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Comment by skosch | Hacker News Reader

> It just makes it fester somewhere else that isn't as visible.

Is that true? Would we have the anti-vax movement if it weren't for Facebook & co.?

We had the anti-vax movement before Facebook.

And if it were banned, they'd just spin it as the pharma companies paying to suppress the truth. It would only further confirm their beliefs.

That "spotlight is the best disinfectant" is a very convenient narrative. I do realize in the end we all want to believe in whatever is convenient for us (notably including anti vaxxers). But is there actual scientific evidence supporting that particular narrative to work?

Through all of mankind we had strong mechanisms to form consensus, including social repercussions. Those don't work anymore, since what would have become outcasts in earlier generations can now easily (for example on facebook) find like-minded communities and fulfill their social needs/get approval/etc. It'll be interesting in how different realities people can believe in before society breaks apart. I'd prefer we wont let that happen.

The question is what actually works. Censoring them might reinforce their believe, but I can accept giving up on some if it does effectively stops the spread.

> Through all of mankind we had strong mechanisms to form consensus, including social repercussions.

This is a dangerous, dangerous path to go down to if you belong to any kind of enlightment inspired ideology. What kind of things were supressed the hardest? Sexual Deviancy. questioning authority. Questioning relgion. You really want this kind of society? I think maybe we can stand some antivaxxer ...

> > Through all of mankind we had strong mechanisms to form consensus, including social repercussions. > This is a dangerous, dangerous path to go down to if you belong to any kind of enlightment inspired ideology.

Mechanisms to form consensus does not necessarily mean rule by mob, quite the opposite. Positive consensus mechanisms can be trust in the scientific method, institutional credibility, and acceptance of reason. These mechanisms can support an enlightenment ideology, not prevent it.

I wasn't talking about mob rule. I was talking about an orthodoxy that's ruthlessly enforced by those in power. Cause that's what it was before.

"Freedom of speech" is not an accident. Enlightenment thinkers have been pondering this for 200 years and more and objections have been successfully adressed over and over again. It's as much of the type of consensus you describe as we will ever have. 'But computers' is not sufficient to just do away with it.

Pretty naive if you apply this conclusion to many countries in the world.

> The question is what actually works.

Make them pay a material cost: link vaccination to welfare benefits/family tax rebates, works well in Australia (search no jab, no pay). Also make an up to date vaccination record a requirement for enrolment into schools.

They will complain and might keep on spouting shit, but at the cost of ~$10k/child/year they'll change their actions pretty quick.

this is what the free market would do but I thought we don't want that because 'everyone should have affordable healthcare'. Isn't an antivaxer 'everyone'? It's kind of spooky, progressives convince themselves they have no ingroup bias by making their ingroup unreasonably large but the price for that seems to be that they un-human people who have a different view.

> Through all of mankind['s history,] we had strong mechanisms to form consensus, including social repercussions.

So, you're saying this mechanism is a good thing? Because mechanisms that reinforce the current social consensus, whatever it might be for that era, tend to maintain the status quo. And a desire to maintaining the status quo is a big chunk of the philosophy of, yep, that's right, ... conservatives.

I've often said progressives aren't liberals because they don't agree with liberal philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Their "maintain the current societal consensus" argument is the strongest evidence of that yet.

>Through all of mankind we had strong mechanisms to form consensus, including social repercussions.

And throughout history people lived to be 30 and died of plague wallowing in their own excrement thinking the devil did it.

If your ideology needs thought control to work it needs to be taken out at the back of the sheds and shot. The second a society stops discussing ideas openly is the second it starts sliding towards a new dark age.

In fact, the anti-vaxx movement is more than a century old:

https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/history-a...

Maybe it wouldn't be as big but I can assure you nothing gives a conspiracy theory more credence among it's followers than being deplatformed.

This is what people said about Alex Jones and his network. When he was deplatformed there was a surge of downloads for his app from white supremacists trying to show support and people gave your exact argument that now he has been legitimized.

But what actually happened were those numbers were inflated by his followers and without the echo chamber of the larger base he had on YouTube his numbers eventually plummeted. Instead of being a regular in the news he occupies a small corner of the internet without access to the larger impressionable ever refreshing base he once had.

He has now resorted to trying to sneak videos back on to you tube.

I upvoted this comment because I saw people were downvoting it.

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