12 ms·

Yes, experts will lie to you sometimes

• someguydave 6y ago
  Fauci did not lie initially; public health was so crazy that they convinced themselves that masks really do not work. Fauci saying it was a lie is the real lie because it would make him appear to adopt (what today is) a politically unacceptable position.
  • jessaustin 6y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hvLiA2akE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hvLiA2akE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2MmX2U2V3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2MmX2U2V3c
    • goda90 6y ago
      In March 2020, CDC and WHO messaging was clear that respirator masks should be saved for healthcare professionals. I saw a lot of media and online posts claiming that masks didn't work at all, but I never saw that from public health officials. It's not lying, or walking back to clarify that loose fitting masks worn by the average citizen are not perfect, and should not be a replacement for social distancing.
      • hn8788 6y ago
        In February, the Surgeon General said that masks aren't effective at stopping the spread of coronavirus. The WHO said "Not having a mask does not necessarily put you at any increased risk of contracting this disease". The director of the CDC said that you shouldn't wear a mask if you're healthy. They were all lying to the public about masks to cover for the fact that there weren't enough for healthcare workers. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-face-masks.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-fa...
    • StreamBright 6y ago
      Yeah he is right. I believe social isolation (working from home) is much better option than wearing a mask. If you inspect the drop in the flu sickness rate of covid vs prior there is a difference. Not sure how much it is attributed to social isolation.
    • astrophysician 6y ago
      Yea but....he's right? What is the controversy here? There was a huge concern about supply shortages and people hoarding PPE. Masks are the best thing the public can do at this point but they aren't perfect protection and the medical community are the ones with the greatest need for PPE...Not to mention, early on in the pandemic it wasn't clear how much protection masks would really give, and people thinking "oh i just need to wear a mask, then I can just do what I normally do" was something they were trying to fight against.
      • kipchak 6y ago
        Advising people to not grab up masks for themselves and deprive others is a good idea, but I think the troublesome part is telling people they shouldn't buy masks because they're useless when they aren't, versus asking them not to buy masks themselves in order to preserve supplies for those who need it. I understand why they chose the former, but the result is eroded trust that health advice being given is in your immediate best interest.
        • astrophysician 6y ago
          I mean I see the point, I think their comments made a lot more sense in the context of where things were back then, and they didn't consider how they would be viewed after the initial panic phase was over. > the result is eroded trust that health advice being given is in your immediate best interest. I would argue that they are making health advice that minimizes the population-wide risk; I don't expect them to tell me the optimal thing for me to do to protect myself if that advice means that the population-wide payoff is worse (i.e. "hey everybody the best thing you can do is to grab an N95 mask" might be optimal for everyone who is able to do that but that is not the optimal thing to do for the population). I kind of understand people's frustration but I just don't personally feel that this was that controversial.
          • kipchak 6y ago
            I definitely agree that there's value in having people do things that aren't necessarily in their immediate best interest, but I think the cause of ire is people being deceived in order to do the right thing rather than asked. In an ideal world something along the lines of "masks are effective however due to supply shortages should be reserved for the most vulnerable and healthcare workers" might have been more accurate, but would also have likely led to runs on masks. The chain of events leading up to what they said makes sense to me, but it puts people in an odd position where we have to trust guidance not because it's accurate but because the organization issuing it thinks saying such will have the best outcome. If for example the PPE situation worsened again and masks became unadvised for similar reasons I think more people would be skeptical as a result.
  • caturopath 6y ago
    They were pretty open even at the time that they were trying to save all the masks for medical workers.
    • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
      They were not. See the videos linked in jessaustin's comment.
      • caturopath 6y ago
        I don't mean to indicate that this was said consistently each time on the topic. Only one of the videos was actually from that time and did say something different. One was just some newsreaders saying some stuff about their take on it.
  • base698 6y ago
    https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-of-legible https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/webmd-and-the-tragedy-... > When the Director of the CDC asserts an opinion, she has to optimize for two things - being right, and keeping power. If she doesn't optimize for the second, she gets replaced as CDC Director by someone who does. That means she's trying to solve a harder problem than Zvi is, and it makes sense that sometimes, despite having more resources than Zvi, she does worse at it.
    • someguydave 6y ago
      He's lying about the "noble lie", he literally believed masks did not work - and he's not the only public health person to say that.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • nofunsir 6y ago
    After which this opinion piece swiftly shifts to ‘years ago experts lied to us about free trade, too.’ Sigh.
• Conlectus 6y ago
  Relevant: The Responsibility of Intellectuals by Noam Chomsky https://chomsky.info/19670223/ https://chomsky.info/19670223/ Spoiler: It's to tell the truth.
  • BurningFrog 6y ago
    Sure, but government officials are not free intellectuals.
    • NullPrefix 6y ago
      Sure, but they don't have to have the responsibility either
• lordnacho 6y ago
  It's caused by the nature of PR. Everything is soundbites, no time for explanation. If I have your ear for 30 seconds or a minute, I'm going to say "Free trade good" before the clock runs out, because it's closer to what I want to say (net good, distribution can be an issue) or has the effect that I want (healthcare workers get masks first), without giving all the details that a proper explanation would be able to give. Attempting to tell people the details would conflict with the idea of a soundbite: final advice from an expert. Which is a bit unfortunate, because at the expert level a lot of knowledge is not final, it's a discussion with nuances that change as evidence is produced. It's probably not great that world has ended up with no attention span, but here we are.
