6 ms·

So they’re going to use this to stop people spreading harmful misinformation, like, say, the conspiracy theory that governments would create vaccine passports,

by mwint 5y ago

So they’re going to use this to stop people spreading harmful misinformation, like, say, the conspiracy theory that governments would create vaccine passports, or that a virology lab in Wuhan might have been involved in a virus that came out of Wuhan. Or that masks are a good idea. Dissent from the popular opinion is good and healthy, going both ways.

shuntress 5y ago
> Dissent from the popular opinion is good and healthy, going both ways "You gotta hear both sides" is extremely harmful when it is used to equate massively unequal opinions. Of course dissenting opinions should be heard and assessed but it is also obviously absurd to treat some opinion such as "I think that we should vacuum the floors to prepare for guests" with the same weight and validity as "I think we should murder our guests when they arrive that way we wont have to worry about vacuuming"
- silicon2401 5y ago
  So is this counter-argument. Who decides what's absurd? Two people may have completely different and legitimate views on what's absurd.
- colpabar 5y ago
  Make whatever strawman analogies you want, but the fact of the matter is that massive online communication platforms like facebook are increasingly censoring dissenting opinions. One day, an opinion that you hold will become "dangerous", and you'll have to choose between conformity or being excluded from our increasingly digital society. edit: why do we keep giving these companies the benefit of the doubt when they continue to lie about everything?
  - shuntress 5y ago
    Don't try to change the subject. My comment is not about facebook, censorship, corporate-run dystopias, or thought-crime exile. Move the goalposts all you want but the fact is that all opinions are not equal in merit. If you do actually want to have a good-faith discussion about how to limit the reach of worse opinions while increasing the reach of better opinions I would be happy to hear your suggestions. Or if you would prefer to discuss how to find agreement on what we consider a "good" or a "bad" opinion, I would start by offering that I think the opinion "face masks do not prevent the spread of airborne respiratory infections" should be considered significantly less reasonable than the opinion "face masks are effective at preventing the spread of airborne respiratory infection".
    - jmaygarden 5y ago
      The post that is now flagged was referring to Dr. Fauci's March 8, 2020 statement that "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask." Dr. Fauci made that statement in a context of trying to ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers at a time when there were runs on toilet paper in stores. I believe you are mischaracterizing the argument that was made. Unfortunately, we may no longer view the original post because your opinion has apparently been deemed more correct.
      - mcguire 5y ago
        Ok, apparently this is the hill I'm going to die on. Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most, epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to were useful masks consistently and correctly. (Earlier today, I walked past a woman wearing a bandana tied around her head. Below her nose. Why!?) After that time, reports began to appear showing coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are the only solution. The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking. "Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular. Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing for protection against catching an infection became widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy was limited. "Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles. But these studies also suggested careful training was required to ensure that masks didn’t get contaminated when surface transmission was possible, as is the case with SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance. Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks — so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too. "I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces — and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong. Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face masks do work in this case. "I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing capacity increased and it became clear how common asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others had caught on sooner — and better testing early on might have caused an earlier revision of views — but there was no bad faith involved." "I’m an epidemiologist. Here’s what I got wrong about covid."(https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidemiolo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidemiolo...)
  - mcguire 5y ago
    I hold many dangerous ideas. I also am not terribly shy about spreading them. But if this: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e09ac35bd7596e18cb21562bcb4b040a75ac941f/0_0_900_663/master/900.jpg?width=445&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=1ac2aaf863a9ca90d64aacf64c67806e https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e09ac35bd7596e18cb21562bcb4b0... ever becomes my chosen way of doing so, I can only hope someone censors me. And takes me to a nice, comfortable assisted living facility where I cannot hurt myself or others. P.s. Ever heard of the Gish Gallop?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

by mwint 5y ago

shuntress 5y ago

> Dissent from the popular opinion is good and healthy, going both ways "You gotta hear both sides" is extremely harmful when it is used to equate massively unequal opinions. Of course dissenting opinions should be heard and assessed but it is also obviously absurd to treat some opinion such as "I think that we should vacuum the floors to prepare for guests" with the same weight and validity as "I think we should murder our guests when they arrive that way we wont have to worry about vacuuming"

silicon2401 5y ago
So is this counter-argument. Who decides what's absurd? Two people may have completely different and legitimate views on what's absurd.
colpabar 5y ago
Make whatever strawman analogies you want, but the fact of the matter is that massive online communication platforms like facebook are increasingly censoring dissenting opinions. One day, an opinion that you hold will become "dangerous", and you'll have to choose between conformity or being excluded from our increasingly digital society. edit: why do we keep giving these companies the benefit of the doubt when they continue to lie about everything?
- shuntress 5y ago
  Don't try to change the subject. My comment is not about facebook, censorship, corporate-run dystopias, or thought-crime exile. Move the goalposts all you want but the fact is that all opinions are not equal in merit. If you do actually want to have a good-faith discussion about how to limit the reach of worse opinions while increasing the reach of better opinions I would be happy to hear your suggestions. Or if you would prefer to discuss how to find agreement on what we consider a "good" or a "bad" opinion, I would start by offering that I think the opinion "face masks do not prevent the spread of airborne respiratory infections" should be considered significantly less reasonable than the opinion "face masks are effective at preventing the spread of airborne respiratory infection".
  - jmaygarden 5y ago
    The post that is now flagged was referring to Dr. Fauci's March 8, 2020 statement that "there's no reason to be walking around with a mask." Dr. Fauci made that statement in a context of trying to ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers at a time when there were runs on toilet paper in stores. I believe you are mischaracterizing the argument that was made. Unfortunately, we may no longer view the original post because your opinion has apparently been deemed more correct.
    - mcguire 5y ago
      Ok, apparently this is the hill I'm going to die on. Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most, epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to were useful masks consistently and correctly. (Earlier today, I walked past a woman wearing a bandana tied around her head. Below her nose. Why!?) After that time, reports began to appear showing coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are the only solution. The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking. "Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular. Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing for protection against catching an infection became widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy was limited. "Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles. But these studies also suggested careful training was required to ensure that masks didn’t get contaminated when surface transmission was possible, as is the case with SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance. Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks — so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too. "I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces — and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong. Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face masks do work in this case. "I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing capacity increased and it became clear how common asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others had caught on sooner — and better testing early on might have caused an earlier revision of views — but there was no bad faith involved." "I’m an epidemiologist. Here’s what I got wrong about covid."(https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidemiolo https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidemiolo...)
- mcguire 5y ago
  I hold many dangerous ideas. I also am not terribly shy about spreading them. But if this: https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e09ac35bd7596e18cb21562bcb4b040a75ac941f/0_0_900_663/master/900.jpg?width=445&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=1ac2aaf863a9ca90d64aacf64c67806e https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e09ac35bd7596e18cb21562bcb4b0... ever becomes my chosen way of doing so, I can only hope someone censors me. And takes me to a nice, comfortable assisted living facility where I cannot hurt myself or others. P.s. Ever heard of the Gish Gallop?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]