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…
Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
61–70 of 970 posts
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#62Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#63The 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.
Why do you assume that the financial incentive is for the truth rather than for the conspiracy theory?
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#64The 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…
It's not like the medical system was a highly trusted and respected institution that politicians somehow undermined in the last few months. The lost of trust in the medical system has been literally over 150 years in the making. If you read some books on the history of the rise of homeopathy in the United States in the mid 1800s, the parallels with today aren't exactly subtle.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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".
In policy matters one can and should.
This is the stupidity I think of the scientists here.
If others are wearing surgical and little cloth masks, only wearing them a little bit, but then they say I can't wear my valved N95 (which I do very carefully) it's both totally arbitrary and unfair (my exhalations are still equal too or less others).
They also miss that the tradeoff might not be between my 5 hours of N95 use in a relative high workrate environment and something perfect, but that I will join with just about everyone else and ignore what they say, or go down to something like a surgical mask for comfort. Or take my mask off more for comfort to "drink" etc.
I'm convinced many folks on HN sit behind computers in empty rooms alone and NOT wearing a mask. If you have to wear a mask every day - these issues would matter a lot more.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#66I’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 term…
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#67The 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…
Tell an algorithm to optimize for engagement and it will promote the content causing the most engagement: novelty, conspiracy theory, outrage, surprising "revelations" and all sorts of clickbait.
If we removed Twitter, Facebook and Tik Tok and reverted YouTube to the pre-algorithmic (subscription based) era, we'd still have free speech on the internet but probably a lot less bullshit.
Note: Twitter would still promote bullshit even without a ML algorithm. The rules of engagement:
- short content
- individual popularity means content popularity
- retweeting is instant, requires no critical thought
create an environment where clickbaity emotion-viruses spread at exponential rate, and things that require engaging the brain are ignored. Its essentially a crowdsourced rating system for tabloid headlines by design.Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#68Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#69The 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…
If someone is trying to take advantage of a situation that's inherently complicated or unpleasant - it's easy to do so with a simple message that makes it digestible, even if it's wrong or harmful. We've seen this time and time again over the last few years. And then worse still, social media perpetuates it by keeping you in a bubble and pushing you further down a path.
Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
N.95 without shaving does seem to still confer some additional protection, though arguably you're wasting over half the potential when you do.
That's interesting there is some protection, I could believe still better than things like cloth and surgical because the strapping tends to be tighter.