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Comment by randmeerkat | Hacker News Reader

What helps me to keep faith in humanity is imagining being alive during Galileo‘s time. How suffocating it must have been for him to find everyone everywhere rejecting science..? Sure we have a large number of people now that don’t believe in masks, vaccines, etc.., but keep in mind that the majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science. Progress is being made, just sometimes it requires a step back to see it.

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> majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science

You're an optimistic one. They would have voted for a three legged donkey with a nose ring and gold tooth. As long as it wasn't DJT.

The thing that surprises me about modern politics is how much hate there is. I wonder if it was always this bad, or if the internet just shines a light on what was always there.

It really was not always like this. At all.

Some people blame the rise of 24 hours cable news channels. Others blame the rise of the Internet. Both of these have to do with disseminating more information to more people. Is it the fact that there is more information (quantity) or is the information itself (quality)?

That’s good to know.

I don’t know, whatever it is, I really loathe it. It’s practically impossible to have a rational discussion about anything related to politics. Everything seems to degenerate into entrenched emotional arguments rather than discussing actual facts.

I think that's because a) a lot of people nowadays think their feelings hold more importance than somebody else's facts (outrage is a terrible advisor) and b) the facts themselves have become less tangible because there seems to be a myriad of sides to anything, with so many sources putting their spin on things that even just arriving at a neutral base for an argument takes more effort than people are willing/can afford to expend. Especially because that effort has to be expended against the pull of their own biases, which have gotten pretty entrenched thanks to the online echo chambers. Cognitive dissonance is exhausting, so people often just shut down and go into emotional combat mode when faced with opposing views, even when the views are presented in a sensible manner -- and mostly, they are not, because why bother if the gulf is already so large and the people on the other side are clearly idiots.

Yeah well back when YouTube started censoring videos suggesting a connection between vitamin D deficiency and covid it became pretty clear times are not particularly changed from Galieo’s.

Could you provide a source please? Were the videos making claims that taking Vitamin D would protect against COVID or some other misinformation, or were they legitimately talking about mortality rates of those with v.D deficiencies?

I think there is a clear difference in private platforms stopping the spread of misinformation (you aren’t free to use their platform to spread information harmful to society) and what happened to Galileo.

But I am making an assumption because I don’t actually know what videos you are referring to.

Censoring? De-monetizing maybe but they do that with every video mentioning Covid no matter the contents.

The fact that YouTube exists at all shows how much things have changed since Galileo.

> majority of the popular vote in the US voted for someone that does believe in science

Why would Trump support accelerated vaccines if he didn’t believe in COVID and science?

They know COVID is real and they almost certainly believe in science. They just don't care if it doesn't line their pockets.

Agree, but that doesn’t match the rhetoric above. The voter mindset is similar. People are choosing “the economy” over shutdowns, not ignoring science.

Do you yourself truthfully believe that Trump wanted to make policy decisions based on the best science available?

The most scientific policy would be to physically force everyone to stay in a room alone for months and physically force them to wash their hands after they use the bathroom, etc. This is the best way to get rid of the virus and it describes a horrific, dystopian, society.

Trump isn’t even close to the best man for the job of handling a pandemic but to pretend we should be following science to the t is politically ignorant (as most scientists would tell you.)

“Based on science” means using science as a core part of the decision making process.

It sounds like you actually agree with what I said, but also misunderstood.

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