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I actually believe in Institutions with a capital I and want them to succeed, build trust and help educate people of their reputation, historical significance a

I actually believe in Institutions with a capital I and want them to succeed, build trust and help educate people of their reputation, historical significance and their importance in society. I’ve worked with NIST for many years - brilliant people doing good work. But when they continue to lie to public, suppress facts, have a political agenda, and media is along with it, it’s becoming harder. I still think CDC does good work. Just that the leadership needs to come out clean and apologize the public for being partisan.

mindslight 5y ago
> I still think CDC does good work. Just that the leadership needs to come out clean and apologize the public for being partisan. Why are you saying "partisan" rather than "incompetent" ? It's surely convenient to blame the institutional incompetence on a strawman "other side", but the fact of the matter is that under administrations from both Parties they've repeatedly dropped the ball. Distributing free rapid tests and finally recommending N95's after most everyone has stopped caring about pandemic is just icing on the cake. Biden's inauguration could have been a great time to break from the previous missteps, but the political narrative of "the pandemic is over thanks to vaccines" had to play instead. Which when you think about it is from the same exact vein of overly optimistic denial as "it'll be gone by Easter", just preached to a different choir.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  It was partisanry. Francis Collins (NIH Director) and Fauci from NSAID were afraid of appearing to support Trump's rhetoric of China-virus. So they doubled down on supression of information and completely shutdown any discussion in the entire scientific community regarding Lab Leak origins.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mindslight 5y ago
    I'd say it's a stretch to characterize reacting against ignorant demagoguery as "partisanry", but okay. I'd still say the majority of trust was squandered by public facing guidance and actions, rather than what happened behind the scenes.

mindslight 5y ago

> I still think CDC does good work. Just that the leadership needs to come out clean and apologize the public for being partisan. Why are you saying "partisan" rather than "incompetent" ? It's surely convenient to blame the institutional incompetence on a strawman "other side", but the fact of the matter is that under administrations from both Parties they've repeatedly dropped the ball. Distributing free rapid tests and finally recommending N95's after most everyone has stopped caring about pandemic is just icing on the cake. Biden's inauguration could have been a great time to break from the previous missteps, but the political narrative of "the pandemic is over thanks to vaccines" had to play instead. Which when you think about it is from the same exact vein of overly optimistic denial as "it'll be gone by Easter", just preached to a different choir.

systemvoltage 5y ago
It was partisanry. Francis Collins (NIH Director) and Fauci from NSAID were afraid of appearing to support Trump's rhetoric of China-virus. So they doubled down on supression of information and completely shutdown any discussion in the entire scientific community regarding Lab Leak origins.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mindslight 5y ago
  I'd say it's a stretch to characterize reacting against ignorant demagoguery as "partisanry", but okay. I'd still say the majority of trust was squandered by public facing guidance and actions, rather than what happened behind the scenes.