  • katmannthree 6y ago
    Unfortunately those experts are only experts in their respective fields and are either unable or unwilling to consider the second order consequences of their decisions, such as greatly diminished trust in their institution by people who recognize their obvious lies and in this specific case, causing mask resistance in a large number of individuals.
    • umvi 6y ago
      > Unfortunately those experts are only experts in their respective fields and are either unable or unwilling to consider the second order consequences of their decisions Right... imagine handing over control of society, the economy, and more to computer scientists because of a computer crisis that is killing people at scale (hospital ransomware, a virus that spreads via Bluetooth and causes cell phones to explode and kill people, a virus that causes car accidents, all of them simultaneously, etc.) Imagine Dr. Stallman becoming a new public figurehead that wields incredible power over the lives of Americans. At his word, any industry can be shut down overnight in order to save lives. At his word people must carry their phones around in faraday cages or wear tinfoil lined hats for legitimate scientific reasons. At his word, all people must stop playing online video games if he deems it necessary. Seems absurd, but that's essentially what happened here.
      • 6y ago
• cwzwarich 6y ago
  Another example (from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covid-coronavirus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-covi...) not quoted in the article: > “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.”
  • jhardy54 6y ago
    Thanks for linking the article so I could find the context that you removed: > “When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent,” Dr. Fauci said. “Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, ‘I can nudge this up a bit,’ so I went to 80, 85.” > “We need to have some humility here,” he added. “We really don’t know what the real number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent. But, I’m not going to say 90 percent.” > Doing so might be discouraging to Americans, he said, because he is not sure there will be enough voluntary acceptance of vaccines to reach that goal. Although sentiments about vaccines in polls have bounced up and down this year, several current ones suggest that about 20 percent of Americans say they are unwilling to accept any vaccine. > Also, Dr. Fauci noted, a herd-immunity figure at 90 percent or above is in the range of the infectiousness of measles. > “I’d bet my house that Covid isn’t as contagious as measles,” he said.
    • temp8964 6y ago
      Don't you think he just should have said: "I think the real range is somewhere between 70 to 90 percent"? Any change to the number is by definition a lie. Now he is just trying to find a rationale / excuse for the lie, but a lie is a lie.
• anonymouswacker 6y ago
  There's still skepticism that cloth masks prevent spread of the virus because these experts lied several times, and there was a chilling effect stopping the debate due to the cancel culture against those who pointed out, with data, that masks probably are somewhere between barely effective and actually harmful. Who really knows now?
  • psahgal 6y ago
    I'm surprised that there was data suggesting that masks could be harmful, especially since the prevailing guidance for a year now has been to wear masks to reduce airborne transmission. Would you happen to have a link to the studies you mentioned?
    • spookthesunset 6y ago
      > especially since the prevailing guidance for a year now has been to wear masks to reduce airborne transmission That is just an appeal to authority. Which has been par for course. This whole mess is built on a tower of circular references where everybody says "well, the other guy said to do it and they must have a good reason for it". That being said, I too share a hypothesis that improperly worn masks (aka 95% of all masks being worn) do more harm than good. I'd love to see studies that show it but in this environment good luck getting it funded, much less published. Authors of such a study would probably get death threats. Also being said, it isn't upon the skeptics to prove that masks dont work. You cannot prove something doesn't work. The burden of proof is on the people who say masks work in a way that makes them work their non-trival costs to society. Logic has been inverted the entire time this mess has been going on... somehow it is up to the skeptics to "prove" that restrictions don't work, "prove" that masks don't work, and "prove" that it is safe to return to normal. Nope. That isn't how it works.
      • psahgal 6y ago
        I found your point of view interesting, so I did some research. I found this meta analysis in favor of masks that had a lot of good sources: https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118 https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118. A few highlights: - There aren't any good randomized controlled trials to tell how well mask wearing works due to ethical concerns of experimenting on pandemic prevention methods. I could see why researchers would be reluctant to force people NOT to wear masks during a pandemic, since there's a good chance they could be putting people in danger. - Several studies found that wearing masks are effective at reducing transmission of other respiratory illnesses, so I could see why the CDC issued guidance on wearing masks when faced with a respiratory illness like COVID-19. - There's also randomized controlled trials referenced in the analysis that suggest masks are effective at reducing the occurrence of influenza-like illness. I'm looking for studies that suggest face masks are ineffective, but I'm not finding a whole lot...I found a few websites claiming that masks were ineffective, but upon closer inspection, the studies they were citing compared N95 masks to standard surgical masks, not masks vs. no masks. I would love to read any studies you find suggesting that masks are ineffective at reducing the transmission of respiratory illnesses!
• wrnr 6y ago
  Yes they will even go the the funeral of your death grandmother to raise media awareness of the swine flue: https://eswi.org/eswi-tv/marc-van-ranst-communication-and-public-engagement/ https://eswi.org/eswi-tv/marc-van-ranst-communication-and-pu...
• qntty 6y ago
  I guess whether you call it a lie or not is a matter of framing, but I thought that the official line was always the same, even if you had to search hard for it: masks don't offer much protection to the wearer but do protect others from the wearer. I seem to remember this being the justification for advice given a year ago. The difference is that a year ago they emphasized the first part and now they emphasize the second part.
