5 ms·

Sorry what? You still believe - after everything we've seen - that the lockdowns were a good idea? Are. You. Insane?

ekianjo 4y ago
> the lockdowns were a good idea? Are. You. Insane? IQ dropped during the pandemic, if you needed any proof
twelve40 4y ago
A lot of this stuff was really politicized so yes, I believe it's possible to be anti-lockdown for bad reasons. This doesn't seem to be the case with this study though.
- realjhol 4y ago
  Like what? What is a bad reason for not wanting the government to force you into house arrest?
  - twelve40 4y ago
    At some point most covid-related conversations departed the realm of logic and turned into a sort of religious/political war, which also caused a bunch of people say things they didn't believe or care about just to score some points for themselves. My "favorite" one was that if, in 2020, you for one second doubted that it was some mysterious bats, some people automatically labelled you as a conspiracy theorist and possibly racist. I think those people behaved that way not because of logic but because of hysteria or some other motives of their own. Now the lab leak theory is often described as a likely candidate (to me as a layperson it was the most likely explanation from day one when i read about gain of function research), it's a mainstream point of view published by Bloomberg and for some reason no longer considered tinfoil or racist, probably because you can't score too many political points bashing it anymore. Similarly, some people made a point to violate or otherwise shit on every single covid precaution not because of some firm scientific beliefs but just to piss people off and potentially score some PR points. That doesn't make me love the lockdowns, but there was plenty of sad behavior all around.
    - realjhol 4y ago
      > Similarly, some people made a point to violate or otherwise shit on every single covid precaution not because of some firm scientific beliefs but just to piss people off and potentially score some PR points. There's plenty of grifting on every side these days. Let's just ignore that. But the core of the issue is a question about whether scientists have the right to settle political disputes about what we should do. We argue that they do not. Science tries to tell us what is, but political will decides what ought to be done. We argued that the government has no moral right to confine us to our homes, regardless of the circumstances. - this was a decision for individuals. In our society, we treat scientists (or people who pose as scientists) as truth tellers ("trust the science") - an all-knowing priestly caste. However, this never was a scientific question. There's no science experiment that says the police should have harrassed people for sunbathing in the park. It was a political decision. We're not ruled by scientists - as we have seen, for very good reason. Now of course, there are widespread problems in science: the reproducibility crisis, financial corruption, social bias, overselling speculative findings, overselling speculative models, mid-wit interpretations etc. - and for these reasons, a person who adopts a "non-scientific" frame often has superior predictive and interpretive powers to someone who "trusts the science". This is why the "conspiracy theorists" keep getting proven right over and over. The lab leak theory was always extremely credible, but it was dismissed because it was a way to own the "basket of deplorables", and because it called into question the competance of the medical establishment.

> the lockdowns were a good idea? Are. You. Insane? IQ dropped during the pandemic, if you needed any proof

A lot of this stuff was really politicized so yes, I believe it's possible to be anti-lockdown for bad reasons. This doesn't seem to be the case with this study though.

realjhol 4y ago
Like what? What is a bad reason for not wanting the government to force you into house arrest?
- twelve40 4y ago
  At some point most covid-related conversations departed the realm of logic and turned into a sort of religious/political war, which also caused a bunch of people say things they didn't believe or care about just to score some points for themselves. My "favorite" one was that if, in 2020, you for one second doubted that it was some mysterious bats, some people automatically labelled you as a conspiracy theorist and possibly racist. I think those people behaved that way not because of logic but because of hysteria or some other motives of their own. Now the lab leak theory is often described as a likely candidate (to me as a layperson it was the most likely explanation from day one when i read about gain of function research), it's a mainstream point of view published by Bloomberg and for some reason no longer considered tinfoil or racist, probably because you can't score too many political points bashing it anymore. Similarly, some people made a point to violate or otherwise shit on every single covid precaution not because of some firm scientific beliefs but just to piss people off and potentially score some PR points. That doesn't make me love the lockdowns, but there was plenty of sad behavior all around.
  - realjhol 4y ago
    > Similarly, some people made a point to violate or otherwise shit on every single covid precaution not because of some firm scientific beliefs but just to piss people off and potentially score some PR points. There's plenty of grifting on every side these days. Let's just ignore that. But the core of the issue is a question about whether scientists have the right to settle political disputes about what we should do. We argue that they do not. Science tries to tell us what is, but political will decides what ought to be done. We argued that the government has no moral right to confine us to our homes, regardless of the circumstances. - this was a decision for individuals. In our society, we treat scientists (or people who pose as scientists) as truth tellers ("trust the science") - an all-knowing priestly caste. However, this never was a scientific question. There's no science experiment that says the police should have harrassed people for sunbathing in the park. It was a political decision. We're not ruled by scientists - as we have seen, for very good reason. Now of course, there are widespread problems in science: the reproducibility crisis, financial corruption, social bias, overselling speculative findings, overselling speculative models, mid-wit interpretations etc. - and for these reasons, a person who adopts a "non-scientific" frame often has superior predictive and interpretive powers to someone who "trusts the science". This is why the "conspiracy theorists" keep getting proven right over and over. The lab leak theory was always extremely credible, but it was dismissed because it was a way to own the "basket of deplorables", and because it called into question the competance of the medical establishment.