4 ms·

Back in March 2020, this would have meant getting factchecked or shadowbanned for stating that masks should be protective against coronavirus.

by lhnz 6y ago

thatguy0900 6y ago
Don't worry, every time consensus changes it will be revealed that we were always at war with Eastasia to begin with, I'm sure.
- a1369209993 6y ago
  > we were always at war with Eastasia to begin with I mean, you clearly meant to write Eurasia, but that's a really unfortunate typo.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - vageli 6y ago
    Given the context, I think it's safe to say that it was an intentional 1984 reference.
offby37years 6y ago
Or in January 2020 if it was contagious at all: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  People keep mixing up “absence of evidence” and “evidence of absence” with this tweet. There is no reason to believe the WHO was in possession of secret evidence of human-to-human transmission on that date, and they noted that it was entirely possible said evidence would emerge soon. It did shortly afterwards.
  - IshKebab 6y ago
    Despite the common saying, absence of evidence is evidence of absence a lot of the time. To put it in boring mathematical terms. If you have a bag filled with a million playing cards, and you inspect 1000 of them and they're all red, that's pretty good evidence that there aren't any black cards in the bag! But blind followers of the "absence of evidence" dogma would say "No it isn't! Just because you haven't found a black card yet doesn't say anything about whether there are any black cards at all." which is clearly nonsense. The differentiating factor is have you looked? I think it's reasonable for people to assume the WHO had actually investigated how people contracted covid (otherwise why bother tweeting?), in which case them saying "[we looked but] we couldn't find any evidence of human to human transmission" is clearly misleading.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      No, see, this is precisely the problem. You're just making up a different version of the tweet to fit your narrative. > I think it's reasonable for people to assume the WHO had actually investigated how people contracted covid... The tweet explicitly says "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities". The WHO team didn't get there until Jan 20. https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit-wuhan-china-jan-2020 https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit... > otherwise why bother tweeting? Because everyone was wondering at the time if they had the evidence yet. > "[we looked but] we couldn't find any evidence of human to human transmission" is clearly misleading That's not what they said, though.
      - IshKebab 6y ago
        > Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities Right it doesn't matter who looks, just that someone does. The Chinese looked! And they didn't find any evidence of human-to-human transmission. That is evidence that there isn't any. Not very compelling evidence but still evidence.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
- paganel 6y ago
  As late as early February 2020 being concerned about the coronavirus meant you risked being labeled as a right-wing, Trump-lover, conspiracy theorist. One of the first Twitter accounts that was getting the straight facts out of Wuhan starting with late January was this lady [1], and because she had written for Epoch Times (among other things) of course meant that everything she was saying was potentially a big, fat lie meant to denigrate the Chinese. I was told as such by at least one user on this very website back then. [1] https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd
ve55 6y ago
This is 100% correct, and for those that doubt this I present the following link of a popular Reddit thread on masks from this time period, where the hundreds of commenters appear to unanimously agree that "masks work" is not only pseudoscience, but an outright conspiracy theory with zero backing, concluding that having your kid wear one to school makes you an asshole that follows misinformation (I wish I was exaggerating, but I am only quoting the comments of the link): https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/fe2oqg/aita_for_sending_my_son_to_school_with_medical/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/fe2oqg/aita_...

Back in March 2020, this would have meant getting factchecked or shadowbanned for stating that masks should be protective against coronavirus.

by lhnz 6y ago

Back in March 2020, this would have meant getting factchecked or shadowbanned for stating that masks should be protective against coronavirus.

thatguy0900 6y ago

Don't worry, every time consensus changes it will be revealed that we were always at war with Eastasia to begin with, I'm sure.

a1369209993 6y ago
> we were always at war with Eastasia to begin with I mean, you clearly meant to write Eurasia, but that's a really unfortunate typo.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- vageli 6y ago
  Given the context, I think it's safe to say that it was an intentional 1984 reference.

offby37years 6y ago

Or in January 2020 if it was contagious at all: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

ceejayoz 6y ago
People keep mixing up “absence of evidence” and “evidence of absence” with this tweet. There is no reason to believe the WHO was in possession of secret evidence of human-to-human transmission on that date, and they noted that it was entirely possible said evidence would emerge soon. It did shortly afterwards.
- IshKebab 6y ago
  Despite the common saying, absence of evidence is evidence of absence a lot of the time. To put it in boring mathematical terms. If you have a bag filled with a million playing cards, and you inspect 1000 of them and they're all red, that's pretty good evidence that there aren't any black cards in the bag! But blind followers of the "absence of evidence" dogma would say "No it isn't! Just because you haven't found a black card yet doesn't say anything about whether there are any black cards at all." which is clearly nonsense. The differentiating factor is have you looked? I think it's reasonable for people to assume the WHO had actually investigated how people contracted covid (otherwise why bother tweeting?), in which case them saying "[we looked but] we couldn't find any evidence of human to human transmission" is clearly misleading.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    No, see, this is precisely the problem. You're just making up a different version of the tweet to fit your narrative. > I think it's reasonable for people to assume the WHO had actually investigated how people contracted covid... The tweet explicitly says "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities". The WHO team didn't get there until Jan 20. https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit-wuhan-china-jan-2020 https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/22-01-2020-field-visit... > otherwise why bother tweeting? Because everyone was wondering at the time if they had the evidence yet. > "[we looked but] we couldn't find any evidence of human to human transmission" is clearly misleading That's not what they said, though.
    - IshKebab 6y ago
      > Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities Right it doesn't matter who looks, just that someone does. The Chinese looked! And they didn't find any evidence of human-to-human transmission. That is evidence that there isn't any. Not very compelling evidence but still evidence.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
paganel 6y ago
As late as early February 2020 being concerned about the coronavirus meant you risked being labeled as a right-wing, Trump-lover, conspiracy theorist. One of the first Twitter accounts that was getting the straight facts out of Wuhan starting with late January was this lady [1], and because she had written for Epoch Times (among other things) of course meant that everything she was saying was potentially a big, fat lie meant to denigrate the Chinese. I was told as such by at least one user on this very website back then. [1] https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd

ve55 6y ago

This is 100% correct, and for those that doubt this I present the following link of a popular Reddit thread on masks from this time period, where the hundreds of commenters appear to unanimously agree that "masks work" is not only pseudoscience, but an outright conspiracy theory with zero backing, concluding that having your kid wear one to school makes you an asshole that follows misinformation (I wish I was exaggerating, but I am only quoting the comments of the link): https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/fe2oqg/aita_for_sending_my_son_to_school_with_medical/ https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/fe2oqg/aita_...