> No matter which side you're on (real or not, overblown or not, etc.)
One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on. Allowing for there to be these separate "sides" just invites conflict and allows people the opportunity to create an identity around something they have no business having an identity about. There are people who are anti-vax now (and weren't before) for example, but that's not a "side" anymore than being for or against bandaids would make sense to have "sides". Framing this as though there are sides also has the effect of legitimizing indefensible things, like being anti-vax.
As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round. But these do not have equal standing, so it shouldn't be legitimized as a "debate" where there are "sides". Something like private versus public (to oversimplify) healthcare is worthy of two sides and a debate. Broadly speaking there are two defensible and respectable opinions.
> As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round.
No, that's not true. One can acknowledge the existence of two sides while still maintaining that one of those two sides is entirely without merit.
And in fact it is essential to do this because history shows that simply denying the existence of people with crazy points of view does not make them go away, and in fact often increases their power and influence, ironically, because the denial of their existence is actually evidence that their conspiracy theories are correct, that they are in fact the victims of prejudice.
Flat earth is an interesting case in point. It is actually quite challenging to show that the earth is round in a way that does not require you to take anyone's word for anything.
> Flat earth is an interesting case in point. It is actually quite challenging to show that the earth is round in a way that does not require you to take anyone's word for anything.
There's a Netflix documentary called Behind the Curve (2018). There's a guy who keeps running these experiments to prove the earth is flat. But keeps inadvertently proving that its round!
It is actually quite challenging to show that the earth is round in a way that does not require you to take anyone's word for anything
Perhaps if you live nowhere near an ocean and have no trees from which to hang a pendulum and can't afford a rangefinder for lining up two boards with holes in them.
You would be shocked at how many people there are who have never seen an ocean. You would be shocked at how many people there are who live within an hour's drive of an ocean who have never seen it. There are a lot of things that the typical HN reader takes for granted that are unimaginable luxuries for billions of people.
I think you will also be surprised how hard it is to fill in the details of the experiments you are alluding to.
The only one you need details to is the aligned-holes experiment. The others are just observation. You watch the bottom of a ship vanish before the top. You watch a swinging pendulum deviate from its beginning alignment more and more over time.
You have obviously never actually tried to set up a Foucault pendulum. It is not so easy. You can't just hang a weight from a rope tied to a tree. That won't work. Also, Foucault's pendulum does not show that the earth is round, it merely shows that the earth is rotating. Flat disks can rotate.
Also, ships do not always sink below the horizon. The right atmospheric conditions can refract the light in a way that causes them to be visible at a much greater distance than the straight geometry would allow. But this explanation can be inverted to claim that it is the vanishing that is due to atmospheric effects and that the non-vanishing ship is the accurate reflection of the geometry. Falsifying that hypothesis is, again, not so easy.
In fact, the sun at sunset which appears to be above the horizon is already well below the horizon, precisely because the atmosphere is less dense at higher altitudes. See https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_26.html Fig. 26-7
(Presumably this is also true at sunrise, so the day is longer than it "should" be from purely geometric considerations.)
> One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on.
Two sides/devil's advocate is the basis of philosophy, thought, learning, etc. To claim otherwise is to demand blind obedience to authority.
> As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round.
Nobody is saying they are on equal footing. They have a right to their opinions. But the facts are what matters.
800 years ago, you'd be demanding everyone believe the earth is the center of the universe and that anyone who says otherwise is a heretic. You'd be saying we shouldn't legitimize indefensible things like heliocentrism. In my opinion, the side that is trying to stifle debate/opinions/etc is the wrong side. If someone says they are a flat earther, just show them a video of the earth.
Do you realize that just a few decades ago, the idea of vaccination was viewed as indefensible and anti-science? Much of the scientific community viewed vaccine advocates as charlatans. After all, you'd have to be a lunatic to infect yourself with disease right? Almost everything you hold dear and absolutely true today were once "indefensible things". Including almost everything medical and scientific.
Instead of trying to stifle debate, just bring facts with you and you'll be fine. Nothing is gained by zealotry.
What debate is being stifled? It's settled science. This is equivalent to going back and claiming that the earth is the center of the universe and then being upset when presented facts to the contrary.
You have a right to an opinion. I have a right to dismiss that opinion off-hand like I would dismiss someone saying the earth is flat. Would you host a debate with someone at a university about whether or not the earth is flat? If I went to a Python conference and have a lecture on how strings in Python work which were completely contrary to how the language operates would you suggest that this is a matter of two sides, or that it's the basis of philosophy and learning? I don't think so.
Everything you deem to be wrong? " Allowing for there to be these separate "sides"... "
> It's settled science.
Everything is "settled science" until it isn't. Like the earth being the center of the universe. Like newtonian physics. Like einsteinian physics. Etc. It was settle science that Lamarckianism was scientific charlatanism until epigenetics.
