Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths • Hacker News Board

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#161

Post by ssully » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #118

ssully wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's also worth pointing out that even with them saying masks aren't effective for the public, there was still a run on masks. I don't have the exact date, but when I looked for n95's at my local hardware store in March 2020, they were all gone and this was definitely before we were told to wear masks. And soon after we started getting stories about hospitals running low on PPE. I am not saying what the right…

> no matter what the government told people to do, there was going to be a contingent of people that would do the exact opposite because we are a stubborn and distrustful people. Americans are this way because the government continually gives them a reason to. The lying through the pandemic, the Iraq war, it just goes on.

Thank you for clarifying.

This is why I don't know what the right answer is on the messaging. The US government, and nearly every government, has a history of lying to people. The other side of the coin though is that during those early months, and well into lock down, everything was up in the air about the virus, how it transmitted, and how to fight it. If I was in the position of how to convey that information to people, in the most honest way possible, I don't know if I would have done a better job (or fucked it up even more).

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#162

Post by Levitz » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

bastardoperator wrote: post #11

I agree with the sentiment of this article, but I'm noticing that some folks can't determine fact from fiction even when presented with data that supports the facts or makes them irrefutable. No amount of logic, facts, or transparency will be enough for these folks, and while I can appreciate a skeptic, some of these people are beyond basic help and need professional guidance.

What about the times in which there was plenty of such data, only for it to be false in the end, say, typical conspiracy turned true like MKULTRA or NSA?

Bear with me, not every country has as many people doubting their government, the bottom line in my opinion is that public trust in the government has been eroded so much that this happens and these people are aware that the government is capable of spinning lies that seem completely true, so why believe them at all?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#163

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

colordrops wrote: post #10

The 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…

> Now we've got a huge swath of US citizens that will never take the vaccine.

Some never will. But it's been less than two years. If they started telling the truth, the real truth, the hard truths, and kept at it, consistently, for two or five or ten years, at least some of them would come around.

Oh, yeah, and if you stopped trying to manipulate and force them. Treat people like grown-ups, even when they disagree with you, even when you think they're wrong, even when you think the data proves they're wrong. In case you[1] haven't noticed, people aren't robots that will do what you want. They are fiercely independent, and they resent being forced into something, and they will fight you just because you're trying to force them, whether or not what you're trying to get them to do is a good thing.

[1] "You" here does not refer to you, gentle reader. It refers to the "you" in authority who think that they can force people to get vaccinated without it backfiring spectacularly.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#164

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

ltbarcly3 wrote: post #3

Edit: before you downvote this, read it? I'm not an anti-vax nutcase. They didn't trust the public with their actual thinking at any point during Covid. The guidance was initially "don't wear a mask, it will make it worse because you'll infect yourself with your hand" to "we'll just lock down for 3 weeks and then back to normal" to "we have to flatten the curve to avoid overwhelming hospitals" to the current policy o…

> Why would they initially tell us to not wear masks?

Because hard data was scarce and authorities are reluctant to impose anything as mere precaution. Or rather, whether authorities would do that kind of thing as a precaution before there is solid evidence varies from country to country (unsurprisingly).

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#165

Post by betterunix2 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:38 PM UTC

mmmpop wrote: post #75

skyde wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

People tend to mistrust government experts when politicians tell them to mistrust government experts. Republicans who say they do not trust the CDC on COVID have no such doubts about the DEA, whose decisions on drug policy are just blindly trusted, simply because Republican leaders have told everyone not to trust the CDC. People do not simply draw their own conclusions; like it or not, everyone is influenced by the people around them and people tend to line up behind their leaders.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#166

Post by alkonaut » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

reducesuffering wrote: post #142

March 2020: Masks are useless. Lied Mid-pandemic: Covid lab leak is a conspiracy theory. Lied Today: Previous covid infection natural immunity is same as unvax'ed. Still lying.

I think you are confusing “statements and policy from available and changing information” with “lies”.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#167

Post by AnimalMuppet » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

bedhead wrote: post #23

Hard truths and politics aren't compatible because there's too much incentive misalignment. People in power have no reason to tell the truth because it'll get them fired, and the reason for that is most people don't even want the truth anyhow, it triggers some form of pain. The path of least resistance inevitably seems to be lying in some form.

Ignoring the truth also triggers pain... it just comes a bit later.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#168

Post by mensetmanusman » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

gravity13 wrote: post #133

complianceowl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your partisan comments are so toxic. Try making your point without spewing that Facebook garbage around here.

Is it really partisan to point out that Republicans took anti-vaxxing to be practically their identifying feature?

Most anti-vaxxers I know are far left, and most republicans I know have all the other historic vaccines for school and travel, but are more suspicious of the Covid ones due in part to the lack of discussion about natural immunity in the US context (most of them who already had covid don’t want to get the vaccine since they do t think it is worth their time).

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#169

Post by 01100011 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

Even before Covid, the scientific and medical community, understandably so, decided that continuing dialogue with anti-vaxxers and vaccine hesitant wasn't worth the effort. Communicating the risks of vaccines, however negligible, seems to be seen as enabling the nutjobs. It's unfortunate. I think COVID may force the educated folks to reexamine their communication strategies and hopefully lead us to a place where anti-vax sentiment shrinks to a negligible level.

Edit: Not surprising this is being downvoted. Anytime I suggest anything less than crucifying anti-vaxxers or sending them to a leper colony the HN crowd freaks out. It's that exact sort of sentiment that got us into the mess where a significant portion of the country refuses to get vaccinated. Don't hurt your arm patting yourselves on the backs folks. Your dismissive attitude towards less educated people has the practical effect of killing folks.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#170

Post by mmmpop » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 5:41 PM UTC

joncrane wrote: post #124

mmmpop wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What separation of power? The country is run by executive fiat and every 4 years the law of the land takes an about face when the next guy comes along to rip up the old guy's diktats. The US legislative branch is kabuki theater and the judicial branch is disgustingly partisan.

What are you doing about it?

Uhhh, voting? What the hell else is there to do, write to my crooked senator? Tweet to the ether about my woes?

Some people decided to vote for some asshole business guy because it was at least something new and different, but that didn't go over so well.