Here’s what I’ve learned (thanks Zuby)

Most people would rather be in the majority, than be right.

At least 20% of the population has strong authoritarian tendencies, which will emerge under the right conditions.

Fear of death is only rivalled by the fear of social disapproval. The latter could be stronger.

Propaganda is just as effective in the modern day as it was 100 years ago. Access to limitless information has not made the average person any wiser.

Source: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1412012561164390403.html

What I learned is that I was giving way too much credits to humans than what they deserved.

People I thought were rational just turned complete morons.

My disappointment is high, I'm getting lonelier and lonelier.

> People I thought were rational just turned complete morons.

Same. Some of the smartest, most rational people I know completely lost their damn minds. Tribalism is more important than just about anything, it seems.

There has definitely been a great deal of disillusionment. I’m constantly trying to digest it without giving in to cynicism.

Please don't break the site guidelines like this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also, could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally? You've been doing it a lot, and we're trying for something a bit different than internet default here.

These are phrased well because for most of them people are going to think "yeah, the other side is crazy". Only a few of that full thread reveal Zuby's bias.

Really? Interesting perspective.

For me, it is very obvious which side this person is on (both the twitterer and HN poster) based on keyword like "authoritarian" and "propaganda" and "fear of death", not to mention "people have science as religion".

Perspective from the right:

- Authoritarianism - The left is authoritarian because they are for mandates and lockdowns.

- Propaganda - The mainstream media and the CDC have continually overexaggerated the threat of COVID.

- Fear of death - People on the left only cares about virtual signaling and not the threat to their personal safety that comes with giving up freedom.

Perspective from the left:

- Authoritarianism - The Trump admin lied to us about the threat of COVID, tried to cover up their mismanagement of the pandemic, restricted people's individual freedom to prioritize their health by forcing people back to work. Also there is the whole trying to invalidate fair elections thing.

- Propaganda - Fox News and Republicans have continually downplayed the threat of COVID and the effectiveness of the vaccine.

- Fear of death - The people on the right would rather follow the leaders of their party than protect their own safety.

The one about science being religion is one of the few that reveals Zuby's bias.

> the effectiveness of the vaccine.

If these vaccines work so well, why are all the blue states requiring fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks? You can even get a booster and still be required to wear a mask. If they are so effective, why does any vaccinated individual give a single crap about the vaccination status of anybody else? Who are these masks trying to protect?

If anything the only people downplaying the effectiveness of the vaccine are the “experts” and all these worthless politicians.

Note: I’m fully vaccinated and believe these vaccines are perhaps some of the best humans have created. There is zero reason to continue dragging this crap on beyond last January. Vaccines were the promised end of all these restrictions. That people seem perfectly okay shifting the goalposts well beyond that is scary as hell.

Vaccines are effective at reducing death and hospitalization. They don't reduce transmission to zero, for the Delta variant in particular. Children and many teens are not vaccinated, and they're also particularly vulnerable to the Delta variant. Masks are most effective at stopping transmission. For the same reason cars are equipped with brakes and seatbelts.

When will masks go away? What is the exact needed to stop mandating them?

And vaccomated people don’t need masks. It isn’t a science thing. It’s just plain stupid to keep wearing them. Life has plenty of other things for people to worry about besides just this myopic fixation on covid.

Are they? Are masks the most effective at stopping transmission? Even cloth masks? Masks mandates don't seem to make a difference. And studies sure cloth masks are mostly useless

Masks are an amulet and nothing more. It’s like religion. Deep in most peoples heart they know their religion isn’t real but they’ll never admit it, even to themselves.

Same with masks… deep in most peoples hearts, they know masks don’t do a darn thing. But they’ll never admit it… don’t wanna be thought of as “the others”…

Define "vulnerable" for children? Please. Using actual data.

Please stop spreading misinformation. There is no reliable evidence that the Delta variant produces more severe symptoms in children.

