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"I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few, there were actually a few coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be

"I was at a hospital the other night where I think there were a few, there were actually a few coronavirus patients, and I shook hands with everybody, you'll be pleased to know, and I continue to shake hands," - Boris Johnson Anybody who thinks the UK represents competent totalitarianism needs to really think about where they are getting their news from. The UK's response was objectively worse than similar countries, in that more people died per capita, and this was because of two late lockdowns, both late because top politicians ignored scientific advice. The success of the vaccine rollout is arguably the result of the government's procurement efforts, but also deserving of credit are the UK population (overwhelmingly non-skeptical), and the NHS, which allows for a highly organized and centralized rollout.

clairity 5y ago
it’s ironic that you use the phrase “overwhelmingly non-skeptical” to negate a totalitarian supposition, when totalitarianism, or more narrowly authoritarianism, requires, and in fact subjugates their populace to being (via propaganda), a docile and unquestioning public. “skeptical yet willing” would be more deserving of credit than “obliviously following”. the public should absolutely question and challenge ‘experts’ (i take issue with this framing itself but that’s a discussion for another time), because not only are experts often wrong but not doing so sets a dangerous sociopolitical precedent.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  Firstly, I don't think skepticism is the inverse of docility, or even necessarily aligned with being questioning. Skepticism is traditionally characterized by an attack on the methods of knowledge-production, and as such, can engender docility and make questioning incoherent. Vaccine skepticism isn't based on a question or challenge towards experts - questions or challenges exist within a specific framework, a specific body of knowledge. Rather, it is based on a challenge to the value and nature of expertise itself. As such, it's absolutely compatible with docility, totalitarianism, and antipathy towards questioning. In fact, since experts are experts by virtue of their existence within a specific body of knowledge, they are always by their very nature open to questions and challenges. Attacking the idea of expertise can as such be a way of attacking these areas of open questioning and challenge. A good example of this is how authoritarian governments are typically hostile to academic institutions.
  - clairity 5y ago
    skepticism is an “attack” on certainty, particularly unjustified uncertainty, for which blindly trusting (esp. only government-sanctioned) experts plainly qualifies. only by shedding our false veils of certainty do we inch ever closer to seeing the world as it truly is. there are a plethora of open questions in vaccine science and epidemiological policy that naturally allow for skepticism. it’s not only political or partisan. you can strip away the political and still be left with plenty valid skepticism. and yes, skepticism challenges the notion of expertise itself. it suggests humility is undervalued, that an ‘expert’ knows so little against the backdrop of the world’s knowledge (much less the world itself), especially when the ego becomes intertwined with the ideological. experts over time trend toward surety rather than openness and inquiry, especially as stature rises in a field. it’s so common that the out-of-touch know-it-all is a storytelling caricature. while it’s not always a valid line of attack, questioning the basis of “expertise” can certainly unveil erroneous assumptions, poor methodology/data, and faulty reasoning. the raison d'être of skepticism is to push knowledge forward, not hold it back, and this sort of challenge is just as valid as any other in this regard. finally, authoritarian governments are hostile toward academic institutions due to concerns over its power and legitimacy as embodied by... skepticism (of the state and its propaganda).
thu2111 5y ago
No it wasn't. I will keep repeating this fact on HN until my fingers fall off - lockdowns do not work. They. Do. Not. Work. The data is in and the data is unambiguous, lockdowns have no effect at all. The UK having worse outcomes than some other regions that had far less strict measures should be enough to kill this idea off completely, yet you cite that very fact even though it clearly disproves the notion that lockdown timing had anything to do with the UK's results. As for your cited quote, would you like me to cite the thousands of other things government leaders have said over the course of the year that support my point? Yes, the PM is a naturally optimistic guy. None of the people around him are, and they've all been ramping the fear factor to 11 continuously, and in particular they controlled the public messaging not the PM. With the result that there is now a serious problem in the UK with people who are afraid to leave their own homes.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  ... The UK lockdown was very strict, but it was also very late. Lockdowns work fine, they just don't work when you call them after everybody already has it. Strictness and timeliness are unrelated characteristics. Being afraid to leave your home has, for large parts of the last year, been very reasonable behaviour. The coronavirus has already killed 5 times more people than the blitz. Being an at-risk person in the middle of one of the UK waves was about as dangerous as regularly riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
  - thu2111 5y ago
    They don't work regardless of when deployed. The idea the UK was late is doing the rounds inside the UK establishment but it's wrong. If they worked places that stopped doing lockdowns would have seen huge surges and higher death rates than places that kept them, but that didn't happen and there are by now many such examples. Lockdowns don't work because (a) COVID doesn't seem to care about them and (b) COVID is nowhere near deadly enough to justify them, as demonstrated by the counter-example states and countries that rejected them and saw far less than the predicted mortality.
    - 5y ago

