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YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

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Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#101
post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

Youtube isn't in charge of what is credible or not. Youtube is in charge of what shows up on youtube or not. There are many categories of things that can't be on youtube, not just things youtube thinks are incorrect.

Should youtube overstep its bounds, that makes it easier for competitors to enter the video streaming market. It seems like libertarian leaning people forget half of their philosophy on this issue.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#102

There are two separate issues here: 1. Non-science: calling Karol Sikora a "professor of medicine" hides the fact that he's an oncologist; if he ever had any expertise it was in cancer, not epidemics, and he has no business speaking outside his field. Sikora is also a fellow of The Princes Foundation For Integrated Health and a professional member of the generically-named College Of Medicine. Both of these organizati…

> calling Karol Sikora a "professor of medicine" hides the fact that he's an oncologist; if he ever had any expertise it was in cancer, not epidemics, and he has no business speaking outside his field.

Then why is Bill Gates the de facto lead on curing covid?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#103

There are two separate issues here: 1. Non-science: calling Karol Sikora a "professor of medicine" hides the fact that he's an oncologist; if he ever had any expertise it was in cancer, not epidemics, and he has no business speaking outside his field. Sikora is also a fellow of The Princes Foundation For Integrated Health and a professional member of the generically-named College Of Medicine. Both of these organizati…

> Truth is the answer to lies.

I haven't actually seen evidence that this is effective in the modern social media era.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#104
post #91
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I do know what Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson from Imperial college created in his flawed modeling - a world wide panic. You don't think the tens of thousands of deaths in Italy, Spain, France, and the US had already caused that panic by the time his model was released?

No, that is not how the timeline went. As to who created the panic - it was Neil, Fauci and their ilk along with the media. The media, instead of reporting that the data shows old and sick people are the ones dying chose to hide that relevant fact and just report the death toll ad nauseam with no context - as a matter of fact they are still doing it.

what’s missing is the conversation of how many deaths we’re going to see from the lockdown itself in the form of suicide, alcoholism, drug overdose, domestic violence, mental health etc

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#105
post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

Youtube isn't in charge of what is credible or not. Youtube is in charge of what shows up on youtube or not. There are many categories of things that can't be on youtube, not just things youtube thinks are incorrect. Should youtube overstep its bounds, that makes it easier for competitors to enter the video streaming market. It seems like libertarian leaning people forget half of their philosophy on this issue.

>It seems like libertarian leaning people forget half of their philosophy on this issue.

Because they are "drunk" on theory. To grind out a new video hosting platform is a lot of work.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#106
post #71

Google is a totalitarian institution and this is offensive to anyone who values free speech

Google is not a government organization is a private platform. It generally does not get involved in things like that, but the amounts of misinformation is staggering. I have family members affected by this and it looks like it is a targeted misinformation attack. It starts with Facebook posts, which then often direct you to youtube channels which are condition people into crazier and crazier theories. It is so weird…

There's a relevant engineering axiom, that a sufficient quantitative difference amounts to a qualitative difference (sometimes phrased as "quantity has a quality all its own").

At some ineffable point, a "private platform" of sufficient scope becomes a Commons, resembling a social substrate more than a mere voluntary exchange between individuals. A historical equivalent would be "company towns", with goods only available from company stores, exchanged in company scrip, etc. [0]

Obviously, from a purely legal perspective, you are 100% correct. Google is under no obligation to uphold a principle of free speech, non-favoritism, etc., and it would take significant new legislation or regulation to change that.

Nonetheless, in terms of the role that is being played in society and culture, tech giants in general, and Google/Facebook in particular, are wielding disproportionate (and arguably ideologically biased) influence, bordering on an attempt to control narratives and ideas. It's perfectly legitimate to find this trend concerning without supporting the particular ideas being suppressed (I think Plandemic/InfoWars/etc, are utter nonsense).

I believe such actions tend to be counter-productive: (a) isolating and ostracizing those who are falling for bad ideas only reinforces their beliefs and persecution complex, while obstructing the path back to better ideas; and (b) every once in a while a seemingly-crazy idea turns out to be true (it's instructive the extent to which it was a fight uphill for germ theory to be accepted by the experts of the day [1]).

There simply isn't a magic wand that sifts good ideas from bad, a priori; and if the power to make that decision is centralized, even with the best of intentions, whoever wields it will inevitably make mistakes.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_of_disease#John_Sn...

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#107
post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

Youtube isn't in charge of what is credible or not. Youtube is in charge of what shows up on youtube or not. There are many categories of things that can't be on youtube, not just things youtube thinks are incorrect. Should youtube overstep its bounds, that makes it easier for competitors to enter the video streaming market. It seems like libertarian leaning people forget half of their philosophy on this issue.

This gets a bit into monopolies. YouTube is Google and Google prioritizes its own properties. Google is the most widely used search engine and works hard to keep it that way.

Is there a way to easily have popular interviews online outside of YouTube?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#108
post #82
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth is the answer to lies. I wish this was true. I hope it was true. But I'm losing faith. People have a hard time believing truth if it goes against what they want to believe if the lies can be framed in any plausible way at all. This applies to everything from cults to businesses to abusive spouses to, of course, politics. Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky and tired of playing the long game of truth. Part of…

I think one of the dynamics that we need to look at is the formation of cults. Cults are dangerous literally because persuasion is asymmetrical. It's not a matter of "Oh this guy persuaded these people of this stuff, and you just need to set them straight", once someone is in a cult it's close to impossible to pull them out of it.

One key to the formation of cults, is the control of information: instead of group decisions being arrived upon by informed discussion, there are ideas which are allowed and others which are not. Maybe the ideas are good (like "brush your teeth") but the enforcement is totally irrational and over the top (like "Sister Emily didn't brush her teeth, so no one will speak to her for 3 days"). This is because these ideas are beyond question so anyone who disagrees with them must be evil.

Sound familiar?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#109
post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

> I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not

This point is often repeated during discussions on these topics but I believe this is an inaccurate characterization. YouTube is not "in charge of deciding what is credible" in the fashion that kind of phrasing suggests; they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions are not a reflection of credibility. YouTube is a corporate product and we should not encourage the narrative that this product is the zenith of knowledge even though there are knowledgeable people who put content on YouTube.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#110
post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

Youtube isn't in charge of what is credible or not. Youtube is in charge of what shows up on youtube or not. There are many categories of things that can't be on youtube, not just things youtube thinks are incorrect. Should youtube overstep its bounds, that makes it easier for competitors to enter the video streaming market. It seems like libertarian leaning people forget half of their philosophy on this issue.

According to your philosophy, we should already have a competitor to Boeing cranking up new airplanes.
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