7 ms·

I agree in principle. Then in real life example you will have real doctors and nurses giving conflicting advices and having wildly different viewpoints on the d

by hrktb 6y ago

I agree in principle. Then in real life example you will have real doctors and nurses giving conflicting advices and having wildly different viewpoints on the details. The easy to point to example is how a lot of doctors viewed masks at the beginning of the pandemic. Or how trickle down economics is also endorsed by experts. Or experts opinions on mental health drugs. And so many other subjects where it won’t be hard to find an expert on the dumb side of the argument. I think we should rely on experts, but we can’t dismiss people’s doubts or research just with a “I’ve seen a real doctor” slight of hand.

hef19898 6y ago
Conflicting doesn't mean that one, or both, opinions are wrong. There is more than solution to every problem.
scythe 6y ago
>Or how trickle down economics is also endorsed by experts. Trickle-down economics is not explicitly endorsed by anyone, because it's a pejorative. That's like saying "totalitarianism is popular in some countries"; you might think those countries are totalitarian, but they don't.
- PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  > you might think those countries are totalitarian, but they don't. "You" in the above is a specific individual. "They" in the above is undefined and extremely imprecise. For various definitions of "they", your statement could be true, false or somewhere in between.
- mjburgess 6y ago
  Indeed. Even then, as a term, it refers to a specific regan-era tax policy. What many on the left assume it means, is a sincere description of growth "raising the tide"; and how ridiculous an idea that is. Of course the tide has risen to an unprecedented degree in human history both since the term "trickle down" was invented; and moreso, over the last 40 years.
  - stonogo 6y ago
    Except the tide you're describing is global, and the policy in question was domestic, and wages and assets within the middle and lower economic classes have indeed stagnated in relation to almost every other economic indicator within the country, which is why "many on the left" consider this argument to be invalid.
    - mjburgess 6y ago
      This just isn't the case. And it dramatically isn't the case. This is a side effect of using the same category terms, but not talking about the underlying distributions. Eg., in the UK, 80% of the country were industrial working class or poorer until 1980s; and middle class only started at top 5%. Today, the "industrial working class" level of wealth, is the bottom 20% at the very most. So if you hold the class terms fixed, "middle class" it seems the 80s top 5% has "stagnated", only to fail to mention, it now 60% of the country. If you hold the distributions constant, the wealth level acheived in the top 5% in 1980s is now a majority of the population.
  - mikestew 6y ago
    Even then, as a term, it refers to a specific regan-era tax policy. The term was coined by Will Rogers about 90 years ago.
    - opo 6y ago
      The usage goes further back then that. The first use was in 1896 by William Jennings Bryan in his Cross of Gold speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics
mcguire 6y ago
"how a lot of doctors viewed masks at the beginning of the pandemic" Ok, so I've looked into the history of this a little, and most of the mask mythology seems misunderstood. Prior to 2020, most medical professionals believed most viruses, and corona viruses particularly, could not be transported as aerosols. This was a subject of research where the data had not come in. About late March, it began to appear that the virus could be an aerosol. Hard results did not come in until April and May, and many in the field discovered they had egg on their faces. Conflicting advice is to be expected with new information.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  My frustration is that, here in Canada at least, there is still an outdated way of talking about the virus as if it's a surface / hand sanitation issue, and much of the public policy (especially around school openings, etc.) still seems to be ignorant of the absolutely essential role that shared air has in transmission. Public authorities have failed to really drive home the reality of the virus, and instead we get sanitation theatre, a pantomime of virus control, and parents clambering to get schools reopened (while the numbers plummet since they've been closed after Christmas) Example, a local wine shop in my small town where you are not allowed to touch the bottles, but I see the staff inside with their masks off when there's no customers in the store. Frankly, I think people really just don't _want_ to believe it's aerosol transmitted. Because the consequences for public policy would be so drastic; no malls, no factories, no schools, etc. should really be open if you admit it.
  - astrange 6y ago
    It’s possible that it’s just been so long since we had a bad respiratory pandemic that medical advice assumes everything is food poisoning and norovirus, where cleaning surfaces actually does matter. But it’s also possible they’d have to admit grandma-type adages about opening the windows actually work and office buildings don’t let you do this anymore.
  - cthaeh 6y ago
    If you go to ontario public health website and read their summaries on current covid papers, you'll note that the vast majority of papers come to the conclusion that schools have almost no impact on the spread of covid. But no, keep applying youre second grade logic: spreads through air-> indoor places unsafe-> CLOSE EVERYTHING. That's not to say some of it isn't security theater (ie my parents were washing cookie boxes with soap some a couple of months ago), but those measures aren't being driven by the public health, but rather the unrelenting fear mongering of the media.
kodah 6y ago
The problem, to me, isn't peoples curiosity or attempting to broaden their horizons. I think the outcomes of this are largely good; it encourages discerning people to exercise caution and makes for good light conversation. Where things get off the rails is when people believe their tentative research or association with a domain makes them authoritative in some sense. I read the same waffling about masks you did, the information I read (since it was inconsistent) led me to believe that I should wear masks more than directed. I did this out of an abundance of caution because at the time early research eerily concluded that not much is known about the longer term effects of this virus, there was stark contrast in the symptoms various people had, and that there were layers to exercising prevention. I acted in a similar manner when I limited my social circle. The difference in the way, I think, these people used much of the same information that I did is that it became authoritative to them. After they'd read enough articles straight from the CDC it made them feel qualified to interpret them. I'm reminded of one guy who demanded I get another PCR test before he hung out with me, even after I hadn't experienced a fever for 10+ days. For some context, when I got sick I came back negative on both tests I was given. I was later told my viral load was not high enough on those days, ironically these also happened to be some of the worst days of the virus. It was only after I lost taste and smell that the doctors realized I had COVID. My friend cited all the reading he had done as evidence that I just wouldn't accept his "perspective". When I asked the doctor about getting both PCR and an antibody test she responded, "Do you have an actual reason? We already knew you were sick." In reality, the time which I would've been contagious had long passed, yet my friend couldn't get it out of his mind that transmission was a possibility. Another example is a friend whose brother had gotten COVID a few months back. His symptoms were certainly worse than mine. Where I didn't experience much trouble breathing, he did among other things. I went on a walk one day because it was one of the days in between being sick that I had some energy and wasn't overcome with brain fog. I shared that I was exhausted after this short walk and that I'd probably stave off a walk for a few days to see where I was at. She chastised me for going on a walk, explaining that her brother had been told not to exercise for three to six months, and that it seemed as if I was taking COVID as a joke. What I realized after googling this specific treatment plan is that it's usually given to people with some form of cardiomyopathy and other conditions (none of which I have.) I am now about 3 weeks removed from having COVID and I'm back to riding my bike, which is consistent with what my doctor told me. My doctor told me recovery has a lot of variables and I'll need to go at the pace that I'm comfortable with and listen to my body. Regular checkups should help to that end as well. The theme among these people is when I tried to explain what doctors had told me and why I was going to stick to what they were saying (more generalized as drawing boundaries) I was met with harsh rejection. The key here is that authoritative sources were no longer respected. The fact of the matter is that doctors do take a bit to arrive at consensus and that can be frustrating to a public opinion that is waiting on them for their own sanity, but just because you landed on the correct conclusion a couple times (or even a more conservative solution that kept you equally safe) does not make you an authoritative source. So, I'm not going to tell people to stay in their own lane but you can't just go lecture people based on your own understanding. That's when you forget that all of this information you gather outside of your own domain is good for exercising caution and light conversation.
ta1234567890 6y ago
> Then in real life example you will have real doctors and nurses giving conflicting advices and having wildly different viewpoints on the details. Exactly. Real life example - someone I know asked her doctor about getting the Moderna covid vaccine while pregnant. The doctor not only said it was ok, but also verbally recommended it and gave her a written paper to help her get the vaccine. She was able to get it a couple days ago. Then yesterday the World Health Organization announced that pregnant women should not be getting the Moderna vaccine because they were not included in the trials. So who’s right here? It’s hard to trust a “real doctor” when something like this happens. It also happens that, doctors in particular, barely see you for 5-15min, that is not enough time for them to fully understand what is going on with you and your whole history. It’s only enough time for them to make a quick judgement based on their pattern matching abilities from their own experience and then give, an educated, recommendation. But they are not really vested in you in particular, you are just one more, and if their recommendations don’t work for you, they usually don’t really care and won’t go down the rabbit whole with you, at the most they’ll just refer you to someone else.
- pas 6y ago
  But that ... that's not exactly incompatible. The WHO makes very simple blanket statements that are safe in general. A doctor usually looks at an individual. (And we know a lot of pregnant women got infected with COVID. We know that hospitalization was higher for them, but also that mortality is the same - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm?s_cid=mm6925a1_w#T2_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm?s_cid=mm... , so the immune reaction should be the same too) The real problem is that it's impossible for a non-expert to gauge the expertise of any of these entities (your full-sized real-life walking-talking doctor who you know for a deacade, the WHO and anyone in between). Even simply asking many questions is just the illusion of getting informed (not just because there's rarely any time for proper answers as you mentioned), but because the answers are biased, so this naturally biases the next question too. (Unless there's enough time and effort to go through years of science and try to falsify whatever theory is being communicated with very targeted questions, it's close to useless/futile effort.) > But they are not really vested in you in particular, you are just one more, Yep. Agreed. Also usually primary care physicians are better at "bedside manner" and pattern matching than at real medical science. (Because it's not really their job to have 20 doctorates in every subfield of biology.)