Sorry, I should have said "susceptible." But I did not say that children are exhibiting more severe symptoms; those are your words. However, the infection rate of children is much higher with Delta than other variants.

As an aside, I know that this is a hot-button topic. It would be appreciated if you follow the site guidelines, and be more charitable in conversation.

So what if the infection rate in kids is higher? They still aren’t at risk of serious illness. They are far more at risk of house fires, swimming pools and driving.

They increase the overall rate of transmission, putting everybody they're in contact with at greater risk. Especially since they're in schools, often in close contact with multiple cohorts per day. Diseases spread most quickly through densely-connected social networks. We didn't see significant transmission in children with the early variants, but with Delta, the game has changed.

Risk of what? Who cares if people catch covid. It’s never going away. Covid is here forever. Get your vaccine and move on. Vaccines work.

The people who catch it care. The people with dead relatives especially care. The hospitals full beyond capacity care. The patients denied treatment because hospitals are overloaded care. The health care professionals who are overworked and have PTSD from working under these conditions care. Not everybody has, or even can, get a vaccine. For those people, and because of those people, masks are used.

The infection rate for children isn't any higher than adults.

>invalidate fair elections thing

The 2020 election was as fair and secure as the covid vaccines are safe and effective.

Exactly. Innumeracy is a powerful limitation on rationality.

This is the same frustrating nonsense I see over and over. And it's frustrating specifically because many of his points I can agree with (somewhat), but shit like this always devolves into "the evil government and media is trying to keep you down".

I mean look at all the talk of "authoritarianism" and "people enjoy being subjugated". I can only assume he's talking about things like mask and vaccine mandates. Which is so fucking bizarre to me because we've had things like seatbelt and helmet laws for decades, vaccine mandates ever since I was born, and one of his complaints is that "the government and media can politicize anything"?? None of this shit used to be politicized to anywhere near the degree it is today - now even things that have the most mild downsides, yet with clear benefits to others, are "the government is out to own you". All with the same bullshit tone of "ahh, look at those ignorant sheeple"...

>we've had things like seatbelt and helmet laws for decades

Libertarians and other freedom lovers have been fighting, arguing against and civilly disobeying those laws, vehemently, for as long as they have been in existence. Perhaps it didn't get as much play in the media.

I'm actually fine with those "freedom lovers" not having to wear seatbelts or helmets, as long as EMS and doctors are free to leave them on the road.

> I'm actually fine with those "freedom lovers" not having to wear seatbelts or helmets, as long as EMS and doctors are free to leave them on the road.

So you'd be OK with denying life-saving measures to overeaters with diabetes, swingers with AIDS, and smokers with lung cancer? After all, their lifestyle choices are to blame, so according to what you have shared, they don't deserve help.

Some people always seem to be in a rush to forget the humanity in people they disagree with so they can justify letting them die in ways they would consider murder if the tables were turned. It’s like they think they’ve found a loophole to behaving morally or ethically that they think society won’t judge them for.

There are plenty of risky activities one can legally partake in… are we just going to let those people die when they are injured?

> Which is so fucking bizarre to me because we've had things like seatbelt and helmet laws for decades, vaccine mandates ever since I was born

It takes a lot of work to go from seatbelt and helmet laws to requiring proof of medical status to enter a clothing store. Especially since most of the people pushing this crap also require everybody to wear masks as well. Like, do these people think vaccines don’t work? Because they sure don’t seem to act like vaccines do anything at all.

So some of the resistance to the vaccines is reactionary, following anger from the so-called lockdowns?

That makes an unfortunate amount of sense.

This is full of hot takes, but it's missing sources and examples, so can't be taken as valid observations.

I'd say on average HN readers can avoid COVID by way of privilege. They can have food delivered to them, work from home, receive necessities from Amazon, etc.

This allows them to disproportionately value individual freedoms over the greater good with little to no personal risk.

You don't see this level of anti-mask/anti-vaxx nonsense on forums for Uber drivers and grocery store workers, for example.

