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AlchemistCamp

The context is interesting:

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1248317812260499456

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1248317824394653697

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1248317820800086016

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1248318363538837504

The same company that considerably increased the damage the virus did in their country is now in financial difficulty as a result. They mocked people for avoiding handshakes, repeatedly told people that masks were ineffective and dismissed the virus as just a flu.

It's also interesting their political opponents, including the president adopted their original positions a few weeks later.

It's mind-boggling that analysis of the severity of a virus became so highly politicized. I don't think the same could have happened in the US a generation ago.

View on HN

First tweet: Vox saying face masks aren't the best way to avoid Coronavirus. Actually basically the mainstream view in the US at the time, and still arguable. Note how right now the states aren't mandating masks, they're mandating social isolation.

Second tweet: Vox factually reporting the tech industry is eschewing handshakes. Tweet author editorialises that Vox is telling them not to.

Third Tweet: Vox factually reporting that tech companies are providing 9million masks. Factually states that it's not enough to solve the problem. Tweet author contends that's not true - but provides no evidence .

Fourth tweet: Author tries to claim Vox is responsible for Coronavirus.

I find this hilarious, because we all know perfectly well, if that tweeter had found a Vox contributer tweeting that 4th tweet he'd be apoplectic.

I'm sure this tweet thread has nothing to do with Vox's coverage of that tweeter and his previous attacks on the FDA: https://www.vox.com/2017/1/14/14276530/balaji-srinivasan-tru...

> Vox factually reporting the tech industry is eschewing handshakes. Tweet author editorialises that Vox is telling them not to.

When you describe techies as terrified in the context of handshakes you make them sound terrified of handshakes which makes them look irrational to the average person.

When you immediately follow that up with “experts” saying everything is fine you cement the view in the readers mind that tech people are acting irrationally.

Look, as a journalist, what are you supposed to do? You don't actually know much - its not expected that you know everything about everything (who does). So you do journalism. You investigate and replay back your findings.

"Vox factually reporting the tech industry is eschewing handshakes" Is this a fact, or a lie? Did Vox fabricate this, or did they misconstrue and mislead?

"“experts” saying everything is fine" Did "experts" say everything is fine, or did they not? Again, is Vox outright lying? Did they mislead by picking poor "experts"?

I think that Vox.com's "assertive contrarian" tone-of-voice might have created some posts that look poor in hindsight (erring on the side of "not killing people" is probably for the best), but lets a) actually define the assertions against Vox's journalistic integrity and b) acknowledge that health officials were not exactly clear, consistent, and eventually correct.

Vox got a lot wrong, and he goes through all they go wrong on his tweet.

https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416

But more importantly a week before the article came out, he said the article won't be about the very real risk of the coronavirus but about how tech guys are weird. And that's exactly the theme of the article.

Well if you want to be a useful journalist you start by not sensationalizing things or carefully framing facts in a way to push a specific narrative.

Being a useful journalist is not profitable though, even when there isn't a pandemic.

It's fine if you disagree, but it would be constructive if you can at least disagree with what was actually written instead of your interpretation of it.

Also, please keep in mind that "that tweeter", as you call him, taught bioinformatics at Stanford, has published papers in the field of clinical/microbial genomics and founded a biotech startup that sold for 375M. He's considerably more informed about the topic than any of the reporters sparring with him. https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228752554022068226

And yes, he does have an axe to grind with Vox: https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416

As someone watching the whole thing unfold for months, from far away in Taiwan, I think he's completely right on this one.

You want me to be fastidious in my representation of his tweets, but you're okay citing this guy who is literally arguing literally just about headlines of articles. He's not linking to the articles and talking about them - he's literally taking headlines and even then he's misrepresenting them.

I'm fine talking about his qualifications, but I think it's unfair for you to talk about his biotech start up without talking about the fact that we're talking about a guy that basically wants to gut FDA regulations - regulations that, if they were in place in China, would have prevented this outbreak. And of course the fact that he was called out on that bullshit by... Vox media!

> You want me to be fastidious in my representation of his tweets

I want you to be honest in addressing what you disagree with. That's it.

> this guy who is literally arguing literally just about headlines of articles.

That's just not true. He's dug into the contents of the articles both in podcasts and threads like this one (very near what I just shared): https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447960008183808

I think I gave a fair representation of what he was saying, if you disagree, you're welcome to actually point at something specific I said that you think doesn't represent him fairly but I can't address just general gripes.

