Coronavirus and Credibility • Hacker News Board

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#881

Post by anoraca » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:44 PM UTC

burke_holland wrote: post #577

_wwz4 wrote: post #548

Do people appreciate that denial of the severity of this virus came from all political quarters? Here's one showing the mistakes of left-leaning media I found in 2 seconds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=wVDPVBZF2Xg It's just as easy to find supercuts of Pelosi, DeBlasio, and other prominent Democrats telling people that they didn't need to start social distancing or that the virus wasn't airborne c…

I had this same thought. Here's Pelosi encouraging people to come to Chinatown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFCzoXhNM6c Also, we should be careful about how much we eviscerate people on both sides politically during this time. If our leaders are too afraid of repercussions to make difficult decisions, they may make bad decisions instead. I'm calling for moratorium on partisan finger-pointing. I think we're all in…

That was on February 24th, a full week before there was a single case in NYC. Promoting local commerce before the virus reached that area seems pretty far from denying the level of risk presented by COVID-19 on a global scale.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#882

Post by visiblink » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:47 PM UTC

xenyal wrote: post #771

garraeth wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Unfortunately now it's more like picking a sport team ("Team CNN" or "Team Fox"), or Apple vs/ Google vs/ Microsoft than actually finding, or learning about, facts. Tribalism at it's finest. The only alternative I've found (I'm open to helpful suggestions) is to ignore that noise and read actual briefings and original sources. But, that defeats the point of news being an honest and straight forward source of…

Out of curiosity, and because I'm a Canadian out of the loop with respect to American news networks, how can there be news being at ends with each other? That's something I have difficulty putting into perspective (referring to the Team CNN vs Team Fox comparison)

If you read the Globe and Mail (Liberal) and National Post (Conservative), you'll see a similar -- though not quite as extreme -- phenomenon.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#883

Post by squiggleblaz » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #698

jacquesm wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are not in charge you can say whatever you want, it won't kill people. So that's why it matters. It's not about who you support. "The Buck Stops Here".

People will die of this in every country on earth. Are all in charge responsible for every death in the country over which they preside?

"With great power comes great responsibility"

it's an ideal, not a metaphysical necessity. But we need to enforce the ideal because otherwise the powerful use their power to their interest and against their detractors. It is absolutely essential to hold them responsible for their decision making process if we value life in a liberal democracy or a classical republic. They cannot get every decision right, but they must at least get them wrong for a fair reason.

Otherwise it's just "personal responsibility for the many, riches and fiefdoms for the few"

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#884

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:49 PM UTC

Kaiyou wrote: post #856

XorNot wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its because they're not what people want to imagine (hypercompetent ubermenchen who they're outsmarting) but just covering up "mundane" though still devestating crimes.

I wouldn't classify putting LSD in the water supply to be "mundane". Neither would I classify MK-Ulta that way: "Techniques included the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as other forms of torture." Or the releasing of biological weapons (MK-Naomi): "at least three co…

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#885

Post by anoraca » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #615

javagram wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did come from all political quarters, however one political quarter stayed in denial much longer. Notice how many of the clips from your video are from January or early February. The POTUS was still publicly pushing the coronavirus = flu comparison in early March even after we saw what happened in Iran and Italy. Remember, he said on February 28 that being worried about the coronavirus was “their new hoax” from th…

however one political quarter stayed in denial much longer Now you're splitting hairs. You know who the first politician in the USA who was banging the drums in alarm about Wuhan and the coronavirus? Tom Cotton. Republican Senator. Do you support him now? Does his early conviction of the severity of this event put you behind him and everyone who echoed his concerns? Are you likewise now opposed to the people who were…

His "banging of the drums" was literally spreading conspiracy theories. I think that it is fair to criticize him for unscientific fear mongering. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/17/business/media/coronaviru...

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#886

Post by moultano » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

leereeves wrote: post #849

moultano wrote: post #815

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The world is going to end in 12 years..." " is a recent famous quote by a prominent Democrat. This isn't true, and you should probably cut whatever source told it to you out of your life. The world is going to end if we don't take action within 12 years , which is the gist of what the IPCC report says.

