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Before you propagate this information and take action, read this post about the psychology of fear mongering, and ask yourself if you identify with it. 1. Do y

Before you propagate this information and take action, read this post about the psychology of fear mongering, and ask yourself if you identify with it. 1. Do you tend to mistrust authority? 2. Do you feel powerless to control the course of your life? 3. Do you feel like you have special information and insight the rest of us do not? 4. Do you feel comfort when thinking about the end of the world because once it happens, you will be prepared and validated? https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/psychology-reveals-the-comforts-of-the-apocalypse/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/psychology...

jacquesm 7y ago
I wonder how those questions would be answered by that doctor that tried to ring the alarm but was silenced.
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  Have you ever heard The expression "the exception that proves the rule"? Do you understand the meaning of the expression? It means that the rule is so good that exceptions to it are so rare that they seem significant. The prototypical examples are plane crashes.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    What do you think the chances are that I haven't heard about that? What do you think makes this an exception? There is a lot of politics happening around this theme. Can you trust the numbers put out by the authorities? Yes, within a margin of error due to unreported cases. The article is not at all in the fearmongering category. It appears to me quite level headed and simply acknowledges that we are past the point of containment, something that seems born out by the facts. To continue to deny that there is a pandemic will do a lot more harm than to accept that as a fact and act accordingly.
    - throwlaplace 7y ago
      >What do you think makes this an exception? Do you realize it's completely irrational to debate unknown unknowns? Any certainty comes from bias. So you think the doctor is the tip of the iceberg but you absolutely can't know how big the iceberg is. I think the doctor isn't and honestly I can't know that either. What I do have going for me is the biased perspective that on balance the world is being run adequately and if all of these subversive things were true that couldn't be the case. But I readily admit that that's circular and to the extent that it's not it's completely apriori.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        My point is, in case that isn't clear: the people on the front lines of this outbreak are telling a different story than the one that you seem to favor and that up to some point (right up until it became untenable) was still held by the Chinese authorities. So I'm a little skeptical about numbers and stories coming in from Chinese official channels taking them as a baseline with the mental note that things might be much worse. The data points that we have from outside of China: Iran, the cruise ships, South Korea and several other regions where the virus has established a relatively strong foothold should give anybody pause at this point, any comparisons with the flu are pointless and noise. Whether or not we are calling a pandemic is semantics, in all but name it is here today. The doctor was the tip of the iceberg, he is no longer. But there are other people in charge of the messaging for other countries and it seems as though the dreaded pandemic word is now also used by the CDC and similar organizations, internally and with qualifiers ('preparing for a pandemic') it is more a matter of time when they will feel comfortable in using it publicly.
      - wakindra 7y ago
        My two cents in this great discussion. The climate change emergency and the biodiversity collapse with no corrective measure taken whilee the stakes are so high for our survival seem to be proof that the world is NOT run adequately.
- simias 7y ago
  I don't see how that relates at all. The parent is talking about how we perceive information and especially information that comes from authoritative sources. That doctor had first-hand experience of what was happening and the authorities getting in his way when he tried to get the word out. He was never in a position where he had to decide between going with the consensus or follow a fringe theory, but rather whether to follow the obviously incorrect official version instead of what he could see with his own two eyes.
etangent 7y ago
Regardless of the other three points, it is generally rational to mistrust authority because many authorities have repeatedly failed in the past to protect lives during emergency scenarios.
- ttul 7y ago
  And yet 99% of the time, the authorities do a great job of running everything here in the west. The 1% of the time they fail, it proves the conspiracy theorists and fear mongers’ point.
  - _bxg1 7y ago
    In 2020 it's more like 90% of the time, but the point still stands
  - tmpz22 7y ago
    Of all the national emergencies in the US since 2000, Katrina, Sandy, Puerto Rico, etc., does anyone know offhand how many were handled properly? Seems like ~20-40% are handled improperly if not more.
    - jopsen 7y ago
      The ones that were properly handled aren't news. You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan. Try counting all the dams that didn't break and, thus, averted catastrophic floods. Also count the forest fires that didn't happen because of regulation. When something is declared a national emergency it's typically because society have failed to prepare.
      - DangitBobby 7y ago
        > You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan. Not a great example for this point. Cynically, you heard about Flint because journalists rode the hype train for views and clicks, either failing to do research on other communities or failing to promote those stories to the level of hype required to break into the mainstream. They were close to notifying the public of a widespread public infrastructure and health issue, but for whatever reason fell short and became fodder for anti-"fear-mongering" attitudes. > . . . The Michigan city doesn't even rank among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America . . . > In all, Reuters found nearly 3,000 areas with recently recorded lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city's contamination crisis. And more than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher. > . . . > Like Flint, many of these localities are plagued by legacy lead: crumbling paint, plumbing, or industrial waste left behind. Unlike Flint, many have received little attention or funding to combat poisoning. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-u-s-areas-afflicted-with-lead-poisoning-beyond-flints/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-u-s-...
anonsivalley652 7y ago
InfoWars types. Arrogant paranoia often manifested in tribal communities that reinforce similar delusions. Recent example: the mom who killed her husband, brother and kids because she and her new lover believe in an "apocalypse" summer 2020.
- scrooched_moose 7y ago
