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I often flag and downvote stories like these, because I do not believe they are consistent with HN's mission to feed intellectual curiosity. It is clear we have

I often flag and downvote stories like these, because I do not believe they are consistent with HN's mission to feed intellectual curiosity. It is clear we have a very vocal contingent of vaccine deniers, and I do think it is useful to hear their arguments, but I believe that's best done in the context of source stories that actually convey some new understanding. From my observations, the best lens for understanding vaccine denial (or other related forms of Covid denial) is religious belief. Articles like these are medium-quality grains of opinion supporting that belief. Outside Covid, such things are obviously not in scope for HN, but the virus has captured our attention. If I were the mod, I'd have an explicit policy that Covid stories need to come from high quality sources. Dissenting or unusual perspectives are fine, but these "just asking questions" pieces with confusing (at best) statistics aren't. And I'd honestly consider most mainstream press pieces not to clear the bar either. There are some excellent science journalists and bloggers out there (Derek Lowe is one of my favorites of the latter). We should be listening to them, I think.

whb07 5y ago
It’s not vaccine “deniers”, it’s extreme views like yours that paint them as such. One of my co-workers got covid, recovered just fine and then continued to wear non-N95 masks religiously. He honestly lived in an irrational fear, especially seeing the fear porn on TV. I asked him why he was still wearing a mask, and why was he scared if he’s already done with it. “Oh because I’m waiting for the vaccine.” … Putting aside all the hysteria and orange-man-bad, when did the relationship between vaccine/natural-response go away? He was seriously confused about my line of questioning pointing out that he’s already got the natural form of a vaccine. When did we all forget that chicken pox can be a serious thing to older people, but it’s relatively harmless to children? Once you get it, you’re generally inoculated for life. So when you have the majority of people behaving irrationally, leading scientists lying and playing politics, how is it anything but natural to say: “You know what? Let’s slow down for a second, and find out what’s what, because for the past year everyone’s been lying”
- LostJourneyman 5y ago
  I'll assume your line of reasoning is in good faith and answer it as such. To OP's point, leading research actually has answers to the questions you're asking and backs up your friend's behavior. The fundamental difference is that this isn't in the same families of viruses as your typical one and done vaccines of childhood. This is a coronavirus, which are known to have a high mutation and variation rate and tend to be vaccine resistant. This is why you have a flu vaccine every year, but chicken pox once. It's somewhat rare, but it would have been possible for your friend to have gotten a different variant, or act as a carrier for a different variant. He chose to follow expert advise to keep himself and others safe. I would like to point out also that wearing a face covering is a small price to pay for public safety even if it wasn't needed for every individual. As an example, even fully vaccinated and having had the virus, I wear my own mask constantly. It would be unkind of me to force people to choose if they trust my judgement and my word just to feel safe around me. If we discuss it and they feel safe, often I'll remove the mask for ease of conversation. But the point here is: we should care about other people, we should strive to make the world we all live in as safe and comfortable as possible for everyone around us, and we need to weigh the risk of slight personal discomfort against the benefits of interpersonal relationships, public safety, and the well-being of those around you. To conflate “You know what? Let’s slow down for a second, and find out what’s what, because for the past year everyone’s been lying” With “Oh because I’m waiting for the vaccine.” As equally reasonable positions is disingenuous at best, but it's worth checking your motivations. Edits:grammar
  - whb07 5y ago
