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How did this article from a blatant covid misinformation site (posted by an hours-old account) make it to the front page of HN? The entire substance of this ar

How did this article from a blatant covid misinformation site (posted by an hours-old account) make it to the front page of HN? The entire substance of this article is taking a single graph from Twitter and establishing that masks do nothing to stem the spread of covid. That’s it. That’s the whole post. Do the regular rank and file posters on this website believe that covid was a massive global conspiracy? Entertaining this sort of clearly biased propaganda (the name of the blog is literally “Unmasked” and all the articles seem to start from the same premise of “covid precautions are unnecessary and harmful”) certainly makes this site look as if that’s the case. I understand that this forum is generally very pro-business. Considering that this piece of propaganda serves a specific purpose of advocating for a reduction of covid measures, are the people here genuinely so invested in making money that they’ll believe and advocate for doing nothing to stop the spread of a deadly virus? It looks like you do. I’m not saying that I personally think that you, the reader, is happy to allow a pandemic to spread unchecked in order to maximize your portfolio returns but I AM saying that the very fact that this made it to the front page reflects on this community. From an outsider’s perspective, either HN has such a strong individualism bent that the community is willing to gamify mass death for profit, OR that it’s incredibly easy to artificially boost harmful propaganda on a well-funded, fully staffed website made by tech people for tech people. It’s embarrassing either way.

chabad360 5y ago
While I understand (and maybe agree with) your point, one of the "official" reasons listed for why someone would upvote a post, is not the content of the post itself, but rather the discussion (which there seems to be a lot of). Judging from the current top comments, it seems the general sentiment is that this post is incorrect and ignores a number of points.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
Being familiar with how N95s differ from cloth masks in effectiveness against extended aerosol risks, it is reasonable to question the effectiveness of ‘masks’ worn by the general public indoors. The fact that the public is still not widely informed about this is telling, since we have known since ~ July 2020 that this virus is aerosol stable for hours…
- techsin101 5y ago
  Wearing general mask provide more protection to others than wearer. It’s more effective at catching aerosol exiting your mouth and nose then preventing them from coming in. In terms of effectiveness i saw a study that put cotton 30%, blue surgery masks 60%, kn95 80%, n95 95%. So anything is better than nothing.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Those percentages are per unit time, so your safety can be measured in units of minutes or hours in a risk zone. By far not going to work is a huge risk mitigation factor for most people (100% effective), which is why it is hard to decouple distancing from poorly worn cotton masks, which is mostly what happens here.
    - techsin101 5y ago
      wearing mask is an independent variable when it comes to spread of covid. How close someone is to infected or for how long are other independent variables. Improving either of them would improve the results.
fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago
I care about the economy, because the economy is people. I support mask wearing and vaccination, in part because widespread use of those measures would make more oppressive restrictions (like forcing people to stay home) unnecessary and allow most human activity to continue uninterrupted. Prioritizing prosperity is fully compatible with taking the pandemic seriously!
gus_massa 5y ago
> Do the regular rank and file posters on this website believe that covid was a massive global conspiracy? I guess no. > either HN has such a strong individualism bent that the community is willing to gamify mass death for profit, OR that it’s incredibly easy to artificially boost harmful propaganda There is a third option. A lot of topics are discussed. We discussed from the Higgs's boson to the Em-Drive (but for some reason, nobody likes to discuss Giant Magnetoresistance). It's also interesting to discuss what is the best strategy during a pandemic. I think it's too soon, and to get the answer we must wait like 10 years until the dust is settle, the government of each country changed so much that they are not covering theirs asses or using the death as an electoral weapon, and also get better computer models. It's interesting that in the heat of the moment each country tried a different strategy, from almost complete lockdown to almost no lockdown. I remember trying the simulator in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763873 The "full lockdown" is very tempting, but the money used there can be used to other thing, like giving food to poor people, in spite it's not an option in the simulator. It's a very though decision, and I'm relieved that I didn't have to take those hard decision in real life.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tim333 5y ago
Not sure what you mean a single graph from twitter? There are 6 graphs, a couple of bar charts and quite a lot of other data. And Sweden having a different policy that seems quite popular with Swedes had not much to do with portfolio returns as far as I can see.
- newbie789 5y ago
  By “substance” I meant “The most important part or idea of what is said or written; the essence or gist.” Additional graphs that support the presupposed conclusions are not some sort of contradiction.

chabad360 5y ago

While I understand (and maybe agree with) your point, one of the "official" reasons listed for why someone would upvote a post, is not the content of the post itself, but rather the discussion (which there seems to be a lot of). Judging from the current top comments, it seems the general sentiment is that this post is incorrect and ignores a number of points.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

Being familiar with how N95s differ from cloth masks in effectiveness against extended aerosol risks, it is reasonable to question the effectiveness of ‘masks’ worn by the general public indoors. The fact that the public is still not widely informed about this is telling, since we have known since ~ July 2020 that this virus is aerosol stable for hours…

techsin101 5y ago
Wearing general mask provide more protection to others than wearer. It’s more effective at catching aerosol exiting your mouth and nose then preventing them from coming in. In terms of effectiveness i saw a study that put cotton 30%, blue surgery masks 60%, kn95 80%, n95 95%. So anything is better than nothing.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Those percentages are per unit time, so your safety can be measured in units of minutes or hours in a risk zone. By far not going to work is a huge risk mitigation factor for most people (100% effective), which is why it is hard to decouple distancing from poorly worn cotton masks, which is mostly what happens here.
  - techsin101 5y ago
    wearing mask is an independent variable when it comes to spread of covid. How close someone is to infected or for how long are other independent variables. Improving either of them would improve the results.

fshbbdssbbgdd 5y ago

I care about the economy, because the economy is people. I support mask wearing and vaccination, in part because widespread use of those measures would make more oppressive restrictions (like forcing people to stay home) unnecessary and allow most human activity to continue uninterrupted. Prioritizing prosperity is fully compatible with taking the pandemic seriously!

gus_massa 5y ago

> Do the regular rank and file posters on this website believe that covid was a massive global conspiracy? I guess no. > either HN has such a strong individualism bent that the community is willing to gamify mass death for profit, OR that it’s incredibly easy to artificially boost harmful propaganda There is a third option. A lot of topics are discussed. We discussed from the Higgs's boson to the Em-Drive (but for some reason, nobody likes to discuss Giant Magnetoresistance). It's also interesting to discuss what is the best strategy during a pandemic. I think it's too soon, and to get the answer we must wait like 10 years until the dust is settle, the government of each country changed so much that they are not covering theirs asses or using the death as an electoral weapon, and also get better computer models. It's interesting that in the heat of the moment each country tried a different strategy, from almost complete lockdown to almost no lockdown. I remember trying the simulator in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763873 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27763873 The "full lockdown" is very tempting, but the money used there can be used to other thing, like giving food to poor people, in spite it's not an option in the simulator. It's a very though decision, and I'm relieved that I didn't have to take those hard decision in real life.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

tim333 5y ago

Not sure what you mean a single graph from twitter? There are 6 graphs, a couple of bar charts and quite a lot of other data. And Sweden having a different policy that seems quite popular with Swedes had not much to do with portfolio returns as far as I can see.

newbie789 5y ago
By “substance” I meant “The most important part or idea of what is said or written; the essence or gist.” Additional graphs that support the presupposed conclusions are not some sort of contradiction.