  • umvi 6y ago
    > I thought that the official line was always the same, even if you had to search hard for it: masks don't offer much protection to the wearer but do protect others from the wearer. If that's the official line, why is Dr. Fauci still double masking after receiving both vaccine doses?
    • ghaff 6y ago
      If nothing else, I assume it's called setting an example given a significant majority of people haven't gotten even a first shot yet.
      • umvi 6y ago
        I disagree. I think it sends mixed messages and just confuses people further, especially in light of CDC statements that people don't have to wear masks if everyone present is vaccinated but you do have to still wear a mask in public even if you are vaccinated (why?) The ultra risk aversion is what many people are souring on, especially considering the risks are low to begin with for the vast majority. My opinion is that if you are fully vaccinated, you don't need a mask. If you are vulnerable then by all means continue social distancing and masking and bunkering down in social isolation even after receiving the vaccination if you so desire, but stop forcing it upon me.
        • astrophysician 6y ago
          You should wear masks in public when you are vaccinated because while you're protected from severe symptoms, you can still carry the virus and transmit it to others. > The ultra risk aversion is what many people are souring on, especially considering the risks are low to begin with for the vast majority. Yea but...they are not low for a significant portion of the population, which should matter? And those people are affected when people don't wear masks because many of them are not able to completely isolate. I don't really understand this line of reasoning -- wearing a mask helps people, so why not do it? Is it really that debilitating? I don't like wearing a mask either but if wearing one helps, why not wear it?
• howmayiannoyyou 6y ago
  The inverse of the author's premise is, to me, more interesting. Popular optimism or pessimism matters most in preserving social and economic stability. The irony is that we know this to be true, but on the political side we play with fire amplifying, exacerbating and profiting from divisions in society.
• bombcar 6y ago
  People have a short amount of time to internalize information - and leading with a known “helpful lie” gets it stuck in their mind and can become nearly impossible to change.
• ravenstine 6y ago
  Of course lying can be the appropriate thing to do. It becomes disturbing to me when the authorities lie about something but everyone knows it, those authorities soon openly admit to lying, and people just accept it because of something akin to "they must know what they're doing". Yes, I would rather that authorities lie and keep their trap shut about it. If we know that they are lying, and we just accept the "it's for our own good" reasoning every time, then we are at the stage where we're being primed to accept enough absurdities that we'll allow greater atrocities.
  • coldtea 6y ago
    >Of course lying can be the appropriate thing to do. Just not in a democracy with the full meaning of the term. In which politicians are not elected to make decisions for us, or because they can make better decisions than us. They're merely elected as delegates, to keep us informed, and act on our behalf.
    • ravenstine 6y ago
      I don't think it's possible(or perhaps just practical) to be a politician in any system and not lie at least some of the time. Even if you had a democracy, there's a very good chance that the populous hasn't the faintest clue of what they're talking about, in which case the politician's next course of action is to allow their constituency to hang themselves or to deviate from their proximal wishes knowing later down the road they will be better off. Simpler than that, it's usually not that practical to inform a population on all the nitty gritty details behind legislation, in which case you will inevitably get embellishments for the sake of moving things along, rather than allowing things to get held up because the 80% majority fails to grasp the issues.
      • coldtea 6y ago
        >Even if you had a democracy, there's a very good chance that the populous hasn't the faintest clue of what they're talking about, in which case the politician's next course of action is to allow their constituency to hang themselves or to deviate from their proximal wishes knowing later down the road they will be better off. It should not be their choice to act as if they "know better", and in actual democracies it couldn't be (they were taken out of duty and/or punished for such acts). Besides, more often than not it's not about them "knowing better" but about giving in to this or that private interest of theirs, or lobby, or deep state, or military, or big donors, or under the table or "barely legal" deals ("Do this, and you'll come working for my company on a sinecure with good money after your term") and so on. Which is why this 180-turn doesn't happen just on some newly emergent situations that the politician supossedly "has better information", but also for things the politician themselves and the party itself promised to do in its pre-election program.
• dfilppi 6y ago
  "Liar" and "expert" are on different axes.
  • josephorjoe 6y ago
    Exactly. An expert is someone whose statements are valued because they are trusted to offer valuable insight and expertise. A liar is someone whose statements have no value because they cannot be trusted. A person with expertise (useful domain knowledge) cannot be considered an expert if they are not trusted. Their expertise can still be acknowledged, but once they have lied, their statements cannot be trusted and the listener has to be concerned about the motivation behind the statement rather than reassured by the expertise of the person making the statement. It does not matter how brilliant a car mechanic is if my first thought after him telling me "your car needs new brakes" is "does my car really need new brakes or does my mechanic have a boat payment he needs to make this week?"
  • motohagiography 6y ago
    An expert is just someone who can be trusted to lie. Or perhaps that's just a professional. Otherwise you are just a practitioner.
• antattack 6y ago
  Like Bush once said: "you fool me, you can't fool me again!" https://youtu.be/8Ux3DKxxFoM?t=60 https://youtu.be/8Ux3DKxxFoM?t=60
  • jfoutz 6y ago
    Somewhere there's an interview with him talking about this gaffe. He spoke a bit about going off script, and starting the "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" aphorism. It captured his intent precisely. it wasn't till the first few words spilled out that he realized there would be video of him saying "shame on me" which was clearly unacceptable. He backed himself into a corner, and fumbled his way through it. If I remember the interview correctly, he still felt better about being mocked for that than giving up a "shame on me" soundbite. He figured that would be replayed for the rest of his presidency. So this embarrassment was the least bad of all options to get out of the situation he put himself in. I am not a fan of president W. Bush, but there's more going on there than meets the eye. Kinda interesting to understand part of his thought process. I think he was a terrible president, but I have no doubt he is a sharp guy.