    It is in good faith. But the burden of proof lies on the argument that the vaccine won’t work for this. Not the other way around. In the US, in theory, it’s supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty”. For the past century, it’s been assumed “survive infection, you should be good until proven otherwise.” It’s never been quarantine the healthy. In the past century+, cloth masks haven’t been shown to help do anything and in Asia, they are typically used by the people who are feeling off or actually have a cold, etc. For proof on masks, see Fauci’s emails or the plethora of studies and CDC materials prior to 2020. There is a difference between doing smart and reasonable things, and imposing draconian measures globally with unproven actions. Lastly, only the rich countries are able to lock down and print funny paper while this lasts. The rest of the world has to face starvation and go to work to provide the rich countries with goods.
peytn 5y ago
For very controversial topics I would expect high-quality sources to protect their reputational downside by taking conservative stances. In that case I think it’s fine to see some medium-quality outsider sources and use my own noodle. That satisfies my own intellectual curiosity.
- raphlinus 5y ago
  I see your point but from my perspective, in most places there's a trickle of good stuff and a flood of junk. I try to offset that by occasionally reading a virology or epidemiology paper myself and listening to TWiV when I get the time. The thing that's striking to me is how different that picture is from middlebrow sources, in which I include a lot of the mainstream press. For example, their scare stories every time a new variant comes out is cookie-cutter journalism (and is basically crying wolf for when something notable does happen, like delta).
moralestapia 5y ago
>[...] because I do not believe they are consistent with HN's mission to feed intellectual curiosity Let others decide, whatever fills your curiosity is different than mine and that's a good thing. You are not the arbiter of knowledge.
- raphlinus 5y ago
  I am not, but I can downvote things that I think degrade the quality of discussion, which in my personal opinion includes a great many Covid threads. Others of course can submit and upvote stuff they find is interesting. If you have good stuff that challenges the conventional wisdom, please post it, as I actually seek out that kind of material (for example, Alina Chan's Twitter feed, which in my opinion is the best skeptical source on the lab leak theory).
sudosysgen 5y ago
Another issue with these "just asking questions" posts (some call them JAQing off) is that they often aren't in good faith and even when they are they create the false impression of an even debate on things that really are mostly settled. I think these subjects that require a lot of care and can have a lot of impact based solely on rhetoric are really not what blogs and rapid response commentary excels at. I'm happy at least there is enough detachment here for it to be realized, in most other places this would be drowned out in the echo of bickering.
ekianjo 5y ago
> From my observations, the best lens for understanding vaccine denial (or other related forms of Covid denial) is religious belief. How about the popular opinion that "vaccines are always good and should never be questioned no matter what"? Do you treat that as religious belief as well?
- raphlinus 5y ago
  Sure, if that's the belief that's actually driving decisions. It certainly isn't the way I approach things. I eagerly sought a vaccine (my appointment was 10:20am on the first day I was eligible) because the safety and efficacy was demonstrated by data from trials conducted with a high level of scientific rigor, plus observational studies from places that had gotten there early. It was thrilling to see the early data out of Israel that showed such a strong vaccine effect from their age-stratified rollout. And to further support my point, I wouldn't recommend anyone get CureVac - from the data we have now, that looks like a dud, even though it is an mRNA vaccine with some similarities to the others. My guess is that that there is a deeper underlying question: should we trust the scientists and institutions who do these trials. And on that my personal belief is that yes we should, but we should also be skeptical and hold them accountable. They make mistakes - the recent aducanumab decision looks like a big one - so I am definitely not arguing we should uncritically accept everything they do and say. But when they do it right, as has happened with vaccines in the US, we should celebrate, not undermine, that. I do appreciate that trust in people and institutions is a personal thing and there are reasons for it to vary.