I’d say the average HN reader can afford to completely ignore how badly our motivations have screwed over the working class. It’s easy to call for lockdowns and “the new normal” when you and your significant other are making a half million dollars a year and live in a big house with a huge yard.

If anything, the people who are the most ungrounded and fearful are also the most privileged people I know. All the working class folks I know called bullshit on this a long, long time ago. It takes a hell of a lot of privilege for a bunch of spoiled work-from-home tech people to run around shaming everybody about trying to live their lives.

No one is calling for lockdowns anymore. Lockdowns were a temporary measure to avoid overloading hospitals, and (at least in my country) workers who were put out of work were compensated generously by the government in order to keep their needs met.

You do understand that lockdowns are basically the opposite of mask and vaccine mandates right? Masks and vaccines help us avoid lockdowns and get back to normal. Yet all of the people I see complaining about lockdowns are the same people I see refusing to wear masks and refusing to get vaccinated.

People _were_ fine with lockdowns when implementing such measures helped avoid failures in the healthcare system (which is still kind of an issue in certain places in the United States, as ludocode above points out).

No one is calling for lockdowns now, especially now that we have a safe, working vaccine and that we're seemingly close to actual treatments to reduce the death rate of COVID. Vaccines are free. So how is a vaccine mandate fucking over the working class? Or are you just disingenuously using them a cudgel to argue against policies which have the potential to save lives?

Vaccines are free. Anybody can get one. The end. Why people are tolerating the continuance of covid crap almost a year after the release of the vaccine is beyond me. Accept that covid isn’t going away and move on. Move on people.

Forcing restrictions of any kind is complete crap. And masks == restrictions. So does vaccine mandates.

And feel free to downvote me and call me names. I’ve taken heaps of verbal abuse and tons of gaslighting from plenty of real world people. Online people I don’t get phased by at all. Y’all need to realize that “the other side” has very rational arguments and is, quite frankly, correct in those arguments.

It's not that simple.

The most important reason there are mask and vaccine mandates is that hospitals are already overloaded with unvaccinated COVID patients, which means no one else can get health care. Cancer patients (like my family member) are dying due to lack of treatment. People with sudden injuries (like from car crashes) can't get a bed in a hospital. If we completely remove all restrictions it would get much worse.

Another reason is that not everyone can get vaccinated. My kids are under the age limit for the vaccine. Obviously their risk of death is low, but their risk of long COVID may not be. It bothers me that people who interact with my daughter on a daily basis (like two of the mothers of other children at her daycare) refuse to get vaccinated.

How does any of what you said equate to vaccinated people being required to wear a mask? Do you not believe vaccines work? Why did you get one than?

And the kids argument is plain wrong. Unlike many respiratory viruses out there, covid doesn’t really affect kids. Full stop.

Full hospitals don’t matter. They are private companies who had more than a year and a half to prepare for this. Expecting all of society to bail them out? No thanks.

> Do you not believe vaccines work?

First, science (and medicine) and "believe" don't go well together. The data we have currently shows that the vaccines are moderately effective at preventing covid and very effective at preventing hospitalization.

> Unlike many respiratory viruses out there, covid doesn’t really affect kids. Full stop.

You need to provide some serious source for your full stops, because I'm sure I've seen papers that said otherwise.

Also covid is not a virus, and it's these subtle misunderstandings and unclear statements that I hear more often from the anti-vaxx crowd, that also make me want to align with the other crowd a little bit more.

> Full hospitals don’t matter.

Until you or someone you love needs medical attention of any kind.

Man, you said earlier that the other side "has very rational arguments", is that supposed to be it?

Mask mandates are necessary mostly because there are still so many unvaccinated people. I generally agree that masks are no longer necessary among vaccinated people. My friends and I don't wear masks when we hang out. I'm okay with establishments dropping mask mandates as long as they have vaccine mandates. That isn't possible for places like grocery stores.

I know you think we should all just drop our masks and stop caring if the unvaccinated get COVID. I get it, and I'd love to not care. But they fill the hospitals, wasting my tax dollars and affecting my family's ability to get treatment.

