With Covid it was exactly this case. There was a few months that nobody knew nothing about it. Most doctors were treating COVID as any other coronavirus. At the time, I helped with some Data-related tasks to a group of researchers (Biologists, Biochemists, PhDs, etc) and I remember it clearly. A lot of uncertainty, but yet doctors had already arrived to a conclusion.

That's what doctors are paid to do. Unfortunately, they can't wait for the RCT's to be finished before making a decision, and so we train them well and pay them well to make decisions under uncertainty.

It's rather like software engineering, but with lives/health at stake.

What did your data related tasks imply?

"COVID skeptics" describes a group which includes people who think vaccines poison you with 5G, think COVID was an engineered bioweapon targeting the US, people who think injecting disinfectant would be a good treatment, people who advocate taking horse dewormer, people who think the right approach to dealing with a pandemic is to just let people die, etc etc. You may want to be more specific.

Although your use of the phrase "the Cathedral" doesn't lead me to believe you're very grounded in reality yourself.

I think your first paragraph makes a valid point.

Your second is just raising the temperature without adding any real value, hence the downvotes you appear to be getting.

I'm sorry, but I don't think invoking a conspiracy is adding much value either. I think it's completely unwarranted. That conspiracy nuts don't like it is their problem. You'll get downvoted if you enter a flat earth convention and describe those assholes accurately too.

Hacker news is weirdly populated by people with no grounding in reality on very specific topics, like this and the MOND bullshit people spew in all physics discussions. I think it's an unhealthy obsession with being contrarian mostly.

> Hacker news is weirdly populated by people with no grounding in reality on very specific topics

You see the phrase "the Cathedral" flung about a lot. I take this as a fairly solid indicator of ESR-fellating big-L Libertarians.

Do you have a better description of the journo political academical hivemind? Big brother maybe? Because it was almost Orwellian the way narratives switched and no one admitted at being wrong even as the policies prescribed were either less effective or counterproductive.

The first paragraph paints a picture, where all skeptics are crazy or idiotic.

It's worth remembering the definition of skeptic as stated here:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/skeptic

"a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.".

But COVID discussions tend to be extremely black and white, with no place for a middle ground.

The comment about skeptics serves only to keep that black and white picture, which is one reason for downvoting.

The first paragraph does not paint that picture. If you're reading that into it, maybe you should look into yourself and figure out why. I said, extremely clearly, that the group of "COVID skeptics" includes all those crazy people, not that those people make up the entire group. There are people who are skeptical of the official narrative but in a non-crazy way; the people who gave some credence to the idea that there might've bean an accidental leak from some lab, for example, aren't crazy, even though they contradict the official narrative.

I think the comment I replied to would've been much more valuable if it specified which groups of COVID skeptics they're backing up. As it stands, it's just playing apologetics for crazy people.

Using the word includes does a disservice to skeptics and COVID discussions.

It would be far healthier for discussions to separate skeptics and obviously crazy or idiotic. Those are two very different groups.

Well then that's your responsibility, as a COVID "skeptic", to make the distinction clear -- especially if you invoke phrases such as "the Cathedral" as a big nebulous conspiracy. People who think the vaccine gives you autism also consider themselves COVID (vaccine) skeptics.

> the way covid sceptics were treated by the Cathedral was not nice.

As it should be, because they were dangerous idiots coming away with stuff that would have made a Victorian-era quack patent medicine seller blush.

No, Stoney McDooberson, smoking weed will not protect you from COVID.

"BuT BiG PhArMa Is TrYiNg To KeEp EveRyOnE SiCk WiTh VaCcInE cLoT sHot! BuY hOrSe WoRmEr InStEaD!!!"

Yeah, who do you think makes the horse wormer? Hint - not a naturopath.

And the people that rightfully told from the begging that prohibiting outdoor gathering is pointless? That social distance rules were also as idiotic? The people that doubted that ventilators were effective? The people that pointed the complete lack of logic and consistency in mask rules? The people that took the lab leak hypothesis seriously? (which turned from racist to impossible to absolutely plausible with time?)

Were they dangerous idiots?

Dangerous

Yes, but all those people were incorrect.

It was the screaming racist Qanon anti-vaxxer maniacs that were pushing the "lab leak" idea, and they turned out to be entirely wrong too.

I wasn't pushing the lab leak theory, but I was quietly telling people at the pub that there's no way to tell the difference between an unmodified virus leaked from a lab versus a virus from an animal population.

I stand by this. The current debate is around a modified strain escaping from a lab, but even if that's laid to rest, how would we rule out a leak of an unmodified virus?

I find it embarrassing that everyone took so long to point out the obvious: whether it was a lab leak is impossible to disprove.

Ivermectin is a generic medication, and the use as horse-dewormer has made it a low cost commodity. So you can't make big bucks peddling it. Unlike new and patented vaccines.

Yes, but it is also primarily a large-animal dewormer.

You can use it in humans, but in a far smaller dose than you'd expect. It works quite well as a dewormer in humans too.

It does precisely fuck all against COVID or any other sort of virus.

Solid gold against intestinal parasites though.

Right, so we're back to woowoo stuff from Smokey McStonerface's blog?

I am not sure what are you asking. Do you think NIH are some stoners who know less about diseases and medicines than you? It might surprise you but those people [1] actually have education and experience, unlike yourself.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health