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CDC data are disappearing

theatlantic.com

321–330 of 656 posts

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#321

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Going out on a bit of a limb here, but I’m guessing the data will find their way to xAI.

My hypothesis is Musk is following a South African playbook. That involves, in part, privatising the commons.

Hope to be proven wrong.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#322
post #285

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> Trump just pardoned the violent attackers of Jan6

He let violent criminals out of jail. Unsurprisingly, they’re going on to commit crime. It’s wild how similarly the far left and right act when they’re given power; in an alternate universe, Chesa Boudin is pardoning them because abolish prisons or whatever.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's on a country that has been extremely stable before The US is a known bad design, nation builders working for the United States stopped trying to use this design for new countries in the 20th century, it doesn't work. It's inherently unstable and you previously got very lucky, although you have had a civil war and numerous close calls. It's like oh, why don't we make coal-powered cars. Well because it's a known…

[Citation Needed] I'd love to read about the new designs.

The core is the President is kept from becoming a dictator by nothing more than norms. If Trump staffs the military with loyalists, there isn’t much anyone can do to make him do anything. Most other countries have power over the military, particularly in domestic contexts, much more shattered.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#325

I’m an epidemiology professor and I write a weekly “weather report” outbreaks [1]. These communication and data blackouts are coming at a bad time. We’re having an unusual flu season—activity has rebounded unexpectedly. I’ve been having to scramble for data, last week by visiting each state health department website. It’s really troubling and consequential. [1] https://caitlinrivers.substack.com

Definitely troubling. Not a replacement, but you might be interested in EHR derived communicable disease data available here:

https://www.epicresearch.org/data-tracker/communicable-disea...

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#326

This is very similar to when the CDC stopped recording defensive gun use statistics! The pendulum is certainly swinging, on the other hand, I think we should retain data even if it doesn’t align with the current administration. I think it’s important that people should record data that they value, independent of governments, so they can maintain a source of truth throughout time. Articles from Axios, NYT and posts on…

The Dickey amendment in 1996 made it extremely difficult to study gun violence at the federal level. That only started to change in 2013 and then was finally fixed in 2019. This is one issue where there is no pendulum. The pro-gun lobby has owned censorship of gun research for a generation and is likely to keep it from being an active and honest research area.

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Re: CDC data are disappearing

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpick - fewer than fifty percent of votes went to trump

I was sure this was wrong, but it's true: according to official state counts, Donald Trump won 49.80% of the popular vote to Kamala Harris's 48.32%. The top 5 was rounded out by Jill Stein (0.56%), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (0.49%), and Chase Oliver (0.42%) [1]. [1] https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2024pres... (yes, I'm aware of the irony of linking to federal agency data in this thread)

While technically true the difference between 49.8 and 50.01 is quite small and not very interesting. I think the major point was probably that a lot of US citizens don't vote.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#328
post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, fact-checking works if it's done impartially. So, if you want to fairly fact-check a political debate, each side should have their own team of researchers/fact-checkers being equally able to object to an argument made by the opposing party. Due process, sort of, kind of. But I don't think I've ever seen that done actually. Usually, fact checkers are akin to Reddit moderators. Technically independent, but with o…

Having two parties with opposing biases and incentives doesn’t magically cancel out and become impartial. That’s the opposite of impartiality.

That's the problem. Real humans in real world cannot be impartial and will always have biases. So if you expose the public to many different biased opinions and let them learn to recognize the biases and see past them, the "cumulative mindset" will be more objective and less prone to manipulation.

But if you let one biased group decide what the majority is allowed to see, the public opinion will inevitably align with the interests of that group, and won't be necessary beneficial to the public.

Have you noticed how in the past decade or two we have totally abandoned the pursuit of happiness through self-reliance and independence? How being depressed and outraged is normal, and is all but encouraged. This is all coming from the media actively shaping what gets into one's attention span and it will only be causing more and more misery with no end in sight.

And this comes down to a very simple formula. Media likes people who will create content for free. People who are willing to do are often unhappy and have a mindset that causes unhappiness. Media broadcasting their content (to their own profit, of course) is popularizing that mindset and making more people miserable. Bingo!

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#329

Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is a President that's adamantly opposed to fact checking [1] and has even coerced Facebook to drop fact checking. Of course they don't want data on government sites that disprove their "alternate facts". [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920827-60-minutes-tru...

Well, fact-checking works if it's done impartially. So, if you want to fairly fact-check a political debate, each side should have their own team of researchers/fact-checkers being equally able to object to an argument made by the opposing party. Due process, sort of, kind of. But I don't think I've ever seen that done actually. Usually, fact checkers are akin to Reddit moderators. Technically independent, but with o…

The fact checkers’ own employer said that the fact checkers didn’t work because they were so heavily biased that the audience noticed it.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#330
post #259
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed it is, but maybe is time that we detach a person from their proposals. I wonder how that would be achieved.

So you are suggesting that all posts on news.ycombinator be anonymous?

Ohhhg I think I expressed myself wrongly, I meant for example, the Musk person and his proposals as a public man in politics, should I edit my comment to be more clear?
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