by hrktb 6y ago

hef19898 6y ago

Conflicting doesn't mean that one, or both, opinions are wrong. There is more than solution to every problem.

scythe 6y ago

>Or how trickle down economics is also endorsed by experts. Trickle-down economics is not explicitly endorsed by anyone, because it's a pejorative. That's like saying "totalitarianism is popular in some countries"; you might think those countries are totalitarian, but they don't.

PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
> you might think those countries are totalitarian, but they don't. "You" in the above is a specific individual. "They" in the above is undefined and extremely imprecise. For various definitions of "they", your statement could be true, false or somewhere in between.
mjburgess 6y ago
Indeed. Even then, as a term, it refers to a specific regan-era tax policy. What many on the left assume it means, is a sincere description of growth "raising the tide"; and how ridiculous an idea that is. Of course the tide has risen to an unprecedented degree in human history both since the term "trickle down" was invented; and moreso, over the last 40 years.
- stonogo 6y ago
  Except the tide you're describing is global, and the policy in question was domestic, and wages and assets within the middle and lower economic classes have indeed stagnated in relation to almost every other economic indicator within the country, which is why "many on the left" consider this argument to be invalid.
  - mjburgess 6y ago
    This just isn't the case. And it dramatically isn't the case. This is a side effect of using the same category terms, but not talking about the underlying distributions. Eg., in the UK, 80% of the country were industrial working class or poorer until 1980s; and middle class only started at top 5%. Today, the "industrial working class" level of wealth, is the bottom 20% at the very most. So if you hold the class terms fixed, "middle class" it seems the 80s top 5% has "stagnated", only to fail to mention, it now 60% of the country. If you hold the distributions constant, the wealth level acheived in the top 5% in 1980s is now a majority of the population.
- mikestew 6y ago
  Even then, as a term, it refers to a specific regan-era tax policy. The term was coined by Will Rogers about 90 years ago.
  - opo 6y ago
    The usage goes further back then that. The first use was in 1896 by William Jennings Bryan in his Cross of Gold speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trickle-down_economics

mcguire 6y ago

"how a lot of doctors viewed masks at the beginning of the pandemic" Ok, so I've looked into the history of this a little, and most of the mask mythology seems misunderstood. Prior to 2020, most medical professionals believed most viruses, and corona viruses particularly, could not be transported as aerosols. This was a subject of research where the data had not come in. About late March, it began to appear that the virus could be an aerosol. Hard results did not come in until April and May, and many in the field discovered they had egg on their faces. Conflicting advice is to be expected with new information.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
My frustration is that, here in Canada at least, there is still an outdated way of talking about the virus as if it's a surface / hand sanitation issue, and much of the public policy (especially around school openings, etc.) still seems to be ignorant of the absolutely essential role that shared air has in transmission. Public authorities have failed to really drive home the reality of the virus, and instead we get sanitation theatre, a pantomime of virus control, and parents clambering to get schools reopened (while the numbers plummet since they've been closed after Christmas) Example, a local wine shop in my small town where you are not allowed to touch the bottles, but I see the staff inside with their masks off when there's no customers in the store. Frankly, I think people really just don't _want_ to believe it's aerosol transmitted. Because the consequences for public policy would be so drastic; no malls, no factories, no schools, etc. should really be open if you admit it.
- astrange 6y ago
  It’s possible that it’s just been so long since we had a bad respiratory pandemic that medical advice assumes everything is food poisoning and norovirus, where cleaning surfaces actually does matter. But it’s also possible they’d have to admit grandma-type adages about opening the windows actually work and office buildings don’t let you do this anymore.
- cthaeh 6y ago
  If you go to ontario public health website and read their summaries on current covid papers, you'll note that the vast majority of papers come to the conclusion that schools have almost no impact on the spread of covid. But no, keep applying youre second grade logic: spreads through air-> indoor places unsafe-> CLOSE EVERYTHING. That's not to say some of it isn't security theater (ie my parents were washing cookie boxes with soap some a couple of months ago), but those measures aren't being driven by the public health, but rather the unrelenting fear mongering of the media.

