical trials are structured experiments which follow a certain protocol, ethical review, etc... > It's not like we have this 100+ yrs practice of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 epidemic with well established protocols We do have 100+ years of practice in dealing with various d…

> Protocols have been developed to ensure that we actually gain knowledge, and not at the expense of the patients.

If medicine could be reduced to protocols, we wouldn't need the doctors.

You can rest assured right now many MDs are prescribing off-label meds, diagnostics tests, making non-protocol judgement calls etc all around the world. And I am glad they are doing that, because front-line medicine is more engineering than science and their job is ultimately to heal, not being protocol-only automatons.

> SARS-CoV-2 is nothing special

It is special in that everything about it has been very high profile, and in this day and age of hyper-connectedness, when expert institutions mess things up it is harder to cover up and their authority is at a greater risk.

Let's be honest that is why they are being very iron fisted about out-of-band covid treatments, not because of a proportional threat to life.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#95

Post by hellbannedguy » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #27

varispeed wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> insist on not using other treatments outside clinical trials That signals they may have conflict of interest. For example accidentally finding a treatment that works, could mean huge loss for vaccine business. (Just to be clear, I am not anti-vax. I got vaccinated myself and I believe there is no better option right now, however, trying to limit doctors in finding other means sounds extremely fishy)

Telling doctors to not randomly experiment on their patients outside of a controlled studies seems perfectly reasonable. Most medical groups tend to view uncontrolled human experimentation as very unethical and have for a long time.

It's a weird line.

Most doctors don't bother treating a patient with anything other than standard care procedures.

Why--I honesty believe most don't care enough to look beyond the usual treatment.

8 minutes per patient, collect the most money from the out of the patient, and insurance company. Do not say or do anything than might bring a lawsuit. Write a script, or recommend a Nettie Pot. (I still think about a guy here whom paid $450 out of packet for a sinus infection, and was told to buy a nettie pot. Nothing wrong with not doing anything though. It was the price of the office visit.) Determine if you can get the patent in for another pricey office visit. Repeat.

Go back to writing that vanity novel, or checking the stock market. (This has been my experience. They have about 50 drugs they commonly use, and when things get complicated, they refer, or claim it might be psychosomatic?)

There's always a risk of a lawsuit too.

Then there are doctors whom sometimes prescribe off label for a condition, or honestly try to keep current. I appreciate those doctors.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#96

Post by olliej » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:47 PM UTC

saddlerustle wrote: post #54

yokaze wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They insist on not using other treatments outside clinical trials. The argument that running experiments would cost lives doesn't seem coherent. Clinical trials are structured experiments which follow a certain protocol, ethical review, etc... > It's not like we have this 100+ yrs practice of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 epidemic with well established protocols We do have 100+ years of practice in dealing with various d…

Yes. Ethical review boards, patient confidentiality, and modern clinical studies did not exist during any other pandemic comparable with SARS-CoV-2. Like in wartime, when the threat is to society as a whole not just individuals, individual rights take a back seat.

And yes we had experimentation on all sorts of minorities, general exploitation, and in some cases into infliction of harm.

What good old days those were.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#97

Post by whoooooo123 » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:48 PM UTC

yashap wrote: post #5

Based on YouTube’s reply, seems they took his video down for promoting dangerous medical misinformation. If that’s what happened, I don’t see an issue.

"Puberty blockers are fully reversible and their long-term effects are safe and well-understood" is dangerous medical misinformation too, but YouTube doesn't take those videos down.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#98

Post by renewiltord » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

This is what people have always wanted. The bloody paternalists are winning in America and they want to tell us what we’re allowed to watch. “Facebook is responsible for radicalization”

Nah, Facebook just links you to like minded people. You have a problem facing the fact that it’s your grandpa who is a racist shit, that your brother is an incel, and that your sister thinks trans women shouldn’t be allowed to use women’s toilets. So you blame Facebook.

So you guys decide you want to blame Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. They’re “not doing enough”. Let them be and get your grandpa off them if you care so much.

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#99

Post by realce » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

bonzini wrote: post #85

trentnix wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on YouTube’s reply, seems they took his video down for promoting dangerous medical misinformation. If that’s what happened, I don’t see an issue. After the bang up job they've done dealing with copyright strikes, demonetizing their political enemies, and providing virtually zero support and feedback for the very creators that contribute to the popularity of their platform, you'd have to be a sadomasochist to…

Who did they demonetize? Alex Jones?

Oh no bother, they're just taking houses away from Gypsies!

Re: “YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

#100

Post by tsimionescu » Sun, Jun 13, 2021, 8:50 PM UTC

ds206 wrote: post #34

It's funny how everyone agreeing with YouTube hasn't watched the video in question. Y'all are very opinionated on the 2nd or 3rd level information instead of the primary source. Par for the course these days...

The purpose of a site like HN is exactly to give quality 2nd or 3rd hand accounts, so I don't need to watch an hour long video to form an opinion on it. There are many, many orders of magnitude too much 1st hand knowledge in the world for anyone to comb through. If you want to be informed on a broad range of topics, the only chance is to go by reporting that you trust, and for a great many people, that includes comments on HN.

If you have a contrary read of the video, it would be better to share it rather than lamenting that the thousands reading this thread don't each spend time watching it in person.