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Comment by l-_l-_l-_lo_ol | Hacker News Reader

The recent Joe Rogan extravaganza brought this all out as well. I know nothing about virology. I listened to that controversial virologist on his podcast and still know so little. But then on HN it seems there are apparently numerous experts on the subject, or so they think, who are dead sure censoring of the dangerous Dr. Malone is necessary. It seemed every bit as tribal as twitter, but with a better vocabulary.

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That's to be expected with any divisive topic on the internet, which that one certainly is.

> It seemed every bit as tribal as twitter

The active ingredient there is the word 'seemed'. If you look closer and deeper, you'll see that HN is an experiment in a completely different sort of site—not just from Twitter, but from all the other major ones. This is partly because of the values it was founded with*, but equally because of the initial conditions of its design—primarily the fact that it's non-siloed, meaning there are no follow lists or social graphs or any of the other devices that online communities use to partition themselves. That has profound effects.

I've written about this many times. The most in-depth attempt was https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098. There are others at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=silo%20by%3Adang&dateRange=all...

* Primarily intellectual curiosity. Note: when I say HN was founded on that value I am not saying that it always, or even mostly, lives up to it. Just that it's in the DNA and that makes a difference.

To me NH is strictly a source for technological/programming news. I do not comment on them, because I do not care what others(or bots) think, but my interest is about learning from that topic as much as possible, without noise.

Anything else is free game. Also, I want to create a bot, that would act like me and piss off others - as many as possible, so I do not have to do it by myself(this is a self-deprecating sarcastic joke). Or probably not - I get bored very quickly and would find more interesting things to do.

The issue with covid is disturbing in many levels. Apparently this is something that government(s) have decided that discussions and even constructive criticism is sabotage of government(and they decided to do something about covid, because not doing anything would be worse - for government and bureaucracy - not for individual people, who in majority survive through covid). So, there are no equal tribal opinions in first place - only "extremists-terrorists" that are in opposition to government VS religious patriots, who feel comfortable, that they do not need to think for themselves and somebody else is taking care of them and for them. So, quite logically NH can't be in opposition in this religious-patriotic fervour. And this is a stark reminder, that you and only you have to think for yourself(and not government) - because that is what your brains are for.

Note that, when you live in the world we do, you are exposed nigh permanently to people expressing irrational/bitter thoughts and people expressing thoughts irrationally/bitterly, even if you avoid the platforms of the major offenders. Our brains strongly tend to think relatively, so when we see somebody express those same or adjacent thoughts, but without the irrationality or bitterness, it is almost automatic to interpret it in the same light that we are used to. This can cause the afterimage of "internet shithole" to hover over every public platform we visit, assuming it's not hyper-localized to one's preferred circles. Further, this effect is inherently more dramatic for opinions that are counter to our own, so the image is not just "internet shithole", but "internet shithole of the opposite social/political leaning to me", even if that leaning is actually small, non-existent, or even opposite to our perception.

I.e. when you encounter somebody saying "I think X", if they are merely doing so as an unsubstantive or hostile expression of tribalism nine times out of ten, then you may miss the tenth person who is actually making a reasonable point.

And, on a less broadly applicable note, when public health is a direct consequence, the topic gets even muddier and even more emotional than usual, understandably.

Science vs. did a good episode on why that episode was dangerous bullshit, and unlike Rogan they cite sources/talk to experts in the field

That's not to say laypeople shouldn't be able to interview potentially controversial subjects, but to my mind preventing a celebrity from using their platform to spread information when they're not doing any good faith investigation as to whether that information is accurate is not equivalent to censorship

> preventing a celebrity from using their platform [insert your reason here] is not equivalent to censorship

It definitely sounds equivalent to me, no matter the rationale for doing so.

In many settings professionals can be fired, lose their credentials/licence for giving bad advice or not doing due diligence. Compared to Rogan most of them have much less impact on other people, why should he be held to a lower standard of responsibility/accountability?

That is a false equivalence.

That’s not Rogan’s format though.

He’s one of the few “mainstream” talk show hosts who is willing to invite otherwise censored guests and get people with differing opinions/viewpoints. I’m no Rogan fan but the hysteria is mind boggling.

I’m also shocked and saddened that this view of consensus science is being shoved down people’s throats. That is literally the antithesis of science. Appeal to authority has no business standing in the way of questioning and presenting evidence.

I used to listen to Rogan quite a bit until I realised what his format was, if he has reasonable guests on he'll find something to challenge them over (great), if he has 'controversial' guests on he'll let them mostly talk unchallenged. I used to think that was because he was easily redirected by bullshit artists, but after the anti-vaccine/ivermectin reporting I think it's more likely he just agrees with them and wants them to have a bigger platform

Again I'm not arguing he should be censored or that any differences in opinion should be excised from the public domain. But giving people equal platforms lends them equal credibility to laypeople and the general public, which is why I think a good faith effort to interview controversial subjects would include a lot of disclaimers/warnings/replies from experts which Rogan makes no attempt to do

And so what if he does believe it? Is it so hard to believe that the continually moving efficacy or risk profile of a novel medical treatment is emergent? Less then a year ago fully vaccinated meant 90% efficacy. Today you need two more boosters and the scheduling is being changed to avoid heart inflammation. In the spring Rogan was taking horse dewormer, today there are several studies showing positive outcomes from ivermectin. I’m not sure Rogan is responsible for any more disinformation than mainstream sources and I’d argue _if_ his guests are misinformed, their suggestions are less dangerous than other, louder sources.

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