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“YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”

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

#311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only someone that doesn’t understand what censorship is would say this. You’re arguing for government compelled speech.

What do you think censorship actually means? Private and Public organizations engage in censorship all the time. Youtube doesn't have to host these videos but it is still censorship. The word is morally neutral.

“Censorship” is never used neutrally. It’s a term that is exclusively used to mean the moralistic enforcement of certain political viewpoints. Almost always this coupled with the ideas of oppression and/or backwardness.

Its a loaded term.

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

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less reliable according to the people who are refusing the approval, but not according to the people arguing for it.

I’m quoting your link, by the people who argue for ivermectin: “We understand why policymakers are focused on vaccines. Vaccines will offer better, or longer-lasting, protection than any drug.”

Yes, they will, but protection is not the only way to solve a health problem, and if that protection comes at unacceptable cost, then it's possible for treatment to be the better option.

It doesn't mean that's the case here, but it's certainly possible. The suppression of discussion of it means it's hard to really know.

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

#313
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joking about something doesn't change the fact that he is a trained physicist, nor does it change the OP's misleading description. "Attempted foray into another field", indeed.

He's joking about being a physicist to deflect any criticism of his crackpot theory he peddled for years before putting up a half baked paper that was quickly found out to be basic quackery and adding insult to (cognitive) injury, put that paper behind a 'waitlist' that you have to sign up with your email for, presumably so he can market to the poor fellow wanting to read his amazing paper. There are so many intellec…

Or maybe he's just joking, period? The "paper" in question was apparently released on April 1..

He is, in fact, a trained mathematical physicist, with a PhD from Harvard, no less.

That doesn't make his theory right. But it does mean that the OP's selective quoting is somewhere between misleading and outright deceptive.

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

#314
post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ivermectin is an old drug, so cannot be patented, which means that Merck has no way to prevent competitors from selling the drug, so no way to keep prices high.

Yes, because we all know that insulin can be had for ten cents a vile right now....oh...wait. Can we please stop trying to rationalize an irrational market. There is no reason to believe that the age of the drug has anything to do with it's profitability.

There are different insulins. It might be that the expensive ones are still under patent (and genuinely work better than the old ones for many patients).

Also, it might be that some or all of the insulins are just naturally costly to manufacture, so that when competition is not prevented by patents, the price stays high. (This would be the case for example if the insulin must be extracted from pigs and if each pig yields only a few doses of insulin.) That doesn't contradict the fact that many drugs still under patent sell for 100s of times their cost of manufacture, then when the patent expires the sell price drops to close to the cost of manufacture.

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

#315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...compared to a heterodox (read: quack) researcher You do realise that it often takes heterodoxy - i.e. going against the orthodoxy in a field - to achieve a breakthrough? You also realise that the people Brett Weinstein is talking to are anything but quacks? Why, then, this cheap shot of implying that what they are discussing is quackery? What is to be gained by such behaviour? It is not as if the orthodox approa…

> The mantra of "trust the science" can only hold when the scientific method is allowed to function. Do you have any evidence that the scientific method is currently not allowed to function in communities of expertise? Because even if ALL contrarian ideas were aggressively crushed in venues like YouTube or USA Today (not actually happening, plenty of contrarianism available on YouTube), it seems like the biological s…

Yes, there is plenty of evidence. One quick way of getting some of it is by actively seeking out those sources which are being blocked and checking their "credentials" (i.e. checking out their work more than which school they happened to have gone to). The scientific method can not function when part of the discussion is suppressed, for whatever reason.

Also, nobody states that all contrarian ideas are being suppressed. The discussion here is on the subject of SARS2 treatments which are being suppressed.

Do I know whether these suggested treatments work? No, I do not. Neither do you. The reason why none of us knows this is because discussion on the subject is being suppressed, not because there is evidence of these suggested treatments being ineffective. A good example of this is the recent disclosure of the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin leading to a doubling of the survival rates of ventilated patients [1]. The paper is interesting, the discussion following the paper even more so. It is this discussion which should be allowed, not suppressed. This discussion should not consist of solely criticism of "this paper is not peer-reviewed" or "this paper has not been published in a major journal", the discussion should instead be had around the subject matter. Peer review and journal impact measurements are means to an end, not ends in and of themselves. I'd like to see the same type of paper and discussion around e.g. the efficacy of ivermectin and/or fluvoxamine, out in the open, without accusations of quackery, without politics, without interference by commercial interests.

In short, I want the scientific process to work as intended.

[1] https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.05.28.21258012v...

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

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m quoting your link, by the people who argue for ivermectin: “We understand why policymakers are focused on vaccines. Vaccines will offer better, or longer-lasting, protection than any drug.”

Yes, they will, but protection is not the only way to solve a health problem, and if that protection comes at unacceptable cost, then it's possible for treatment to be the better option. It doesn't mean that's the case here, but it's certainly possible. The suppression of discussion of it means it's hard to really know.

Regardless, the link you sent says that treatment is not a sufficient option, and that protection (prophylaxis) is needed until vaccination.

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

#317

In China, censorship is state-run. In America, it's been privatized.

Only someone that doesn’t understand what censorship is would say this. You’re arguing for government compelled speech.

> Only someone that doesn’t understand what censorship is would say this.

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information, on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient." Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc. are multibillion-dollar corporations that control a colossal share of online communications.

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

#318
post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think censorship actually means? Private and Public organizations engage in censorship all the time. Youtube doesn't have to host these videos but it is still censorship. The word is morally neutral.

Is Carnegie Hall censoring me by not letting me perform on stage just because I have no talent?

If only a handful of superstars are worthy, no. If everyone is worthy except for only you, yes.

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

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they will, but protection is not the only way to solve a health problem, and if that protection comes at unacceptable cost, then it's possible for treatment to be the better option. It doesn't mean that's the case here, but it's certainly possible. The suppression of discussion of it means it's hard to really know.

Regardless, the link you sent says that treatment is not a sufficient option, and that protection (prophylaxis) is needed until vaccination.

Hmm I'm not trying to be difficult but where does it say that? I can't find any language like that on the page. Rather the opposite, it says:

"Special emphasis must be placed on the harm of excluding trials data supporting ivermectin in the prevention of COVID-19. If the preventive efficacy of ivermectin were to be known or accepted, this would allow deployment in regions without vaccines."

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

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless, the link you sent says that treatment is not a sufficient option, and that protection (prophylaxis) is needed until vaccination.

Hmm I'm not trying to be difficult but where does it say that? I can't find any language like that on the page. Rather the opposite, it says: "Special emphasis must be placed on the harm of excluding trials data supporting ivermectin in the prevention of COVID-19. If the preventive efficacy of ivermectin were to be known or accepted, this would allow deployment in regions without vaccines."

I wouldn’t say that is the opposite, as it is suggesting both that ivermectin would be needed to be take as a preventative to slow the spread, and implies that vaccination is needed to stop it. My quote is taken from this page: https://covid19criticalcare.com/guide-for-this-website/expan...
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