9 ms·

The Noble Lies of Covid-19

11 points by AndrewBissell 5y ago

dekhn 5y ago
Public health officials have the goal of maximizing public health, within the constraints of the law. This often requires second and third order thinking (IE, anticipating the actions of people who don't want to comply, and finding ways to convince them or compel them, and even considering the actions of the people who are aware you are doing second order thinking so you can counter them). I believe it is legal, and sometimes best, but most of the time not, for public health officials to say things which could be construed as "lies" (by a bad faith opponent) but, in full analysis, can be seen as ethically the most economic way to achieve a reasonable public health objective. No scientist should make any public health pronouncements about herd immunity, there just isn't enough data to suggest its a clearly achievable goal. Make reasonable statements that are well-supported by evidence, and when you need to force people to do something for which there isn't full evidence, be transparent that it's not well-supported, but still prudent.
- whateveracct 5y ago
  Public health officials are in a bad situation because average people are never gonna parse a nuanced paragraph explaining the situation.
  - AndrewBissell 5y ago
    This is both wrong, and an attitude that leads pretty strongly in the direction of authoritarianism.
    - whateveracct 5y ago
      I agree that it can lead to authoritarianism. But it's not wrong. Ever read random convos on the internet? Like on social media? People cherry-pick sentences from essays and paragraphs and people have entire conversations divorced from full context. Because people don't read paragraphs, and they refuse to not be in a binary state of Yes or No. I'm not saying nobody can handle nuanced paragraphs, but I think if your message is always 5+ sentences with any complex logical structure, people will not get it. And bad actors will distort what you say to get people riled up in their favor.
  - wkearney99 5y ago
    And it's a bad situation made worse by malicious actors with whole other agendas in play that seek to deliberately twist the explanations.
    - whateveracct 5y ago
      Yep - these bad actors will just pattern match or otherwise take things out of context (e.g. finding "contradictions")
- jjgreen 5y ago
  The problem with these lies (not "lies") is that they erode public trust in official health advice, so provide support for the antivax crowd and their ilk.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    yes, that's the third-order thinking. How to "lie" in a way that you don't get caught, but still achieve your ethical goal.
    - jjgreen 5y ago
      When you treat human beings like objects to be manipulated with lies, you goal is not ethical.
      - dekhn 5y ago
        Is the situation really that simple? Public health officials are working with folks that don't act rationally. Considered from a utilitarian view, if you save more lives by lying, it isn't unethical.
        kian 5y ago
        I believe that the person you are responding to is basically telling you that 'utilitarianism' is an unethical moral view, to them. Either that, or that there is no utilitarian who is capable of competently calculating the cost of eroding public trust on future life loss, and therefor one should not engage in it.
        jjgreen 5y ago
        Exactly this, I agree with Kant who considered utilitarianism a morality fit only for English shopkeepers.
        dekhn 5y ago
- version_five 5y ago
