Hacker News Reader

Comment by guimplen | Hacker News Reader

Are any of those things bad by themself or in combination?

It's not necessarily that they're bad it's just that they're likely not a valuable source of acquiring information outside of what supports a specific position. Like I wouldn't necessarily trust an oil baron to tell me about how global warming doesn't really exist, or I don't necessarily believe Disney's Iger to tell me about how the writing and acting strikes are entitled whining nonsense.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

Wouldn't that apply to epidemiologists as well?

For a barber, more haircuts = more money. Trying to imagine what kind of relationship you think epidemiologists have with money? It's not like they get a nickel for every person they save from getting sick.

Not everything is purely about money. People are highly motivated by a sense of power or prominence, by a sense of belonging in the "correct group", and by a sense of being useful or productive at their profession. A barber as much as money will believe their haircut will make you look good.

As a thought exercise, I wonder to which group an epidemiologist would need to belong to have a sense of power? The group that says that there is a dangerous disease or the group that says that it's not particularly dangerous?

PS: For people who wonder, the H factor-style ranking mechanisms for researchers means that your rank is higher (which tends to translate to more interesting work and/or more money) if you're heavily quoted by other researchers.

Of course, the easiest way to be heavily quoted, unless you're already a highly established scientist, is by being contrarian/provocative, so that other people feel like they need to debunk your writings.

I'd think in this case it's about the response. What group of epidemiologists wouldn't get a sense of power, prestige than having daily Whitehouse meetings, continual press coverage, and effectively setting public policy based solely on their subject of expertise? That essentially hits on all three points I gave.

The issue is that they'll fail to appropriately consider the broader long-term effects of lockdowns. Most of the advice and policy also wasn't scientifically based in that the effectiveness wasn't well researched, so H-factor scores wouldn't play much of a role.

> I'd think in this case it's about the response. What group of epidemiologists wouldn't get a sense of power, prestige than having daily Whitehouse meetings, continual press coverage, and effectively setting public policy based solely on their subject of expertise? That essentially hits on all three points I gave.

That is definitely one possibility. The other possibility being that a group of contrarian epidemiologists would get power and prestige by claiming that the first group is biased. This has happened in France, with Raoult growing a cult-like following.

> Most of the advice and policy also wasn't scientifically based in that the effectiveness wasn't well researched, so H-factor scores wouldn't play much of a role.

Well, in that case, H-factor-style scores wouldn't play much of a role because this was not research but policy.

I seem to remember that the effectiveness of lockdowns on diseases has been pretty much proved way before covid. Of course, their effect on economy may not have been studied quite as well :)

I mean, it applies to everyone. The more interesting question in this context is, which of the two groups does it apply to more?

If I have to put both the average CEO and the average epidemiologist on a spectrum of "more interested in my well-being" to "more interested in my pocketbook", I know where I'd put each one.

...and the only legitimate source to ask about climate change is the Sierra Club.

and the only legitimate source to ask about the need for copyrights is Disney.

It always cuts both ways. Just because they're against the position you think is obviously correct doesn't mean that you can dismiss a dissenting position. Every story has another side to it. (Well, except this one :) )

No, but understanding the position of the author is useful. There is an agenda behind this article. If my goal is to avoid death during a pandemic, personally I would rather read articles about pandemic response by epidemiologists rather than economists.

> Are any of those things bad by themself or in combination?

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins."

* https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/15/liberty-fist-nose/

Towards an individual those things may be fine, but we each live in a society, and how your actions effect others could be a factor in how much each of them may be exercised.

Certainly not! The fundamental problem is that arguments written from a naive perspective of assuming/asserting we have these things, while we most definitely do not, end up advocating for horribly oppressive policies.

The current government policy is that most everyone should be continually working around 40 hours a week, enforced by a financial treadmill created by continual monetary stimulus. So this noble idea that people could have individually chosen to self isolate or freely associate is fallacious with our current setup. Without "lockdowns" (aka closing businesses), most people would have been forced to keep going into work for business as usual, just as they do for other communicable diseases until the symptoms cannot be ignored.

Centralized control begets more centralized control to address its own failings. Focusing on surface issues while ignoring their underlying causes just makes you end up being a tool for entrenched interests wanting authoritarian policies that benefit them.

Personal freedom can be a bad idea in crisis situations. Selflessness and following procedure can be better for the collective. This is why crisis operators follow checklists rather than giving each individual absolute personal freedom.

and there's the temptation to govern in a permanent crisis mode. there is no end to reasons why there is a crisis. or, is there a scientific definition of "crisis"?

Yes, I agree that there is a temptation for those in power. Legal frameworks can be created to try and limit the lengths and conditions under which a "crisis mode" can be enacted, but there will always be people looking for more power.

If anything COVID demonstrated the opposite - governments were all too eager to get back to BAU despite the situation still being severe, resulting in notably high excess death rates.

I think they were tired of defending indefensible policies.

Politicians are experts at that surely. But in this case I'm not aware of a case where any epidemiology or other public health policy experts were telling governments lockdowns needed to be ended. The cynical side of me suggests that there were too many at high levels of government who felt that lockdowns impinged on their ability to enjoy the levels of power they were accustomed to, and so the opinions of those whose job it was to advise on such matters simply got overridden.

Absolutely false. If the government is going to abridge my rights, such as forcing lockdowns or vaccinations, they better show me the necessity and efficacy of those abridgements. The government can't just come in and say, "This is a crisis, we get to do whatever we want." Fuck that. That's how authoritarians are born. Many closet authoritarians took advantage of covid to become dictators without any evidence of efficacy of their mandates.

That's a theory for countries without a Bill of Rights to practice.

If I started shilling for the Marxist-Leninist Institute of Vkou that promoted cake for everyone, equality, unity and prosperity, self-determination and social wellbeing, would you be concerned about any of those things separately, together, or would you just dismiss me out of hand, because you think you know where that road leads?

I think I know where the road of 'personal freedom, free enterprise, property rights, limited government, and sound money' leads, and I'm also usually quite happy to dismiss anyone shilling for it out of hand.

Marxist-Leninists often have fair and valid critique of society. Hearing them out is valuable even if you (like myself) find yourself opposed to many of their values and proposals.

People forget Marx wrote a good critique of Capitalism. In the 19th Century working/living conditions for workers was bleak.

Just because his offered solution wasn't great doesn't mean his critique was wrong.

Marxists, maybe. Leninsts no.

Property rights are bad.

Not in an absolute sense: property rights are obviously very important to how society functions. But "the US needs stronger property rights" is in general a harmful position. US limitations on property rights are largely to tax the ultra-rich and to limit exploitation and concentration of wealth. For example, tenants' rights are pretty much directly opposed to the landlord's property rights, and tenants' rights do not (IMHO) need weakening in most places in the US, but instead need strengthening.

The same holds to some extent for the other values, but maybe only in context. (Personal freedom to do what? Not to get an abortion...)

Also, we're talking about a website with a front-page article arguing that reparations for slavery + Jim Crow + other racist discrimination are bad, because slavery is "like winning the lottery" for modern American black people. After all, without the system that kidnapped and enslaved their ancestors and then discriminated against their grandparents and parents and still discriminates against them today -- such that they have less income, less savings, worse life expectancy, triple maternal mortality etc -- they probably would have been born in Africa!

You don't need to be defending these guys.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com