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You’ll have to let me know when that has ever really happened. I can’t recall a single government in my lifetime that didn’t push some remarkably stupid and irr

You’ll have to let me know when that has ever really happened. I can’t recall a single government in my lifetime that didn’t push some remarkably stupid and irresponsible nonsense. People my age probably remember the classic 90s “food pyramid” in school and on the back of sugared cereal boxes — it pushed empty carbs as the the foundation of a healthy diet.

viraptor 11mo ago
There's a difference between doing something well meant, failing, and improving -vs- going back to theories already proven wrong and harmful. There's a reason we don't have the food pyramid - we're learning.
- amscanne 11mo ago
  You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned and that the movement will ultimately fade-away decades down the line? It seems identical to me: soft corruption and bad science shaping government policy. Annoying and bad, but also hopefully temporary (but may do damage in the meantime). I agree that it happens with all governments. Has everyone forgotten the sea of bad science that was COVID policy? Thank god they arrested that paddle-boarder!
  - viraptor 11mo ago
    > You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned Well intentioned but wrong is only when you have incomplete information. Once your theory has been disproven multiple times and you still ignore it, that's not well intentioned anymore. That's just lying to yourself and others at that point.
    - frumplestlatz 11mo ago
      Humanity is messy. There are very many things that I think have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but are still, somehow, up for debate. The answer can’t be absolutism in any direction. No one, no group, and no ideology has a monopoly on truth. No system or ideology is perfectly correct — or even reliably correct in the long run, if you make the error of building an ideology around it that assumes it will be correct. You create the conditions of its own fallibility. The next government will make stupid decisions, be wrong, and promote falsehoods. We probably won’t even know all of them at the time. They’ll be both corrupt and good intentioned, depending on the subject, who is involved, and why. This current government at least admits the possibility of debate. That’s a fair sight better than most of what I’ve seen over the last 10 years from those who think they have a monopoly on truth and science.
  - DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
    Covid policy was bad mostly because it was driven by economic interests, not because of "bad science." The only major scientific lapses I can think of in the US were the initial insistence that masks don't work and that the virus isn't airborne. The mask issue was influenced by the fact that they wanted to conserve masks for healthcare workers. I strongly suspect the airborne issue was heavily influenced by no one wanting to deal with the consequences: that stronger measures would be needed to reduce the spread of the virus.
    - bathtub365 11mo ago
      Did we live through the same period? Masks became the most politicized inanimate object next to guns.
      - DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
        Not because of "bad science."
    - amscanne 11mo ago
      Don't use scare quotes to twist what is being said. Bad science is pretending or thinking that we know more than we do, just as much as thinking the wrong thing is true. For example, claims about the under or over-effectiveness of masks (and subsequently vaccines) is definitely bad science that erodes public confidence in scientific leaders and organizations. And the insane vaccine mandate for *children* (not federal, but some states in order to attend school) was absolutely bad science. I'm not opposed to the vacinne, but there was most definitely no evidence to support this requirement. At best, the current science suggests an unclear risk-benefit profile, and the information at the time in no way suggested a profile that justified a full-on mandate. This violated basic medical and ethical principles.
      - DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
        The science on masks and vaccines was not "bad." Masks turned out to be highly effective if people actually bothered to wear them. Many studies found conflicting results in real-world use, because many people don't wear masks consistently. The correct response to that is to encourage people to wear masks correctly and consistently, not to claim that masks don't work. The vaccines were initially highly effective against infection and transmission. That was a correct result of the initial studies. What the initial studies could not possibly capture was that the vaccine would become less effective over time at completely stopping infection (because of viral mutation and because antibody titers decrease over time), though they maintained their very high effectiveness at stopping people from getting seriously ill and dying. > And the insane vaccine mandate for children (not federal, but some states in order to attend school) was absolutely bad science. It's not insane at all. Schools are some of the most intense centers of viral spread in just about any community. It has long been known that reducing spread at schools is one of the most important measures in controlling a pandemic. The mRNA vaccines have a very good safety profile - the risk of side-effects is tiny. The most serious side-effect of the mRNA vaccines, myocarditis, is actually caused at a higher rate (and with greater severity) by Covid itself. The scientific community did some amazing work during the pandemic. They almost instantly developed a vaccine that is extremely effective at preventing you from dying of Covid and which has a vanishingly small rate of serious side-effects. That would have been seen as a miracle a few decades ago. What ruined the response to the pandemic was the politics of it, not the science. One aspect of that was the insane politicization of unalloyed goods like vaccination and masking. The paradox and tragedy of the United States is that despite having the finest scientific community in the world, most of the population is scientifically illiterate and open to manipulation and fear-mongering.
  - venturecruelty 11mo ago
    "Your Honor, I really meant well when I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger! Sure, everyone told me it would go off and kill someone, but can't you see that my intentions were pure?"
    - amscanne 11mo ago
      I'm not sure what you are trying to prove here, but obviously intent matters a lot for the purposes of crime, e.g. if you believed your life was in imminent danger and shot someone, you may not be guilty of murder. You seem to be saying that people are indeed malicious and just lying about believing vaccines cause harm (for what purpose?), but I do believe they are just misinformed and have strongly-held-but-incorrect beliefs.
triceratops 11mo ago
> empty carbs Pretty sure it was whole grains. Not what the base of the pyramid ought to be (it should really be vegetables) but hardly "empty" calories. Japanese eat lots of rice, white rice even, and stay thin. The food pyramid wasn't the problem. Putting sugar in everything, eating cereal and other processed foods, and dropping home economics cooking classes from school was the culprit.
- frumplestlatz 11mo ago
  > Pretty sure it was whole grains. It wasn’t. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-food-pyramid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-fo...
  - triceratops 11mo ago
    Like I said, eating white rice has worked out just fine for Japan.
    - frumplestlatz 11mo ago
      Cool. That’s not what the food pyramid promoted.
      - triceratops 11mo ago
        Rice was one of the grains
venturecruelty 11mo ago
"All governments make mistakes. Therefore, pushing propaganda and lies about vaccines is okay, like telling kids three servings of vegetables is okay when actually it should be four."
- frumplestlatz 11mo ago
  They literally created three+ generations of morbidly obese Americans. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-food-pyramid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-fo...