• fabian2k 6y ago
  I'm not convinced that authorities were lying about masks. The actual situation was kind of complex back then, and certainly prone to oversimplification, but that is still very different from actual deception. It was simply unclear whether cloth masks or the simple medical masks would help significantly if the population would wear them. The data about SARS-CoV2 specifically was sparse, and there also wasn't as much about mask effectiveness studied as one might have expected. And at the same time there was a concern about shortages of PPE like N95/FFP2/KN95 masks. But those were used in a professional setting, with people that are taught how to use them, in direct contact with potentially infectious people and with other measures in place. That is a very different scenario than just giving everyone masks. Both can be true, that we have good evidence that N95 masks work for professionals in direct contact with patients and in combination with other safety procedures and that we didn't have good evidence that masks (whether N95 or other) would help for regular people. I think you could have made the justified assumption that masks would very likely help enough to be worth it back then, and some people certainly did that. But the degree to which it would help wasn't certain, and I think the concerns about shifting the supply to places where it was less useful was very real. The communication about this was messed up in several places, but I think in part because it's two separate issues that seem a bit contradictory at first glance. It's quite hard to communicate that well.
  • ep103 6y ago
    We call this a lack of leadership, which, let's face it, becomes very, very obvious the more you paid attention to how the US handled Covid throughout 2020
    • threatofrain 6y ago
      There may have been weak leadership at the federal level, but that’s not the same thing as the tone and direction of professional messaging from the medical community. The US mask story was just very convoluted and lacked policy or professional confidence.
      • lostcolony 6y ago
• scoutt 6y ago
  > Nor was this lie the impulsive decision of a few rogue experts. My non-native English might betray me, and I didn't follow Fauci's statements from the beginning, but based on the quoted article, where is the lie? "they weren’t recommended" doesn't mean that he said masks, made of cloth or otherwise, don't work.
  • yorwba 6y ago
    Sometimes, "not recommended" is used as an euphemism for "bad for you". As in "Alcohol is generally not recommended for people who take certain prescription drugs." It doesn't exactly help that this is common in medical lingo.
    • scoutt 6y ago
      "initially not recommended to the general public so that first responders wouldn’t feel the strain of a shortage of PPE." To me, that doesn't sound as "bad for you". Maybe if "not recommended" is taken out of context (and extrapolating that into "not recommended because masks don't work"). It's still not a lie, as far as I can tell.
      • ghaff 6y ago
        What a lot of people would like to have heard in retrospect is something like the following even if a bit sugar-coated: N95 masks are strongly believed to help but do not buy them. Save them for health care workers. We do encourage you to wear bandanas, gaiters/buffs, homemade cloth masks, or other non-medical PPEs. They are of unknown efficacy but they can't hurt. But don't buy N95s. Which a lot of people would have heard as: You really should be wearing N95 masks and others won't do you much if any good but we need to save them for the important people. (At which point, a lot of people would have been F this and tried to buy N95 masks for their own protection.)
  • pcrh 6y ago
    I'm a native English speaker, and I also had a hard time finding the lie. Especially when the context shows that masks were not "not recommended" due to potential lack of efficacy, but due to shortages. Clearly if they were being recommended to front line workers, etc, they are expected to have at least some efficacy. Personally, I think it's a bad example of "experts lieing", even if it is potentially a lie under some very narrow reading.
• raclage 6y ago
  I'm shocked I haven't seen any journalists questioning Fauci on why he chose to lie. Was that a decision made under pressure from some political entity in the government? Does he believe part of his job is to determine what the public can be trusted to know? Given how much credibility and trust matter to managing a public health crisis it feels weird for the press to be so uninterested. Maybe they worry covering that would come across as questioning "science" at a dangerous time?
  • nitrogen 6y ago
    I seem to recall a statement that he (or it may have been a similarly placed official) said that he only told the public what he thought they were "ready" to hear -- e.g. that he knew the pandemic would last 18 months but said a few weeks or a few months to keep stringing people along.
  • clairity 6y ago
    it's not surprising given who the media works for. all those editors, pundits and talking heads don't pay themselves. and defying the dominant mediopolitical narrative is a good way to lose your job, even if you're right in the long run.
  • spookthesunset 6y ago
    There has been a lot of “mother knows best” going on during this thing. Asking basic questions gets you quickly branded as dangerous and a pariah. I mean, why has the media never asked politicians to produce some kind of end state to restrictions? Why have politicians and “experts” been allowed to just extend things and “wait two more weeks” without articulating a clearly defined goal? Why has the media never questioned high cycle rates for PCR tests? Why has the media constantly downplayed good news? Alas....
