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CDC data are disappearing

theatlantic.com

471–480 of 656 posts

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe that is a one party issue. Life is messy and politicians attempt to smooth that over with grandiose, but hollow, visions for the future and data points taken out of context to paint a picture. It's a fundamental problem of scale, you either become so bogged down in details and nuance that you get nothing done or you lose so much context that your statements are false without a massive list of caveats.

> Life is messy and politicians attempt to smooth that over with grandiose, but hollow, visions for the future and data points taken out of context to paint a picture. Your point is: politicians lie. Of course they do. They always have. What's new in our era is not the lying, but the utter contempt for facts. A study in contrasts: * A "traditional politician" will lie. If they are caught, with plain evidence that con…

> People believe him because he is charismatic and he talks like a regular person.

I'm not so sure many people really believe him very often. I live in a part of the country that heavily supported Trump, even diehard fans of his that I talk to consider him a shit talker and support him only because he throws a wrench in the system.

Even those I know who do seem to believe him cave pretty quickly when asked any slightly substantive question. They know tariffs raise prices for example, that we aren't going to buy Canada or take over Greenland, and that Trump in fact had no plan to end Russia's war on day one.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#472
Is there any legal action happening to prevent removal of legally mandated data publication? Backing up data is useful but it seems if statute has requirements about data reporting, then you would expect some legal action?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#473

Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to information dissemination, each agency shall— (3) provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products; (4) not, except where specifically authorized by statute— (A) establish an exclusi…

Side question: If Trump just pardons the people responsible, does it matter if it's illegal?

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem here is that anyone in charge can decide what they believe is fact and make very real, very impactful changes that they force on everyone else. Sure, such is the nature of power. Thus has it always been. What's novel is not that people in charge can broadcast their favored view of facts, but that anyone can broadcast their favored view of facts, which has to led to the current demoralization crisis: in…

> but that anyone can broadcast their favored view of facts Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact. We lack critical…

> Some blame, if not a majority, belongs on whoever actually hears those views and facts though. Knowing someone's intent is extremely hard, it really shouldn't matter whether they intend to mislead or believe what they are saying. Just because someone shares what they may honestly believe to be a fact doesn't mean we have to take it as fact.

I don't think that casting blame on individuals here is productive. I agree, lack of critical thinking skills is a major factor. Who is responsible for ensuring that a plurality of the population of a democracy learn critical thinking? We've gotten by without critical thinking for so long because we mostly don't need it: when you get all your news from Walter Cronkite, what good could come of further analysis?

So it's not an individual failure, but a societal one. Susceptibility to misinformation is like a plague, or a meteor strike, or some other natural catastrophe that we just haven't prepared for. Maybe we'll find a solution; maybe we won't, and the future of humanity belongs to those with the boldness to lie most effectively.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#475

This is a blitzkrieg campaign designed to try and get Musk and his people as much control of the digital government as possible before the roadblocks (legal, systematic, etc.) make things too difficult for him. As it stands, his goal is likely a purge of the federal government akin to what he did with Twitter. And the resulting 80% drop in revenue by Twitter is a similar kind of outcome we can expect from his careles…

It is very plausible that he is also using it to get all the data he wants from this, not just to scrub it. It would make sense given his desire to compete on AGI that he can both scrub this data for public use and feed it to his own training sets.

I don't think he cares a whole lot about xAI at the moment. He's busy being shadow president.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#476
post #454

My prediction is that any future data that is published will likely show up in the x.com app. I believe they are trying to privatize all government functions and Musk wants X to be the official government super-app similar to China's system.

NTSB has already said this. https://xcancel.com/NTSB_Newsroom/status/1885734974298435943

Right... I think it's going to be way more than just data as well. You can expect all gov functions will start to show up in his app. Driver license applications, tax filing, etc...

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#477

Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to information dissemination, each agency shall— (3) provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products; (4) not, except where specifically authorized by statute— (A) establish an exclusi…

Side question: If Trump just pardons the people responsible, does it matter if it's illegal?

I have a sneaking suspicion that pardons aren't going to mean much at the end of this term.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#478
post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious about what will happen if they get to the parts of this Project 2025 like agenda that involves telling people to do things, or banning things people like. We already see that abortion bans are unpopular. When they are put to a vote they lose, even in very red states. How much more will people take? How will the Joe Rogan dudebro crowd react to banning porn? That’ll be interesting. I’ve been predicting for…

I mean the current game plan, from what it seems, is to make porn a shameful and taboo thing. Same as abortions as well. There’s a heavy pro-natalism push for obvious reasons, and I have no idea why, but it feels like current government is trying to fix it through wrong methods. They know they’re royally fucked if people having 0-2 kids max.

> I mean the current game plan, from what it seems, is to make porn a shameful and taboo thing. Same as abortions as well.

Uhhh no, they're pushing to make these things illegal. One is a social norm, the other is utilizing the power of the state to assert a specific opinion.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC page on PrEP, a life-saving medicine to protect against HIV, has been removed. This will result in people dying. https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/prevention/prep.html

Isn't this a worthwhile kick in the pants? No one who actually relies upon real raw data is just downloading a live snapshot from official government hosting on demand are they? Proper data handling procedures is streaming updates, doing your own backups and archiving and sharing where possible and important. Not trusting the everlasting benevolence of whiplash politically controlled resources?

> whiplash politically controlled resources

When was the last "whiplash" that did something this catastrophic?

Put blame where blame lies.

Re: CDC data are disappearing

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. If you don't mind me asking, at what age do you plan to retire, what funds to you plan to use to cover the living expenses, and what skill set are you trying to pass to your kids so they will be able to afford moving out and staring their own families? I'm asking because things things are getting harder every year and the media has a permanent blind eye on them.

"Things" are not getting harder every year; if you only see negative things in the world, this is a sign you have depression more than anything.

Hmm.

If things are not getting harder then either they stay the same or get better. I would find it hard to argue for either of those positions, but I would welcome you to try to defend that "things are not getting harder". In just about every possible metric outside of maybe "few really, really wealthy individuals make more money" things are not getting better or are stable.

Are you maybe suggesting that what is good for an individual is not good for society?

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