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The thing is, policy and policymaking and the responsibility of policymakers all bring about different dimensions from pure scientific inquiry. For example, it

The thing is, policy and policymaking and the responsibility of policymakers all bring about different dimensions from pure scientific inquiry. For example, it's probably best that we learn later that it actually was a lab leak from China. Because during a global pandemic, making China an enemy, when you're trying to all collaborate on dealing with the problem, maybe is not good policy. Similarly, masks might be a toss up, but you make a decision on policy and you commit on the gamble. Causing unnecessary panic also doesn't help. We saw that a lot of people kind of lost it, conspiracy theories exploded, now some of those theories might be legitimate, the scientific method could evaluate them one by one, it would take time, but in the meantime, people might act irrationally and cause more harm from a hypothesis. So maybe you try and not bring it up. As not to cause more concern that isn't productive. And I think true censorship is terrible here, but something that's more a toning down of certain theories that are not really doing any good and causing panic, doubts, distrust, etc. Keep the information available if someone searches for it, but maybe don't let it get promoted and fed to more people, until a more appropriate time comes, and it's now had time to develop more evidence, etc. This whole area around policymaking is much more of an imperfect art, it's not science, it's more similar to a betting market, it makes bets, as leadership, and hopes that it leads people into the right outcome. But I agree, there's a fine line, you also don't want to swallow alternate hypothesis that might end up proving to be the truth. It's a difficult balance to be honest.

MrPatan 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please make your substantive points within the site guidelines and especially please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - MrPatan 3y ago
    Fair enough. Can't delete or edit this one anymore, ah well.
zmgsabst 3y ago
This presumes you’re smart enough to make good policy choices absent honest debate and that you can enact policies effectively without public buy-in through authoritarian means. Both assumptions are untrue — and we’re only beginning to see the consequences of the institutional failures. Eg, why does excess death remain high in Western Europe but not Eastern Europe? — why is only Eastern Europe showing the decline in mortality we’d normally see after a pandemic? Policy choices — based on lies, manipulation, and force.
- didibus 3y ago
  Policies are shaped through a democratic process where leaders, elected by all of us, make choices based on sometimes confidential info. Their powers are balanced, by a representative republic, with laws and regular check-ins. Disagree? Vote 'em out! We assume that we elected smart officials, that will engage in honest debates, and discuss with experts first. Some policies may not vibe with you, but others are on board. It's not all about science; decisions factor in global stuff, potential chaos, and even sanitizer-in-veins scenarios. It's not based on lies, manipulation and force, it's based on the rules of a democratic, representative, republic.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    A few points: 1. Not restricting communication is a law, that they violated repeatedly in this process. 2. Democratic process doesn’t consist purely of elections, but a continuous public debate for the purposes of reaching communal consensus and informing representatives of our collective will — and that fundamental democratic process was subverted. 3. This absolutely was done with lies (eg, Pfizer never tested for preventing transmission and public health officials outright lied), manipulation (eg, preventing scientific experts from communicating their views with the public through government censorship), and force (eg, mandates that coerced people to take experimental medical treatments in violation of the Nuremberg standards). There have always been some people who happily cooperate with authoritarians subverting liberal society — that they did so now tells us nothing. We’re only beginning to see the reckoning for those failures.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MrPatan 3y ago
No. That line of thinking destroyed free speech and destroyed whatever trust was left in science, medicine, governments and media. Was it worth it for a bunch of maybes? "maybe China wouldn't have collaborated" (also, collaborate how? They didn't, they don't). There is a reason why these freedoms are absolute and non-negotiable: Even when people think they have a good reason to violate them, they're wrong.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- didibus 3y ago
  > and destroyed whatever trust was left in science, medicine, governments and media If you can't distinguish between science, medicine, media and government policies, there's little we can do. People need to have basic understanding and the ability to differentiate and not mix up and conflate everything. If you're getting your scientific data from headlines, for-profit media outlets, opportunistic politicians, or podcasters and what not. This isn't the same as scientific dissidents. Do we need more political dissidents? Maybe that's the better topic here. > There is a reason why these freedoms are absolute and non-negotiable: Even when people think they have a good reason to violate them, they're wrong Those freedoms are actually not absolute, and are negotiable. I understand that you would want them to be absolute and are a freedom of speech absolutist. But don't claim that they are currently absolute. So in fact, we might ask ourselves, why aren't they currently implemented in an absolute framework in any country not even the US? Now, to be frank, I'll admit the possibility that maybe an absolute freedom of speech is better, but I also recognize certain dangers with it that might want to put a few little caveats to protect from misinformation, abuse, hatred, defamation, fear mongering, incitement of violence, etc. And I don't know which is truly best. My point though is that, when making policies, these concerns come into the picture, where they do not in a purely scientific framework. Because when making policies, you also need to ask yourself: 1. Could this cause a panic 2. Could this hurt our collective effort to fight off the virus 3. Could this cause unrest that would just add to the pile of problems we already face 4. Could it just distract us and lead us towards a dead end 5. Is there a solid evidence base or data to support this 6. How might international implications or considerations affect it And so on.
ren_engineer 3y ago
>For example, it's probably best that we learn later that it actually was a lab leak from China I think a lot of anti-mask people would have taken it much more seriously if they knew it was essentially a man-made bioweapon(gain of function research to make it spread more). So knowing it was a lab leak early would have helped the response quite a bit