    • si1entstill 6y ago
      > why has the media never asked politicians to produce some kind of end state to restrictions? Why have politicians and “experts” been allowed to just extend things and “wait two more weeks” without articulating a clearly defined goal? These are already in place. Most panels are looking for trajectories of illness and hospital capacity. Note, I have found these metric-based plans much easier to find for certain states: https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/ https://covid19.ca.gov/safer-economy/ https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/covid19/Taskforce%20Report.pdf https://www.flgov.com/wp-content/uploads/covid19/Taskforce%2... (see page 9) https://forward.ny.gov/metrics-guide-reopening-new-york https://forward.ny.gov/metrics-guide-reopening-new-york (see "Diagnostic Testing and Contact Tracing Capacity") https://www.mass.gov/doc/reopening-massachusetts-may-18-2020/download https://www.mass.gov/doc/reopening-massachusetts-may-18-2020... > Why has the media never questioned high cycle rates for PCR tests? The turnaround time of testing? I'm not sure what you are bringing up here. > Why has the media constantly downplayed good news? This isn't a covid problem. For a variety of reasons, the media downplays good news across the board. They have a vested interest in keeping viewers "tuned in" to problems.
• nprz 6y ago
  > remember that they probably do have their assessment of your own best interests in mind. Think of them as an overprotective parent, not as an enemy. Tell this to thousands of Americans who lost their jobs from international trade agreements. Sorry we had to take away your ability to earn an income and then lie about why we did it. We actually had your best interests in mind.
  • jaywalk 6y ago
    "We need to put you in poverty to please China, but you wouldn't understand the nuance of this so we're just going to lie instead."
  • nitrogen 6y ago
    > Think of them as an overprotective parent, not as an enemy. You often hear the phrase "nanny state" used by the middle of the US against the coasts, so someone using this parental phrasing as if it's a good thing surprises me. This is exactly the type of patronizing that reinforces that nanny-state impression and destroys trust in expertise.
• roenxi 6y ago
  > Economists have known for many decades that some countries as a whole can be hurt by free trade. I was with him up to here. This is a bit of a handwave that deserved deeper treatment. It isn't obvious that America has ever been made worse off by free trade. The US government has been waging a War on Savers from at last the 90s. 40 years of anti-savings policy seems like a much more obvious culprit than free trade. In the last 30 years the States burned huge amounts of resources fighting silly physical wars, engaged highly questionable monetary policy and run up jaw dropping amounts of debt (I haven't yet found anyone who will argue it is going to get payed back in real terms, the evidence otherwise might be overwhelming). Foreigners and free trade didn't do that. The Chinese are out there talking about the Belt & Road, the biggest infrastructure program ever. Their army is deployed close to the border.
  • PeterisP 6y ago
    I'm assuming that "some countries as a whole can be hurt by free trade" implies countries that are quite different from USA, and who get very different benefits/drawbacks/tradeoffs on free trade than USA because of their geopolitical circumstances.
  • pydry 6y ago
    >It isn't obvious that America has ever been made worse off by free trade. George Washington seemed to think it was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff_of_1789 Free trade only hurts if you're not among the richest countries. It prevents countries from escaping the middle income trap, since their industries are not able to sustainably compete with imports. America was not able to compete with British textiles when the tarriff of 1789 was passed. It wasn't the poorest country in the world, but it wasn't among the richest like it is today.
  • pram 6y ago
    The US dollar acting as the global reserve currency via Bretton Woods is the basis of the modern free trade regime. The 'highly questionable' monetary policy largely exists because the US dollar is the reserve currency for international exchange. The trade deficits and arguably even said physical wars and debt are all symptoms of that. The problems it causes to the US are actually so obvious that it has a name (Triffin dilemma)
• BurningFrog 6y ago
  When you hear a government officials make statements, you are not "listening to science", even if the official has impeccable science credentials. They're doing a job, and that job is not science.
• yasp 6y ago
  See also experts lying about the number of annual flu deaths to push annual flu shots. https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-deaths-to-flu-deaths-is-like-comparing-apples-to-oranges/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-...
• RyEgswuCsn 6y ago
  When the rational thing to do (e.g. lying about the effectiveness of masks to prevent PPE shortages) contradicts the moral thing to do (i.e. telling the truth), what's the right choice?
  • ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    When you lie to the public, you not only keep them in the dark, but you actively discourage them from thinking the right way or finding the truth. There are so many problems with this that I can’t even list. What would’ve happened if the government would’ve made a call at that time for mass PPE manufacturing? Anyone trying to start up a PPE factory would literally be going against CDC guidance, and the CDC would have to double down against it to maintain the lie.
  • hn8788 6y ago
    Be a leader that is willing to make hard choices. Tell the public that sale of N95 masks is restricted to healthcare workers, and outline ways people can reduce their risk of infection while waiting for production of new masks to ramp up. At least then it would have made the idea of lockdowns more palatable.
  • clairity 6y ago
    realize that distancing is the primary mitigation and that masks are at best marginal for the public, and recommend distancing when spending time indoors with non-household members.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  I think there's a subtle difference between the PPE/mask lie and the lie about first vaccine protection levels. The first lie is a straight lie, although perhaps for noble reasons. The idea was to make believe an untruth, because that would help mitigate PPE shortage at the time. The second one, "hesitance to admit that the first dose of the vaccine gives you very strong protection against Covid" is not the same thing. This one is about interpreting data, defining adequate protection? It's about weighting pre-approval experimental data, more recent data, more anecdotal information, etc. There really is a big difference between the two. There is no world without "lies" of the second kind. There is no simple truth here. All we have is a complicated distribution of probabilities and definitions that changes rapidly.
• xrd 6y ago
  This is a terrific article. But this statement: "But to keep those truths to yourself is to take on a responsibility you were never trained to bear." His entire argument is that no one could figure out a way to redistribute income from the winners to the losers after the free trade. Maybe the truth these policy makers know is that telling the truth would lead to them losing their jobs. That's more or less the same thing for both involved groups "economically." But, I love this discussion. Well done.
