knzhou

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121.
by knzhou 6y ago
But this article is making my exact point. By the time gay marriage was actually gaining acceptance, the largest pride parades had become as tame as 4th of July celebrations, with SF pride marching with the police, the mayor, and Google emp
122.
by knzhou 6y ago
But that's not actually how it worked out. Gay marriage didn't go from an unpopular stance to a popular one throughout the 2000s by displays like this. If anything, they were used as ammunition by people strongly against gay marri
123.
by knzhou 6y ago
But I do have it both ways. Youtube is a large provider, which is why I'm glad it's kicking off bullshit. But it's far from the only provider: without Youtube you still have print, radio, TV, going outside with a megaph
124.
by knzhou 6y ago
That's an idealistic statement but a false one. Bullshit is much easier to produce than truth, and is inherently much more appealing, because it isn't constrained by having to be true. For example, the "good speech" coun
125.
by knzhou 6y ago
Galileo didn't deliver spittle-flecked rants either. He carefully gathered evidence and wrote it up, and his ideas gained acceptance by peer review.
126.
by knzhou 6y ago
Just imagine traveling back in time and trying to convince your grandmother of this. "We just can't know if the polio vaccine will work, because it's just fundamentally impossible to decide what is true and false." &quot
127.
by knzhou 6y ago
> Leaded gasoline, phlogiston, cold fusion, phrenology, scientific racism, basically the entire history of the progress of science. The progress of science wasn't driven by nutjobs delivering spittle-flecked rants on Youtube. Almost
128.
by knzhou 6y ago
> 2. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a b
129.
by knzhou 6y ago
No, which is exactly why I'm happy they defer to the WHO. I don't trust the WHO unconditionally either, but I trust it much much more than David Icke.
130.
by knzhou 6y ago
It's not a "marketplace of ideas", in practice it's a used car dealership. Just about anybody with the slightest bit of cleverness and free time can convince any trusting person of anything whatsoever, no matter how horr
131.
by knzhou 6y ago
There indeed were a few dangerous vaccines, about three generations ago. That's exactly why we have the elaborate clinical trial system today: they stop potentially unsafe vaccines all the time . A large fraction of the COVID vaccines
132.
by knzhou 6y ago
The point is that even if Youtube literally censored everything overnight, we wouldn't end up living in hell, we'd be living in the year 2000.
133.
by knzhou 6y ago
Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Google employee?
134.
by knzhou 6y ago
Yes. This inevitably results in all mass-adopted systems, even messaging services where people just talk to each other. It's not the systems, it's the people.
135.
by knzhou 6y ago
This slope isn't nearly as slippery as you think it is. If YouTube began issuing a million times more bans, it might approach the quality of an average newspaper in terms of accuracy. Would we be living in a dystopia at that point? N
136.
by knzhou 6y ago
> Do you have evidence that the truth more often than not win over lies? It doesn't. That's precisely why Icke's ban is necessary: he was incredibly popular.
137.
by knzhou 6y ago
You’re perfectly illustrating what I talked about.
138.
by knzhou 6y ago
> It'd be nice to have a centralised, low bandwidth well moderated information source for the smartest 5-10% of people to get good information in response to their questions and uncertainties. Any such channel which is truly open to
139.
by knzhou 6y ago
Great, so I suppose it's metastasized. How about the rest?
140.
by knzhou 6y ago
Hi, sorry, but I don't have time to answer all the questions (because each answer would have to be at least 10x longer than the question, so my answer would have to add up to at least 5000 words)! However, these are all good questions
141.
by knzhou 6y ago
You got most of these bad takes from Project Evidence, a textbook example of a gish gallop that looks convincing only by the sheer quantity of shit it contains. I don't have time to "school" you in everything, because you wro
142.
by knzhou 6y ago
This comment is a gish gallop that contains piles of exaggeration, misdirection, and outright fabrication, and I bet I know its shitty source. Folks, don’t fall for it. Baryphonic, if you fell for it, I’m sorry, but do try to seek out at le
143.
by knzhou 6y ago
> there's always quantitative finance From the perspective of understanding the universe, that is nothing. Decent consolation prize though.
144.
by knzhou 6y ago
Physics PhD student here. Yeah, we're all playing the lottery for the dream of a life studying the universe. It's the exact analogue of how serious student athletes throw away their whole undergrad education for a shot at a pro ca
145.
by knzhou 6y ago
This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying that nations should get prepared, o
146.
by knzhou 6y ago
That's not them bowing to China or "covering it up", that's just a statement of their principles. The W stands for World.
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by knzhou 6y ago
> WHO was saying there's no human to human transmission This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have
148.
by knzhou 6y ago
Personally I've always thought "proofs" using "arithmetic" are right, but kind of stated backwards. The point is that in elementary school arithmetic, you define addition, multiplication, subtraction, division, deci
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by knzhou 6y ago
That's an admirable sentiment, Ionannidis must be such a wonderful guy. However, the damage has already been done. He's already done his media blitz, so no matter what happens next, effectively zero people will hear the correcti
150.
by knzhou 6y ago
I'm in physics and I've never heard of anything remotely like this. Are you sure that "hate mail" wasn't just pointing out errors in his work, which is a completely legitimate and downright essential part of science

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