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Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

royalsociety.org

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Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#941

Post by tekknik »

dekhn wrote: post #838
s1artibartfast wrote: post #161

I see the root cause of all this debate as a failure in scientific communication. When it comes to complex scientific decisions with significant impacts on the public, nuanced and detailed justifications are required. Instead, we often get simple declarations written by PR departments at juvenile reading level. This spawns chaotic and poorly conducted debate in all walks of life. What is required is a robust and tran…

I am pretty skeptical that complex science can be explained to normal people. I just tried to explain to my school that since my child tested PCR positive then negative for COVID, he shouldn't take a PCR test for 90 days (highly prone to reporting positive even when he is non-infectious), but instead (like the doctor's note says) should take an antigen test, and if he tests negative on that (and has no symptoms) he c…

> I explained this fairly simply but the message didn't get through (to a reasonably intelligent person) and they thought I was saying the complete opposite of what I was saying.

If I detected you were being condescending I would do exactly this. Mostly to piss you off for thinking you’re better / smarter than me. You may know more than this staff member on this subject but there’s an appropriate way to explain things. Assuming from the get go they’re too stupid / uneducated is offensive.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#942

Post by garfieldnate »

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I'm glad to hear education prioritized and the dangers of censorship discussed; on the other hand, I don't like the sound of "monitoring and mitigating evolving sources of scientific misinformation online". It comes off as, "we need to crack down on the smaller platforms because people can think and say what they want there." And the final non-committal comment from Vint Cerf, representing google here, reads simply as, "what we've been doing is fine and we should keep doing it." I would have expected something more like, "we need to encourage productive conversation around controversial topics instead of silencing minority voices by pretending we can find the truth with an algorithm." Purposefully preventing someone's voice from being being found, or taking away their opportunity to make a living through sharing, is still censorship.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#943

Post by tekknik »

I find it interesting that here on HN we seem to have more conversations on censorship than actual world problems. We have two countries on the brink of war, rampant poverty/homelessness and limping economies in just about every country, and all we can talk about is why we should censor misinformation. Anyone else feeling we’re hopeless as a species?

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#944

Post by silent_cal »

stillbourne wrote: post #925
silent_cal wrote: post #905

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come atheists always forget to capitalize proper nouns?

And which one was that?

You're supposed to capitalize the names of books (e.g. "Bible").

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#945

Post by JamisonM »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #935
JamisonM wrote: post #929

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if X% more people are vaccinated, we will have Y more hospital beds, and Z more elected procedures.. But the problem there is you are not asking for nuance, you are asking for.. lies? The answer is that more vaccination means more hospital beds and elective procedures but no one could credibly argue any specific numbers - it was just not possible to make that calculation without enormous error bars, you can only ma…

Then give an estimate with error bars. Alternatively, if you haven't done the math, or it doesn't actually support a robust position, say :"This is not a scientific argument, be we are really hoping this helps. no promises"

Speaking for Ontario, one province over from me, models with error bars is pretty much what the public was presented with every time they imposed new restrictions.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#946

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

disambiguation wrote: post #928
1984scarry wrote: post #922

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In history, every time you set up an institution it becomes an entity in its own right. Company’s, orgs, religions, federal entities and countries all vie for power at their own level and within their own space. The problem with an ‘information-control/censorship/verification’ is… it’s exactly that, the age old ‘we are controlling information for the common good’. Every major nation in history eventually evolves to t…

I've seen that episode but not made that connection, very interesting. However, the way the quote ends paints a slightly different picture: `The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless oscillation. The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of t…

Well - all the evidence presented in that episode would be exactly the type of information the royal society (and every other federal entity in the world) seems to be wanting to supress. Alot of the information presented is very 'anti-mask', 'anti-lockdown', 'anti-vaccine'. He makes many points that we have devolved into some kind of mass histeria when it comes to covid.

