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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

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Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#51

Post by tempnow987 »

toolz wrote: post #45
tempnow987 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue for me is I have elderly parents one of which does have a health condition (serious) that makes some breathing and other issues hard. They wanted to fly out to visit me. The absolute best way to avoid covid for yourself in my view is an N95 masks with a vent, because you can actually wear that thing for hours comfortably. I have friends who treated folks with covid wearing N95's and did not get covid. So I…

Personally I don't think any kind of mask works on people who don't want to wear them. I hypothesize the reason general population shows little or no benefit with masks is because wearing masks effectively is significantly more tedious than just having one on most of the time where people require them. People who don't want masks aren't getting fitted properly for n95's, they aren't shaving, they aren't behaving cons…

Agreed. I laugh because folks have masks on their necks, off their noses etc, when eating, when drinking etc. I don't blame them, a lot of masks fog up glasses etc if they actually are restrictive and don't have an exhalation valve.

I shave (this comes from scuba diving where shaving provides similar benefits). I have my own reasons not to want to get covid. So I like doing some things that I'm confident reduce my risk meaningfully. But I don't lecture others, I solve my own problem here.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#52

Post by smrtinsert »

throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

Trust wasn't lost first. Talking heads swooped in for money or power, and they sell whatever they have to in order to achieve those goals. There isn't any sort of fact they are arguing for in good faith.

You can add any number of layers of scientific rigor and it won't convince someone who has a favorite talking head.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#54

Post by CPLX »

hammock wrote: post #32
throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

>The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. What caused that trust to be lost? Is it something they did?

Absolutely. At least here in the United States there’s a full on collapse of trust in institutions and supposed expertise and for extremely good reasons.

Over and over again those with authority have squandered it. An opioid epidemic devastated so many communities after doctors, health care executives, and McKinsey and Company said the new class of drugs were non-addicting. Our manufacturing sector evaporated after economists and politicians said free trade would benefit everyone. Thousands of young people were sent to die in the Middle East in a war all the experts said was necessary and would be relatively painless.

Those are just the first three examples off the top of my head. I could keep going. We were promised technology would improve our lives. We were promised borrowing money for education would improve our lives. And on and on and on.

All bullshit. All promulgated by supposed experts with impeccable credentials. It’s a full on disaster and the chickens have come home to roost.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#55

Post by alar44 »

toolz wrote: post #20
tempnow987 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The anti mask, anti N95 masks with exhalation valve stuff has been the worst here I think. If you would let folks wear N95 with exhalation valves (highly comfortable) it just makes it easier for folks to protect themselves (and indirectly others). And for those who don't care, let's distinguish slightly between making sure those who want to protect themselves as much as possible can, and the need to force people down…

This is a bit of a tangent, but I don't understand generalized masking. At best they flatten the curve, which I think at this point I believe flattening the curve is dangerous. We have pretty well defined risk demographics and if we could have covid seasons come and go quickly I think it gives the high risk demographics the best chance of applying multi-layered defenses against a shorter season of risk. There is of c…

I have no idea how to respond to the overcrowded hospitals.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-hospitals-...

Hospitals have been jam packed the entire time. There is data everywhere to support this. Tons of procedures are not being done due to beds and ICUs being full. Ask anyone who works in a hospital. Call one if you'd like.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#57

Post by 1270018080 »

rgrieselhuber wrote: post #50
throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

Let people draw their own conclusions and don’t censor or otherwise penalize them for questioning one interpretation of data vs another. Encourage people to do their own research and investigate who is funding the sources used for that research. There is no need for conspiracy theories when financial incentives exist.

Do you mean "Do their own research" like make up conspiracy theories out of thin air and parrot nonsense deep state rhetoric? Completely divorcing yourself from reality? You want more of that?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#58

Post by Kim_Bruning »

tempnow987 wrote: post #41
Kim_Bruning wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it. Exhalation valves are great if you're using the mask to filter external dust. Here you're trying to filter outgoing and ingoing droplets. Filtering is still going to be most effective at the source, even if you are wearing N.95. Adding a valve is going to reduce the utility of the mask a lot for this application.

My personal interest is filtering on ingress. I can feel the pressure when I breathe in, the air is going through the mask for sure. On egress, just a quick look at the valve, it's going to stop the velocity and either block or drop particles - however ineffective that might be on egress there is NO WAY it is worse then what I see others wearing (surgical / thin cloth etc), mask off the nose, mask off while they eat…

https://www.microcovid.org/

You can do a rough risk computation yourself I guess. Both ingress and egress is worse if you have a valve though. Does seem like egress is still a bit better than what other people do (in this model at least - which could be wrong), but one shouldn't set one's standards by "what other people do".

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#59

Post by bmc7505 »

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Regardless of where you stand on specific issues like censorship, public health and misinformation, I think it’s really dangerous how counter-consensus opinions cannot be expressed in the open without individuals facing intense public scrutiny. There needs to be some kind of correction mechanism in case the consensus opinion is misinformed.

Maybe it would help to put in terms of a (not-so-implausible) scenario folks here are more familiar with. Suppose one day a niche topic in computer science became the subject of mass public concern, e.g., a computer virus escaped the lab and programable computers became heavily regulated. Anyone caught running unapproved software could face criminal charges. "But Turing Machines can be good, creative tools", you protest. "No, we cannot predict their behavior and unsanctioned software endangers us all," says your friend. As a programmer whose creative freedom depends on libre software, how would that situation make you feel?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#60

Post by urthor »

strictfp wrote: post #38
throwaway22032 wrote: post #9

The issue that plagues us is a lack of trust in long-standing societal authorities. We can't follow the entire scientific proof chain for every piece of information we encounter, because we don't have time. So we rely on authority to some extent, whether that be peer review, government, independent bodies, etc. We need to be able to trust that these bodies are telling us the truth and aren't seeking to mislead us. Be…

I wasn't social media that eroded the trust in research and science, it was the introduction of politics. We need to separate research from politics. It needs to be a separate pillar of the state. You don't want reseachers chasing funds continously and doing short-term research for local sponsors. You want sizeable investments in long-term research projects, high autonomy and following of the scientific method. This…

I strongly protest the concept that the recent introduction of politics is making things worse than they used to be.

If you ask anyone who was senior working in these institutions in the 1970s, things were far more dodgy back then.

Corruption and bigotry were rampant. But it was far easier to cover up back in the day.

Politicization is mostly driven by transparency.

Politicization is not a new thing, it's a fact that there's a lot of extremely conservative individuals in each country. And technology has bought them closer to their institutions.

Society is being brought very closely together, and we're working through the teething issues.

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