The funny thing about this thread is that I have no idea where the Trump starts and the Harris ends. I have learned nothing about anyone's political stances from this back and forth.
> The funny thing about this thread is that I have no idea where the Trump starts and the Harris ends. I have learned nothing about anyone's political stances from this back and forth.
Me neither.
I think it's a very sophisticated two-way dog whistle.
The ideologists on both sides can spot each other a mile away; the rest of us look from pig to man, and man to pig, and can not tell the difference.
for me the most salient difference, harris is gung ho on the environment. expect limited oil and high energy prices
trump is the opposite - if nothing else he understands "cheap oil good"... doesn't really care either way about the environment, seeing as last EPA chief he appointed had a history of battling the EPA.
It's difficult to parse subsubzero's post after his edit, but he's saying Zuck believes Trump will win in 2024, so Zuck's spinning a narrative that he was forced to remove COVID misinformation, because COVID misinformation was largely a right-wing phenomenon.
My response to him was to point out that Harris is strong and trending stronger, while Trump is weak, so the tea leaves are saying the opposite of what he thinks they're saying.
> because COVID misinformation was largely a right-wing phenomenon.
That isn't really a fair assessment; it is true that large groups of people generate more wild theories but there was a lot of misinformation everywhere. Most of it inconsequential.
But weighting by consequence it is hard to overlook things like:
- "Plague of the unvaccinated" and the tide of misinformation saying that the vaccine would halt COVID. A lot of people believed that. They were wrong. And a lot of the blatant human rights violations through the COVID era were probably driven by that particular mistake. It wasn't a right-wing phenomenon.
- "14 Days to Flatten the Curve", which turned out to be critical misinformation that derailed any debate over the wisdom of lockdowns. Certainly a forgivable move given the urgency and confusion in the first few months, but the fact that it was material and misinformation stands out in hindsight.
- Dismissing a lot of legitimate studies related to Ivermectin. It turned out that they were showing that people who had parasites + COVID had a much better response to COVID if they took an anti-parasite drug so, y'know, fair enough but not that useful in the west. But there was a lot of misinformation that the studies themselves were fake that undermined trust that the responders were looking at evidence. That dismissal was also certainly not coming from the right wing.
> Dismissing a lot of legitimate studies related to Ivermectin. It turned out that they were showing that people who had parasites + COVID had a much better response to COVID if they took an anti-parasite drug
I read along from Australia during that period and I saw little evidence that people who knew what they were talking about "[Dismissed] a lot of legitimate studies related to Ivermectin".
It was clear cut at the time that meta-studies from "the Global South" showed that Ivermectin greatly improved M&M stats (recovery from infection, death rates) across the board for the cold, the flu, COVID, .. everything really.
No great suprise there, when parasites are killed off the host has more resources to fight off infection.
What was repeatedly dismissed, perhaps not always clearly, was the great leap being put about that Ivermectin would magically cure COVID in G20 coutries with little to no general parasite problems.
The big deal was that social media meta study that sourced 80% of COVID bullshit back to 12 "people" | groups that were all snake oil sales types peddling miracle cures on the vack of sowing fear doubt and uncertainty.
It was an endless sisyphean task pushing back against the amplification of bullshit in US social media.
There were a large body of studies showing that Ivermectin helped with COVID. Some people said that evidence should be dismissed and, fair enough. I get to be consistent in my belief that people should be able to ignore evidence because sometimes it is misleading. In this case it was a good move.
But there was also a large crowd of people spreading misinformation that the reason the evidence was misleading was because it was fake or the studies were faulty and that only crazy people would want to take Ivermectin. It turned out not only were the studies were fine but also that there are many people who should probably take Ivermectin immediately upon recognising COVID symptoms. That large crowd were, in a pretty clear-cut way, spreading misinformation. