871–880 of 986 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is the pragmatic and non-conspiracy answer you are imagining? As I understand it, a group of people coordinating in secret to take actions that the public would not let them take if the secrecy were broken is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy.
The pragmatic answer is that the government wanted to secure supplies for social services first.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That's still lying. They gave you, the individual, false information, ... Yes it was lying. Yes it was false information. No, that's not outside the scope of their role at times. > ... and not for your own good. Quite the contrary, that misinformation would actually harm you if you believed it. No, it was for the individual good. Hoarding of masks by randos in the middle of nowhere leading to no supply for the firs…
> Again, a crap situation, but one that the CDC wasn't responsible for. They simply messed up. All they had to do was say nothing and reach out to the manufacturers making N95 masks and their retailers. Just going to Walmart and Amazon and getting them to pull their stock would have prevented the vast majority of people from getting their hands on them. A non-trivial number of Americans at the time had already been w…
It's amazing how quickly human fallibility is forgotten when the motivations align with ideologically.
The achilles heel of every conspiracy is the idea that everything that happens is 100% planned and intended.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about telling people the truth, that there were no masks for everyone and they had to prioritize first responders? Treat people like adults and they will behave like adults. Treat them like kids and they'll behave like kids. Also, once you know you have been lied to, the trust is shattered, whatever the excuses. How people is going to trust again the CDC, knowing that it lied before?
Because large groups of people have shown, time and again, they don't act rationally. Look at toilet paper - one rumour that it would run out, despite shops, the government, everyone, saying there is more than enough and the rabble went out and hoarded.
You are coming up against a confirmation bias.
OK, so here's the key bit: "Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed that employees often debated moderation cases in great detail, and with more care for free speech than was shown by the government. ... But Twitter did suppress views—and not just those of journalists like Berenson. Many medical and public health pr…
There WAS a LOT of misinformation about covid, and a lot of it could cause real harm. Quite true. Thing is, there wasn't that much of it before the CDC spent over a month spewing bullshit telling people not to wear masks because masks don't stop the spread of COVID. It was obvious to everyone and their dog that masks help stop the spread of respiratory infections. That irrevocably shattered a whole lot of people's fa…
1. A severe shortage of masks which were considered to be particularly effective, specifically N-95 masks capable of filtering viral particles. Such masks as were available were being preferentially directed to healthcare providers and first-responders.
2. A concern that the general public would not wear or use masks appropriately, and might take additional compensatory risks on the premise that masks, often utilised suboptimally, provided strong protection. Note too that at the time vented masks, which had a flap that opened on exhale (and hence transmitted any viral particles to the environment) were fairly popular and widely-utilised.
3. A thought that COVID-19 was not as subject to airborne transmission as it turned out to be --- fomite-based transmission (particles on surfaces generally transferred by hand) was thought to be significant. Subsequent evidence has shown this to be far less the case than thought at the time.
4. A general lack of hard knowledge of specifics of the novel coronavirus, resulting in recommendations based on general principles of vector reduction drawn from other diseases.
5. A decidedly muddled, politicised, and anti-scientific response from the US administration at the time. For those keeping score, that was not the present Administration, though from discussion in this thread, that might not be clear.
6. In an epistemic environment in which trust in media, government, and expertise had been under prolonged attack.
All of this was discussed at the time, and in particular Zeynep Tufekci was discussing most of these factors as early as 17 March 2020 in New York Times opinion pieces and elsewhere. Example:
"Why Telling People They Don’t Need Masks Backfired"
Subtitle reveals much: "To help manage the shortage, the authorities sent a message that made them untrustworthy."
... First, many health experts, including the surgeon general of the United States, told the public simultaneously that masks weren’t necessary for protecting the general public and that health care workers needed the dwindling supply. This contradiction confuses an ordinary listener. How do these masks magically protect the wearers only and only if they work in a particular field?
Second, there were attempts to bolster the first message, that ordinary people didn’t need masks, by telling people that masks, especially medical-grade respirator masks (such as the N95 masks), needed proper fitting and that ordinary people without such fitting wouldn’t benefit. This message was also deeply counterproductive. ...
It is of course true that masks don’t work perfectly, that they don’t replace hand-washing and social distancing, and that they work better if they fit properly. And of course, surgical masks (the disposable type that surgeons wear) don’t filter out small viral particles the way medical-grade respirator masks rated N95 and above do. ...
[P]roviding top-down guidance with such obvious contradictions backfires exactly because lack of trust is what fuels hoarding and misinformation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...>
There's much more, the piece is well worth revisiting and should be a key document in future studies of the pandemic and its senselessly botched response.
Failures to accurately describe the circumstances and context of the CDC advice, or to acknowledge that the CDC rapidly reversed course once this became evident are themselves harmful.
Science is that which adapts to new knowledge and understanding. Dogma is that which clings to articles of faith despite evidence, in the interest of advancing a specific ideological agenda.
For all its faults, the CDC followed science. Incorrectly initially as it turns out, but ultimately correcting itself rather than insisting on dogma.
