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We must be entering some strange perverted era where "skepticism" is a poisoned, dirty word, because not too long ago this would've been considered an insane pr

We must be entering some strange perverted era where "skepticism" is a poisoned, dirty word, because not too long ago this would've been considered an insane proposition to be welcomed in by insane people. I'm inclined to give a layman's diagnosis: A whole generation, maybe two, raised with almost no suspicion of power...except when the conformist narrative permits performative suspicion.

hooverd 3y ago
<crank warning> I think having a little bit of slop in a human system is good. A world where your freedoms and responsibilities are entirely managed by computers, like an AWS IAM role for people, sounds awful, and this project seems to want to go there.
pavlov 3y ago
Skepticism has been largely hijacked by those with an anti-democratic or downright reactionary agenda. A generation raised on “contrarian” and “anti-conformist” YouTube influencers is skeptical of democratic power and international institutions, but willing to give a free pass to billionaires and any other kind of power that operates via ruthlessly deployed private property. Worldcoin fits this mold and so it will find fans.
- matrix_overload 3y ago
  I'm not sure it's anti-democratic and can think of a few examples: * Skepticism over mass vaccination (as opposed to at-risk groups only). Shut up, anti-vaxer, you're anti-democratic. Backed by Big Pharma. * Skepticism over climate change policy (asking middle class to reduce expectations, rather than cranking down on planned obsolescence and offshore production). Shut up, climate denier, you're anti-democratic. Backed by the companies doing offshoring and using climate as selling point. * Skepticism over affirmative action (as in discriminating people based on skin color in Academia, rather than making it easier for ALL parents to teach things to their kids). Shut up, you racist. Backed by the billion-dollar DEI industry billing enormous rates to public institutions. I can give many more examples where valid skepticism is immediately conflated with the nearest crazy idea nobody actually cares about (like the actual KKK), and is shut down on that basis by those who have a vested interest in not being scrutinized.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    > "Skepticism over mass vaccination" All successful vaccination is mass vaccination. That's the whole point. Would we be rid of polio if we'd only vaccinated the 5% of population who were most at risk?
    - matrix_overload 3y ago
      Hello, numbers. Every infection has an R0 rate (average number of people infected by a single infected person). If it's greater than 1, the infection spreads exponentially. If it's lower than 1, it peters out. Vaccinating X% of people pushes R0 lower by X * N, where N depends on mutation rate, how good is the vaccine at preventing the spread (vs. reducing symptoms), etc. R0 is also affected by seasonality, immunity from earlier infections, etc. Polio doesn't mutate as fast, the vaccine lasts long time, and prevents both symptoms and the spread. R0 drops below 1, polio defeated. COVID mutates much faster, has one of the highest R0 rates among known diseases, vaccine lasts a limited time, considerably reduces mortality rate (which isn't much of a concern for fit healthy adults under 50), and somewhat reduces the spread. It pushes the R0 number somewhat down, but not below 1. What actually ended the pandemic was the Omicron variant that mysteriously grew much faster in the upper respiratory tract, and got your body to start fighting it before it did anything to the lungs. It still has enough R0, but the symptoms are so mild, it became mostly indistinguishable from common cold, so people stopped caring. Had we vaccinated the at-risk groups, and given strong incentives for others to lose weight and start exercising, we could have arrived at the same, or lower death toll with much less taxpayer money going towards the Big Pharma.
