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

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#301

Post by gravity13 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #235

gravity13 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's a difference between a raging narcissist who can't even seem to tell the truth even if there's nothing to gain from lying and listening to a doctor. But yeah, keep going with the whole "democrats are just as bad as republicans" thing. Seems to be working.

Really setting the bar high. Group A Being every so slightly better than really shitty Group B thing does not make Group A look very good, just ever so slightly less shitty. "I beat my kids and my spouse" "You're evil, I only beat my kids" Not a great argument.

It seems like there's a lot of propaganda premised on the idea that "both sides are bad", it's just "two sides of the same coin," and it's always the people who know nothing about politics and just want to appear superior without putting any effort or though that give this insidious ideology it's breath of air.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#302

Post by betterunix2 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #211

betterunix2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 get…

Prominent Democrats also cast doubt on vaccine safety. The governor of California essentially stated that he didn't trust the FDA and insisted on doing another safety review before authorizing vaccines for use in the state. This was inexcusable political behavior on both sides. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/10/27/western-states-join-califo...

That was done in response to concerns that Trump was trying to push the FDA to approve the vaccines faster to serve his own political ambitions:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/03/politics/white-house-fda-coro...

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-business-mark-meadow...

Moreover, Gov. Newsom's statements did not say that the vaccines were unsafe; he simply said that he was establishing an independent panel of scientists to evaluate the same evidence that the FDA evaluated. At no point did he say that people should seek ivermectim or hydroxychloroquin or that people should just rely on natural immunity.

Even if Newsom did the wrong thing here, it is a far cry from the Republicans, who have pushed the narrative that people should feel no specific obligation to get vaccinated because of "freedom." Trump has stood before crowds of vaccine-hesitant supporters and said, "Get the shot if you want to." Republican governors have echoed that sentiment. The results speak for themselves: Democrats have higher vaccination rates and Democrat-leaning areas have lower infection and lower hospitalization rates compared to Republicans.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#303

Post by cat_plus_plus » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:50 PM UTC

GloriousKoji wrote: post #177

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…

If they were open and upfront about limited masks and reserving N95 and other PPE for healthcare workers there was a possibility of a social stigma of individuals buying up and using N95 and PPE. Like how scalpers get the stink eye and angry stares when they take all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes. Sure the masks might not have all gone to the right place but I imagine it would have been bett…

Toilet paper shortage was caused by shift from commercial to residential purchasing, with different packaging/distribution/purchase size characteristics. It's not a convenient item for scalping due to low value per volume (comparing to hundreds of $1K iPhones easily fitting in a car trunk.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#304

Post by gravity13 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

mensetmanusman wrote: post #168

gravity13 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Nobody wants to have a discussion about [enter argument of the month here] because it's all BS partisan politics motivated by the right's outright disdain for all things liberal in America.

The problem isn't a lack of understanding or research for new vaccines, the problem is anti-intellectualism running rampant.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#305

Post by speedybird » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

Clubber wrote: post #218

EamonnMR wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really think this will go down as The Big Mistake that lost the public's trust in the US and made compliance for every subsequent measure difficult to sell, and opened the door to nutters.

The public hasn't trusted the US government in a long time, probably since Nixon. Recent examples of lies are Iraq WMDs, Iraq involvement with 9/11, Afghanistan progress, and NSA surveillance. Follow that with persecution of whistleblowers and the government seems like it's gone rogue to many.

Pre-Nixon example of high levels of distrust: https://news.gallup.com/poll/165893/majority-believe-jfk-kil...

>Americans were skeptical about the "lone gunman" theory almost immediately after Kennedy was killed. In a poll conducted Nov. 22-27, 1963, Gallup found that 29% of Americans believed one man was responsible for the shooting and 52% believed others were involved in a conspiracy. A majority of Americans have maintained that "others were involved" in the shooting each time Gallup has asked this question over the past 50 years, except December 1966, when exactly half of Americans said someone in addition to Oswald was responsible.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#306

Post by rajin444 » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

valeness wrote: post #206

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion the biggest example of this was the poor mask guidance early on in the pandemic that was subsequently reversed. Zeynep Tufekci had a very good piece in the NYT on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... The real fear was that there would be a run on masks by the public, making them unavailable for hospital use. Also, at the time, there wasn't clear evidence of the effective…

(speaking generally here at those I've seen share the same rage, not accusing you directly) I just cannot wrap my head around being so upset that a public official lied you're willing to sever friendships, familial ties, and sacrifice your career because you refuse to follow sane and frankly manageable guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19. It's not even that the messaging is currently or has been conflicting…

You're probably overestimating covid risk (there are other polls similar to this one - this is the most recent): https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/354938/adults-estimat...