• Mediterraneo10 6y ago
  Another example of dishonesty or at least disingenuousness: certain countries’ health ministers pushing for further restrictions after already admitting in interviews that their populations are no longer observing previous restrictions. Here the expert's job performance is judged solely by how proactive he looks; he simply has to push for restrictions. Yet now the effective anti-COVID approach might be to slightly step back from restrictions and allow restaurant terraces to reopen – most people meeting each other in spite of restrictions are doing it indoors out of public view, but you really want to make them meet outdoors in the open air where spread is much less likely. Or consider this example: Devi Sridhar, one of the UK scientific advisors, is a proponent of keeping UK borders closed for the next several years and requiring expensive hotel quarantines like Australia or New Zealand. In interviews, she has depicted people opposing this policy as simply "upset they can't go on holiday". In fact, much of travel from the UK is not inane holidaymaking but going to see family abroad – it’s an immigrant-heavy country – and the less affluent couldn’t afford hotel quarantine on return. Here we have an expert putting up a caricature, because being honest about the impact of policies would weaken her push.
• underseacables 6y ago
  I think it’s more likely governments will lie to you and force experts to agree with them, or be sidelines. If you don’t agree with the government line they’ll find someone who does.
• dekhn 6y ago
  my favorite question is: you're an expert faced with an existential threat. IE, if you don't take correct action, every human will die. As an expert, you have a very high confidence your action will save humanity, but it involves not telling most people, because that would prevent your ability to save humanity. This isn't so far fetched, for example climate change and viruses could both (in principle) be existential threats. Is it morally or utilitarian-correct to lie in that case?
  • marcosdumay 6y ago
    What is that line of action that you must lie to people so they take it instead of dying? I find it hard to believe that such situation could ever be real.
    • dekhn 6y ago
      you mean, like vaccine deniers who claim things which aren't medically true?
• unethical_ban 6y ago
  "Little white lies" by Fauci and others damage their credibility with skeptics. People distrustful of government or partial to doubting "the narrative" just have to point to the "masks don't help" line to make their case. And there is something to be said about it. If public health experts are willing to lie, to mislead the public for the greater good, well, the greater good can kiss my ass if my life is in the balance. We recognize the intent of Fauci's lie was noble, but then others may think the economy is really important and say "no it doesn't spread inside much at all! Just turn on the A/C or open a window". Once government gets into the habit of lying to the masses like that, trust can be eroded permanently. I would straight up rather have had government go into stores and factories to confiscate (with compensation) masks from suppliers rather than lie to the public for little benefit. Even better, I'd like my government to be competent enough to prepare adequately for certain disaster scenarios like an airborne disease, by keeping a _real_ stockpile of masks on hand, or encouraging every healthcare worker to keep a month's supply of N95 on hand for their job, etc. tl;dr we need bigger, smarter government, not one that lies. This goes for the economy, too: Free trade is government-supported redistribution of wealth toward the top of the economy. Government needs to enforce that care is given to the losers of our economic model.
  • xxxxxyy1 6y ago
    > we need bigger, smarter government pick one
    • unethical_ban 6y ago
      Comments usually have some substance behind them. This isn't reddit.
      • xxxxxyy1 6y ago
        It's got the same arbitrary and one-sided moderation, along with a very orthodox, know-it-all userbase; so it's very much like Reddit.
• v3rt3x 6y ago
  It's been interesting to see the degree of magical thinking and arbitrary rules that have developed around masks over the past year. I do not doubt for a second that N95 masks will be highly effective if worn properly, but I've remained unconvinced that the idea that a flimsy ill-fitting surgical mask is anything more than a political totem. If anything, these cloth masks give people a false sense of security for being lax on social distancing rules. Same thing goes for arbitrary distance recommendations (e.g. 6ft vs 3ft) for inclosed spaces.
• fasteddie31003 6y ago
  I was a militant pro-maskers from the beginning. I made https://www.maskssavelives.org/ https://www.maskssavelives.org/ which went "viral" and got 5 million visits in a week. The CDC contacted me and asked me to take it down. I told them to fuck off. The thing that really bothers me now are the nylon buff wearers. From research the nylon buff is like an n0, basically like wearing nothing. I realized people don't think critically and look at research on things and it makes me feel bad about humanity's future. I think these are smart people around Boulder, CO wearing the nylon buffs. It's just a meaningless virtue signal.
  • edirano1 6y ago
    > The CDC contacted me and asked me to take it down. That's horrifying. Can you provide the email text they sent you?
    • fasteddie31003 6y ago
      They called me. A friend of mine that works for them contacted me that I should think about taking it down. She was pretty adamant that medical workers should get PPE first. I haven't talked to that person since that encounter.
      • y-c-o-m-b 6y ago
        > A friend of mine that works for them contacted me that I should think about taking it down Looks like this was coming from your friend - as a friend - and not the CDC as an organization?
      • 908B64B197 6y ago
        > She was pretty adamant that medical workers should get PPE first Sounds like maybe instead of whining, her organization could have made sure that healthcare get the PPE by... manufacturing more. Not like it's their job or anything.