    - cempaka 3y ago
      Always helps to have vaccines that actually work to prevent transmission too.
    - Vecr 3y ago
      There clearly are risk factors for paralytic Polio disease but it's likely to be in the very complex interaction between the person's genome and the environment, causing variability in certain types of immune responses. Even now it's not very clear how you would go about testing for them in advance. In the 1950s the "risk group" for a specific serotype of Polio virus is that you were statistically less likely to already have been infected with that serotype. They found out the Salk vaccine was almost entirely ineffective against transmissions pretty quick as well.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  There's nothing wrong with being skeptical of Democracy, as people have been since Ancient Greece. More recently there's the famous Churchill quote, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
  - pavlov 3y ago
    It's good to be skeptical of how democracy is implemented and executed at any given time. (IMHO Americans in particular should be much more skeptical of their 18th century constitution rather than treat it as scripture.) It's not good to be knee-jerk skeptical of everything that defined the post-WWII rules-based international system while idolizing billionaire founders and their corporate power. We had some good things figured out by the 1990s. It wasn't the proverbial "end of history" but IMO we need more of the cooperative spirit and respect for human rights that got us there, not less.
- delfinom 3y ago
  >YouTube influencers is skeptical of democratic power and international institutions, but willing to give a free pass to billionaires and any other kind of power that operates via ruthlessly deployed private property. Because they have temporarily poor millionaire syndrome.
- api 3y ago
  "The mainstream media and governments lie and make mistakes, so I am going to mindlessly believe everything this random asshole on YouTube says instead!"
- skrebbel 3y ago
  I agree with this observation but it bothers me to no end how eagerly the non-reactionary “mainstream” opinion has let them hijack it. A little bit of skepticism is healthy! This new trend of dismissing every non-conforming opinion is as bad as the conspiracy nut wave it’s trying to fight. I’m not sure what the solution is but I’m not sure that shutting down every slightly uncommon opinion is it. (I recognize that this comment is exactly what a savvy troll would say and well I guess that’s kinda part of my point)
- throw10920 3y ago
  I bet you think that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, too. There's no "hijacking" occurring except in your mind. Your preferred political tribe also engages in its share of conspiracy-adjacent skepticism.
matrix_overload 3y ago
A whole generation has been asked to take the backseat and just keep themselves busy, while the big guys do serious business. USSR tried that very approach, and you can see in the history books how well it unfolded for them.
soligern 3y ago
Skepticism has been muddied by right wing conspiracy theorists and now people equate healthy skepticism with mild insanity.
- onetokeoverthe 3y ago
  [dead]
- renegat0x0 3y ago
  Sometimes we do not look though our eyes, but though lenses of somebody else. Although right wing conspiracy theorists exist, also left wing theorists exist. We should not sat that skepticism is muddied by anybody, because it is muddied by they media that presents their view on they world, which Has muddied our skepticism.
nonameking2026 3y ago
Vaccinated?
uLogMicheal 3y ago
Skepticism these days only requires incrementing the number of bots you want to flood your agenda.
JohnFen 3y ago
And far too many people mistakenly think "skeptical" means "distrustful".