The media's addiction to "scare articles" as well as the government's willingness to promote noble lies puts a lot of weight towards covid risk being heavily propagandized. On top of that, complying with government orders simply because you're afraid is a dangerous way to live.

The scariest thing is how quickly propaganda can convince people others are not worth of life. The cheering of unvaccinated covid deaths is abhorrent.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#307

Post by hackingforfun » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

8eye wrote: post #135

betterunix2 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 get…

no disrespect but i know plenty of liberals who will not get the vaccine. the media turned it into a bi-partisan issue when in all actuality it was a government handling issue in which the rest were used as scapegoats. you remember that they gave themselves raises while the rest of us were told not to go into work. which obviously we are gonna listen if we believe that covid is as dangerous as the scientist were sayi…

> no disrespect but i know plenty of liberals who will not get the vaccine.

Anecdotally, the liberals I know seem much more open to the science behind the COVID vaccine and I don't know any of them who didn't get the shot.

> the reason why blockchain (primary crypto) technology took last year was because of the censorship issues.

Not sure I understand your point here. I think crypto is being adopted for other reasons considering that the most popular cryptos are pseudo-anonymous anyway. Is it because you think crypto can't be shut down? That is a larger discussion and I would say Bitcoin and Ethereum are less likely to be shut down, at least by the US (since in general it seems like they aren't considered to be securities), but I don't think we can expect that of the entire crypto ecosystem.

In general though, I'm not sure what your main point is. Are you saying that both sides of US politicians are at fault here? If so, I don't disagree.

However, I also think the post you were responding to was pointing out that conservative politicians carry some of the blame here and have been pushing these agendas for their own power play, which I'd also agree with.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#308

Post by ryathal » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

jobigoud wrote: post #224

outime wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s more interesting is that most of these people will survive this episode (given the known mortality data) and thus will “win” the debate (from their point of view) and will never ever trust the government (or health authorities) again. That’s the biggest downside in reality, and regaining the trust is going to be extremely complicated.

You can't really win the debate anyway: if everybody had followed strict isolation from the get go there wouldn't have been a pandemic and people would have said the restrictions were completely uncalled for.

This is one of the greatest falsehoods out there. A stricter lockdown wouldn't have changed much. Australia and New Zealand couldn't keep cases from popping up despite incredibly strict border control and lockdown procedures. There are also animal hosts that can incubate this virus, sure you can cull a mink farm, but you can't really do that to a wild deer herd.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#309

Post by mindslight » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #102

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…

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…

Is this not the same pattern that happens to every human endeavor though, and not just science? Business interests step in and market themselves as good faith experts creating enlightened progress, when really they're con artists trading on the reputation of the real experts to sell harmful products.

The same problem happens in the tech world with two decades of "don't be evil" and messaging about the fantastic future, culminating in the Big Tech dystopia. The whole time it has been obvious they've been building a massive humanity-crushing surveillance/control machine. But up until recently, even on HN, the prevailing groupthink has been to unquestioningly drink the corporate kool aid. "It's hard to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it"

Technologists, scientists, etc themselves aren't the problem. The real problem is that our society encourages con men at every turn - from the individual rejection of boring experts (filled in by charismatic charlatans), to advertising (since everything is relative, fraud is fine), to the utter lack of punishment after a con blows up ("white collar crime"). We've put business expedience above honesty, essentially equating morality with profitability, with the result being that every institution has become hollow.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#310

Post by LivelyTortoise » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

thepasswordis wrote: post #230

You know who doesn't try to hide this stuff from people? Bad actors. Conspiracy theorists, scammers, straight up liars. So you've got on one hand "the experts" who are being vague and seemingly not wanting to tell you anything, and then on the other hand you've got the crazies who will tell you whatever you want to hear. It's something that is increasingly frustrating me about the vaccines. The vaccines have become a…

I watched the video you linked, it's amusing and well presented, but if you pause and read the headlines, a lot of the lower numbers (So those ones seem kind of disingenuous to include, especially the former.

(I don't disagree with your general points though)