> You have a right to an opinion. I have a right to dismiss that opinion off-hand
We are agreed. Except you don't want to even allow others their opinions.
> If I went to a Python conference
Someone once compared python to a tricycle.
> or that it's the basis of philosophy and learning? I don't think so.
Then you don't know philosophy, science and most importantly the history of science/philosophy. Why is it that the people with the least knowledge/wisdom/etc are the most sure about things they know nothing about?
As I said, if you run into a flat earther, just show them a video of the earth. Or don't waste your time with them. Who do you think you are to say whether they should be "allowed or not" to have their opinion or say?
I don't care if someone is just wrong about some belief. I care when they have a megaphone and they're convincing other people of their reality and that leads those people to their own early death. If you sat at home and did this, nobody would really care.
> I don't care if someone is just wrong about some belief.
You sound like you care very much. I've known many zealots who want everyone to adopt their orthodoxy.
> I care when they have a megaphone and they're convincing other people of their reality and that leads those people to their own early death.
Every preacher, pope, cult leader and zealot of all kinds says the same thing. They want "heresy" silenced in order to save souls. How noble and virtuous. Ever consider that people have their own agency? Ever consider whether you are in the wrong?
What happens if someone says the earth is flat on a megaphone? They get laughed at. As long as you have the facts and data, what are you so afraid of?
That's unrealistic though, nearly everyone would be okay with their ideological enemies "sitting at home and doing their thing", including your ideological enemies themselves. I live in the Middle East and this attitude, translated nearly verbatim to Arabic, is a common stance on an issue like atheism or gay rights, "Oh, we are actually entirely ok with atheists|gays if they just shut up completely".
It never works because it's not symmetric, you want your enemies to shut up but not you, this is because you see yourself as the correct side, which might be either true or false, but the sure thing is that your enemies beg to disagree. The only thing that will make it work is brute force, but other than that it's just another way to say to your enemies "Just admit you're wrong and go to your room".
The difference with atheism or gay rights here is that it doesn't actually harm anyone. Nobody dies from being an atheist.
Let me put it another way. What if you had a family member who had cancer and I wrote a bunch of stuff and ran Facebook ads that they read that convinced them to not get very likely life-saving treatment with no downsides to them. All good then yea? You won't be mad or suggest maybe I stop doing that?
>The difference with atheism or gay rights here is that it doesn't actually harm anyone
This assertion encodes a worldview within it, one that is not shared among a lot (most ?) of religious people, especially in the Middle East. Religious people often assign very high weights to the fact that their religion isn't respected/believed in, and the resulting moral value can be compared with, and often exceeds, material damage to lives and property in their eyes. So the very act of saying "What one does in one's bedroom is none of your business" is itself a topic of intense disagreements. I say this as a closeted atheist in said society who have tried a number of times to play "Devil's Advocate" to atheism and gay rights in my social circles : if only it was as easy as saying "but they don't harm anyone!" and getting people to agree on that.
There are actually analogs to this in western societies (and in every other society I have heard of). Ironically, it's usually the dual to what happens in my soceity : very high sensitivity to anti-lgbt opinions, although the same applies, being anti-lgbt in the abstract doesn't actually harm anyone. Another example is holocaust denial, how does it actually harm anyone ? I don't see an obvious way, a popular stance goes something like "If we allowed people to deny the holocaust, people would percieve it as less serious and it might happen again", but this is overly simplistic and selective, people deny and underplay countless historical atrocities (e.g. the 20th anti- and pro- communism conflicts in Asia,Africa,and South America) and that doesn't automatically make them more likely to happen.
So every society has certain taboos and red lines that you are not allowed to speak against in public (although doing so wouldn't concretely harm anyone), and problems happen when 2 social groups who have different ideas of what should be taboo interact together.
>that convinced them to not get very likely life-saving treatment with no downsides to them
I have several comments on this:
- Cancer and Covid are not comparable in damage, Cancer is uniformly deadly, Covid only so for very specific subsets of the population.
- Cancer is not viral, so whatever happens in the end it will only affect that specific family member and my family, but with Covid you have to balance people's freedom with the threat they pose to the rest of the populations.
Overall, I agree in the abstract that free speech should be restricted in critical expertise-related subject matters, like medical and engineering matters, but the particular case of Covid discourse is such a disaster. Governments and public institutions consistently lied or made up things out of thin air, authoritarians hid behind "The Science^TM" to advance authoritarian solutions to what could be equally solved with voluntary incentive-setting, and overall "The Science^TM" camp just consistently shout louder and assume bad faith more than the reverse. The actual factual subject matter itself is far from settled and much much blurrier than - say - the question of "Does vaccines cause autism", the virus constantly mutates and wipes the floor with the efficiency of the vaccines, lockdown measures are often disastrous and impact far more people negatively than the virus. But there is a certain type of people who will treat the virus as an ultimate demon, to be exorcised at all costs, and they ridicule anyone disagreeing with them as "Science Deniers^TM", and this just becomes exhausting after a while.