kodah 6y ago

The problem, to me, isn't peoples curiosity or attempting to broaden their horizons. I think the outcomes of this are largely good; it encourages discerning people to exercise caution and makes for good light conversation. Where things get off the rails is when people believe their tentative research or association with a domain makes them authoritative in some sense. I read the same waffling about masks you did, the information I read (since it was inconsistent) led me to believe that I should wear masks more than directed. I did this out of an abundance of caution because at the time early research eerily concluded that not much is known about the longer term effects of this virus, there was stark contrast in the symptoms various people had, and that there were layers to exercising prevention. I acted in a similar manner when I limited my social circle. The difference in the way, I think, these people used much of the same information that I did is that it became authoritative to them. After they'd read enough articles straight from the CDC it made them feel qualified to interpret them. I'm reminded of one guy who demanded I get another PCR test before he hung out with me, even after I hadn't experienced a fever for 10+ days. For some context, when I got sick I came back negative on both tests I was given. I was later told my viral load was not high enough on those days, ironically these also happened to be some of the worst days of the virus. It was only after I lost taste and smell that the doctors realized I had COVID. My friend cited all the reading he had done as evidence that I just wouldn't accept his "perspective". When I asked the doctor about getting both PCR and an antibody test she responded, "Do you have an actual reason? We already knew you were sick." In reality, the time which I would've been contagious had long passed, yet my friend couldn't get it out of his mind that transmission was a possibility. Another example is a friend whose brother had gotten COVID a few months back. His symptoms were certainly worse than mine. Where I didn't experience much trouble breathing, he did among other things. I went on a walk one day because it was one of the days in between being sick that I had some energy and wasn't overcome with brain fog. I shared that I was exhausted after this short walk and that I'd probably stave off a walk for a few days to see where I was at. She chastised me for going on a walk, explaining that her brother had been told not to exercise for three to six months, and that it seemed as if I was taking COVID as a joke. What I realized after googling this specific treatment plan is that it's usually given to people with some form of cardiomyopathy and other conditions (none of which I have.) I am now about 3 weeks removed from having COVID and I'm back to riding my bike, which is consistent with what my doctor told me. My doctor told me recovery has a lot of variables and I'll need to go at the pace that I'm comfortable with and listen to my body. Regular checkups should help to that end as well. The theme among these people is when I tried to explain what doctors had told me and why I was going to stick to what they were saying (more generalized as drawing boundaries) I was met with harsh rejection. The key here is that authoritative sources were no longer respected. The fact of the matter is that doctors do take a bit to arrive at consensus and that can be frustrating to a public opinion that is waiting on them for their own sanity, but just because you landed on the correct conclusion a couple times (or even a more conservative solution that kept you equally safe) does not make you an authoritative source. So, I'm not going to tell people to stay in their own lane but you can't just go lecture people based on your own understanding. That's when you forget that all of this information you gather outside of your own domain is good for exercising caution and light conversation.

ta1234567890 6y ago

> Then in real life example you will have real doctors and nurses giving conflicting advices and having wildly different viewpoints on the details. Exactly. Real life example - someone I know asked her doctor about getting the Moderna covid vaccine while pregnant. The doctor not only said it was ok, but also verbally recommended it and gave her a written paper to help her get the vaccine. She was able to get it a couple days ago. Then yesterday the World Health Organization announced that pregnant women should not be getting the Moderna vaccine because they were not included in the trials. So who’s right here? It’s hard to trust a “real doctor” when something like this happens. It also happens that, doctors in particular, barely see you for 5-15min, that is not enough time for them to fully understand what is going on with you and your whole history. It’s only enough time for them to make a quick judgement based on their pattern matching abilities from their own experience and then give, an educated, recommendation. But they are not really vested in you in particular, you are just one more, and if their recommendations don’t work for you, they usually don’t really care and won’t go down the rabbit whole with you, at the most they’ll just refer you to someone else.

pas 6y ago
But that ... that's not exactly incompatible. The WHO makes very simple blanket statements that are safe in general. A doctor usually looks at an individual. (And we know a lot of pregnant women got infected with COVID. We know that hospitalization was higher for them, but also that mortality is the same - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm?s_cid=mm6925a1_w#T2_down https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925a1.htm?s_cid=mm... , so the immune reaction should be the same too) The real problem is that it's impossible for a non-expert to gauge the expertise of any of these entities (your full-sized real-life walking-talking doctor who you know for a deacade, the WHO and anyone in between). Even simply asking many questions is just the illusion of getting informed (not just because there's rarely any time for proper answers as you mentioned), but because the answers are biased, so this naturally biases the next question too. (Unless there's enough time and effort to go through years of science and try to falsify whatever theory is being communicated with very targeted questions, it's close to useless/futile effort.) > But they are not really vested in you in particular, you are just one more, Yep. Agreed. Also usually primary care physicians are better at "bedside manner" and pattern matching than at real medical science. (Because it's not really their job to have 20 doctorates in every subfield of biology.)