  > Public health officials have the goal of maximizing public health Partially correct, I'd argue they also have the goal of minimizing risk to themselves (things like criticism of policy, like what happened in Sweden, or anything that could jeopardize funding or tenure of the leadership). They are not there to make bold decisions, they are there to minimize flak. Also, like all bureaucracies, they have the goal of growing their influence and size. But even that aside, "maximizing public health" is not the only goal function we have, and when policy decisions are made like that is all we care about, it disenfranchises and discriminates against people who rightfully have competing priorities. This is ine reason why we have a constitution, and there are limits on what government can do. No one entity maximizing it's one goal should be able to trump all other natural rights that we have. Additionally, this is the danger of technocracy overall. The technician is not a politician who negotiates compromise between public good and individual ambitions. He works only to maximize what is in his purview. As such, he's great to listen to for input, but should never be given free reign to dictate peoples behavior.
hypzy 5y ago
Fuck Fauci. He deserves to be executed in times square. He funded the CCP to create bio-weapons. It is all fact. Seriously, the guy needs to hang.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tellmedoyouread 5y ago
That's what they do
zaptheimpaler 5y ago
The second lie listed was to a NYT reporter, on an article titled "How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?" The question is kind of a wish for certainty about an uncertain thing. Even if 80% are immunized nationally, what if you live in a town where only 60% are? What if your town is 80% immunized but the other 20% all attend the same rally and get covid? Of course there cannot be an answer to such a question. Between that and the ridiculous anti vax crowd my sympathy is with the public health folks. The fact is that to the best of our knowledge the vaccine works great, and if people are too dumb to get it despite that and endanger others, what choice is left? They can't force you to take it, so we get lies and $1000 cash rewards instead.. It's perfectly valid to believe Fauci lied and also believe the vaccine works. Some people are just never going to get the vax until they personally see friend/family dying from covid, and blaming fauci is simply convenient excuse for it.
- kian 5y ago
  I believe the entire thrust of this article is that the noble lie to achieve policy objectives backfires in spectacular and predictable ways, because it erodes trust in the statements made by officials and experts. Regardless of where your sympathy lies, perhaps it would be good to engage with the substance of the article. The more lying engaged in by public officials, the more ridiculous the anti-vax crowd will become, precisely because for the majority - lacking the medical expertise to judge vaccine safety - their beliefs are an expression of their trust in the government and experts at large. If not lying isn't cutting it, you may just have to accept that sometimes policy objectives aren't achievable, given the constraints of human decency. Even when failing to achieve those objectives costs lives.
CivBase 5y ago
It has reached the point where I trust data and studies produced by the CDC, but I have absolutely no trust in the guidance they publish. They just recently updated their guidance on masks for vaccinated people. They say vaccinated people should wear masks indoors again because of the delta variant. But mounting data from the CDC themselves referenced earlier in the very same update shows that the vaccine is just as - maybe even more - effective against the delta variant. And the update does not provide any explanation for why they are reversing previous guidance in light of that data. Maybe there's something I'm missing. I don't pretend to be an expert. But why should I put any stock in the new guidance after they have fed us so many lies recently?