None of the science of Covid is settled. It took over a year for scientific bodies to recognize it was an airborne virus. The medical field made a basic aerodynamics mistake for about 50 years that lead them astray.
We're not just ignorant about covid-19. We're ignorant about all coronaviruses and flus in general. It's not exactly surprising that they've been killing 35-75k Americans every year for decades.
This is despite spending decades and hundreds of billions of dollars on public health.
You remember the public health folk. When they ask for money, they say how it's needed so we're ready for the next spanish flu.
> It took over a year for scientific bodies to recognize it was an airborne virus.
Indications of covid being airborne were available very early on, particularly as its genetic predecessor "OG Covid" / SARS-CoV-1 was also known to be airborne.
The problem was politicians who feared a run on masks and thus refused to follow science. On the other hand, the increased hygienic measures - particularly regular hand washing and disinfection - contributed to the eradication of at least one flu strain and prevented the spread of countless other infectious agents, leading to a reduction of load on the hospital systems, so it was not entirely pointless (and in fact should be kept even when the pandemic condition ends).
Can you specifically point to the things we don't know about COVID as it relates to the efficacy and safety of the COVID-19 vaccine? What are the exact details that you are referencing?
What is the efficiency of the 4th shot vs a third shot after 5 months? What is the risk of a 4th shot?
There is a reason we don't approve vaccines on an ad hoc basis in normal times. It's an emergency so you gotta take some risks. But trying to shut down dissent with THE SCIENCE IS SETTTLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is bullshit.
If we look at vaccine science 40 years ago and thought that it was settled, we wouldn't be where we are now. If we believe it is solved, how will it get better than today, why would anyone look into it anymore?
> This is equivalent to going back and claiming that the earth is the center of the universe and then being upset when presented facts to the contrary.
Physical motion is fundamentally relative and there is nothing in the laws of physics that says you can’t construct a frame of reference in which everything else moves relative to the Earth. Heliocentrism is certainly easier to reason about and much simpler, but it’s no more true in any fundamental sense.
How you choose to see what separates the two "sides" is quite interesting.
You'll in fact find that it is not Vax/Anti-Vax but:
1. a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security
vs.
2. a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them.
Actually, you'll find it is 1. a group that understands that if we all would act together in the interest of public health we could have greatly reduced the death toll of COVID-19 vs 2. a group of idiots who won't learn until they win themselves their own personal Herman Cain Award.
Also, you apparently have no idea what "arbitrary" means.
> Also, you apparently have no idea what "arbitrary" means.
Ah, right. They were just highly intelligent people "following the science". Not at all obsessed with stoking fear so they could seize control and consolidate power:
> a group that needs the comforting reassurance of authority for security
And I assume you say this when someone is getting surgery, buys ibuprofen, or gets a splint as well?
> a group who regard their autonomy as paramount and see no need to have arbitrary rules forced on them
In the specific context of vaccines at least in America, nobody is forcing anyone to take a vaccine so the position wouldn't make any sense. Maybe you want to clarify what you mean here?
As an aside, this idea of autonomy here is a psychological reflex to control something about a situation that you have absolutely no control over. But it's really just an illusion. They're not more autonomous than anyone else is. A vaccine wouldn't make a difference in your autonomy, and in a really bad pandemic ala The Stand (Stephen King novel) you'd be forced at gunpoint to take a vaccine and you'd happily comply. It's all just lifestyle and cosplay at this point.
> in America, nobody is forcing anyone to take a vaccine so the position wouldn't make any sense.
Employers, en masse, are forcing it as a condition of employment.
I do agree with some of these employer mandates, e.g. airlines, because they increase connectivity and thus spread. Not so much with some others, e.g. clerical stay at home workers.
No not really. Like you can't choose to get COVID-19 or not. The only control you really have is the agency to get a vaccine or not, which is why it's so emotionally charged - it's the one thing people believe they can "control". So psychologically you grasp that because you're terrified of something you can't control (the pandemic).
Comorbidities increase your risk or "serious COVID", just like being unvaccinated does. But that still doesn't satisfy anything. Comorbidities increase your risk, getting vaccinated decreases your risk substantially, so if you want to blame this "well only fat people get it", well sure. Most people are fat, therefore they should get the vaccine since you can do that in a very short period of time whereas weight loss takes a while and you may have other comorbidities that you can't actually control or change at all.
We've known that high body fat was a serious risk factor for over two years now. While I agree that everyone eligible should protect themselves by getting vaccinated, people who want to lose weight have had plenty of time to do so.
Yea people should be healthy and lose weight. I couldn't agree more. Myself included.