  • sethingtondev 6y ago
    A joint study by the CDC and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) shows neck gaiters/buffs at or above cloth and medical mask efficacy for expelled droplets: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.05.20207241v3.full.pdf https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.05.20207241v... Another study from the University of Georgia showed similar results: https://research.uga.edu/docs/units/communications/UGAMaskGaiterStudySept2020.pdf https://research.uga.edu/docs/units/communications/UGAMaskGa... A Q&A with the researcher state the following: "The results that gaiters can provide a similar level of protection as CDC-recommended masks was consistent with our expectations. However, we were somewhat surprised to see the multi-layer gaiters provided by MISSION performed so much better than the masks we tested (96% reduction in respiratory droplets vs. 81%)." https://research.uga.edu/docs/units/communications/GaiterstudyQASurajSharma.pdf https://research.uga.edu/docs/units/communications/Gaiterstu... There's a false narrative on gaiters/buffs due to research in August related to lost cost technology for testing masks, developed by Duke researchers, that has been misinterpreted by the media. Here's one of those Duke researchers: “It was a development of a simple technique. It was not a systematic study of masks,” Fischer said. “The interpretation was that all neck gaiters suck. That is not what we said.” https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2020/08/duke-university-researchers-dispute-common-interpretation-mask-study-covid https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2020/08/duke-universit...
• dukeofdoom 6y ago
  I think its more than lying. I think the media runs full on disinformation campaigns aimed at the public. Q is a good example of this. It mixed truth with fiction to throw people off that had legitimate concerns. It succeeded in making large groups of them seem crazy, or even goad them to commit crimes to discredit them. Funny how it went away after the election was finalized. If you read detective novels, you will often come across a suspect that knows he is being tracked or followed. So they will deliberately make moves to throw the detective off track. They employ tactics to misdirect, confuse, and use all kinds of subversion to point the finger in the wrong direction. And the often practiced one, is to accuse others of what you just did. So watch for confessions through accusations. If an individual can accomplish this, what makes you think a government doesn't.
• fasteddie31003 6y ago
  I think the current noble lie is coming from the Central Bank that they are not worries about inflation.
• at_a_remove 6y ago
  This ought to be followed by pieces such as "Yes, sometimes experts will be caught in lies," "Yes, sometimes the experts are no longer trusted," and finally "A Crisis of Faith: Bafflingly, People No Longer Believe Experts." I say this as someone with a science degree: public distrust of science has been at least partially earned. Now, it has become easier than ever to catch out some mouthpiece in an eventual lie, and it doesn't matter how Noble that lie is, as the Noble Lie gives way to the Politically Expedient Lie (still for our own good), and from there to the Convenient Lie (which is for someone's good, if not necessarily ours).
• some_random 6y ago
  "Well sure Dr. Fauci is an expert and Alex Jones is not, but Dr. Fauci lied to me so I can't trust him" You don't get to decide for other people if being lied to is ok. That is a decision they have to make for themselves, and in general they will not trust people THAT LIE TO THEM. People at this scale need to be treated like sheep, but if they figure out you're herding them they stop listening to you.
  • spookthesunset 6y ago
    > People at this scale need to be treated like sheep, but if they figure out you're herding them they stop listening to you. Not really. Tell people the truth. Tell them what you know and let them decide for themselves how to act on that. Have faith in your fellow humans to do the right thing, even if it doesn't always seem like it is right to you. "Mother knows best" assumes everybody shares the same values and belief systems you do. That is a poor assumption.
• Aunche 6y ago
  >Personally, I think experts should err on the side of humility in public communications — and that means telling the truth, even when it’s complex. That's what Fauci did. The problem is that nobody bothered to actually listen. In the video where he was allegedly lying, he said that he thinks that masks are ineffective at preventing you from receiving covid and that they should be saved for healthcare workers and people who are sick. https://youtu.be/PRa6t_e7dgI https://youtu.be/PRa6t_e7dgI
  • psahgal 6y ago
    The guidance Fauci gives in this video is in line with what I read in news articles back in March 2020. I was surprised the article suggested Fauci lied to the public as a result. I wonder why this explanation got buried. Perhaps the lesson here is that rather than blaming experts for occasionally getting things wrong, we should focus on promoting media literacy instead, so that people get accurate information they need.
• jameslk 6y ago
  What this piece doesn't address is the harms of lying. It's like the boy who cried wolf. It erodes trust in those who are supposed to be experts, leading everyone to be unsure of what is true or not, which is a worse situation. Time passes and depending on how egregious the lie was, the collective memory forgets. But between then, the damage has been done and the experts lose some of those who would listen to them and yet others who unquestionably defended them.