Also, the reason i left the rest of the quote out is it takes away from his argument because despite the fact of him writing an entire treaty on revolutionary thought, he didn't seem to study most of the 'Revolutions' that occured from those thoughts. You can replace 'The doctrine of __x' with anything in the sentence and it would have range true historically. when the Tzar of russia decided that liberalism was needed in the late 1800's, the more people he freed the more those people who were freed swung further and further left until everyone was screaming some kind of collecive anarchism forwarded by bakunin and the Tzar was assassinated.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#947

Post by ozfive »

limecat wrote: post #6
ozfive wrote: post #2

[flagged]

You're taking an experimental prophylactic against a disease with a 99.9% survival rate. Probably higher if you're under 50. And we still don't really know how safe it is, because the 'gold standard' data (double blind testing) is absent, save for 2 months' of Pfizer data. Your benefit has apparently outweighed your cost. Fine. Mine hasn't. I like to read any and all opinions, regardless of 'bias'. We all have biases…

It's not an experimental prophylactic if it's fully approved by the FDA https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavi...

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#948

Post by jimkleiber »

henrikschroder wrote: post #912
jimkleiber wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would imagine if the flight is 5 hours long and the eating time is only 0.5 hours, then there would only be 0.5 hours of breathing virus into the air than 5 hours of it. That being said, yes, most would be unmasked at that time and likely to breathe it in, I guess I just see overall as limiting the total amount of virus breathed into the air by requiring masks most of the time.

Half an hour is long enough to get infected, we know this. If masks work, they work on a mechanistic, physical, level. They filter air, and if you use your masks wrong, or take them off, they stop filtering air. But if you look at how people are actually using their masks, they pay zero attention to the mechanics of it, and 100% attention to the appearance of it. Someone who wants to wear an N-95 mask for the duratio…

I still don't see it as all theatre—maybe I just see it more like a probability function. 100% of people won't use them properly, no matter how much instruction or how foolproof the design is (because one way to fix improper usage is to improve designs instead of blaming the user). Will 50%? Maybe 10%? OK, if 10% use them 100% properly, what if another 30% use them at 50% effectiveness? I'm making up these percentages but just showing that I don't believe it's all theatre if not 100% of the people comply 100% perfectly.

So yes, people can get infected at half an hour. Are their odds much higher to get infected at 5 hours than 0.5 hours? I'd assume yes.

Heck, even people who wear it over their mouth but don't cover their noses, yes, they're potentially leaking covid out of their nose and breathing it in thru their nose. But if they cough, I imagine a percentage of the covid comes out their mouth and gets trapped in the mask...even despite them not wearing it 100% properly.

I'm saying that some of it may be theatre, or maybe much of it is (by theatre being ineffective but trying to appear effective), but I don't think it's all theatre.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#949

Post by agentgumshoe »

immibis wrote: post #890
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the objective reality on the lab leak theory? Effectiveness of cloth masks? Has that objective reality changed? Has the perception of that objective reality changed? Where do you get your objective reality from and how is it infallible?

We don't know, but what we do know is that the truth of the lab leak theory is irrelevant to whether we should stop the virus, and is primarily only mentioned as a distraction from that.

Actually the interesting part of that theory being true or not is Fauci funding gain of function research in those labs through Peter Danszak (i.e. https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/nih-took-scientists... - gets worse the more recent findings you come across) and the unwavering support the NIH have him. Certainly raises strong questions regardless of your starting position.

Re: Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online

#950

Post by agentgumshoe »

cletus wrote: post #849
agentgumshoe wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Who gets to determine what is 'misinformation?' I think you'll find if you look back a year or so it was the government representatives and 'MSM' defining it, not leading scientists (some of which have since been 'discredited' because they supposedly suddenly turned to nuttiness). And little seems said, but I can't help notice the quite communist behaviour to demand the state mandate 'choice…

Oh I understand the point completely. A quick look at your comment history says everything (eg [1][2]). You have, for whatever reason, fallen down the of misinformation and propaganda that turns you into an anti-vaxxer and you've lost any objectivity or any ability to reason about the information you receive the supports or contradicts your view. If it supports your view, it's correct. If it doesn't, it isn't. The re…

Oh yeah also, ad hominem attack instead of responding to the arguments. Nice.
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