MrPatan 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please make your substantive points within the site guidelines and especially please don't cross into personal attack. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- MrPatan 3y ago
  Fair enough. Can't delete or edit this one anymore, ah well.

zmgsabst 3y ago

This presumes you’re smart enough to make good policy choices absent honest debate and that you can enact policies effectively without public buy-in through authoritarian means. Both assumptions are untrue — and we’re only beginning to see the consequences of the institutional failures. Eg, why does excess death remain high in Western Europe but not Eastern Europe? — why is only Eastern Europe showing the decline in mortality we’d normally see after a pandemic? Policy choices — based on lies, manipulation, and force.

didibus 3y ago
Policies are shaped through a democratic process where leaders, elected by all of us, make choices based on sometimes confidential info. Their powers are balanced, by a representative republic, with laws and regular check-ins. Disagree? Vote 'em out! We assume that we elected smart officials, that will engage in honest debates, and discuss with experts first. Some policies may not vibe with you, but others are on board. It's not all about science; decisions factor in global stuff, potential chaos, and even sanitizer-in-veins scenarios. It's not based on lies, manipulation and force, it's based on the rules of a democratic, representative, republic.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  A few points: 1. Not restricting communication is a law, that they violated repeatedly in this process. 2. Democratic process doesn’t consist purely of elections, but a continuous public debate for the purposes of reaching communal consensus and informing representatives of our collective will — and that fundamental democratic process was subverted. 3. This absolutely was done with lies (eg, Pfizer never tested for preventing transmission and public health officials outright lied), manipulation (eg, preventing scientific experts from communicating their views with the public through government censorship), and force (eg, mandates that coerced people to take experimental medical treatments in violation of the Nuremberg standards). There have always been some people who happily cooperate with authoritarians subverting liberal society — that they did so now tells us nothing. We’re only beginning to see the reckoning for those failures.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

MrPatan 3y ago

No. That line of thinking destroyed free speech and destroyed whatever trust was left in science, medicine, governments and media. Was it worth it for a bunch of maybes? "maybe China wouldn't have collaborated" (also, collaborate how? They didn't, they don't). There is a reason why these freedoms are absolute and non-negotiable: Even when people think they have a good reason to violate them, they're wrong.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
didibus 3y ago
> and destroyed whatever trust was left in science, medicine, governments and media If you can't distinguish between science, medicine, media and government policies, there's little we can do. People need to have basic understanding and the ability to differentiate and not mix up and conflate everything. If you're getting your scientific data from headlines, for-profit media outlets, opportunistic politicians, or podcasters and what not. This isn't the same as scientific dissidents. Do we need more political dissidents? Maybe that's the better topic here. > There is a reason why these freedoms are absolute and non-negotiable: Even when people think they have a good reason to violate them, they're wrong Those freedoms are actually not absolute, and are negotiable. I understand that you would want them to be absolute and are a freedom of speech absolutist. But don't claim that they are currently absolute. So in fact, we might ask ourselves, why aren't they currently implemented in an absolute framework in any country not even the US? Now, to be frank, I'll admit the possibility that maybe an absolute freedom of speech is better, but I also recognize certain dangers with it that might want to put a few little caveats to protect from misinformation, abuse, hatred, defamation, fear mongering, incitement of violence, etc. And I don't know which is truly best. My point though is that, when making policies, these concerns come into the picture, where they do not in a purely scientific framework. Because when making policies, you also need to ask yourself: 1. Could this cause a panic 2. Could this hurt our collective effort to fight off the virus 3. Could this cause unrest that would just add to the pile of problems we already face 4. Could it just distract us and lead us towards a dead end 5. Is there a solid evidence base or data to support this 6. How might international implications or considerations affect it And so on.

ren_engineer 3y ago

>For example, it's probably best that we learn later that it actually was a lab leak from China I think a lot of anti-mask people would have taken it much more seriously if they knew it was essentially a man-made bioweapon(gain of function research to make it spread more). So knowing it was a lab leak early would have helped the response quite a bit