So let's take your specific tweet here:

He claims recode said :

> "cases...have been contained to those who have recently traveled to Wuhan and their direct family members"

What recode actually said:

> "Public Health officials in the area have said there's currently a low risk to public health; the cases they say, have been contained to those who have recently traveled to Wuhan and their direct family members"

I don't want to accuse you of being disingenuous or what-not,but really? Pretending something is a direct claim of Vox, when actually it's a claim that they're reporting from public health officials in Silicon Valley is a dramatic mis-representation.

Ok, so let's lay aside what I think is mis-representation. The things that this tweeter seems to be claiming are counter points:

>"We're probably going to see human-to-human cases within the united states" Dr Robert Redfield said in an interview with stat.

A claim about the current situation within Silicon Valley cannot be countered with a forward looking statement about the entire US. It just can't. I just don't think this criticism is serious.

You can’t be serious claiming you are fairly representing his tweets. Your representation of what he said is a very poor strawman at best. Just as an example, you say Vox is reporting “factually” when the headline literally says “the tech industry is terrified of the coronavirus”. That’s very obviously not factual reporting.

That you’re accusing GP of being disingenuous and claiming the tweeter is strawmanning Vox while you’re strawmanning him to prove that point is just the cherry on top.

The tweeter is quite literally strawmanning Vox as he claims Vox is responsible for the coronavirus. That's a textbook definition of a strawman.

And now you appear to be strawmanning him in attempt to defend strawmanning.

The tweet’s original text is “Vox & Recode helped cause the greatest crisis in modern US history.”

That is very different from GGP’s interpretation “Vox is responsible for the coronavirus”.

All you provided is further proof that GGP is strawmanning. Thanks

No it's not. You're being intentionally pedantic here and seem to be ignoring the actual meaning of those words.

If I helped someone do something bad, then I bear some responsibility for the outcome. That is the definition of responsibility. What is your definition, considering it seems to differ from the dictionary definition?

I’m honestly not being intentionally pedantic. To say someone helped with X is different from saying someone is responsible for X. The latter implies full responsibility, the former only partial responsibility.

That’s more than enough of a difference for this to matter. Especially if X is COVID-19. Traster is clearly strawmanning the tweets.

It was also FDA regulations that made it impossible for the US to perform comprehensive testing early on.

>any of the reporters sparring with him

This is rather telling of the way you view things; perhaps it may be part of the problem? "Sparring"?

What is the role of journalists? The defence that "basically the mainstream view in the US at the time" seems to me the antithesis of why we need journalists at all.

Far too much journalism is either weakly factual, where ideas like masks are taken prima facie and without much thought, or opinion pieces with an ideological bent.

What happened to investigating ideas, to see where they lead? To questioning everyone, no matter their credentials?

The role I would hope journalists would play is to hold people accountable, to question deeply the assumptions that "the mainstream view" entails. This Eric Weinstein tweet hit this home for me: https://twitter.com/ericrweinstein/status/124298155901717299..., which ends with:

> Bring us the heads of the incompetent for removal.

It wasn't only the mainstream view in the US, it was the leading medical advice by the World Health Organisation. This isn't a matter of questioning politicians, but of trusting reputed experts and expert authorities on technical matters.

I don't think journalists need to distrust authority, necessarily. But good journalism would involve followup questions like:

* Are masks ineffective in the sense that they don't reliably stop the spread of the coronavirus, or in the sense that they don't impact it in any way?

* Taiwan and South Korea believe masks are effective and are handing them out to their citizens. Why do they believe masks are effective, and if it's not true what do we know that they don't?

* Masks intuitively ought to work; I cough out the virus, but sometimes it'll get caught in the mask instead of going into someone's nose and mouth. What part of this story is flawed?

Tedros, the current director general of the WHO, was credibly accused of covering up three cholera epidemics in his home country before he managed to get his current position.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-dire...

Also see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22872958

Are you sure that WHO is run by reputed experts and not by career bureaucrats whose motivation is mostly political, not medical? Because after the whole thing unfolded, it seems to be exactly the case.

> Vox saying face masks aren't the best way to avoid Coronavirus. Actually basically the mainstream view in the US at the time

It was the mainstream view in the US because the media built the narrative that masks wouldn’t help...

They were reporting what the CDC told them.

You report things that happen, e.g. crash happened on X road. You can report that "CDC says mask don't work" but if you write it as truth, which Vox stated in January, you are either a parrot or inept.

If journalism is just reporting what others say, and not questioning what they say and the underlying assumptions, then it is at best just a weak form of Wikipedia, and at worst a propaganda mechanism.

Journalists need to get some teeth back and challenge authorities rather than relying on what is said as gospel. Jounalists should have led the charge on all of this, starting with questioning Chinese numbers through to Masks and the assumptions of the modelling, rather than playing, to be kind, catch up and to be mean interference on people doing their job for them.

Mathematicians report 1+1=2. Where do you draw the line? At some point you need to draw the line and say "Actually, my article isn't an expose on the CDC." It's not the job of every journalist at every second to be challenging literally everything. At the end of February the US Surgeon General was not just telling people that masks don't help - he said:

> U.S. Surgeon General @Surgeon_General Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

>They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!

I completely agree that someone should be questioning when the CDC says "Masks don't help", but firstly, you need to be really damn sure if you're going to second guess the CDC on the eve of a pandemic, and secondly, it's not everyone's job to be writing that story. Someone should, but for every earth shattering pullitzer prize winner, there's going to be 1000 articles that just adhered to the status quo and that's not neccessarily a bad thing.

> Mathematicians report 1+1=2. We investigated, and found no credible dissenting voices

That's reporting. Which leads to this:

> WHO and CDC say masks ineffective. We investigated and found the one study they relied on was flawed, as these credible experts who disagree explain.

> First tweet: Vox saying face masks aren't the best way to avoid Coronavirus. Actually basically the mainstream view in the US at the time,

Well, it was definitely mainstream after Vox reported on it.

I am not sure if the comment to which you are replying has since been edited, but the first tweet is a comparison of a Vox article from February, advising against buying face masks, next to a tweet by Vox's founder, saying he ordered his in February when they were available. I agree that that is not a reasonable comparison because the article was not written by the founder, but your commentary does not reflect the essence of (current) first tweet.

Almost makes you wonder if balajis has a personal gripe with vox or recode or Ezra or Kara.

Balaji is a crypto bro and epitome of technocrats who thinks just because they are (rich|famous|networked), they are experts on everything. Fact of the matter is, Balaji doesn't know any more about Covid than what is reported. He's using hindsight bias to claim that media reported was false.

Please keep personal attacks off HN, regardless of whom you're attacking. Maybe you don't owe crypto bros better, but you owe this community better if you're posting here. Your comment would be fine with just the last two sentences.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

>> Balaji is a crypto bro and epitome of technocrats who thinks just because they are (rich|famous|networked), they are experts on everything. Fact of the matter is, Balaji doesn't know any more about Covid than what is reported. He's using hindsight bias to claim that media reported was false.

This is definitely not correct.

Balaji taught bioinformatics at Stanford and has published papers in the fields of clinical/microbial genomics.

As for hindsight bias, Balaji was promoting the use of masks very early.

Whatever. Thanks to him i knew about Coronavirus and warned everyone back in February.

You re making the exact same remarks that tech hating journos did

If you re claiming the journos knew something he didnt, then it means they criminally misreported it

> criminally misreported it

What law dictates that?

About those mask recommendations...

Edit: Surgical masks vs respirators. Any advice omitting the distinction is suboptimal.

Surgical masks are still useless. Best case is they serve as sneeze guards and visual reinforcement.

N95 rated respirators are useful. And in short supply. Since healthcare workers desperately need them and most people don't, their use is currently weakly recommended.

Face shields plus respirators are good. I'm not sure about shields and surgical mask combo.

IMHO, Vox has been superior. Especially in comparison. They have explainers and podcasts dedicated to just coronavirus and COVID-19. Updated frequently. When the truth & reconciliation process starts, Vox is pretty far down the list of belligerents.

> Surgical masks are still useless.

Not according to the research I've been reading: https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1249698787666399235

I've reread the relevant CDC and Vox recommendations on masks. They both need to updated, to remove ambiguity, to be more strenuous.

Because worksmithing is hard, here's what I proposed to Vox's German Lopez:

"Wide spread mask usage greatly slows the spread of coronavirus.

The combination of masks, social distancing, wide spread testing, temperature screening, contact tracing, and quarantines works.

Everyone should wear masks to protect other people. If you are high risk, wear a N95 respirator to protect yourself. Because healthcare and first responders need more protection than you, please don’t use an N95 until we have a supply surplus.

To clarify the effective difference between respirators and masks: N95 rated respirators are form fitting with better filters, so all air goes thru the filter; while surgical and cloth masks still allow some unfiltered air, they do catch most exhaled airborne water droplets (moisture), effectively slowing the spread."

Thank you again for sharing your find.

I think it depends on perspective. There is not evidence that surgical masks useful in preventing someone from contracting covid [0]. Which makes sense because droplets can still be inhaled because air flows around the mask (unlike n95 respirators).

Masks are very useful in preventing spread, thus useful for overall slowing the spread of the disease.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7118603/

Great find, thanks.

That review of the paper makes the distinction between protection and transmission. I admit I was only thinking about protection.

Since I'm immunocompromised, I will continue to wear N95 respirators whenever I'm around other people.

But per this paper, surgical masks are useful for "source control", at least partially thwarting infected people from spreading the virus. I'm super skeptical, because of old habits, but science is science.

So the rest of you should start wearing surgical (or cloth) masks. Thanks.

>Surgical masks are still useless

Useless at what? Be specific, this constant anti-mask reinforcement is bizarre.

It turns out that all those people who write software and run startups do know better than the so-called experts. In tech everyone sounded the alarm way before. The last day I wasn't SiP was the day Google announced Google Next cancellation. And then for the month that followed, all this crap about masks being worthless and now suddenly they aren't.

Turns out a valid epistemological basis becomes more valuable rather than less valuable in a crisis.

Maybe in this situation it's simply useful to understand what exponential growth means.

To see numbers go like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16... and react with "oh, this seems really bad" while everyone else is like "16 infected people among how many millions? that's nothing. flu kills more people".

I would say don't use the news that lots of people are losing their jobs at News Outlet X to say News Outlet X is a bad news outlet. Feels opportunistic at best.

If a news outlet is struggling that means readership is down. If readership is down that implies they are not producing a product worthy of people’s time. Seems bad to me.

You may have heard there's a real bad economic thing happening right now. Vox the website even explains what's going on [1] (notably they're reporting record readership).

[1]: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/8/21212928/voxs-audience-support-...

I read Vox and listen to Ezra Klein's podcast as well as The Weeds. They have been covering Covid-19 since before it had that name. They are a part of my regular media diet, and I consumed their coverage before the US had its first case. I knew this was seriously partially because of their coverage. I am baffled by this narrative that Vox is somehow specially to blame.

Ezra Klein has a list of early stories when someone else accused them of the same: https://twitter.com/ezraklein/status/1241202132604162050

> "Vox: advises citizens not to buy masks while Vox founder is buying masks"

Vox is not a monolith. Matty Y, the "founder" mentioned, tweeted in February that the CDC mask guidance didn't make sense, right around the time he purchased the masks.

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1233806758843383810?...

"I have never understood this message — are the masks ineffective or are they vital for health care workers? If it’s the latter shouldn’t we explicitly ration rather than trying to discourage purchases informally?" February 29, 2020.

he later wrote on March 30

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1245046686621327360?...

> I’m not sure how important the mask fiasco is, but the way public health officials did this is by (successfully!) manipulating media outlets that were trying to be responsible into amplifying misleading messages so I’m personally very angry about it.

So attacking Vox as a whole over this seems misleading. While they haven't been helpful on this issue, they were just repeating CDC and WHO guidance that dates back over 10 years - The CDC was telling people masks didn't work even during the 2009 swine flu pandemic. https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...

It's easy with hindsight to go through any news reporting on covid and point out the mistakes because the situation has been quickly evolving for the last few months. You're comparing what you know now to what was known at the time of each report. Most of the recommendations line up with what the CDC/FDA/WHO/US gov was saying at the time.

> You're comparing what you know now to what was known at the time of each report.

That's a bold claim! I've been following this since December and talked about it in my podcast before people in the US, my co-host included, were taking it very seriously.

Not only that, I was ordered by the Taiwanese CDC to wear a mask for 14 days back in February after taking a brief weekend trip to Japan.

I haven't put much faith in the WHO since experiencing their politically-driven incompetence during SARS 18 years ago when I was a student. In many ways, this entire experience has felt like a replay of SARS, but with a few new verses.

> You're comparing what you know now to what was known at the time of each report.

Not at all.

We are using what we know now to evaluate what tech people said vs what the media said - and the tech people were overwhelmingly right and the media overwhelmingly wrong.

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