> Full hospitals don’t matter. They are private companies who had more than a year and a half to prepare for this. Expecting all of society to bail them out? No thanks.

This is so backwards I don't even know where to start.

First of all, hospitals in my country, like many (most?) Western countries, are not private companies. Here they are owned and operated by municipalities.

Second of all, you can't expect all hospitals to prepare for a massive temporary influx of patients. Where are they supposed to get the doctors and nurses? You think a whole country can just double or triple the amount of nurses in a year, and then lay them all off afterwards when the pandemic is over? Where are they supposed to get the space for these patients? You think it's quick to build a hospital? Where are they supposed to get the money to do this?

Third of all, are you not worried about getting in a car wreck and having no ambulance available to come save you because they're all busy picking up unvaccinated COVID patients? Because this is a real thing that is happening right now. I'm guessing you're a fan of private health care; are you not worried about your costs spiking because you're now in competition for medical care with countless unvaccinated COVID patients? "Full hospitals don't matter" is the most backwards and ignorant comment I've seen on this. This absolutely matters to you. It directly affects your ability to get care.

That doesn’t seem right. It’s mostly the bus drivers, police and firefighter unions and the like who came out against vaccine mandates in large numbers. Your typical tech worker is happy with office-mandated vaccine and masks.

>EDIT: One feature I would love on HN is some way to add tags to posters that I see, so I could somehow mark the worst offenders in reality-denying and can make sure to disregard their opinions in other ways, because their brains obviously can process information correctly.

But why do you need a tagging system for that? If they're constantly spewing "reality-denying" comments then surely you can tell by the comments? Or do you find the tagging system useful for when they make plausibly sounding comments, so you can dismiss those with prejudice as well?

It's somewhat annoying to do the work of reading a lead in comment that carefully walks the line while giving it the benefit of the doubt, just to see follow up comments consisting of tired refrains like "masks don't work" [0] and loaded terms like "lockdown". So yes, the latter - personal reputation matters for a reason.

Forgoing context (eg cached judgements) is highly inefficient. Having to individually evaluate each bit of chaff severely undermines the ability to have productive discussion. Looking at the larger picture, destroying the discourse with nonsensical spam seems to have become the entire political game at this point. If we want to have any hope at actually addressing the issues facing us in good faith debate, we've got to upgrade our discussion forums to mitigate the noise floor.

[0] If your criticism is that ersatz cloth masks are ineffective, then the conclusion is to push people towards real N95/P100 respirators rather than just rejecting the insufficient approach.

Yes, that was kinda the point.

If someone is easy to manipulate to spread misinformation about Ivermectin being effective for treating COVID in humans, do I really want to listen to their opinions about (for example) technology or are they horribly misinformed in that as well?

Is it unfair? Maybe.

So, who someone is is more important than what they're saying? Isn't that a logical fallacy?

Depends. In perfectly logical debate, you'd be right. But I think real world is more complex.

What if "who someone is" a "someone who is easily manipulated and used by bad actors to amplify dangerous misinformation"?

Or, someone being American person of color is pretty important when they talk about racism in US. As opposed to someone, who is not only not a person of color but has been to US like once for a week (like me).

Or perhaps more relevantly, what if "who someone is" is "a certified medical doctor" as opposed to "someone with no experience in medical field who gets their information from corporate social network who makes most money when people are angry because anger is very good for engagement"?

Or, similarly: What if someone who isn't even an American amplifies their opinions on what direction America should take its public health policy in?

But I am strongly in the camp that it doesn't matter. I welcome your opinion, and want to read it. No discussions are perfectly logical; that's not a relevant component in the application of critical thinking to look past who is speaking, and at what they are speaking about. A gag is a poor replacement for Reason, and more-over only serves to strengthen the bubbles we build for ourselves in both our offline and online lives.

I would agree that credentialism is valuable; but that is very, very different from "once said something on the internet that I disagreed with."

