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Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

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Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#431

Post by PeterisP »

tablespoon wrote: post #346
Jensson wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a multi party system sowing distrust in an opposing party doesn't help your party, it mostly helps parties adjacent to that party. So then the goal becomes to be as trustworthy as possible to the public rather than make the public hate the enemy. It really solves many of these issues.

> In a multi party system sowing distrust in an opposing party doesn't help your party, it mostly helps parties adjacent to that party. So then the goal becomes to be as trustworthy as possible to the public rather than make the public hate the enemy. It really solves many of these issues. Does it through? I suppose what I had in mind wasn't so much narrowly-focused electioneering, but broader and somewhat sloppy ges…

The voters of those left-wing parties identify as "left" so if a Rush Limbaugh encourages people to distrust the "left" then those voters simply distrust Rush Limbaugh instead of altering their vote. Otherwise, if he covers Left-1 party with shit, Left-2 gains voters; if he points out a scandal in Left-2, Left-1 gains voters; if he points out that both Left-1 and Left-2 have a horrible foreign policy, there's likely Left-3 that opposes Left-1 and Left-2 on that policy, but he won't convince them to vote for a Right party if there are reasonable Left options. Unlike the two-party scenario where you might disagree with your "main" party on a single key issue and thus feel forced to vote for "the other" party, in a multi-party environment you generally choose an alternative that's quite close in other aspects as well.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#432

Post by whimsicalism »

lolsal wrote: post #427
whimsicalism wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll go mask off: yeah, I think "nudging" is probably necessary in a country where 45% of people legitimately believe in ghosts and 30% believe they've interacted with one before. You've got to be in a serious intellectual bubble to be thinking that most people are carefully considering the options and making the best choices for themselves.

> You've got to be in a serious intellectual bubble to be thinking that most people are carefully considering the options and making the best choices for themselves It's risky to dismiss people that make different choices than you as idiots not being able to make the best choices for themselves. 'Best' here is entirely relative. For example, I know (in real life), folks that are making the choice to not submit to vac…

I don't buy into this level of moral relativism.

Sure they might have different principles than me. So do people who support child marriage in India.

I have no qualms about outlawing child marriage though. Maybe that is ultimately relative and maybe it is western arrogance. I'm fine with it.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#433

Post by oceanghost »

ssully wrote: post #113
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…

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…

Not just masks, anything that was vaguely safety related. I had to stop resin 3d printing because I couldn't get:

* Solvents-- IPA, methylated spirits etc.

* Nitrile/Latex Gloves

* Respirators (the kind used for painting)

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#434

Post by hackingforfun »

iammisc wrote: post #416
hackingforfun wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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. Anecdotally, most people only know others who view things very closely to themselves.

That is why I used the word anecdotally. I was responding to a sentence that was also anecdotal.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#435

Post by spookthesunset »

saiya-jin wrote: post #320
valeness wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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…

Emotions can, and often do guide people to do stupidest decisions of their lives that will effectively ruin it, or even kill them. You can't reason with such a person. And getting through the firewall of those emotions, for somebody often on the opposite side of the argument is practically impossible. I suspect IQ level plays a role too (critical thinking not only towards the world but also oneself). The more you pus…

The wonderful thing about your statement is it is unclear just what “side” is correct.

You say “ The more you push, the more resistance there is. Doesn't matter how right you are and how wrong they are.”

That applies a ton to a bunch of ”pro mitigation” people out there who absolutely refuse to look at the data and science. Both strongly show that covid “badness” is very strongly correlated with age to the extent that the median age of death is higher than the average human life expectancy. Kids are almost completely unaffected by covid.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#436

Post by sjwalter »

whimsicalism wrote: post #432
lolsal wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've got to be in a serious intellectual bubble to be thinking that most people are carefully considering the options and making the best choices for themselves It's risky to dismiss people that make different choices than you as idiots not being able to make the best choices for themselves. 'Best' here is entirely relative. For example, I know (in real life), folks that are making the choice to not submit to vac…

I don't buy into this level of moral relativism. Sure they might have different principles than me. So do people who support child marriage in India. I have no qualms about outlawing child marriage though. Maybe that is ultimately relative and maybe it is western arrogance. I'm fine with it.