clairity 5y ago

it’s ironic that you use the phrase “overwhelmingly non-skeptical” to negate a totalitarian supposition, when totalitarianism, or more narrowly authoritarianism, requires, and in fact subjugates their populace to being (via propaganda), a docile and unquestioning public. “skeptical yet willing” would be more deserving of credit than “obliviously following”. the public should absolutely question and challenge ‘experts’ (i take issue with this framing itself but that’s a discussion for another time), because not only are experts often wrong but not doing so sets a dangerous sociopolitical precedent.

pasabagi 5y ago
Firstly, I don't think skepticism is the inverse of docility, or even necessarily aligned with being questioning. Skepticism is traditionally characterized by an attack on the methods of knowledge-production, and as such, can engender docility and make questioning incoherent. Vaccine skepticism isn't based on a question or challenge towards experts - questions or challenges exist within a specific framework, a specific body of knowledge. Rather, it is based on a challenge to the value and nature of expertise itself. As such, it's absolutely compatible with docility, totalitarianism, and antipathy towards questioning. In fact, since experts are experts by virtue of their existence within a specific body of knowledge, they are always by their very nature open to questions and challenges. Attacking the idea of expertise can as such be a way of attacking these areas of open questioning and challenge. A good example of this is how authoritarian governments are typically hostile to academic institutions.
- clairity 5y ago
  skepticism is an “attack” on certainty, particularly unjustified uncertainty, for which blindly trusting (esp. only government-sanctioned) experts plainly qualifies. only by shedding our false veils of certainty do we inch ever closer to seeing the world as it truly is. there are a plethora of open questions in vaccine science and epidemiological policy that naturally allow for skepticism. it’s not only political or partisan. you can strip away the political and still be left with plenty valid skepticism. and yes, skepticism challenges the notion of expertise itself. it suggests humility is undervalued, that an ‘expert’ knows so little against the backdrop of the world’s knowledge (much less the world itself), especially when the ego becomes intertwined with the ideological. experts over time trend toward surety rather than openness and inquiry, especially as stature rises in a field. it’s so common that the out-of-touch know-it-all is a storytelling caricature. while it’s not always a valid line of attack, questioning the basis of “expertise” can certainly unveil erroneous assumptions, poor methodology/data, and faulty reasoning. the raison d'être of skepticism is to push knowledge forward, not hold it back, and this sort of challenge is just as valid as any other in this regard. finally, authoritarian governments are hostile toward academic institutions due to concerns over its power and legitimacy as embodied by... skepticism (of the state and its propaganda).

thu2111 5y ago

No it wasn't. I will keep repeating this fact on HN until my fingers fall off - lockdowns do not work. They. Do. Not. Work. The data is in and the data is unambiguous, lockdowns have no effect at all. The UK having worse outcomes than some other regions that had far less strict measures should be enough to kill this idea off completely, yet you cite that very fact even though it clearly disproves the notion that lockdown timing had anything to do with the UK's results. As for your cited quote, would you like me to cite the thousands of other things government leaders have said over the course of the year that support my point? Yes, the PM is a naturally optimistic guy. None of the people around him are, and they've all been ramping the fear factor to 11 continuously, and in particular they controlled the public messaging not the PM. With the result that there is now a serious problem in the UK with people who are afraid to leave their own homes.

pasabagi 5y ago
... The UK lockdown was very strict, but it was also very late. Lockdowns work fine, they just don't work when you call them after everybody already has it. Strictness and timeliness are unrelated characteristics. Being afraid to leave your home has, for large parts of the last year, been very reasonable behaviour. The coronavirus has already killed 5 times more people than the blitz. Being an at-risk person in the middle of one of the UK waves was about as dangerous as regularly riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
- thu2111 5y ago
  They don't work regardless of when deployed. The idea the UK was late is doing the rounds inside the UK establishment but it's wrong. If they worked places that stopped doing lockdowns would have seen huge surges and higher death rates than places that kept them, but that didn't happen and there are by now many such examples. Lockdowns don't work because (a) COVID doesn't seem to care about them and (b) COVID is nowhere near deadly enough to justify them, as demonstrated by the counter-example states and countries that rejected them and saw far less than the predicted mortality.
  - 5y ago