First off, your edit removes any credibility your post had

> It's strange that HN is the most antivaxx place on the internet that I know

I assume based on the fanatical nature of your post that for you anti-vax means anything but fervent orthodoxy, where nobody gets to exercise free thought and everyone has to prove on a minute by minute basis that they've followed whatever the New York Times thinks is the vaccine protocol du jour.

I say this, because I think what makes HN special is that it allows free thought. I've seen almost no "conspiracy theory" type vaccine discussion, only healthy a scepticism about different aspects. The consensus is clearly that the pros outweigh the cons, but this site somewhat uniquely allows a discussion instead of just calling any debate "anti-vax" and pretending the poster doesnt deserve to think for themselves. So all said, this is a feature, not a bug. If you're interested in a more religious discussion board, there are plenty.

and plus lumping anti-mask with anti-vaxx is incredibly disingenuous. I am firmly anti-mask and pro-vaccine. It’s absolutely insane to continue with this mask stuff when anybody can get a vaccine. There is zero reason for a vaccinated individual to continue wearing a mask in any circumstance at all. Zero.

anybody who brings up kids is being intentionally obtuse. They know full well that kids are at basically zero risk of serious covid.

Lastly, calling everything you disagree with as “dangerous misinformation” is just intellectually dishonest nonsense. Yeah there is plenty of nonsense out there… but lots of non-crazy people can legitimately object to virtually every single thing society has done the last year and three quarters. To think it is impossible that well intentioned people can think any way but the orthodox covid narrative is, well, not very open minded at all to say it politely.

> I am firmly anti-mask and pro-vaccine. It’s absolutely insane to continue with this mask stuff when anybody can get a vaccine. There is zero reason for a vaccinated individual to continue wearing a mask in any circumstance at all. Zero.

Ok that's just nonsense.

Both vaccines and masks are effective at lowering the likelihood for people getting and spreading COVID. Layered defence / defence in depth is a completed normal approach for pretty much anything serious.

Apartment building have both fire alarms, sprinklers and fire hydrants. Cars have both deformation zones, airbags, seatbelts and ABS. Airplanes have so many redundant safety systems you can't even imagine. When you go to ER with chest pain and shortness of breath, they do both ECG and measure your troponin just to be sure.

Masks (or rather KN95 respirators) are cheap, readily available, and the only negative side is they are very slightly uncomfortable. Why would you not do that?

"I'm anti-mask but pro-vax" makes very little sense. More like a troll post.

> They know full well that kids are at basically zero risk of serious covid.

They do however go to school where they sit in a room in large group perfect for spreading it and then can bring it home and kill their grandparents with it.

> I'm anti-mask but pro-vax" makes very little sense. More like a troll post.

Why would this be a troll post? I’m vaccinated. Covid is not something I care about anymore. Why the hell should I wear a mask? There is zero reason. I could care less if I catch covid. I could care less about “cases” or “slowing the spread”. Covid is here forever. Accept the risk and move on.

It's so odd seeing a person wishing for HN to be more like reddit.

Redditors are often ridiculed for their low-intelligence and cult-like tribal behavior and lack of any ability for individual thought or nuance.

Reddit didn't use to be like this in it's early years... but those times are long gone.

The pandemic has taught me that rational relative risk assessment crumbles in the face of personal fear.

people rather fail than change <a conclusion from the british doctors study 1951-2001> - chris wilson

https://www.slideshare.net/gvwilson/bits-of-evidence-2338367

This will be taught in every US highschool one day.

If the pandemic has taught me anything, it's that the strangest thing about a zombie outbreak will be the Umbrella Corporation supporters. ;)

HODL Umbrella?

PT Barnum was an optimist.

Zombie un-lives matter?

The least strange thing is that it would also originate in a government lab

I'm vaccinated, but I'm also glad that Trump couldn't have written an Executive Order to inject the population with bleach. There does need to be some limits on what the executive can do, that said, Congress should just pass a law if that's the right thing to do.