I don't see it as moral relativism.

We're talking about an individual making their own health choice.

Not to mention, the "safe" and "effective" vaccines, according to all available data, are nothing like what they were advertised as.

Hell, the President of the USA came out and said you won't get covid if you get the vaccine. And no journalist is calling him out on this obvious lie.

Given that environment, it seems strange to have any vitriol to those who aren't submitting to the new biosecurity state.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#437

Post by heavyset_go »

ssully wrote: post #113
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…

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…

> But all I do know is that no matter what, masks were going to get run on.

To add to this, there were several mask runs in late 2019 and early 2020 in China, HK, Taiwan etc. People were buying out entire inventories of masks to sell online.

By the time the pandemic became a problem in the US, there was already a global PPE shortage, and people were doing the same thing that happened in other countries, where they'd buy up supplies of PPE just so they could sell it for profit online.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#438

Post by PeterisP »

WhisperingShiba wrote: post #137
jjwiseman wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's got real "I'm not taking the safe, free, incredibly effective vaccine to own the libs" energy.

I knew it was controversial when I posted it, and I know this comment will be too. That's not my energy at all, but I do think poor behaviors yield rightfully earned distrust and consequences. I was 100% on board with at home testing every 3 days schemes, mask wearing (even though I doubt the efficacy of most masks), but having compulsory medical procedures with a relatively untested, proprietary technology is where…

I'm omitting the "compulsory" part, however, the "medical procedures with a relatively untested, proprietary technology is where I draw the line." is simply ridiculous. I'm fairly certain (some exceptions do exist) that you have had many proprietary drugs and medical procedures which have been far less tested than Covid vaccines. I mean, pretty much all new medicine is proprietary; and the vaccines have now been injected in billions of people for a long time and we have observed the results.

I can accept the argument "this is where I draw the line" if and only if in pre-Covid you would have refused most of what doctors would prescribe you. If you want to draw a line between pre-Covid modern prescription drugs (all proprietary, many also with weird new tech, all tested on far less people than the vaccines) and the current vaccines, you're going to need a substantially different argument than "medical procedures with a relatively untested, proprietary technology". Heck, even simply saying "I don't believe that such procedures should be compulsory ever for any reason" would be a much more reasonable argument than that.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#439

Post by spookthesunset »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69
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…

> the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust What are examples of this? Most of the U.S. was quite loose about lockdowns and mask requirements until their specific geography got hit. (For example, I summered in the Smoky Mountains June of 2020. Compared to New York, it was as if nothing had happened. The tone changed by December, after the South h…

> What are examples of this?

Ever tried to express even the smallest amount of criticism? People you know in real life will rip you apart and call you very horrible things.

The gaslighting and level of sanctimonious nonsense has been out of this world.

I’ve been called “dangerous” for merely posting screenshots of public health department data.

People are nuts!

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#440

Post by whimsicalism »

sjwalter wrote: post #436
whimsicalism wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy into this level of moral relativism. Sure they might have different principles than me. So do people who support child marriage in India. I have no qualms about outlawing child marriage though. Maybe that is ultimately relative and maybe it is western arrogance. I'm fine with it.

I don't see it as moral relativism. We're talking about an individual making their own health choice. Not to mention, the "safe" and "effective" vaccines, according to all available data, are nothing like what they were advertised as. Hell, the President of the USA came out and said you won't get covid if you get the vaccine. And no journalist is calling him out on this obvious lie. Given that environment, it seems s…

> We're talking about an individual making their own health choice.

And businesses making their own employment choices.

> new biosecurity state.

Vaccine mandates are nothing new - I was required to get vaccinated to go to my public school.

> I don't see it as moral relativism.

You literally said the "best" choice is relative. Your entire stance is deeply relativistic at its core.

> And no journalist is calling him out on this obvious lie.

I don't see the relevance of what Biden says to my point at all, seems like a jump in logic. And:

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/22/joe-biden/...

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