But aside from these asinine "fat positive" movements (which are very similar in pathology IMO to COVID deniers) nobody is out there advocating for people to ignore their weight and that drinking milkshakes just might not be bad for your heart. Next thing you know of course drinking milkshakes and eating burgers are ok. The government just wants to control what you eat!1!
One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on.
I think it's easy to confuse the two major covid conflicts as one. The first, more obvious and dumber conflict is the "covid is fake/nothing!" idiots. That's the conflict you're mainly addressing. The second, less one-sided conflict is whether our anti-covid measures have a good return-on-investment vs less-stringent measures. Covid deaths and government anti-covid efforts seem to be less closely coupled than is intuitive. For example, comparing Sweden, a country with very lax covid mandates, to countries with stronger mandates. They came off much worse than Finland, but better than the UK, comparable to Germany, and much better than the United States.
I wouldn't say that I'm confusing those as I'm directly responding to anti-vax.
I agree completely that there is further study to be done on lockdowns and other efforts that were undertaken. For example, I'm monitoring this and we'll see, but perhaps China's COVID 0 lockdown strategy wasn't the right one compared, to, say, the US strategy. There's much to say about how historic human efforts to contain disease (we've always done lockdowns) may be or may not be effective with 8 billion globalized people.
But even in this case I don't think we need "sides". We need analysis. Sides create tribalism and suboptimal outcomes I think in this case.
Admitting there are two sides is hardly admitting both points of view are equal. This attitude on both sides of if you believe “reasonable thing” that means you believe “unreasonable and unreasonable to infer from what was said” thing creates a lot of animosity.
In all honesty your attitude creates a lot of the problems you describe.
It’s a free country if people don’t want to be vaxxed they can take their chances with the 99.9% survival rate for those under 50. Or the lower survival rate if they are over 50.
> It’s a free country if people don’t want to be vaxxed they can take their chances...
Can you name a single person in America who has been held down against their will and administered a vaccine? Can you name multiple, coordinated instances of this happening? Can you point to a lawsuit?
If not, you should stop repeating this.
> In all honesty your attitude creates a lot of the problems you describe.
I used to think that too but ultimately what you have is a group that cannot be reasoned with ala flat-earth proponents and no amount of information, debate, or reason would change their mind because the point isn't to understand, it's to create a lifestyle and culture. It's like a religion. The only thing that's left to be important here is to combat disinformation by bad actors and prevent further corrosion of civilization.
>Can you name a single person in America who has been held down against their will and administered a vaccine?
You aren't arguing in good faith. "No, we aren't banning gay marriage, we just implemented a federal regulation that forces employers to fire anyone who is gay married. It's their choice!"
I'm not even against vaccine mandates (at least I did when the vaccines worked), but come on, admit what you are actually supporting here.
I’m antivax and anti mask mandates and think vaccines are a good idea. I’ve even gotten two vaccines. However I won’t be getting another the reason I won’t is to stand in solidarity with the unvaxxed, note this is a political stance and not a scientific one. If you want me to get vaxxed to save whoever then the mandates must be lifted in their entirety save for actual quarantining of the infected which I think is reasonable.
I can definitely be reasoned with and reason with the unvaccinated all the time.
I opened my home in contravention of the mandates to throw parties and have unvaccinated people a place to socialize and people found my point of view to be in line with theirs. Namely that vaccines work but for them they would prefer the risk of getting Covid to getting vaccinated.
It may surprise you but many people can be talked to and turn out to have points of view vastly different than what you read on the news / see on social media.
I'm not disputing that you can do these things? You could also host a party where everyone is comfortable and enjoys talking about the tooth fairy, or about how birds aren't real (great marketing campaign actually). The dispute comes when you go from incorrect private opinion to reality. For example, you can think that vaccines are a good idea, but be anti-vax yourself, but then you should acknowledge and recognize that your views are wrong and irrational and make sure not to speak publicly about your views in case you confuse others who may be harmed by your belief.
So essentially you are arguing for Orwellian use of language.
I was reluctant to even respond to your comment, lest I legitimize sophistry. There aren't really two sides to it, you're openly calling for playing language games.
One thing we need to step away from is this framing that there are "sides" to be on. Allowing for there to be these separate "sides" just invites conflict and allows people the opportunity to create an identity around something they have no business having an identity about. There are people who are anti-vax now (and weren't before) for example, but that's not a "side" anymore than being for or against bandaids would make sense to have "sides". Framing this as though there are sides also has the effect of legitimizing indefensible things, like being anti-vax.
As an example, are there two sides to the flat earth debate? If you say yes, then you're admitting that people who think the earth is flat have an equal standing with someone who knows that the earth is round. But these do not have equal standing, so it shouldn't be legitimized as a "debate" where there are "sides". Something like private versus public (to oversimplify) healthcare is worthy of two sides and a debate. Broadly speaking there are two defensible and respectable opinions.