11 points by AndrewBissell 5y ago

Public health officials have the goal of maximizing public health, within the constraints of the law. This often requires second and third order thinking (IE, anticipating the actions of people who don't want to comply, and finding ways to convince them or compel them, and even considering the actions of the people who are aware you are doing second order thinking so you can counter them). I believe it is legal, and sometimes best, but most of the time not, for public health officials to say things which could be construed as "lies" (by a bad faith opponent) but, in full analysis, can be seen as ethically the most economic way to achieve a reasonable public health objective. No scientist should make any public health pronouncements about herd immunity, there just isn't enough data to suggest its a clearly achievable goal. Make reasonable statements that are well-supported by evidence, and when you need to force people to do something for which there isn't full evidence, be transparent that it's not well-supported, but still prudent.

whateveracct 5y ago
Public health officials are in a bad situation because average people are never gonna parse a nuanced paragraph explaining the situation.
- AndrewBissell 5y ago
  This is both wrong, and an attitude that leads pretty strongly in the direction of authoritarianism.
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    I agree that it can lead to authoritarianism. But it's not wrong. Ever read random convos on the internet? Like on social media? People cherry-pick sentences from essays and paragraphs and people have entire conversations divorced from full context. Because people don't read paragraphs, and they refuse to not be in a binary state of Yes or No. I'm not saying nobody can handle nuanced paragraphs, but I think if your message is always 5+ sentences with any complex logical structure, people will not get it. And bad actors will distort what you say to get people riled up in their favor.
- wkearney99 5y ago
  And it's a bad situation made worse by malicious actors with whole other agendas in play that seek to deliberately twist the explanations.
  - whateveracct 5y ago
    Yep - these bad actors will just pattern match or otherwise take things out of context (e.g. finding "contradictions")
jjgreen 5y ago
The problem with these lies (not "lies") is that they erode public trust in official health advice, so provide support for the antivax crowd and their ilk.
- dekhn 5y ago
  yes, that's the third-order thinking. How to "lie" in a way that you don't get caught, but still achieve your ethical goal.
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    When you treat human beings like objects to be manipulated with lies, you goal is not ethical.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      Is the situation really that simple? Public health officials are working with folks that don't act rationally. Considered from a utilitarian view, if you save more lives by lying, it isn't unethical.
      - kian 5y ago
        I believe that the person you are responding to is basically telling you that 'utilitarianism' is an unethical moral view, to them. Either that, or that there is no utilitarian who is capable of competently calculating the cost of eroding public trust on future life loss, and therefor one should not engage in it.
        jjgreen 5y ago
        Exactly this, I agree with Kant who considered utilitarianism a morality fit only for English shopkeepers.
        dekhn 5y ago
version_five 5y ago
> Public health officials have the goal of maximizing public health Partially correct, I'd argue they also have the goal of minimizing risk to themselves (things like criticism of policy, like what happened in Sweden, or anything that could jeopardize funding or tenure of the leadership). They are not there to make bold decisions, they are there to minimize flak. Also, like all bureaucracies, they have the goal of growing their influence and size. But even that aside, "maximizing public health" is not the only goal function we have, and when policy decisions are made like that is all we care about, it disenfranchises and discriminates against people who rightfully have competing priorities. This is ine reason why we have a constitution, and there are limits on what government can do. No one entity maximizing it's one goal should be able to trump all other natural rights that we have. Additionally, this is the danger of technocracy overall. The technician is not a politician who negotiates compromise between public good and individual ambitions. He works only to maximize what is in his purview. As such, he's great to listen to for input, but should never be given free reign to dictate peoples behavior.

hypzy 5y ago

Fuck Fauci. He deserves to be executed in times square. He funded the CCP to create bio-weapons. It is all fact. Seriously, the guy needs to hang.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tellmedoyouread 5y ago

That's what they do

zaptheimpaler 5y ago

The second lie listed was to a NYT reporter, on an article titled "How Much Herd Immunity Is Enough?" The question is kind of a wish for certainty about an uncertain thing. Even if 80% are immunized nationally, what if you live in a town where only 60% are? What if your town is 80% immunized but the other 20% all attend the same rally and get covid? Of course there cannot be an answer to such a question. Between that and the ridiculous anti vax crowd my sympathy is with the public health folks. The fact is that to the best of our knowledge the vaccine works great, and if people are too dumb to get it despite that and endanger others, what choice is left? They can't force you to take it, so we get lies and $1000 cash rewards instead.. It's perfectly valid to believe Fauci lied and also believe the vaccine works. Some people are just never going to get the vax until they personally see friend/family dying from covid, and blaming fauci is simply convenient excuse for it.

kian 5y ago
I believe the entire thrust of this article is that the noble lie to achieve policy objectives backfires in spectacular and predictable ways, because it erodes trust in the statements made by officials and experts. Regardless of where your sympathy lies, perhaps it would be good to engage with the substance of the article. The more lying engaged in by public officials, the more ridiculous the anti-vax crowd will become, precisely because for the majority - lacking the medical expertise to judge vaccine safety - their beliefs are an expression of their trust in the government and experts at large. If not lying isn't cutting it, you may just have to accept that sometimes policy objectives aren't achievable, given the constraints of human decency. Even when failing to achieve those objectives costs lives.

CivBase 5y ago

It has reached the point where I trust data and studies produced by the CDC, but I have absolutely no trust in the guidance they publish. They just recently updated their guidance on masks for vaccinated people. They say vaccinated people should wear masks indoors again because of the delta variant. But mounting data from the CDC themselves referenced earlier in the very same update shows that the vaccine is just as - maybe even more - effective against the delta variant. And the update does not provide any explanation for why they are reversing previous guidance in light of that data. Maybe there's something I'm missing. I don't pretend to be an expert. But why should I put any stock in the new guidance after they have fed us so many lies recently?