My quote is literally what she said. (She later claimed it was "dry humor plus sarcasm")[1]. Perhaps she meant something more like what you said. It doesn't matter. "The world is going to end if we don't take action within 12 years" is also false, and not at all what the IPCC report says. When O'Rourke said something similar, the AP fact checked the claim:[2] > THE FACTS: There is no scientific consensus, much less u…

You don't appear to have read the things you linked. The argument Ebi is making is that we shouldn't give up if we don't hit that 12 year deadline, because it's continuous, and things keep getting even worse. She's trying to communicate that there are worse things than 1.5C that we could still prevent.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#887

Post by squiggleblaz » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

aexl wrote: post #834

mrfusion wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been sorting reddit comments by controversial. There’s a lot of junk sure, but it’s you also get away from people parroting the standard lines and sometimes get some unique insight.

That's an interesting idea. I need to try this too!

Oh I didn't know you could do that! In the old days when I used to visit another site, I gave bonus points to Flamebait and read at +4. As other p said, a lot of crap, but also a lot of insight. (I also took a point off "Insightful", since +4 Insightful was usually more like "a good but well known perspective which you have probably encountered before". The genuine insightful stuff was always +5.)

I kinda miss the ability to make my own comment thread. My social media was much more efficient back then.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#888

Post by neycoda » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #615

javagram wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It did come from all political quarters, however one political quarter stayed in denial much longer. Notice how many of the clips from your video are from January or early February. The POTUS was still publicly pushing the coronavirus = flu comparison in early March even after we saw what happened in Iran and Italy. Remember, he said on February 28 that being worried about the coronavirus was “their new hoax” from th…

however one political quarter stayed in denial much longer Now you're splitting hairs. You know who the first politician in the USA who was banging the drums in alarm about Wuhan and the coronavirus? Tom Cotton. Republican Senator. Do you support him now? Does his early conviction of the severity of this event put you behind him and everyone who echoed his concerns? Are you likewise now opposed to the people who were…

Is this about whether Republican s or Democrats are better, or about how our politicians dropped the ball and the top one stayed in denial the longest?

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#889

Post by Fjolsvith » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:53 PM UTC

throwaway294 wrote: post #569

alexilliamson wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sometimes feels like there is the perception that twitter is worthless and devoid of meaningful information, but like you I've been increasingly relying on it for news. I'm not sure where else you can collect so many different perspectives on any given piece of news. Overtime, you learn how many grains of salt to take with each person in your timeline, and you get a sense of their personal biases. And if you can b…

A BIG advantage of Twitter is that get to hear from the persons themselves totally without filtering by the media. Maybe you do or don't like what some public figure who posts on Twitter says, but at least DO get just what THEY said.

This. The slanted editorializing and purposefully misconstrued out-of-context quoting by the media long ago turned me off.

Re: Coronavirus and Credibility

#890

Post by thu2111 » Tue, Apr 07, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #629

thu2111 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not growing geometrically (or only with a tiny multiplier if so). If the feared scenario of exponential growth were the case then we'd see the proportion of positive test cases doubling, not just the raw number. Right now what's being seen is that if you increase testing 10x you find 10x more cases, which is consistent with finding something that's at a somewhat steady background level. e.g. here's German data:…

Let me reply to the edited comment. We're not testing the general population. Its testing of folks coming to a hospital? Folks who aren't having hospitalizing symptoms are not tested at all, and sent home to quarantine. So if tests doubled that means that folks are feeling bad at an increased rate. Showing up at a hospital with alarming symptoms. You can finagle the statistics both ways - by ignoring what the 'test s…

The stable proportion is seen around the world, including in places like Germany where they are doing tons of testing and certainly far more than just those who turn up to hospital.

You're right that it's not a uniform sample, but the consistency across the world is very suggestive. Not everywhere has test shortages.