Bad arguments about the dangers of vaccines and the efficacy of snake-oil cures will kill many thousands and prolong the pandemic. Should YouTube censor them?
It has to be accepted, I think, that the real problem here is the collapse of confidence in many institutions, government prominent among them. It’s not a new phenomenon—radical distrust in this vein goes back to the Sixties. Polling indicates that around three-quarters of the American people repose little or no faith in either the honesty or competence of the federal government. Since most guidance and direction on the pandemic comes from government, it should surprise no one that skepticism and suspicion run rampant. And our truly despicable media only makes things worse: on the one hand retailing paranoid conspiracy theories about vaccines, on the other hand providing aid and comfort to the Chinese regime’s coverup of COVID-19’s origins.
Nor can it be said that our political overlords and elite experts have risen to the occasion. Their mendacity and hypocrisy only confirmed people’s low opinion of them.
I certainly agree that social media’s role has made a bad situation worse—but the misinformation and lies thus spread fall on fertile ground. It’s a fascinating study in doublethink, really: people clamoring for the very institutions that they most distrust to “do something.”
“ By the way, as far as ivermectin as a treatment for Covid; the idea is asinine. There is no plausible mechanism of action to suggest that it is efficacious.”
Well written. It supports my instinctive decision long ago to not participate in social media. I've never been on Facebook, I followed a couple people on twitter to see what it was, and rejected it because a conversation of sentence fragments cannot communicate ideas in any meaningful way.
I agree that writing long form is the best way to organize, refine and communicate an argument. (See the length of my past comments. I was trying to keep them succinct.)
When I express a short response to an idea, the feedback I get almost always tells me the recipient has ascribed a meaning to my words I did not intend. This has taught me that if I'm not going to express an idea completely, there is no point to expressing it partially only to be misunderstood. Either go all the way or not at all. (I do forget and have to relearn this every so often)
Keep up the good work. In the past when new technology has changed the world, humanity had more time to react and adapt. Social media my be changing things faster than our ability to absorb and adjust.
Surely social media has a role to play in the clusterfu$k that is the antivaxer movement, but it goes deeper than that.
All of the once trusted institutions that were ascendant in the western world have experienced a total collapse in credibility. It’s true of international institutions, it’s true of government, journalism and religious organizations. Why wouldn’t it also be true of science and public health authorities?
The bill of particulars against the expert class is damning indeed. William Galston writing in the “American Purpose” gets it exactly right when he enumerates the failures of this group of self appointed gurus,
“They believe claims to expertise are mostly bogus. Why did elites in both parties allow China to join the World Trade Organization on such favorable terms? Why did they plunge us into endless wars in the Middle East? Why did they cause the Great Recession and botch the recovery? Why have their medical experts changed their minds so often during the pandemic? President Trump was at his best, they say, when he ignored the experts and went his own way.”
Given not only the litany of failures that they refuse to accept accountability for, but also the callous disregard they have for everyone except for their over-educated brethren, can we really expect people to simply trust the experts yet again?
While it is self-evidently true that vaccines offer the only escape hatch from the calamity currently facing us; the horse is out of the barn. The experts have simply been wrong too often to expect anyone to believe them.
The list of errors made by governmental experts during the Covid crisis is mounting. First we were told not to mask up and then not only were masks required but people were thrown in jail for not wearing them. We now know that surgical masks are completely useless in preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Then government experts encouraged us to wash our mail and groceries; now we know that the virus is only spread through an airborne route. How many experts arrogantly suggested that mass gatherings to excoriate the police were acceptable while celebrating Mass in a Roman Catholic Church was not? Weren’t we told that the adenovirus vector vaccines were the best thing since sliced bread until the government imposed a ridiculous moratorium that was lifted when it turned out that the chance of blood clots caused by the vaccine approximated the chance of being struck by lightening? Who remembers being told by the NIH leadership that only conspiracy theorists suggested the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab? Now we know it isn’t merely possible but very possible.
Given the remarkably poor track record of the expert class in general but also medical experts in particular, should we be surprised when people are skeptical about what the experts say about vaccines?
The venality of our expert overlords is hard to overstate and the chickens are now coming home to roost.
By the way, as far as ivermectin as a treatment for Covid; the idea is asinine. There is no plausible mechanism of action to suggest that it is efficacious.
I hope y’all address the “it isn’t that bad, they cooked the numbers” crud as well. I’m seeing way too many otherwise well educated folks falling for a lot of this malarkey.
I think we've seen one of the great weaknesses of liberal society ahead in the road, and the Internet has caused us to slam on the gas. We're not trying to fight bad reasons people have for believing things. We're fighting human desire to belong, since the reasons we're appealing to are all post hoc.
There is a giant social benefit to shouting the accepted tenets of the antivax movement, and that is the accolades and support of your group. And there is a terrible cost to changing your mind, as you'll be exiled and mocked for following the evidence. There's a reason "No evidence can change my mind" will be met with cheers, thanks Jenny for that haunting example.
I used to be somewhat aligned with what I now call the Cult of Freedom, youthful days of borderline anarchism. Eventually I dialed that back to, "as much freedom as we can stand." Reading Popper helped me refine that further. But now, knowing that AI, tailored diseases, and illiberal Americans are cresting over the horizon, I'm scared that the American project is self defeating. Reactive safety in future tech is very likely too little, too late.
Claire, whomever you nominate to debunk ivermectin should be willing to debate Bret Weinstein in a three hour session moderated by Joe Rogan. Now, that would be interesting and most likely very informative.