• bobthechef 6y ago
  "Does this mean that experts, as a group, are liars who shouldn’t be trusted? No." That's a bit of a silly answer, isn't it? Lies necessarily undermine confidence in what someone is saying. It would be _foolish_ to continue to put the _same_ trust in that person as if nothing happened, at least until they've regained that trust. I'm not saying you wouldn't hear that person out if practical reasons made that sensible, but you'd do so with a greater skepticism than before. People in positions of authority must be especially careful as they are like the city on a hill. They are under the greatest scrutiny and their actions are also most capable of producing scandal and rotting the proverbial fish from head to tail "Which brings me to the reason experts should be more reluctant to lie to the public: They aren’t experts on the topic of when to lie." There is no appropriate scenario when lies are morally acceptable. I realize the author is operating according to some utilitarian calculus, but utilitarianism is a bankrupt and morally pernicious moral theory. Lying is not just wrong because it has bad effects, which it most certainly does and some of which have been described by the author, but also because it is intrinsically wrong. It perverts speech which is intrinsically ordered toward telling the truth (lies couldn't work otherwise). It is an act of power and domination. You don't always have to. or even must not, tell the truth, or you may in some cases engage in mental reservation, but never lie. And in the case of Fauci & Friends, I am not convinced that he could not have achieved the same thing without lying. And frankly, Fauci would not be responsible for how people reacted anyway if he acted rightly. That's another thing that needs to be stated. Authorities shouldn't be totalitarian and coercive overlords. If an authority makes a sound recommendation, and people choose to ignore it and this leads to bad results, that's on those people, not the authority. If you take your ego down a notch, acknowledge your own limited power and the limits -- epistemic, practical, and moral -- of your authority, then you'll understand that society isn't "run" by its leaders. Society exists on its own and leaders play more a guidance role. You job isn't to secure some end result at all costs. That's dehumanizing and treats citizens as if they lacked personhood and personal responsibility. "the same mistake so many smart people make — that because they’re smart about one thing, they’re smart about everything." A general truth. People well-versed in one area are easily tempted into thinking they're competent in all areas. "Think of them as an overprotective parent, not as an enemy." An overprotective parent thus becomes an enemy, as in, their good intentions do not bless their actions and their infantilizing treatment is itself harmful. Besides, when people find out they're being infantilized, they cease to trust you and begin to suspect evil motives. So if you're going to frame lying as a practical matter, then at least be consistent and accept the consequences of your actions.
• jkingsbery 6y ago
  > You’re probably not being punked; you’re being babied. So if and when you go fact-checking the experts’ recommendations, remember that they probably do have their assessment of your own best interests in mind. Think of them as an overprotective parent, not as an enemy. But... we're not babies. I get that many experts have good intentions. But treating adults like babies is a good way to come across as an enemy. > When experts make guesses about whether the public can handle the truth, they aren’t acting as experts; they’re acting as amateurs. They’re winging it. This is a start, but it's bigger than this. Experts are amateurs at understanding all the nuances of anyone's daily lives beyond their own. It's not just that they say "I'll lie here, because it will be good for people," and they misjudge how people handle lies. It's that very often experts have revealed that they don't understand what it means for something to be "good for people" beyond their narrow expertise.
  • afarrell 6y ago
    Sometimes you have to make the least-bad choice that you can based on the information you have available. Sometimes you know that you will fail and have to choose the least-lethal way to fail.
    • jkingsbery 6y ago
      Agreed... but who is "you" in the sentence? Unfortunately, it seems to me experts increasingly think that their domain is the only one that matters, so they (as experts) should make decisions without consulting on whether someone in a different field that might have more, better information. Also, the "least-lethal way to fail" argument assumes that there aren't other lethal trade-offs coming from down stream impact in areas outside an expert's vision.
• tootie 6y ago
  Everyone is talking about masks but most of the argument is about free trade and I think his point is not really well made. The experts were all pretty clear that free trade would have losers and explained what sort of work needed to happen to remedy them. The shortfall was in the politics and policy making circles. None of those remedies were ever enacted. Bills like NAFTA did, in fact, have provisions to help domestic workers who would lose their livelihoods they were just woefully insufficient. The 90s and 2000s were marked not just by growing international trade, but by growing inequality. Remedies like progressive taxation, higher min wage, stronger unions and affordable college would offset a lot of the losses due to trade but there was no political will to take those on.
  • clairity 6y ago
    yes, it was clear to many people what the dynamics of this would produce, yet policy makers kept pointing to the static analysis as if it were truth (that free trade benefits both sides, conveniently forgetting that the sides are compositions not singular entities). it’s clear that the wealthy and powerful didn’t care because it was practically guaranteed to be lucrative to them, everyone else be damned.
• kazinator 6y ago
  I wrote the following tidbit early last April. I didn't post it anywhere, but e-mailed it privately to a few people. If masks were seatbelts, this is what authorities would be telling us: Seat belts by themselves are not effective at saving lives. Safe driving, like keeping your distance and staying within the speed limit, or staying home and not driving at all prevents accidents. Seat belts may encourage a false sense of security leading to dangerous habits like tailgating and speeding. Thus, there is no reason for drivers to wear seat belts and doing so could in fact reduce traffic safety. However, if you're a passenger, you may wear one if you feel that it is beneficial. People still die while wearing seat belts; we are currently evaluating whether they are effective at all for the driving public, even though we have had motor vehicles with seat belts for the better part of a century. There aren't enough seat belts; please save them for professional drivers like long-distance truckers on whom we rely to deliver toilet paper and flour. If you feel you need a seat belt, you can make a slightly effective one at home out of duct tape or knitted yarn. But please don't go out and buy large quantities of duct tape or yarn, either; in this crisis, your leaders need these materials to hold their rhetoric together.
• smitty1e 6y ago
  Communication is a hard problem. Can you say the same thing to a small amount of seasoned pros that you can to a large number of New Guys? No: I've perturbed the question in terms of size and skill. You're going to say something dumber and simpler (and likely less efficient) to the New Guys. So I can get 20% the way to empathy for Fauci. The larger conceit of government, by no means limited to Fauci, is that the federal government can boss everyone around like cattle. A year on, it kinda looks like these pencil-necks were just a bit over their skis.