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

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#441

Post by lolsal » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:14 PM UTC

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.

You don't have to buy it, that's what moral relativism implies.

Ultimately I think you're arguing that the greater public good invalidates personal freedom and body autonomy. I disagree with you, as many others would as well.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#442

Post by spookthesunset » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

betterunix2 wrote: post #106

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…

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…

Why would anybody get vaccinated if they have to continue wearing masks? How does that make any sense at all? It ain’t republicans pushing that kind of nonsense.

And what does “take this serious” actually mean? This is a values thing. A lot of people justifiably get upset that the government wants them to put their entire life on hold indefinitely for a virus they aren’t concerned with. Life isn’t meant to survive. It’s meant to be lived. Life is very short and so far a non trivial amount of it has been spent on this. There is way more to life than a myopic fixation on exactly one single illness.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#443

Post by mdoms » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

tchalla wrote: post #117

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…

> But instead of just saying that, the message from the vast majority of public health officials (and media types like Sanjay Gupta) was that "masks don't work for the public". The CDC never really said that "masks don't work for public" [0]. Some other health officials and media did. Now, if you relied on the CDC for information everything would be more or less fine. The two things that make this situation worse is…

You're spreading YET MORE misinformation and you're trying to fool Americans into believing a history that doesn't exist! They're not buying it, and all you're doing is breeding further distrust.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#444

Post by sjwalter » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:15 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #424

sjwalter wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of a meaningfully-lead life is not to lengthen it as much as possible. The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost.

> The goal of the government is not to minimize the number of deaths at any cost. Maybe not at any cost , but yeah I think there should be a pretty strong presumption towards improving people's welfare and not killing them.

There's a difference between "not killing them" and "protecting them".

Especially during this pandemic when so much low-hanging fruit has been intentionally left on the table--for instance, if "protecting people" was ever a goal, why has there been literally zero focus on vitamin D deficiency in the general population? This is simple, cheap, efficient, and a potent inhibitor of sars-cov-2, and yet the ruling class has seen to it that it has never been publicly pushed at all.

All of the ruling class's ideas happen to align with profit for pharmaceutical companies and greatly increased social control. Is that a coincidence?

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#445

Post by spfzero » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #272

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…

> American perspective, 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. Right, but you have to start somewhere. The reason we are distrustful is because past experience with the US government has taught us to be distrustful. The first time the US government applies this idea to trust the pe…

When the message was "masks don't work for the public", it was translated to "well they work, but not for you" and thus to "grab as many masks as you can before you are relegated to the no-mask-for-you public bin".

The messaging was crude, obvious, untrue, and ultimately self-defeating. It only takes a small minority of people to buy up everything, especially small, cheap, lightweight objects sold in quantity packaging.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#446

Post by yissp » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

speedybird wrote: post #324

GloriousKoji wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 scalpers... Last year I scoffed at the people buying two or three packages of toilet paper. I thought that was selfish, and refused to participate in that hysteria. Then a few weeks later, I was wiping my ass with paper towels for a month because I ran out of toilet paper and couldn't buy more. It got me thinking that I should buy a bidet. It also got me thinking that if I had been "part of the problem"…

Bidets also sold out pretty quickly, along with exercise equipment, hair clippers, and so on.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#447

Post by lolsal » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:19 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #440

sjwalter wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ou…

> And businesses making their own employment choices.

Does this include a federal government vaccine mandate?

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

An appeal to tradition/authority doesn't make it any more tenable. The anti-mandate position is precisely (at least in part) that they should have autonomy over their own body.

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

You're having a discussion with two different people. The comment you're responding to was not me. We are making different points.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#448

Post by notahacker » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:20 PM UTC

rob_c wrote: post #398

notahacker wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We still haven't reached herd immunity in the UK, and we have 49 of 67 million people vaccinated (plus some of the rest previously infected). The idea we'd have had fewer COVID casualties by allowing it to spread more easily before the winter is not one supported by evidence.

Please. The nonsense here is how herd immunity is estimated/measured. There is no/little consensus on how this is defined and given how polarised this is it probably never will be. The reality is that the UK adult population is heading to 90% vaccinated. If you want to measure immunity to death from the disease as immunity we're at about 90%. Please don't ever pretend that's not enough. I cannot fathom a model even a…

Please.

If you're going to make an argument that lockdowns shouldn't have happened based on herd immunity, arguing that herd immunity measures are nonsensical doesn't really help your case...

Yes, we are considerably closer to immunity from death from disease now that vaccinations are in place. That also doesn't make your argument we needed more people to catch the disease when it was relatively deadly any stronger.

It's not "rocket science" or any kind of science when you insist that your stats work except when they don't, and that lockdown timings both didn't let enough people get the disease and let too many people get the disease.

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#449

Post by spookthesunset » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:21 PM UTC

ifyoubuildit wrote: post #183

ssully wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. The vendiagram of people who would be for interment of a minority they distrust or a war for retribution, and the people currently rallying against mask/vaccine's would almost be a perfect circle.

> people who would be for interment of a minority they distrust If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor? I've certainly seen plenty of comments on the internet that would suggest it's not zero.

> If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor?

If messaged properly (eg: getting “the experts” to hint at it, getting NYT to push for it, etc) I bet a shockingly high amount of people in blue regions would cheer it on.

I’m convinced that all that kept this from escalating to violence is the fact that the media and “the experts” haven’t given permission. If they said to “take matters in into your own hands when around somebody who isn’t masked” I bet there would be lot of violence…

Re: Covid lesson: trust the public with hard truths

#450

Post by sjwalter » Tue, Oct 12, 2021, 11:22 PM UTC

Permit wrote: post #408

motohagiography wrote: post #337

Kind words, but possibly too late, and they won't change anyones mind. Authorities have forfeited public trust by co-ordinating to decieve people, censor them, and then reward others who publicly expressed their contempt for their fellow citizens, just to maintain the leverage. I do not see the path to reconciliation yet. Destroying millions of businesses and then doubling down by attacking guarantees of freedoms (sp…

> will not be remembered as having been justified or proportionate. Why not? Do you think there’s no chance that the majority of people _want_ these things and will remember them as justified and proportionate? Where do you get this confidence? Do you think there’s a chance you have projected your own feelings about the pandemic restrictions onto others? You’re surprised that there is no civil unrest. Consider the po…

Americans have been largely informed by mass media and they believe covid is much more deadly than it actually is. The same mass media that has elected to make discussing a plethora of immunity-building strategies (e.g., vitamin d, losing weight, stress-reduction) verboten.

You can get the majority of people to desperately want something if you stoke their fears and do everything possible to divide them. That is, the way I see it, the great failure mode of liberal democracy--once all the major institutions are captured by the ruling class, democracy is a joke.

I love America, but when for just one example the entire crop of candidates for a federal election are absolute chucklehead clowns, none of whom is trustworthy or astute enough to be given a little league coaching job, it's pretty clear there are serious problems.

Just cause you can mindfuck millions of people into demanding authoritarian control, doesn't mean they really want it, just means you were able to coerce them into it.