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Unclear why the cynicism is warranted here. They’re not just making a guess, they performed an experiment that is inline with a comparable experiment from non a

Unclear why the cynicism is warranted here. They’re not just making a guess, they performed an experiment that is inline with a comparable experiment from non affiliated SA scientists to yield these results. Should they not run this type of experiment and make a useful and true recommendation to the public? Would that be a better more pure scenario for you?

silent_cal 5y ago
No they should not make recommendations to the public, because they aren't a public agency - they have a conflict of interest. It's like a hedge fund manager giving public advice on stock picks.
- giarc 5y ago
  >It's like a hedge fund manager giving public advice on stock picks. Why not? Stock picking is their job. Given that logic, a teacher shouldn't tell people how to teach their kid to read, and a plumber shouldn't tell people how to change a faucet.
  - silent_cal 5y ago
    Are you serious?
  - salawat 5y ago
    Your hedge fund manager can also knowingly give bad info to improve the actual portfolio they are or agenda they are running. Yes, that's technically fraud/market manipulation. That@s why most hedge fund managers won@t give financial advice until after they've been paid, and are, at best, either selling the money management angle with all the right regulatory and compliance check marks ticked, or they're selling you fast access to market actors + quantitative fiscal analysis results. Either way, I wouldn't advise necessarily blindly taking one's advice. Just because you "do it as your job" doesn't mean you're necessarily terribly good at it. Never mind the whole "completely punting on your own responsibility as a capital allocator" thing. Remember, everybody punting to hedge funds and such is the reason the economy overtime has trended toward centralization. Once everybody knows the guy managing everyone else's money, it's only a matter of time til the information engineering starts.
  - Gwarzo 5y ago
    This is a hilariously uninformed take - it's clear you don't understand how this works so I will just be direct and not make fun of you. The hedge fund manager has access to billions in managed capital. If he can advertise positions to the public, and the public takes his advice; he can manipulate his billions of dollars vs the known positions he gives out to hedge his own positions. This is a 5 years olds description of how this works.
    - giarc 5y ago
      I was referring more to "giving public" advice like advice to his friends. But I'll accept I'm wrong on this though.
- altacc 5y ago
  So you're saying no company ever should undertake any promotion of the benefits of their products? The advertising industry wants a word with you!
  - silent_cal 5y ago
    That's exactly the point I'm trying to make - it's just advertising, and you're all acting like it's an announcement from a public health authority.
    - unclebucknasty 5y ago
      >you're all acting like it's an announcement from a public health authority. I think people are "acting like" it's scientific data about a vaccine of interest to the public. Are you suggesting the data is unreliable or falsified? If so, and you have a basis for that, please cite. Otherwise, it's difficult to understand why you're implying people shouldn't be interested in this information.
      - silent_cal 5y ago
        Yes, it's unreliable because the publisher has a massive conflict of interest. Or did you not know that Pfizer makes money when people use its shots?
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      TBH, this feels like a libertarian mindset of "Everyone will try to lie and cheat you!". Why should they lie? If their data had something different to their press release, lying and then getting caught (e.g. by a whistleblower) would damage their reputation. If their data shows it's bad, as responsible scientists why shouldn't they come out with the truth to protect the general public, and say "We'll continue work on the Omicron-specific vaccine.". Unless you think their main motive is to boost their stock price in the short term. That kind of thinking should be reserved for people dealing with the blockhain-ponzi schemes.
- yvdriess 5y ago
  Not the same. They are not giving advice or recommendations, they are reporting the results of a study. That's the beauty of a good scientific study: you do not have to trust the author. In fact don't, the more people try to find errors the better.
  - silent_cal 5y ago
    Please spare me. You "science" worshippers got some good mileage out of this myth in the past, but now it is obvious that the last thing you want is for people to criticize Pfizer, the CDC, the NIH, or anyone within 100ft of them. In fact, their critics are being systematically purged from the world's largest communications channels, and they are almost always censored on this site as well. "Science" can't handle any criticism whatsoever.
  - acdha 5y ago
    Note: you're replying to someone who recirculates propaganda from antivaxers like Alex Berenson. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688
    - silent_cal 5y ago
      Alex Berenson, unlike Pfizer, has nothing to gain from taking the journalistic stance he holds. In fact he was banned from Twitter for it. In your mind, an independent/skeptical/critical journalist is a propagandist, and Pfizer is a neutral public health authority? Time to wake up.
      - bildung 5y ago
        Berenson apparently was already caught earning money with false information about cannabis effects, and has zero medical background.
      - snovv_crash 5y ago
        Well, there are also a bunch of people who are by default untrusting of authority who will latch onto and give YouTube ad revenue to anybody who puts out material that matches their confirmation bias. If Alex Berenson was saying we should all get the vaccine he would never have gathered the following he did. So don't pretend populist journalists don't have a monetary incentive to propound the material they show, either.
ekianjo 5y ago
> They’re not just making a guess, they performed an experiment that is inline with a comparable experiment from non affiliated SA scientists to yield these results. Are you really sure they would have published anything if it had proven negative? A rhetorical question, of course. There's some things called business incentives and conflicts of interest in the world.
yessirwhatever 5y ago
I'm riding on this comment here (sorry) just to say that whoever flagged the parent comment should be ashamed. I have no idea what the commentator said and the idea that anyone can just flag a comment and have it hidden is so wrong imo I don't even understand how it's a feature on HN. Very disappointed.
- SquareWheel 5y ago
  You can turn on showdead. It's typically just conspiracy-laden fearmongering.
  - yessirwhatever 5y ago
    I had no idea this feature existed! Thanks!