  I Brainwashed Myself With the Internet is another good example from a couple days ago https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no-doctors-online-groups-convinced-her-it-n1140096 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no...
- WillPostForFood 7y ago
  Or late stage capitalism types who have talked themselves into an imagined economic doomsday.
- FriendlyNormie 7y ago
  Do you mean “HN types”? Almost everyone in this HN thread seems to agree that we should worry about the virus.
rriepe 7y ago
This is hilarious. Isn't 2012 the underlying model they use for everything today? Fearmongering is the go-to default for absolutely every issue the media covers. Then during an actual literal pandemic they take a short break from every other the-world-is-ending story to give us the "don't fearmonger" lecture. If you ever find yourself split in doubt between your own sanity and that of the media's, please for the love of God assume they're insane first.
- nemild 7y ago
  Two observations: 1. There isn't a single media (often, when your tribe is against another, you view the opposition as monolithic rather than a spectrum composed of different viewpoints) 2. And they're not insane, editors and social media algorithms are rational and reacting to reader incentives (but it is "insane" to mistake media sources for a rational human, because most media is about covering extreme events[1]) More in my media literacy guide: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README.... [1] The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html
  - gfodor 7y ago
    Would you argue the US has a diverse media? Today, the concept seems laughable.
    - nemild 7y ago
      It depends on what "diverse" means to you. I would say that Scientific American isn't the same as a partisan news channel. But to the degree that an ad driven model and social media is the primary way news distribution happens, media incentives are monolithic for media organizations. On a discursive note, if you are interested in media incentives, "All the News That's Fit to Sell" is a great book that goes into media incentives in previous eras. When the economies of scale for printing presses went up, media naturally became more centrist and less alarmist because a single paper had to appeal to a larger audience. It gives you a sense for the power of incentives in dictating what media is created/distributed.
tveita 7y ago
This particular article and advice seems quite proportionate and level-headed. (In contrast to about 80% of Covid-19 articles posted on HN, TBQH)
Alex3917 7y ago
> 1. Do you tend to mistrust authority? If you think the entire government has your specific best interests at heart, isn't that a sign of schizophrenia? That sounds not much different than people who think that songs on the radio or TV shows were created for them specifically. > 3. Do you feel like you have special information and insight the rest of us do not? Most people are following this story very little or not at all, so if you're even remotely paying attention then you have special information and insight that the vast majority of people do not.
the-dude 7y ago
Have you seen the spread in Italy?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Or Iran, for that matter. https://time.com/5789360/iran-coronavirus-death-toll/ https://time.com/5789360/iran-coronavirus-death-toll/ 8 dead on 43 cases suggests severe under-reporting of the number of people infected. That in turn suggests that testing is inadequate which may cause the disease to spread further than necessary. The fact that infected Iranians have turned up in Lebanon and Canada is further proof that the number of infections is likely higher than reported. If we take the 2-3% mortality reported elsewhere as the base than the 8 people confirmed dead would suggest at least 300-400 infections, or about 8 times higher than officially reported by the Iranian authorities.
  - emmelaich 7y ago
    What interests me is the low or zero figures elsewhere. Especially Indonesia; surely they have significant numbers of Chinese travellers?
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Latin America and Africa have the temperature going for them but especially Africa has a ton of back-and-forth with China so you can expect there are or will be cases there. Indonesia is an interesting case especially geographically. Maybe there is some data on how well they did during previous pandemics?
carapace 7y ago
CDC says: > The potential public health threat posed by COVID-19 is high, both globally and to the United States. The fact that this disease has caused illness, including illness resulting in death, and sustained person-to-person spread is concerning. These factors meet two of the criteria of a pandemic. It’s unclear how the situation will unfold, but risk is dependent on exposure. At this time, some people will have an increased risk of infection, for example healthcare workers caring for patients with COVID-19 and other close contacts of persons with COVID-19. For the general American public, who are unlikely to be exposed to this virus, the immediate health risk from COVID-19 is considered low at this time. From "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Summary" > This is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation and CDC will provide updated information as it becomes available, in addition to updated guidance. > Updated February 22, 2020 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html
klagermkii 7y ago
This seems to just be a set of general steps for the dominant culture to downplay dissenters or individuals for whom the system isn't working. It doesn't tell you anything about if the system is actually working or not, or if those individuals are right or wrong. Anyone who disagrees with the system will probably go through similar feelings (maybe not point 4). You could put yourself in the position of someone who grew up poor and disillusioned as part of a visible minority in a US city, or a Hong Kong protestor, or almost any other anti-hedgemony protestor and they'd check the first three boxes. Are they wrong or is the system wrong? Nothing in this list helps determine that.
- throwlaplace 7y ago
  Astute observation. 1 and 2 apply to marginalized communities but 3 and 4 do not.
  - klagermkii 7y ago
    I think you see point 3 come through in the discussions talking about privilege and lived experience. It's a natural step after point 1 or 2 where the dominant group rebuts with "well it works for me, so it should work for you", and the minority group provides their theories as to what results in them having a different outcome.
    - throwlaplace 7y ago
      >I think you see point 3 come through in the discussions talking about privilege and lived experience. That's not the kind secret information preppers and conspiracy theorists lay claim to
- Reelin 7y ago
  I think you misascribe the intent here; in medicine, symptoms and circumstances are correlative (and must be interpreted in a manner consistent with that). For example, chest pain correlates with heart attacks but many other causes exist as well and not everyone will display the same symptoms. The list above is merely a set of correlations. It may be useful to consider, but must be interpreted appropriately in a given context.
tapejek 7y ago
There's a lot of randomness in life
symplee 7y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect

jacquesm 7y ago

I wonder how those questions would be answered by that doctor that tried to ring the alarm but was silenced.

throwlaplace 7y ago
Have you ever heard The expression "the exception that proves the rule"? Do you understand the meaning of the expression? It means that the rule is so good that exceptions to it are so rare that they seem significant. The prototypical examples are plane crashes.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  What do you think the chances are that I haven't heard about that? What do you think makes this an exception? There is a lot of politics happening around this theme. Can you trust the numbers put out by the authorities? Yes, within a margin of error due to unreported cases. The article is not at all in the fearmongering category. It appears to me quite level headed and simply acknowledges that we are past the point of containment, something that seems born out by the facts. To continue to deny that there is a pandemic will do a lot more harm than to accept that as a fact and act accordingly.
  - throwlaplace 7y ago
    >What do you think makes this an exception? Do you realize it's completely irrational to debate unknown unknowns? Any certainty comes from bias. So you think the doctor is the tip of the iceberg but you absolutely can't know how big the iceberg is. I think the doctor isn't and honestly I can't know that either. What I do have going for me is the biased perspective that on balance the world is being run adequately and if all of these subversive things were true that couldn't be the case. But I readily admit that that's circular and to the extent that it's not it's completely apriori.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      My point is, in case that isn't clear: the people on the front lines of this outbreak are telling a different story than the one that you seem to favor and that up to some point (right up until it became untenable) was still held by the Chinese authorities. So I'm a little skeptical about numbers and stories coming in from Chinese official channels taking them as a baseline with the mental note that things might be much worse. The data points that we have from outside of China: Iran, the cruise ships, South Korea and several other regions where the virus has established a relatively strong foothold should give anybody pause at this point, any comparisons with the flu are pointless and noise. Whether or not we are calling a pandemic is semantics, in all but name it is here today. The doctor was the tip of the iceberg, he is no longer. But there are other people in charge of the messaging for other countries and it seems as though the dreaded pandemic word is now also used by the CDC and similar organizations, internally and with qualifiers ('preparing for a pandemic') it is more a matter of time when they will feel comfortable in using it publicly.
    - wakindra 7y ago
      My two cents in this great discussion. The climate change emergency and the biodiversity collapse with no corrective measure taken whilee the stakes are so high for our survival seem to be proof that the world is NOT run adequately.
simias 7y ago
I don't see how that relates at all. The parent is talking about how we perceive information and especially information that comes from authoritative sources. That doctor had first-hand experience of what was happening and the authorities getting in his way when he tried to get the word out. He was never in a position where he had to decide between going with the consensus or follow a fringe theory, but rather whether to follow the obviously incorrect official version instead of what he could see with his own two eyes.