hooverd 3y ago

<crank warning> I think having a little bit of slop in a human system is good. A world where your freedoms and responsibilities are entirely managed by computers, like an AWS IAM role for people, sounds awful, and this project seems to want to go there.

pavlov 3y ago

Skepticism has been largely hijacked by those with an anti-democratic or downright reactionary agenda. A generation raised on “contrarian” and “anti-conformist” YouTube influencers is skeptical of democratic power and international institutions, but willing to give a free pass to billionaires and any other kind of power that operates via ruthlessly deployed private property. Worldcoin fits this mold and so it will find fans.

matrix_overload 3y ago
I'm not sure it's anti-democratic and can think of a few examples: * Skepticism over mass vaccination (as opposed to at-risk groups only). Shut up, anti-vaxer, you're anti-democratic. Backed by Big Pharma. * Skepticism over climate change policy (asking middle class to reduce expectations, rather than cranking down on planned obsolescence and offshore production). Shut up, climate denier, you're anti-democratic. Backed by the companies doing offshoring and using climate as selling point. * Skepticism over affirmative action (as in discriminating people based on skin color in Academia, rather than making it easier for ALL parents to teach things to their kids). Shut up, you racist. Backed by the billion-dollar DEI industry billing enormous rates to public institutions. I can give many more examples where valid skepticism is immediately conflated with the nearest crazy idea nobody actually cares about (like the actual KKK), and is shut down on that basis by those who have a vested interest in not being scrutinized.
- pavlov 3y ago
  > "Skepticism over mass vaccination" All successful vaccination is mass vaccination. That's the whole point. Would we be rid of polio if we'd only vaccinated the 5% of population who were most at risk?
  - matrix_overload 3y ago
    Hello, numbers. Every infection has an R0 rate (average number of people infected by a single infected person). If it's greater than 1, the infection spreads exponentially. If it's lower than 1, it peters out. Vaccinating X% of people pushes R0 lower by X * N, where N depends on mutation rate, how good is the vaccine at preventing the spread (vs. reducing symptoms), etc. R0 is also affected by seasonality, immunity from earlier infections, etc. Polio doesn't mutate as fast, the vaccine lasts long time, and prevents both symptoms and the spread. R0 drops below 1, polio defeated. COVID mutates much faster, has one of the highest R0 rates among known diseases, vaccine lasts a limited time, considerably reduces mortality rate (which isn't much of a concern for fit healthy adults under 50), and somewhat reduces the spread. It pushes the R0 number somewhat down, but not below 1. What actually ended the pandemic was the Omicron variant that mysteriously grew much faster in the upper respiratory tract, and got your body to start fighting it before it did anything to the lungs. It still has enough R0, but the symptoms are so mild, it became mostly indistinguishable from common cold, so people stopped caring. Had we vaccinated the at-risk groups, and given strong incentives for others to lose weight and start exercising, we could have arrived at the same, or lower death toll with much less taxpayer money going towards the Big Pharma.
  - cempaka 3y ago
    Always helps to have vaccines that actually work to prevent transmission too.
  - Vecr 3y ago
    There clearly are risk factors for paralytic Polio disease but it's likely to be in the very complex interaction between the person's genome and the environment, causing variability in certain types of immune responses. Even now it's not very clear how you would go about testing for them in advance. In the 1950s the "risk group" for a specific serotype of Polio virus is that you were statistically less likely to already have been infected with that serotype. They found out the Salk vaccine was almost entirely ineffective against transmissions pretty quick as well.
TechBro8615 3y ago
There's nothing wrong with being skeptical of Democracy, as people have been since Ancient Greece. More recently there's the famous Churchill quote, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."
- pavlov 3y ago
  It's good to be skeptical of how democracy is implemented and executed at any given time. (IMHO Americans in particular should be much more skeptical of their 18th century constitution rather than treat it as scripture.) It's not good to be knee-jerk skeptical of everything that defined the post-WWII rules-based international system while idolizing billionaire founders and their corporate power. We had some good things figured out by the 1990s. It wasn't the proverbial "end of history" but IMO we need more of the cooperative spirit and respect for human rights that got us there, not less.
delfinom 3y ago
>YouTube influencers is skeptical of democratic power and international institutions, but willing to give a free pass to billionaires and any other kind of power that operates via ruthlessly deployed private property. Because they have temporarily poor millionaire syndrome.
api 3y ago
"The mainstream media and governments lie and make mistakes, so I am going to mindlessly believe everything this random asshole on YouTube says instead!"
skrebbel 3y ago
I agree with this observation but it bothers me to no end how eagerly the non-reactionary “mainstream” opinion has let them hijack it. A little bit of skepticism is healthy! This new trend of dismissing every non-conforming opinion is as bad as the conspiracy nut wave it’s trying to fight. I’m not sure what the solution is but I’m not sure that shutting down every slightly uncommon opinion is it. (I recognize that this comment is exactly what a savvy troll would say and well I guess that’s kinda part of my point)
throw10920 3y ago
I bet you think that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, too. There's no "hijacking" occurring except in your mind. Your preferred political tribe also engages in its share of conspiracy-adjacent skepticism.

matrix_overload 3y ago

A whole generation has been asked to take the backseat and just keep themselves busy, while the big guys do serious business. USSR tried that very approach, and you can see in the history books how well it unfolded for them.

soligern 3y ago

Skepticism has been muddied by right wing conspiracy theorists and now people equate healthy skepticism with mild insanity.

onetokeoverthe 3y ago
[dead]
renegat0x0 3y ago
Sometimes we do not look though our eyes, but though lenses of somebody else. Although right wing conspiracy theorists exist, also left wing theorists exist. We should not sat that skepticism is muddied by anybody, because it is muddied by they media that presents their view on they world, which Has muddied our skepticism.

nonameking2026 3y ago

Vaccinated?

uLogMicheal 3y ago

Skepticism these days only requires incrementing the number of bots you want to flood your agenda.

JohnFen 3y ago

And far too many people mistakenly think "skeptical" means "distrustful".