silent_cal 5y ago

No they should not make recommendations to the public, because they aren't a public agency - they have a conflict of interest. It's like a hedge fund manager giving public advice on stock picks.

giarc 5y ago
>It's like a hedge fund manager giving public advice on stock picks. Why not? Stock picking is their job. Given that logic, a teacher shouldn't tell people how to teach their kid to read, and a plumber shouldn't tell people how to change a faucet.
- silent_cal 5y ago
  Are you serious?
- salawat 5y ago
  Your hedge fund manager can also knowingly give bad info to improve the actual portfolio they are or agenda they are running. Yes, that's technically fraud/market manipulation. That@s why most hedge fund managers won@t give financial advice until after they've been paid, and are, at best, either selling the money management angle with all the right regulatory and compliance check marks ticked, or they're selling you fast access to market actors + quantitative fiscal analysis results. Either way, I wouldn't advise necessarily blindly taking one's advice. Just because you "do it as your job" doesn't mean you're necessarily terribly good at it. Never mind the whole "completely punting on your own responsibility as a capital allocator" thing. Remember, everybody punting to hedge funds and such is the reason the economy overtime has trended toward centralization. Once everybody knows the guy managing everyone else's money, it's only a matter of time til the information engineering starts.
- Gwarzo 5y ago
  This is a hilariously uninformed take - it's clear you don't understand how this works so I will just be direct and not make fun of you. The hedge fund manager has access to billions in managed capital. If he can advertise positions to the public, and the public takes his advice; he can manipulate his billions of dollars vs the known positions he gives out to hedge his own positions. This is a 5 years olds description of how this works.
  - giarc 5y ago
    I was referring more to "giving public" advice like advice to his friends. But I'll accept I'm wrong on this though.
altacc 5y ago
So you're saying no company ever should undertake any promotion of the benefits of their products? The advertising industry wants a word with you!
- silent_cal 5y ago
  That's exactly the point I'm trying to make - it's just advertising, and you're all acting like it's an announcement from a public health authority.
  - unclebucknasty 5y ago
    >you're all acting like it's an announcement from a public health authority. I think people are "acting like" it's scientific data about a vaccine of interest to the public. Are you suggesting the data is unreliable or falsified? If so, and you have a basis for that, please cite. Otherwise, it's difficult to understand why you're implying people shouldn't be interested in this information.
    - silent_cal 5y ago
      Yes, it's unreliable because the publisher has a massive conflict of interest. Or did you not know that Pfizer makes money when people use its shots?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    TBH, this feels like a libertarian mindset of "Everyone will try to lie and cheat you!". Why should they lie? If their data had something different to their press release, lying and then getting caught (e.g. by a whistleblower) would damage their reputation. If their data shows it's bad, as responsible scientists why shouldn't they come out with the truth to protect the general public, and say "We'll continue work on the Omicron-specific vaccine.". Unless you think their main motive is to boost their stock price in the short term. That kind of thinking should be reserved for people dealing with the blockhain-ponzi schemes.
yvdriess 5y ago
Not the same. They are not giving advice or recommendations, they are reporting the results of a study. That's the beauty of a good scientific study: you do not have to trust the author. In fact don't, the more people try to find errors the better.
- silent_cal 5y ago
  Please spare me. You "science" worshippers got some good mileage out of this myth in the past, but now it is obvious that the last thing you want is for people to criticize Pfizer, the CDC, the NIH, or anyone within 100ft of them. In fact, their critics are being systematically purged from the world's largest communications channels, and they are almost always censored on this site as well. "Science" can't handle any criticism whatsoever.
- acdha 5y ago
  Note: you're replying to someone who recirculates propaganda from antivaxers like Alex Berenson. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29322688
  - silent_cal 5y ago
    Alex Berenson, unlike Pfizer, has nothing to gain from taking the journalistic stance he holds. In fact he was banned from Twitter for it. In your mind, an independent/skeptical/critical journalist is a propagandist, and Pfizer is a neutral public health authority? Time to wake up.
    - bildung 5y ago
      Berenson apparently was already caught earning money with false information about cannabis effects, and has zero medical background.
    - snovv_crash 5y ago
      Well, there are also a bunch of people who are by default untrusting of authority who will latch onto and give YouTube ad revenue to anybody who puts out material that matches their confirmation bias. If Alex Berenson was saying we should all get the vaccine he would never have gathered the following he did. So don't pretend populist journalists don't have a monetary incentive to propound the material they show, either.

ekianjo 5y ago

> They’re not just making a guess, they performed an experiment that is inline with a comparable experiment from non affiliated SA scientists to yield these results. Are you really sure they would have published anything if it had proven negative? A rhetorical question, of course. There's some things called business incentives and conflicts of interest in the world.

yessirwhatever 5y ago

I'm riding on this comment here (sorry) just to say that whoever flagged the parent comment should be ashamed. I have no idea what the commentator said and the idea that anyone can just flag a comment and have it hidden is so wrong imo I don't even understand how it's a feature on HN. Very disappointed.

SquareWheel 5y ago
You can turn on showdead. It's typically just conspiracy-laden fearmongering.
- yessirwhatever 5y ago
  I had no idea this feature existed! Thanks!