2 ms·

As an engineer, sometimes I say "ship it!" to code that doesn't make me happy but works and solves a real problem. Edit: I meant this to go with debating techn

by nzmsv 5y ago

As an engineer, sometimes I say "ship it!" to code that doesn't make me happy but works and solves a real problem. Edit: I meant this to go with debating techniques, not cures. There are people for whom no amount of saying "why can't you just listen to Dr. Fauci" is going to work. We can say they are bad people, but that doesn't work very well for getting them to agree either. You are right to call out above that there were other anti-Ivermectin arguments before and roenxi might not have had the background to understand them. That's exactly the point: here we have an argument that he can understand, and it's effective. This is good science journalism. The kind that doesn't work (too much moralizing or too confusing for the general audience) is bad journalism.

jacquesm 5y ago
I hope that that only goes for things that you can oversee the risks of and that you would refrain from giving medical advice to your relatives assuming that you are not a doctor. "move fast and break stuff" is the wrong attitude for medicine and aerospace. But a solution is better than no solution, and of all the countermeasures that we had available in March 2020 we only used a fraction. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqRHH6e-y6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqRHH6e-y6I note the date on that video. As to your edit: no, here we have an argument that he thinks he understands, that's not the same thing. The argument as presented is at best a hypothesis, it isn't proof of anything, just one more theory that may or may not end up being the right one explaining the sometimes observed effect, assuming it really was observed in the first place. This is precisely what makes this discussion so tiring: people will be swayed one way or the other based on arguments that they have no way of understanding unless they were trained in that particular field. Unfortunately, there are plenty of politicians that fall into the same trap, leading to terrible examples of wishful thinking, outright quackery and conspiracy amplification. The harm that this is causing is substantial. So even if this article swayed one person I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find people who get the opposite out of it, because hey 'x' has now joined the establishment, must have sold out.
- ddingus 5y ago
  "Sold out" is a real problem. More people than we want to admit see corruption coupled with big media as a enemy, not a thing to be trusted. Many ordinary people flat out do not know when to trust, so they don't. They then seek others and continue to have conversations, and they find others lacking trust resonates and that opens the door for a lot of BS normally and easily seen. Just an example of the difficulty we now face: Hiding YouTube dislikes will, among other effects, serve to help big corporate media compete against new media. Hiding the dislikes also breeds more mistrust. This is unavoidable no matter how reasoned the move is. Public trust in corporate media is really low, and the younger a potential user of that media is the worse those metrics are. Had that same media held more closely to journalism, rather than access journalism, which is essentially a sales job, the trust problems we struggle with today would not have grown into the chronic problem it all is today. You identified politicians committing similar abuse of the public trust. Look at Russiagate. Basically, it flat out did not happen the way many believed it did. Back when that started, many and myself included went to the original documents, saw speculation and in some cases saw it helpfully color coded, and turned on the news only to see all that elevated to fact. That scared me frankly. What can one conclude? I do not see how judging others helps right now. Not saying anyone did here, but I am saying that is happening a lot and when it happens the door for good info to find it's way home gets closed. Advocates render their efforts far less potent. Secondly, the lack of trust really can't be assigned to people. We have a lot of "they are stupid" type discussion, judgement and rationalization going on and very little of that is helpful. ie: 70 million people voted for... The people who had a far better position of authority and trust denigrated that themselves, and for dollars and ratings. All that is a real mess! How can authorities, who have abused public trust be counted on to fact check and improve on misinformation without amplifying the already chronic trust problems they created? In a more basic sense, how can we improve on public trust at all? I am not sure how that is done quickly. Longer term, we need media that makes informing people a priority. And doing that likely means a move away from the current AD and access based media we have now. Given how things are right now, the more important thing is to avoid judgement of others and encourage more and better information exchange. We will not know what reaches people, until it does. Once it does, we need those people to continue seeking better information so we see more people making better choices more of the time.

by nzmsv 5y ago

jacquesm 5y ago

I hope that that only goes for things that you can oversee the risks of and that you would refrain from giving medical advice to your relatives assuming that you are not a doctor. "move fast and break stuff" is the wrong attitude for medicine and aerospace. But a solution is better than no solution, and of all the countermeasures that we had available in March 2020 we only used a fraction. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqRHH6e-y6I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqRHH6e-y6I note the date on that video. As to your edit: no, here we have an argument that he thinks he understands, that's not the same thing. The argument as presented is at best a hypothesis, it isn't proof of anything, just one more theory that may or may not end up being the right one explaining the sometimes observed effect, assuming it really was observed in the first place. This is precisely what makes this discussion so tiring: people will be swayed one way or the other based on arguments that they have no way of understanding unless they were trained in that particular field. Unfortunately, there are plenty of politicians that fall into the same trap, leading to terrible examples of wishful thinking, outright quackery and conspiracy amplification. The harm that this is causing is substantial. So even if this article swayed one person I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find people who get the opposite out of it, because hey 'x' has now joined the establishment, must have sold out.

ddingus 5y ago
"Sold out" is a real problem. More people than we want to admit see corruption coupled with big media as a enemy, not a thing to be trusted. Many ordinary people flat out do not know when to trust, so they don't. They then seek others and continue to have conversations, and they find others lacking trust resonates and that opens the door for a lot of BS normally and easily seen. Just an example of the difficulty we now face: Hiding YouTube dislikes will, among other effects, serve to help big corporate media compete against new media. Hiding the dislikes also breeds more mistrust. This is unavoidable no matter how reasoned the move is. Public trust in corporate media is really low, and the younger a potential user of that media is the worse those metrics are. Had that same media held more closely to journalism, rather than access journalism, which is essentially a sales job, the trust problems we struggle with today would not have grown into the chronic problem it all is today. You identified politicians committing similar abuse of the public trust. Look at Russiagate. Basically, it flat out did not happen the way many believed it did. Back when that started, many and myself included went to the original documents, saw speculation and in some cases saw it helpfully color coded, and turned on the news only to see all that elevated to fact. That scared me frankly. What can one conclude? I do not see how judging others helps right now. Not saying anyone did here, but I am saying that is happening a lot and when it happens the door for good info to find it's way home gets closed. Advocates render their efforts far less potent. Secondly, the lack of trust really can't be assigned to people. We have a lot of "they are stupid" type discussion, judgement and rationalization going on and very little of that is helpful. ie: 70 million people voted for... The people who had a far better position of authority and trust denigrated that themselves, and for dollars and ratings. All that is a real mess! How can authorities, who have abused public trust be counted on to fact check and improve on misinformation without amplifying the already chronic trust problems they created? In a more basic sense, how can we improve on public trust at all? I am not sure how that is done quickly. Longer term, we need media that makes informing people a priority. And doing that likely means a move away from the current AD and access based media we have now. Given how things are right now, the more important thing is to avoid judgement of others and encourage more and better information exchange. We will not know what reaches people, until it does. Once it does, we need those people to continue seeking better information so we see more people making better choices more of the time.