whb07 5y ago

It’s not vaccine “deniers”, it’s extreme views like yours that paint them as such. One of my co-workers got covid, recovered just fine and then continued to wear non-N95 masks religiously. He honestly lived in an irrational fear, especially seeing the fear porn on TV. I asked him why he was still wearing a mask, and why was he scared if he’s already done with it. “Oh because I’m waiting for the vaccine.” … Putting aside all the hysteria and orange-man-bad, when did the relationship between vaccine/natural-response go away? He was seriously confused about my line of questioning pointing out that he’s already got the natural form of a vaccine. When did we all forget that chicken pox can be a serious thing to older people, but it’s relatively harmless to children? Once you get it, you’re generally inoculated for life. So when you have the majority of people behaving irrationally, leading scientists lying and playing politics, how is it anything but natural to say: “You know what? Let’s slow down for a second, and find out what’s what, because for the past year everyone’s been lying”

LostJourneyman 5y ago
I'll assume your line of reasoning is in good faith and answer it as such. To OP's point, leading research actually has answers to the questions you're asking and backs up your friend's behavior. The fundamental difference is that this isn't in the same families of viruses as your typical one and done vaccines of childhood. This is a coronavirus, which are known to have a high mutation and variation rate and tend to be vaccine resistant. This is why you have a flu vaccine every year, but chicken pox once. It's somewhat rare, but it would have been possible for your friend to have gotten a different variant, or act as a carrier for a different variant. He chose to follow expert advise to keep himself and others safe. I would like to point out also that wearing a face covering is a small price to pay for public safety even if it wasn't needed for every individual. As an example, even fully vaccinated and having had the virus, I wear my own mask constantly. It would be unkind of me to force people to choose if they trust my judgement and my word just to feel safe around me. If we discuss it and they feel safe, often I'll remove the mask for ease of conversation. But the point here is: we should care about other people, we should strive to make the world we all live in as safe and comfortable as possible for everyone around us, and we need to weigh the risk of slight personal discomfort against the benefits of interpersonal relationships, public safety, and the well-being of those around you. To conflate “You know what? Let’s slow down for a second, and find out what’s what, because for the past year everyone’s been lying” With “Oh because I’m waiting for the vaccine.” As equally reasonable positions is disingenuous at best, but it's worth checking your motivations. Edits:grammar
- whb07 5y ago
  It is in good faith. But the burden of proof lies on the argument that the vaccine won’t work for this. Not the other way around. In the US, in theory, it’s supposed to be “innocent until proven guilty”. For the past century, it’s been assumed “survive infection, you should be good until proven otherwise.” It’s never been quarantine the healthy. In the past century+, cloth masks haven’t been shown to help do anything and in Asia, they are typically used by the people who are feeling off or actually have a cold, etc. For proof on masks, see Fauci’s emails or the plethora of studies and CDC materials prior to 2020. There is a difference between doing smart and reasonable things, and imposing draconian measures globally with unproven actions. Lastly, only the rich countries are able to lock down and print funny paper while this lasts. The rest of the world has to face starvation and go to work to provide the rich countries with goods.

peytn 5y ago

For very controversial topics I would expect high-quality sources to protect their reputational downside by taking conservative stances. In that case I think it’s fine to see some medium-quality outsider sources and use my own noodle. That satisfies my own intellectual curiosity.

raphlinus 5y ago
I see your point but from my perspective, in most places there's a trickle of good stuff and a flood of junk. I try to offset that by occasionally reading a virology or epidemiology paper myself and listening to TWiV when I get the time. The thing that's striking to me is how different that picture is from middlebrow sources, in which I include a lot of the mainstream press. For example, their scare stories every time a new variant comes out is cookie-cutter journalism (and is basically crying wolf for when something notable does happen, like delta).

moralestapia 5y ago

>[...] because I do not believe they are consistent with HN's mission to feed intellectual curiosity Let others decide, whatever fills your curiosity is different than mine and that's a good thing. You are not the arbiter of knowledge.

raphlinus 5y ago
I am not, but I can downvote things that I think degrade the quality of discussion, which in my personal opinion includes a great many Covid threads. Others of course can submit and upvote stuff they find is interesting. If you have good stuff that challenges the conventional wisdom, please post it, as I actually seek out that kind of material (for example, Alina Chan's Twitter feed, which in my opinion is the best skeptical source on the lab leak theory).

sudosysgen 5y ago

Another issue with these "just asking questions" posts (some call them JAQing off) is that they often aren't in good faith and even when they are they create the false impression of an even debate on things that really are mostly settled. I think these subjects that require a lot of care and can have a lot of impact based solely on rhetoric are really not what blogs and rapid response commentary excels at. I'm happy at least there is enough detachment here for it to be realized, in most other places this would be drowned out in the echo of bickering.

ekianjo 5y ago

> From my observations, the best lens for understanding vaccine denial (or other related forms of Covid denial) is religious belief. How about the popular opinion that "vaccines are always good and should never be questioned no matter what"? Do you treat that as religious belief as well?

raphlinus 5y ago
Sure, if that's the belief that's actually driving decisions. It certainly isn't the way I approach things. I eagerly sought a vaccine (my appointment was 10:20am on the first day I was eligible) because the safety and efficacy was demonstrated by data from trials conducted with a high level of scientific rigor, plus observational studies from places that had gotten there early. It was thrilling to see the early data out of Israel that showed such a strong vaccine effect from their age-stratified rollout. And to further support my point, I wouldn't recommend anyone get CureVac - from the data we have now, that looks like a dud, even though it is an mRNA vaccine with some similarities to the others. My guess is that that there is a deeper underlying question: should we trust the scientists and institutions who do these trials. And on that my personal belief is that yes we should, but we should also be skeptical and hold them accountable. They make mistakes - the recent aducanumab decision looks like a big one - so I am definitely not arguing we should uncritically accept everything they do and say. But when they do it right, as has happened with vaccines in the US, we should celebrate, not undermine, that. I do appreciate that trust in people and institutions is a personal thing and there are reasons for it to vary.