viraptor 11mo ago

There's a difference between doing something well meant, failing, and improving -vs- going back to theories already proven wrong and harmful. There's a reason we don't have the food pyramid - we're learning.

amscanne 11mo ago
You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned and that the movement will ultimately fade-away decades down the line? It seems identical to me: soft corruption and bad science shaping government policy. Annoying and bad, but also hopefully temporary (but may do damage in the meantime). I agree that it happens with all governments. Has everyone forgotten the sea of bad science that was COVID policy? Thank god they arrested that paddle-boarder!
- viraptor 11mo ago
  > You don't think that the current crop of vaccine-skeptics are mostly well-intentioned Well intentioned but wrong is only when you have incomplete information. Once your theory has been disproven multiple times and you still ignore it, that's not well intentioned anymore. That's just lying to yourself and others at that point.
  - frumplestlatz 11mo ago
    Humanity is messy. There are very many things that I think have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but are still, somehow, up for debate. The answer can’t be absolutism in any direction. No one, no group, and no ideology has a monopoly on truth. No system or ideology is perfectly correct — or even reliably correct in the long run, if you make the error of building an ideology around it that assumes it will be correct. You create the conditions of its own fallibility. The next government will make stupid decisions, be wrong, and promote falsehoods. We probably won’t even know all of them at the time. They’ll be both corrupt and good intentioned, depending on the subject, who is involved, and why. This current government at least admits the possibility of debate. That’s a fair sight better than most of what I’ve seen over the last 10 years from those who think they have a monopoly on truth and science.
- DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
  Covid policy was bad mostly because it was driven by economic interests, not because of "bad science." The only major scientific lapses I can think of in the US were the initial insistence that masks don't work and that the virus isn't airborne. The mask issue was influenced by the fact that they wanted to conserve masks for healthcare workers. I strongly suspect the airborne issue was heavily influenced by no one wanting to deal with the consequences: that stronger measures would be needed to reduce the spread of the virus.
  - bathtub365 11mo ago
    Did we live through the same period? Masks became the most politicized inanimate object next to guns.
    - DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
      Not because of "bad science."
  - amscanne 11mo ago
    Don't use scare quotes to twist what is being said. Bad science is pretending or thinking that we know more than we do, just as much as thinking the wrong thing is true. For example, claims about the under or over-effectiveness of masks (and subsequently vaccines) is definitely bad science that erodes public confidence in scientific leaders and organizations. And the insane vaccine mandate for *children* (not federal, but some states in order to attend school) was absolutely bad science. I'm not opposed to the vacinne, but there was most definitely no evidence to support this requirement. At best, the current science suggests an unclear risk-benefit profile, and the information at the time in no way suggested a profile that justified a full-on mandate. This violated basic medical and ethical principles.
    - DiogenesKynikos 11mo ago
      The science on masks and vaccines was not "bad." Masks turned out to be highly effective if people actually bothered to wear them. Many studies found conflicting results in real-world use, because many people don't wear masks consistently. The correct response to that is to encourage people to wear masks correctly and consistently, not to claim that masks don't work. The vaccines were initially highly effective against infection and transmission. That was a correct result of the initial studies. What the initial studies could not possibly capture was that the vaccine would become less effective over time at completely stopping infection (because of viral mutation and because antibody titers decrease over time), though they maintained their very high effectiveness at stopping people from getting seriously ill and dying. > And the insane vaccine mandate for children (not federal, but some states in order to attend school) was absolutely bad science. It's not insane at all. Schools are some of the most intense centers of viral spread in just about any community. It has long been known that reducing spread at schools is one of the most important measures in controlling a pandemic. The mRNA vaccines have a very good safety profile - the risk of side-effects is tiny. The most serious side-effect of the mRNA vaccines, myocarditis, is actually caused at a higher rate (and with greater severity) by Covid itself. The scientific community did some amazing work during the pandemic. They almost instantly developed a vaccine that is extremely effective at preventing you from dying of Covid and which has a vanishingly small rate of serious side-effects. That would have been seen as a miracle a few decades ago. What ruined the response to the pandemic was the politics of it, not the science. One aspect of that was the insane politicization of unalloyed goods like vaccination and masking. The paradox and tragedy of the United States is that despite having the finest scientific community in the world, most of the population is scientifically illiterate and open to manipulation and fear-mongering.
- venturecruelty 11mo ago
  "Your Honor, I really meant well when I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger! Sure, everyone told me it would go off and kill someone, but can't you see that my intentions were pure?"
  - amscanne 11mo ago
    I'm not sure what you are trying to prove here, but obviously intent matters a lot for the purposes of crime, e.g. if you believed your life was in imminent danger and shot someone, you may not be guilty of murder. You seem to be saying that people are indeed malicious and just lying about believing vaccines cause harm (for what purpose?), but I do believe they are just misinformed and have strongly-held-but-incorrect beliefs.

triceratops 11mo ago

> empty carbs Pretty sure it was whole grains. Not what the base of the pyramid ought to be (it should really be vegetables) but hardly "empty" calories. Japanese eat lots of rice, white rice even, and stay thin. The food pyramid wasn't the problem. Putting sugar in everything, eating cereal and other processed foods, and dropping home economics cooking classes from school was the culprit.

frumplestlatz 11mo ago
> Pretty sure it was whole grains. It wasn’t. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-food-pyramid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-fo...
- triceratops 11mo ago
  Like I said, eating white rice has worked out just fine for Japan.
  - frumplestlatz 11mo ago
    Cool. That’s not what the food pyramid promoted.
    - triceratops 11mo ago
      Rice was one of the grains

venturecruelty 11mo ago

"All governments make mistakes. Therefore, pushing propaganda and lies about vaccines is okay, like telling kids three servings of vegetables is okay when actually it should be four."

frumplestlatz 11mo ago
They literally created three+ generations of morbidly obese Americans. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-food-pyramid/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rebuilding-the-fo...