It has to be accepted, I think, that the real problem here is the collapse of confidence in many institutions, government prominent among them. It’s not a new phenomenon—radical distrust in this vein goes back to the Sixties. Polling indicates that around three-quarters of the American people repose little or no faith in either the honesty or competence of the federal government. Since most guidance and direction on the pandemic comes from government, it should surprise no one that skepticism and suspicion run rampant. And our truly despicable media only makes things worse: on the one hand retailing paranoid conspiracy theories about vaccines, on the other hand providing aid and comfort to the Chinese regime’s coverup of COVID-19’s origins.
Nor can it be said that our political overlords and elite experts have risen to the occasion. Their mendacity and hypocrisy only confirmed people’s low opinion of them.
I certainly agree that social media’s role has made a bad situation worse—but the misinformation and lies thus spread fall on fertile ground. It’s a fascinating study in doublethink, really: people clamoring for the very institutions that they most distrust to “do something.”
WigWag:
“ By the way, as far as ivermectin as a treatment for Covid; the idea is asinine. There is no plausible mechanism of action to suggest that it is efficacious.”
On véra:
https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/ivermectin-principle-trial-covid/
https://trialsitenews.com/uk-based-meta-analysis-peer-reviewed-published-suggests-ivermectin-a-key-public-health-weapon-in-the-war-against-covid-19/
Claire,
Well written. It supports my instinctive decision long ago to not participate in social media. I've never been on Facebook, I followed a couple people on twitter to see what it was, and rejected it because a conversation of sentence fragments cannot communicate ideas in any meaningful way.
I agree that writing long form is the best way to organize, refine and communicate an argument. (See the length of my past comments. I was trying to keep them succinct.)
When I express a short response to an idea, the feedback I get almost always tells me the recipient has ascribed a meaning to my words I did not intend. This has taught me that if I'm not going to express an idea completely, there is no point to expressing it partially only to be misunderstood. Either go all the way or not at all. (I do forget and have to relearn this every so often)
Keep up the good work. In the past when new technology has changed the world, humanity had more time to react and adapt. Social media my be changing things faster than our ability to absorb and adjust.
Surely social media has a role to play in the clusterfu$k that is the antivaxer movement, but it goes deeper than that.
All of the once trusted institutions that were ascendant in the western world have experienced a total collapse in credibility. It’s true of international institutions, it’s true of government, journalism and religious organizations. Why wouldn’t it also be true of science and public health authorities?
The bill of particulars against the expert class is damning indeed. William Galston writing in the “American Purpose” gets it exactly right when he enumerates the failures of this group of self appointed gurus,
“They believe claims to expertise are mostly bogus. Why did elites in both parties allow China to join the World Trade Organization on such favorable terms? Why did they plunge us into endless wars in the Middle East? Why did they cause the Great Recession and botch the recovery? Why have their medical experts changed their minds so often during the pandemic? President Trump was at his best, they say, when he ignored the experts and went his own way.”
See,
https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/the-bitter-heartland/
Given not only the litany of failures that they refuse to accept accountability for, but also the callous disregard they have for everyone except for their over-educated brethren, can we really expect people to simply trust the experts yet again?
While it is self-evidently true that vaccines offer the only escape hatch from the calamity currently facing us; the horse is out of the barn. The experts have simply been wrong too often to expect anyone to believe them.
The list of errors made by governmental experts during the Covid crisis is mounting. First we were told not to mask up and then not only were masks required but people were thrown in jail for not wearing them. We now know that surgical masks are completely useless in preventing the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Then government experts encouraged us to wash our mail and groceries; now we know that the virus is only spread through an airborne route. How many experts arrogantly suggested that mass gatherings to excoriate the police were acceptable while celebrating Mass in a Roman Catholic Church was not? Weren’t we told that the adenovirus vector vaccines were the best thing since sliced bread until the government imposed a ridiculous moratorium that was lifted when it turned out that the chance of blood clots caused by the vaccine approximated the chance of being struck by lightening? Who remembers being told by the NIH leadership that only conspiracy theorists suggested the possibility that the virus leaked from a lab? Now we know it isn’t merely possible but very possible.
Given the remarkably poor track record of the expert class in general but also medical experts in particular, should we be surprised when people are skeptical about what the experts say about vaccines?
The venality of our expert overlords is hard to overstate and the chickens are now coming home to roost.
By the way, as far as ivermectin as a treatment for Covid; the idea is asinine. There is no plausible mechanism of action to suggest that it is efficacious.
I hope y’all address the “it isn’t that bad, they cooked the numbers” crud as well. I’m seeing way too many otherwise well educated folks falling for a lot of this malarkey.
I think we've seen one of the great weaknesses of liberal society ahead in the road, and the Internet has caused us to slam on the gas. We're not trying to fight bad reasons people have for believing things. We're fighting human desire to belong, since the reasons we're appealing to are all post hoc.
There is a giant social benefit to shouting the accepted tenets of the antivax movement, and that is the accolades and support of your group. And there is a terrible cost to changing your mind, as you'll be exiled and mocked for following the evidence. There's a reason "No evidence can change my mind" will be met with cheers, thanks Jenny for that haunting example.
I used to be somewhat aligned with what I now call the Cult of Freedom, youthful days of borderline anarchism. Eventually I dialed that back to, "as much freedom as we can stand." Reading Popper helped me refine that further. But now, knowing that AI, tailored diseases, and illiberal Americans are cresting over the horizon, I'm scared that the American project is self defeating. Reactive safety in future tech is very likely too little, too late.
Claire, whomever you nominate to debunk ivermectin should be willing to debate Bret Weinstein in a three hour session moderated by Joe Rogan. Now, that would be interesting and most likely very informative.