COVID lesson: Never trust the high-priesthood of professional science with political decisions.
Do you believe Dr. Fauci was calling the shots last year in 2020?
Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
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Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#102The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…
And there has been this background ambient energy of "Big Pharma is evil, the Sacklers ..." (which I find rather scapegoaty for the Sacklers in particular) which just immediately ran afoul of "You should definitely trust in these vaccines produced by Big Pharma, the ones we have been telling you are so greedy/evil/incompetent."
Then you have some discussion of what "gain of function" means and ...
Well, the distrust the American public has in Science! has been earned over decades. The ever-changing food pyramid (according to the whims of whatever lobbying group), reefer madness scares leading cannibis to be Schedule I of all things (harmful, of no utility), cigarettes are healthy, we need to put these forever chemicals into your sofas so you don't catch on fire (oh well they don't work but we are leaving them in), thalidomide, diethylstilbesterol ...
And all of it has been sold with a pat and a don't worry your pretty head about it. COVID-19 is just another photon in the background radiation of Science We Tell You To Trust.
It's a shame, my BS was in a hard science, but when I run into skeptics, well, they've learned it and we've earned it.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vaccine hesitancy will impact vaccines for HPV, measles, HEP B, etc. etc. for generations.
> vaccine hesitancy will impact vaccines for HPV, measles, HEP B, etc. etc. for generations This will be geographically--and, over time, economically--isolated. Nearly 80% of American adults and over ¾ of eligible Americans have taken at least one dose of a Covid vaccine [1]. In the 65+ population, the figure is 95%. This simply isn't a big group of people, noisy as they may be. (Caveat: the group of people who are p…
Agreed, I think the effect is that there will be pockets where herd immunity is not reached that will be a source of outbreaks for years to come.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#104Nature are the ones who published the paper dismissing the lab origin of the virus. So, not much credibility there either.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
the general public are not the one that decide who get a Phd or MD the expert are the one doing it. It make sense that the expert don't trust the general public with health decision. If you are not convinced just head over to https://www.youtube.com/c/ChubbyemuGames/videos
Maybe the general public should spend more time electing MDs and PhDs to run the government then? Instead we get bullshitters and grifters who defer to life-long bureaucrats with an MD of a PhD who suck-up to the right people to get the job, regardless of their actual competence. People tend to mistrust government "experts" because the feeling is that if they were better at their jobs, they'd obviously be in the priv…
There are a a dozen and a half physicians in Congress. Their political affiliation may be surprising.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicians_in_the_United_State...
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#106The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…
Censorship is not what causes large numbers of US citizens to refuse this vaccine. If the Republicans in leadership positions took this seriously from the start and did not go around casting doubt on vaccination far more people would get the vaccine. If the previous president had not politicized the response to COVID and had simply told his followers to do what the CDC says we would have many millions more people getting the vaccine (and for the matter, hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive).
Don't let the Republicans off the hook. This should never have been a political issue, but Republican leaders at every level of government made this political and continue to politicize the pandemic.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#107One problem is there really is some risk with the vaccine. At a population level its best if everyone takes the vaccine - there are huge benefits, but unfortunately a small minority gets hurt. Its best if everyone else gets vaccinated except for me. Of course when everyone wants to be that exception the vaccination doesn't stop community spread so people get sick. The problem is the hard truth of "take the risk becau…
But there's a bigger risk with the virus. The selfish calculus should also be to get vaccinated.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#108Fauci (and the CDC) lying about masks out of fear it would cause a shortage for healthcare providers burnt a lot of trust quickly. It probably helped the US get into the polarized situation it's in now.
Also Fauci in early March 2020 mocking the idea of people changing their travel plans as an overreaction. Also Fauci shooting-down lab-origin theories in public, while his private emails – still heavily redacted! – imply contemporaneous discussion of such an origin as a serious possibility. Also Fauci misestimating a vaccine as at least a year and half away. Also Fauci helping to fluff Trump's lowball estimates of th…
Whatever you think of Fauci, he's amazingly well connected in elite circles. To the point he has people making fawning movies about his life and career.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#109The lede is buried here, the reason the US is not cohesive is entirely due to the former president who continues to this day to support and spur the anti-vax movement.
By... getting vaxed himself? Why aren't the vax campaigns leading with Trump's action – and his repeated verbal endorsement of choosing to get vaxed – to overcome resistance in his followers?
Such over-focus on Trump is a pathological scapegoating to deflect responsibility on the part of both the professional permanent bureacracies, and the current administration.
Trump did awfully, yes. But the mistrust & errors spring from far deeper cultural issues, and repeated failures by the public health officials - in their mixed-messages, manipulative exagerrations, & arbitrary punitive actions. Vax resistance is at some of its highest levels in urban minority communities with no love for Trump.
Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths
#110Here’s something funny about the discourse around distrust of the government. The problem is often framed as a being about the distrust per se: “we want the public to trust the goverment but they don’t. Why is that?” But this provokes the question: how trustworthy is the government, objectively speaking?
At first it might seem like there is a hidden premise: yes, the government is trustworthy. But there’s also another alternative: that’s besides the point.
Are Corn Flakes really healthy? Well that’s not a concern for the marketing department. But it is their concern if people don’t think that Corn Flakes are healthy.
So, the funny part: the discourse around distrust-of-government might betray a manipulative agenda. The talking heads want people to trust the government but they don’t seem concerned with whether or not it is rational to trust the government. But any honest assessment of trust has to compare two things:
1. How much the thing is trusted
2. How trustworthy it is (by some standard)
How rational (1) is is based on how much it differs from (2) -- there is no way to assess trust in a vacuum (without (2)).
The old phrase “manufacture of consent” comes to mind.