etangent 7y ago

Regardless of the other three points, it is generally rational to mistrust authority because many authorities have repeatedly failed in the past to protect lives during emergency scenarios.

ttul 7y ago
And yet 99% of the time, the authorities do a great job of running everything here in the west. The 1% of the time they fail, it proves the conspiracy theorists and fear mongers’ point.
- _bxg1 7y ago
  In 2020 it's more like 90% of the time, but the point still stands
- tmpz22 7y ago
  Of all the national emergencies in the US since 2000, Katrina, Sandy, Puerto Rico, etc., does anyone know offhand how many were handled properly? Seems like ~20-40% are handled improperly if not more.
  - jopsen 7y ago
    The ones that were properly handled aren't news. You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan. Try counting all the dams that didn't break and, thus, averted catastrophic floods. Also count the forest fires that didn't happen because of regulation. When something is declared a national emergency it's typically because society have failed to prepare.
    - DangitBobby 7y ago
      > You never heard about the lead poisoning that didn't happen.. but you'll hear about Flint Michigan. Not a great example for this point. Cynically, you heard about Flint because journalists rode the hype train for views and clicks, either failing to do research on other communities or failing to promote those stories to the level of hype required to break into the mainstream. They were close to notifying the public of a widespread public infrastructure and health issue, but for whatever reason fell short and became fodder for anti-"fear-mongering" attitudes. > . . . The Michigan city doesn't even rank among the most dangerous lead hotspots in America . . . > In all, Reuters found nearly 3,000 areas with recently recorded lead poisoning rates at least double those in Flint during the peak of that city's contamination crisis. And more than 1,100 of these communities had a rate of elevated blood tests at least four times higher. > . . . > Like Flint, many of these localities are plagued by legacy lead: crumbling paint, plumbing, or industrial waste left behind. Unlike Flint, many have received little attention or funding to combat poisoning. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-u-s-areas-afflicted-with-lead-poisoning-beyond-flints/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/thousands-of-u-s-...

anonsivalley652 7y ago

InfoWars types. Arrogant paranoia often manifested in tribal communities that reinforce similar delusions. Recent example: the mom who killed her husband, brother and kids because she and her new lover believe in an "apocalypse" summer 2020.

scrooched_moose 7y ago
I Brainwashed Myself With the Internet is another good example from a couple days ago https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no-doctors-online-groups-convinced-her-it-n1140096 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/she-wanted-freebirth-no...
WillPostForFood 7y ago
Or late stage capitalism types who have talked themselves into an imagined economic doomsday.
FriendlyNormie 7y ago
Do you mean “HN types”? Almost everyone in this HN thread seems to agree that we should worry about the virus.

rriepe 7y ago

This is hilarious. Isn't 2012 the underlying model they use for everything today? Fearmongering is the go-to default for absolutely every issue the media covers. Then during an actual literal pandemic they take a short break from every other the-world-is-ending story to give us the "don't fearmonger" lecture. If you ever find yourself split in doubt between your own sanity and that of the media's, please for the love of God assume they're insane first.

nemild 7y ago
Two observations: 1. There isn't a single media (often, when your tribe is against another, you view the opposition as monolithic rather than a spectrum composed of different viewpoints) 2. And they're not insane, editors and social media algorithms are rational and reacting to reader incentives (but it is "insane" to mistake media sources for a rational human, because most media is about covering extreme events[1]) More in my media literacy guide: https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/nemild/hack-the-media/blob/master/README.... [1] The deaths that are most covered are a tiny fraction (<1%) of the way we die https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html https://www.nemil.com/s/part3-horror-films.html
- gfodor 7y ago
  Would you argue the US has a diverse media? Today, the concept seems laughable.
  - nemild 7y ago
    It depends on what "diverse" means to you. I would say that Scientific American isn't the same as a partisan news channel. But to the degree that an ad driven model and social media is the primary way news distribution happens, media incentives are monolithic for media organizations. On a discursive note, if you are interested in media incentives, "All the News That's Fit to Sell" is a great book that goes into media incentives in previous eras. When the economies of scale for printing presses went up, media naturally became more centrist and less alarmist because a single paper had to appeal to a larger audience. It gives you a sense for the power of incentives in dictating what media is created/distributed.

