> It's extremely difficult because the human psyche seems incapable of distinguishing "fact" from "that which supports my view", at least when the emotions are activated, and the only topics where people seek "fact checking" in the first place are the ones where emotions are activated. There may be exceptions—i.e. people whose minds don't work this way—but if they exist, they're so rare as to be no basis for social policy. (And I doubt that there are really exceptions.)
> That's why there doesn't seem to be any fact checker whose calls aren't predictable from one of the major ideological partitions.
> Another way of putting this is that the question, "what are the facts?" is complex enough to already recreate the entire political and ideological contest. It's understandable that people would like to reduce that contest to a simpler subset of factual questions—but you can't. Just the opposite: that apparently simpler subset reduces to it.
Fuck you dang and block this.
I know many people have a good opinion of Dang, but this seems to be editing, rather than moderating.
Can you provide some more data about what happened, the paper in question, and if it was from a reputable source in a peer-reviewed journal, or preprint?
I'd like to know more about this. I've long talked about the myocarditis and pericarditis risks which are most pronounced with young males and young females based on the known cases, and the nordic countries withdrawal of the vaccines for young males.
Strangely, even the Novavax vaccine also appears to have that adverse event, allegedly at a vastly reduced rate though [1].
[1] https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-...
There is nothing in the link that would violate the FAQ.
I cussed him out in another comment and he blocked that too.
My link to the paper itself was downvoted too.
https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/74/11/1933/6353927
Now myocarditis is accepted and found on the CDC site on the mRNA vaccines.
Hacker News is shit. I have used it far less since that time.
I am not defending dang, but that does appear to be a weaponized tactic being utilized here on HN.
Flag something, downvote it en masse, get a user making a dissenting opinion on a "you are commenting too fast timer" which appears to be triggered by mass downvotes, and then hope the flagging carries through.
The problem is with HN - they are permitting this type of behavior, and not realizing (or not actively intercepting) the use of this tactic to silence dissent.
While some time ago the idea that IV injection was problematic with the vaccines would be called fringe or, more aptly, cutting edge research, nowadays we know there is a legitimate issue, many countries are now banning these vaccines in persons under specific ages, and the body of research is more developed.
I talked to someone else and apparently this side effect was widely known and accepted in another country far before it was accepted in the US.
The dismissal of facts also happened with the investigation of airborne transmission of covid-19.
...I knew I could never vote for any Democratic politician ever again who supported this.
I couldn't visit my aunt in the nursing home before she died of a non-covid cause. I couldn't visit my father when he was in the hospital for a heart attack, EVEN THOUGH I was masked and vaxxed. It's simply disgusting how administrative law was weaponized against the common man.
All I take heart in is knowing your view and mine will be the the correct one. History will not look fondly upon what society did to itself. All these "experts" and politicians who supported this will be viewed as crackpots, charlatans and rain dancers.
I'd say that history will have a lot to say about everyone.
The fact we still debate the effect of these mandates means it wasn't worth it. The fact we jumped into all these crazy mandates with nary a shred of evidence they'd even work is batshit insane.
And last I checked, humans have quite a few inalienable rights. We violated many of them and then mocked people who objected. Apparently not as inalienable as we thought if the masses demand it.
Incidentally, if you are convinced that there was no evidence to support social separation and masking I'm guessing you don't wear respiratory PPE as part of either your work or a hobby, don't know anyone who does, and haven't spent any time researching filtration grades and their mechanisms of efficacy. In any case there are several industries ranging from mold abatement to biopharmacology and even chipmaking that would like a word with you.
Public health measures were to slow the spread and not overwhelm medical resources, and to give time for better measures to be developed. Which has happened. Some folks cooperated with this, and some rebelled. And some spewed hate and misinformation.
Anybody in a position of power or knowledge who dared to even hint at asking questions got absolutely steamrollered by a very vocal group of “experts”. They were called alt-right selfish grandma killers who watched to much fox (and sorry, I never watched fox but it isn’t my fault they might actually be right sometimes, I’ve also been a solid democrat my entire life until this nonsense started…).
What we did the last two and a half years is so incredibly shameful. It was the opposite of science and opposite of “following the data”. It was appeals to authority all the way down. We were all told to shut up, “stay in our lane” and listen to a handful of cherry picked “experts”.
The last two and a half years changed my opinion about “fact checkers” and “misinformation” completely. Both of those are nothing more than ways to bully people into submission.