That point is made in another comment on this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34150615>
The further complication is in crafting effective, credible, useful, and actionable messaging in a time of crisis. Here too the CDC failed, but in large part because significant other actors were strongly intent (and remain strongly intent) in seeing it fail.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>Because Twitter's staff numbers are public? What are you talking about Where? that was true when they were a public company and such things were part of the Investor reports, and SEC filings, but as a private company I dont think that data is public anymore. >>This is not something that's debatable Everything is debatable, I will debate if the sky is blue >Twitter's moderation teams today are smaller than they were…
> but as a private company I dont think that data is public anymore. Twitter has publicly laid off about 75% of its staff fairly evenly across the entire company. We don't have exact counts of employees, but we know how many employees the company used to have, and we know roughly how many were fired. So now look at job postings; has Twitter put out calls to hire thousands of moderators to replace those people? No. >…
No I trust experts in the field who by and large say CSAM is WAY WAY WAY down on the platform since Elon took over, and previous twitter exec turned a blind eye to the issue ignoring both internal and external sources while they focused on banning wrong think
>>Unless you have a press release somewhere about Twitter hiring thousands and thousands of additional moderators
I care about the amount of content, not the number of moderators.
Just look at the tweets from Ella Irwin [1], current head of trust and safety where she specifically before Elon "were 0 engineers and very few employees working on CSE and still no funding." Or the Account of @elizableu where she as chronicled the rapid improvements Elon has brought to this subject.
it is not a matter of my personal preference, I trust the people on the ground, not the media.
[1] https://twitter.com/ellagirwin/status/1601310614948745216
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fail to see why then it is Twitter's responsibility to report this to the general public or even allow its existence. Authorities exist for a reason, twitter is neither part of the judicial, executive, nor legislative branch, nor does it have any jurisdiction in conducting research into criminal offenses and prosecuting people. I fail to see why Hunter Biden needs to be held at a different standard than other peopl…
>I fail to see why then it is Twitter's responsibility to report this to the general public or even allow its existence. Should Twitter remove all evidence of other people's crimes or just Hunter's that get posted? >Authorities exist for a reason, twitter is neither part of the judicial, executive, nor legislative branch, nor does it have any jurisdiction in conducting research into criminal offenses and prosecuting…
First, if a crime was committed, which you have no proof of except accusations from shady or borderline criminal entities, he could very well get prosecuted.
Second, you can ask to have content removed, nobody is stopping you, no executive orders or legal threats were issued.
> How did he get his job in Ukraine
No idea, but I am fairly certain that Biden can't appoint people as board members to companies he does not own.
> and why did the prosecutor get fired at Joe Biden's request
Citation needed.
> if it wasn't for cronyism?
Umm, I take it you took issue with Ivanka's positions and the 2 billion $ deals with the Saudis, yes? I am just asking questions here to make sure you are consistent. Also, unlike Ivanka and co(-conspirators), he was __NEVER__ appointed to an official position in the US government.
> He did make millions in a nongovernmental position that he was given due to his relationship with his father though.
It does make quite a bit of a difference between inside and outside, don't you think? I hope you were proportionally outraged over Ivanka and Jared:
> Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump reported between $172 million and $640 million in outside income while working in the White House, according to an analysis of financial disclosures by CREW. It is impossible to tell the exact amount as the income is sometimes reported in broad ranges and cover four months of income before Ivanka Trump officially joined her father’s administration and nearly one month before Jared Kushner joined.
While Jared (Trump's son in law, appointed to __FEDERAL__ position, ergo more cronyism) signed a 2 billion dollar deal with Saudis. So are you equally outraged over this level of cronyism? Again, here is a definition of cronyism to help you:
> the practice of favoring one's close friends, especially in political appointments.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/cre...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/10/us/jared-kushner-saudi-in...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you think the authorities actions are a result of intentional malice/dishonesty or incompetence? Be careful because this the playbook of how these influencers draw people into the echo chamber. Slowly breed mistrust in anything and everything mainstream, encouraging you to think critically. Once there is a level of mistrust in everything, they feed you sources they want you to believe, "don't believe these guys, I…
The actions of "the authorities" (or rather - many people working in "the authorities") were both malicious/dishonest and incompetent at different times (and for different people). I can try and attribute the "masks don't work" narrative to incompetence (they were trying to save the masks, and that backfired), but it isn't hard to argue that that was also dishonest. The same applies to the "you MUSTstay indoors" mess…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you can blow visible smoke through the mask, then it’s ineffective against SARS2. In either direction. If you remove an N95 in a smokey environment, you’ll immediately smell the smoke, while you didn’t before you removed it. Exception: if someone is close enough to hit you with droplets when they speak (a foot or so), then a procedure mask is better than nothing.
well, I'm a heavy smoker; I'm not troubled by other people's smoke, and I usually don't wear a mask while smoking :-) The last time I "gave up" smoking, I said to the doctor that I was expecting to get less winter colds. She said I was completely wrong, and that I should expect to get everything that was going around; that tobacco smokers maintain a lung environment that is hostile to anything living, including micro…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think in a weird way COVID 19 fell into a strange area of lethality. For those looking at population data, it was horrific, but on a personal level the worst outcomes were rare enough that many people could avoid encountering any deaths or even severe illness in their inner circles. This made it rather easy to be an antivaxer, since people could just put their heads in the sand and remain blissfully ignorant of the…
Yes, that's very true. But that is also a super dangerous conclusion, that means that effectively until the dead are quite literally piling up in the streets that people will be happy to pretend it isn't real. This ability to deny something as long as it doesn't affect you personally is likely a very handy trait at some times but during pandemics it is going to lead to major trouble.
I think back to the big controversies over athletes like Kyrie Irving and Novak Djokovic, and I never understood how they were a risk warranting that kind of response. That’s where the anti-anti-vaxxers look authoritarian.