tveita 7y ago

This particular article and advice seems quite proportionate and level-headed. (In contrast to about 80% of Covid-19 articles posted on HN, TBQH)

Alex3917 7y ago

> 1. Do you tend to mistrust authority? If you think the entire government has your specific best interests at heart, isn't that a sign of schizophrenia? That sounds not much different than people who think that songs on the radio or TV shows were created for them specifically. > 3. Do you feel like you have special information and insight the rest of us do not? Most people are following this story very little or not at all, so if you're even remotely paying attention then you have special information and insight that the vast majority of people do not.

the-dude 7y ago

Have you seen the spread in Italy?

jacquesm 7y ago
Or Iran, for that matter. https://time.com/5789360/iran-coronavirus-death-toll/ https://time.com/5789360/iran-coronavirus-death-toll/ 8 dead on 43 cases suggests severe under-reporting of the number of people infected. That in turn suggests that testing is inadequate which may cause the disease to spread further than necessary. The fact that infected Iranians have turned up in Lebanon and Canada is further proof that the number of infections is likely higher than reported. If we take the 2-3% mortality reported elsewhere as the base than the 8 people confirmed dead would suggest at least 300-400 infections, or about 8 times higher than officially reported by the Iranian authorities.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  What interests me is the low or zero figures elsewhere. Especially Indonesia; surely they have significant numbers of Chinese travellers?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Latin America and Africa have the temperature going for them but especially Africa has a ton of back-and-forth with China so you can expect there are or will be cases there. Indonesia is an interesting case especially geographically. Maybe there is some data on how well they did during previous pandemics?

carapace 7y ago

CDC says: > The potential public health threat posed by COVID-19 is high, both globally and to the United States. The fact that this disease has caused illness, including illness resulting in death, and sustained person-to-person spread is concerning. These factors meet two of the criteria of a pandemic. It’s unclear how the situation will unfold, but risk is dependent on exposure. At this time, some people will have an increased risk of infection, for example healthcare workers caring for patients with COVID-19 and other close contacts of persons with COVID-19. For the general American public, who are unlikely to be exposed to this virus, the immediate health risk from COVID-19 is considered low at this time. From "Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Situation Summary" > This is an emerging, rapidly evolving situation and CDC will provide updated information as it becomes available, in addition to updated guidance. > Updated February 22, 2020 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html

klagermkii 7y ago

This seems to just be a set of general steps for the dominant culture to downplay dissenters or individuals for whom the system isn't working. It doesn't tell you anything about if the system is actually working or not, or if those individuals are right or wrong. Anyone who disagrees with the system will probably go through similar feelings (maybe not point 4). You could put yourself in the position of someone who grew up poor and disillusioned as part of a visible minority in a US city, or a Hong Kong protestor, or almost any other anti-hedgemony protestor and they'd check the first three boxes. Are they wrong or is the system wrong? Nothing in this list helps determine that.

throwlaplace 7y ago
Astute observation. 1 and 2 apply to marginalized communities but 3 and 4 do not.
- klagermkii 7y ago
  I think you see point 3 come through in the discussions talking about privilege and lived experience. It's a natural step after point 1 or 2 where the dominant group rebuts with "well it works for me, so it should work for you", and the minority group provides their theories as to what results in them having a different outcome.
  - throwlaplace 7y ago
    >I think you see point 3 come through in the discussions talking about privilege and lived experience. That's not the kind secret information preppers and conspiracy theorists lay claim to
Reelin 7y ago
I think you misascribe the intent here; in medicine, symptoms and circumstances are correlative (and must be interpreted in a manner consistent with that). For example, chest pain correlates with heart attacks but many other causes exist as well and not everyone will display the same symptoms. The list above is merely a set of correlations. It may be useful to consider, but must be interpreted appropriately in a given context.

tapejek 7y ago

There's a lot of randomness in life

symplee 7y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect