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Comment by an_opabinia | Hacker News Reader

> Most importantly, Fast Grants didn’t change the vaccine timeline, and vaccines were clearly the most important component of the response.

They are being really intellectually honest here. One thing you couldn't apply for for Fast Grants was a media effort to convince people to take the vaccine.

And speaking of the power of individuals, Robert De Niro (https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et...) and other A-Listers actively campaign against vaccines. Fauci said he wishes DiCaprio would endorse the vaccine - as Fast Grants said, pretty obvious - and of course DiCaprio hasn't, he thinks vaccines cause autism.

Were there any institutions who were adversaries to vaccine adoption?

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What's disturbing is people taking health advice from celebrities instead of medical experts.

Did I actually get down voted by someone who believes the contrary? Is that possible for a rational individual to take that position?

Your comment is misleading.

DeNiro continued: “In the 15 years since the Tribeca Film Festival was founded, I have never asked for a film to be screened or gotten involved in the programming. However, this is very personal to me and my family and I want there to be a discussion, which is why we will be screening “Vaxxed.” I am not personally endorsing the film, nor am I anti-vaccination; I am only providing the opportunity for a conversation around the issue.”

“Tribeca, as most film festivals, are about dialogue and discussion. Over the years we have presented many films from opposing sides of an issue. We are a forum, not a judge,” a spokeswoman said in a statement on behalf of the festival earlier this week.

GOOD. If you're correct your viewpoint will stand up to dialogue.

That seems like an odd thing for them to say, since they are judges. They "curate" the entries that come in, and then celebrity judges award prizes.

They're not really a discussion forum. They're mostly about just showing things. They have some panels, but mostly any discussions kicked off by films are arranged by the attendees for themselves.

There are truly unjuried festivals, but they're much less high profile because the quality will be very uneven. That's not what Tribeca is about at all. So I don't know why she would say that.

They are the people who run the show. I'm sure they know better than us!

I'm certain they do. So I'd be curious to know what's on their mind when they said that.

The cynical view would be that they were looking to stir up controversy, and pretending they weren't. A less cynical view is to take them at their word, even though it's not entirely truthful since they do, in fact, regularly exercise their judgment. There are thousands of filmmakers who would have loved to have been in the theater that day instead.

I don't think that "It's an alternate viewpoint therefore it should be heard" is a very good argument, just because there are a lot of viewpoints that are Just Plain Bad. You pick and choose. I'd be curious to know why they chose this one -- because they did make a choice, and if they're saying otherwise, that's curious.

Choosing doesn't validate the idea.

Choosing just gives the idea a platform for discussion.

If it's a truly terrible idea then it will be laughed out.

Many ideas that turned out to be significant in the world were considered crazy by society. Flight, The idea of hand washing, etc.

Also, many terrible ideas were considered acceptable ideas: tobacco, lobotomies, etc.

Discussing the idea is what revealed the truth.

Just because an idea is considered 'fringe' in society doesn't mean it's wrong. Ideas deserve a platform for discussion, they may turn out to be right.

Apparently, some ideas have gathered enough steam and collected enough initial evidence to deserve discussion.

Yeah, I don’t get the hostility. If an idea is bad, then let it be revealed as bad. Banning people just creates more conspiracy theorists.

There's a difference between people who don't think vaccines are good as a whole...and people who question a rushed vaccine developed with no FDA oversight or testing by companies who have absolutely no liability if things go wrong for a disease that has 99.99% survival rate for most people.

And then there are questions about it even WORKING fully and one still has to wear a mask and you can still be contagious and it may not protect against other strains!

If that doesn't ring critical thinking bells in your brain then you're operating based on unquestioning BELIEF in the GOOD of the experts, gov't, and people in general which doesn't seem to always have worked out the best throughout history.

> There's a difference between people who don't think vaccines are good as a whole...and people who question a rushed vaccine developed with no FDA oversight or testing by companies who have absolutely no liability if things go wrong for a disease that has 99.99% survival rate for most people. > > And then there are questions about it even WORKING fully and one still has to wear a mask and you can still be contagious and it may not protect against other strains!

Yes, there's a difference between people who question vaccines as a whole and... a fabricated reality/false narrative.

The survival rate is not 99.99%, and the outcomes for "survivors" are all too often debilitating. The demand on our healthcare infrastructure is potentially crippling, as we've seen.

There has been FDA oversight... indeed the vast majority of the time from development to release of the vaccines in the US has been getting clearance from the FDA (you may recall the J&J vaccine was even paused by the FDA).

...and the liability shield is due to the never-ending unjustified legal claims that companies are invariably subjected to when they operate in this space.

There's a difference between critical thinking bells and having your bell rung. ;-)

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