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Every COVID story here is an interesting little glimpse into how a seemingly normal forum has their latent political views exploited into adopting a conspiracy

Every COVID story here is an interesting little glimpse into how a seemingly normal forum has their latent political views exploited into adopting a conspiracy theory, re: anti-vaccine rhetoric. It becomes a little more extreme every day. This study has nothing to do with the vaccine, and yet this is what HN clamors for. I wonder how many people here understand what kind of ride they're being taken for.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
This, and I don't understand why there isn't more scrutiny from the moderators. Especially the one-day old accounts are the most annoying part. If you have hottakes at least have the curtousy to do it with your primary account so we know who to ignore afterwards.
- adflux 5y ago
  - dang 5y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've been posting a lot of unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. Would you please stop doing that? We ban accounts that do it repeatedly.
  - girvo 5y ago
    If your “opinion” is contrary to observable facts and puts others in danger, yes. Pretty straightforward actually. Those posting this nonsense ignore the facts, so ignoring them seems prudent.
    - postsantum 5y ago
      >observable facts >FDA says it needs 75 years to release Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data to the public
      - rsfern 5y ago
        This should be part of our discourse going forward about transparency in clinical trials, but you do not need to rely on this data to make a rational decision to take the vaccine. There is loads of evidence from many different countries now, and there is enough granular evidence to weigh the potential downsides as well (i.e. take the lower dose mRNA if you’re young)
        postsantum 5y ago
        Can people make a rational decision of balancing out their personal risks then? For a young and healthy person there is little upside in taking a dose of mRNA
        YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
        Even if you don't want to and even if you are a hermit in the mountain you are still part of the society. Your decision is not personal it never was and there are now protein based vaccines available so at least you can't use the mrna cop out anymore.
        postsantum 5y ago
        It is personal. As long as people around me are vaccinated, why would they care about my health? The vaccine doesn't prevent transmitting In case you are talking about burdening the medical system, why not apply the same rhetoric to smoking, drinking, being fat and riding motorcycles?
        YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
        I despise smokers, fat goblins as much as antivaxxers like you. The whole argument about preventing transmission is only 2-3 months old what was the hesitation for the rest of the 1 1/2 years we have vaccines available? Cop out after cop out :)
    - adflux 5y ago
      >If your “opinion” is contrary to observable facts I'm sure that is the same reason why many once people believed the earth was flat, or that the earth was at the center of the universe. It's very arrogant to think that "the science" and "the facts" are always right. Any scientist worth their money understands the importance of challenging the status quo. Unfortunately nowadays, especially on the topic of COVID, challenging the status quo is enough to be considered a pariah by narrow-minded people like yourself.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - croon 5y ago
        > I'm sure that is the same reason why many once people believed the earth was flat, or that the earth was at the center of the universe. Observably at the time, the earth was flat, and then you got better ways to observe it, and it was spherical. Then you got even better ways, and now it's an oblate spheroid. That doesn't negate the science used before, but it gets more correct each iteration. Asimov described this wonderfully in a letter, below: https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html > It's very arrogant to think that "the science" and "the facts" are always right. Any more arrogant than thinking "the science" and "the facts" are wrong?
    - skocznymroczny 5y ago
      "puts others in danger", "threat to public security", "views incompatible with society" have been used by authoritarians to excuse their actions since forever.
      - girvo 5y ago
        Sure. I’m a civilian though, I have no power over you, so you going on my block list has nothing to do with authoritarianism. Try again.
  - YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
    There are enough idiots like you in this threads that spread lies or comment stupid shit like "If YoUr OpInIoN iS dIfFerEnT fRoM mInE, i WiLl IgNoRe YoU" that I don't want myself to be associated with them or you so you are absolutely right. You are ignored.
    - dang 5y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. It's not ok to post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qbasic_forever 5y ago
I sometimes wonder if a mild COVID infection could also cause behavioral and psychological changes like more aggression, risk taking, depression, or even schizophrenia and could it be driving some of the conspiracies? If you think about it any kind of behavior change that avoids vaccination, masking, or other precautions would be selective pressure on the virus to further evolve in that direction. How would you even begin to understand and deal with this kind of situation on a massive, global scale... it's an interesting problem. Makes you think about the sudden and almost unexplainable push from aggressive, vocal experts to have the public unmask and drop all COVID mitigations immediately after the latest surge too...
CipherThrowaway 5y ago
Honestly I do not find it surprising. I've seen it called "engineer's disease": the tendency of engineers to believe that expertise in their technical field gives them a superior insight into other technical fields. Or that their research and systematization habits transfer to other fields where they readily yield greater insight than direct experience. This way of thinking really feels rampant in our field. I've seen developers read a Wikipedia page or blog post and suddenly think they know better than mathematicians, lawyers, doctors, research scientists, economists, ethicists etc. No topic is too niche or trivial to be safe from this effect. A little while ago the topic of Geometric Algebra swept through HN and engineers with no math theory background were posting sensationalist takes about how GA was destined to supersede the orthodoxy.
dang 5y ago
That's not an accurate reflection of HN. It would be more accurate to say that the topic is divisive and so has blocks of strongly-feeling users on all sides of the topic. That's true of every divisive topic and it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.
RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago
> re: anti-vaccine rhetoric Correction, it should be "re: vaccine rhetoric". Normality is no vaccine. Remember, vaccination is an idea propagated by some entity - "anti-vax" as anyone who disagrees has been labeled, is in actuality the base condition.

YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago

This, and I don't understand why there isn't more scrutiny from the moderators. Especially the one-day old accounts are the most annoying part. If you have hottakes at least have the curtousy to do it with your primary account so we know who to ignore afterwards.

adflux 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar. That's just what we don't want here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: you've been posting a lot of unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments. Would you please stop doing that? We ban accounts that do it repeatedly.
- girvo 5y ago
  If your “opinion” is contrary to observable facts and puts others in danger, yes. Pretty straightforward actually. Those posting this nonsense ignore the facts, so ignoring them seems prudent.
  - postsantum 5y ago
    >observable facts >FDA says it needs 75 years to release Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine data to the public
    - rsfern 5y ago
      This should be part of our discourse going forward about transparency in clinical trials, but you do not need to rely on this data to make a rational decision to take the vaccine. There is loads of evidence from many different countries now, and there is enough granular evidence to weigh the potential downsides as well (i.e. take the lower dose mRNA if you’re young)
      - postsantum 5y ago
        Can people make a rational decision of balancing out their personal risks then? For a young and healthy person there is little upside in taking a dose of mRNA
        YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
        Even if you don't want to and even if you are a hermit in the mountain you are still part of the society. Your decision is not personal it never was and there are now protein based vaccines available so at least you can't use the mrna cop out anymore.
        postsantum 5y ago
        It is personal. As long as people around me are vaccinated, why would they care about my health? The vaccine doesn't prevent transmitting In case you are talking about burdening the medical system, why not apply the same rhetoric to smoking, drinking, being fat and riding motorcycles?
        YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
        I despise smokers, fat goblins as much as antivaxxers like you. The whole argument about preventing transmission is only 2-3 months old what was the hesitation for the rest of the 1 1/2 years we have vaccines available? Cop out after cop out :)
  - adflux 5y ago
    >If your “opinion” is contrary to observable facts I'm sure that is the same reason why many once people believed the earth was flat, or that the earth was at the center of the universe. It's very arrogant to think that "the science" and "the facts" are always right. Any scientist worth their money understands the importance of challenging the status quo. Unfortunately nowadays, especially on the topic of COVID, challenging the status quo is enough to be considered a pariah by narrow-minded people like yourself.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - croon 5y ago
      > I'm sure that is the same reason why many once people believed the earth was flat, or that the earth was at the center of the universe. Observably at the time, the earth was flat, and then you got better ways to observe it, and it was spherical. Then you got even better ways, and now it's an oblate spheroid. That doesn't negate the science used before, but it gets more correct each iteration. Asimov described this wonderfully in a letter, below: https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html https://hermiene.net/essays-trans/relativity_of_wrong.html > It's very arrogant to think that "the science" and "the facts" are always right. Any more arrogant than thinking "the science" and "the facts" are wrong?
  - skocznymroczny 5y ago
    "puts others in danger", "threat to public security", "views incompatible with society" have been used by authoritarians to excuse their actions since forever.
    - girvo 5y ago
      Sure. I’m a civilian though, I have no power over you, so you going on my block list has nothing to do with authoritarianism. Try again.
- YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo 5y ago
  There are enough idiots like you in this threads that spread lies or comment stupid shit like "If YoUr OpInIoN iS dIfFerEnT fRoM mInE, i WiLl IgNoRe YoU" that I don't want myself to be associated with them or you so you are absolutely right. You are ignored.
  - dang 5y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and ignoring our request to stop. It's not ok to post like this to HN, regardless of how wrong someone else is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

qbasic_forever 5y ago

I sometimes wonder if a mild COVID infection could also cause behavioral and psychological changes like more aggression, risk taking, depression, or even schizophrenia and could it be driving some of the conspiracies? If you think about it any kind of behavior change that avoids vaccination, masking, or other precautions would be selective pressure on the virus to further evolve in that direction. How would you even begin to understand and deal with this kind of situation on a massive, global scale... it's an interesting problem. Makes you think about the sudden and almost unexplainable push from aggressive, vocal experts to have the public unmask and drop all COVID mitigations immediately after the latest surge too...

CipherThrowaway 5y ago

Honestly I do not find it surprising. I've seen it called "engineer's disease": the tendency of engineers to believe that expertise in their technical field gives them a superior insight into other technical fields. Or that their research and systematization habits transfer to other fields where they readily yield greater insight than direct experience. This way of thinking really feels rampant in our field. I've seen developers read a Wikipedia page or blog post and suddenly think they know better than mathematicians, lawyers, doctors, research scientists, economists, ethicists etc. No topic is too niche or trivial to be safe from this effect. A little while ago the topic of Geometric Algebra swept through HN and engineers with no math theory background were posting sensationalist takes about how GA was destined to supersede the orthodoxy.

dang 5y ago

That's not an accurate reflection of HN. It would be more accurate to say that the topic is divisive and so has blocks of strongly-feeling users on all sides of the topic. That's true of every divisive topic and it would be unreasonable to expect otherwise.

RedBeetDeadpool 5y ago

> re: anti-vaccine rhetoric Correction, it should be "re: vaccine rhetoric". Normality is no vaccine. Remember, vaccination is an idea propagated by some entity - "anti-vax" as anyone who disagrees has been labeled, is in actuality the base condition.