Comment by eggy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eggy | Hacker News Reader

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So tired of people attacking Joe Rogan. He's a pod caster. How come people don't push more on the 'experts' like Wolensky or Fauci or the main stream media? Ignoring natural immunity, not releasing publicly funded data to scientists and citizens to do science, openly lying in the name of 'for your own good', or tweeting a statistic that is way off from the data they released - the list goes on, and these are the highly-paid experts who have pushed for science as a belief rather than a method or system for examining phenomenon. How many people have they harmed (children being masked while old farts in government hug and talk face-to-face; pushing vaccines on 5-11 year-olds with a 12% efficacy after only 30 days, on and on). I think people just like to dog pile on people like Rogan; they should be turning some of that scrutiny upon the people they listen to or extol as experts. CNN calling Ivermectin "horse dewormer" or "horse medicine" was blatant propaganda, and not journalism, yet people rely on CNN for their information, too much I fear.

For the past two years I've been telling anyone who'll listen that the WHO screwed up by telling people not to wear masks, by claiming transmission wasn't via aerosol particles, and by opposing border closures. I spent a long time getting into arguments about the lab leak theory being almost impossible to disprove. In my comments on HN there's one calling out an article about mask-wearing for drawing the exact wrong conclusion from a study of cloth masks.

I reserve the same right to call out Joe Rogan when he's wrong. He is not special.

They did screw up, that’s true. Almost everyone everywhere has been wrong about this virus, mostly several if not many times. That’s because for a long time we were working with very limited and sometimes contradictory or misleading information. I do not believe that the WHO did this for nefarious reasons, or knowingly lied, although they did make some mistakes as a result of leverage and coercion by various states. I blame those states more than I do the WHO.

Screwing up disaster response for non-nefarious reasons doesn't bring back the dead.

The WHO screwed up for systemic reasons that commentators, at the time and without the benefit of hindsight, were able to call out. Specifically, they repeatedly claimed there was "no evidence" for cloth masks and "no evidence" for aerosol transmission. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and the organisation meant to coordinate a global medical response should know that. Many respiratory viruses spread by aerosol transmission, and it would have been responsible to say "we do not have enough evidence to say how COVID spreads yet." Additionally, there was evidence for the efficacy of cloth masks, but the papers were studying whether cloth masks were adequate replacements for surgical masks and N95 respirators in hospital settings, and they (rightly) concluded that cloth masks weren't as effective as actual PPE, from which the WHO (wrongly) concluded that cloth masks weren't effective at all.

Not denying your right, never have, but choice of where to apply your scrutiny and time spent on it says a lot. A very popular fight commentator, comedian, pod caster, or the people actually creating the guidelines you and your family will live under, right or wrong, is another. Choose your battles kind of thing. I am more fearful of the quiet wrong doers. NYT finally admits many emails in Hunter Biden laptop are authentic. NPR, others dismissed it all as a waste of time, Russian disinformation. Jack Dorsey censored anyone trying to share the NY Post article even through PMs. Joe Rogan has many different people on his show. I find it entertaining and thought provoking. I can't say the same for mainstream media; I am very saddened and worried by this more than Joe Rogan. As a matter of fact, I am happy he stirs the pot. To paraphrase the WAPO's line, "Democracy Dies in Silence".

You have committed the logical fallacy of 'to quoque', responding to criticism with criticism. The scrutiny (or lack thereof) for other individuals is of course irrelevant to the question.

Other than as a substitute for bird watching I don't have much use for logical fallacies: https://maartenboudry.be/2017/06/the-fallacy-fork-why-its-ti...

I think the linked piece makes an important point, but I disagree that that point is relevant here. "Your argument pattern-matches to tu quoque" is probably an unhelpful thing to say, but what GP says is more like: "Your points about other people are not relevant to the discussion we were having out this one person, and therefore are unhelpful. This pattern of bad argument is sometimes known as tu quoque." Seems fine to me.

Edit to add: not sure if I am alone in this, but I also disagree with the author's characterization that the purpose of thinking about fallacies is to understand how people come to wrong conclusions. I think it has much more to do with the structure of an argument. It's not "you have come to this wrong conclusion by treating this fallacy as a good argument". It's more like "you believe this for whatever personal reasons you might have. You are trying to convince me to believe it as well, but you are failing to do so because your argument is not valid". I.e. it is more about the rhetoric than it is about coming to wrong beliefs in the first place.

s/to/tu

In nearly no internet debate does "logical fallacy" invalidate an argument. After all, none of these arguments are truly logical, instead being deeply embedded in empiricism and intuition. While their criticism may not be useful, to imply that arguments on the internet are wrong (or to be ignored becaues they provide no value) seems like an unrealistic expectation.

I am unaware of any situation outside of pure mathematics where logic is the sole arbiter. I am curious to hear about such situations, though.

>tired of people attacking Joe Rogan. He's a pod caster.

Rogan has millions of listeners who take advice from him and shape their worldviews around his. For many people he is more authoritative on health than public health officials like Fauci, even while not having a fraction of the experience or expertise.

>How come people don't push more on the 'experts' like Wolensky or Fauci

There's been no shortage of criticism of Fauci and others, to include character attacks, conspiracy theories and death threats.

So you think Rogan has more influence than the CDC's guidelines that are adopted as legistation for the most part - masking children, vaccines for 5-11 year-olds, ignoring natural immunity, not releasing data? You don't think he gets negative press or death threats? Not to mention Fauci has a direct link to COVID, and has admitted to openly lying "for your own good". Rogan has a diverse assortment on his show, and admits he is not an expert. You cannot hold him responsible for anyone's ignorance or inability to think for themselves. However, when bodies of so-called authority or expert credentials make policy you and your family will have to live by, that is more of a concern of mine, and where I turn my attention. You are free to go after Rogan. A lot of influencers have millions of listeners, and they speak in isolation without lengthy dialogues with any guests. Mainstream media does one-minute edited blurbs for you to digest like pablum. And they carry forward the status quo. Look at how much they have been collectively wrong, or misleading, sometimes intentionally.

>So you think Rogan has more influence than the CDC's guidelines

That's not really the point but, for some, yes, he does have more influence. That "some" apparently includes you.

>You don't think he gets negative press or death threats?

Again, not the point. You asked why Fauci and others weren't challenged. My response was that, not only is he challenged, but he's also been the target of personal attacks, conspiracy theories, and death threats.

>Rogan has a diverse assortment on his show, and admits he is not an expert

Yet, he continuously pushes a counter-mainstream narrative that you seem to be repeating here.

>However, when bodies of so-called authority or expert credentials make policy you and your family will have to live by

To each his/her own, but I think those credentials are meaningful. We've had expert public health guidance for decades brought to us by the "so-called experts" and it's generally served us well, as evidenced by the fact that you've probably never had polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, etc. And, you're also not likely to die from a case of diarrhea.

>You are free to go after Rogan.

Yes. I know. But, I wasn't going after him, as much as pointing out the reality that people (seemingly yourself included) respect his opinions over those of public health officials.

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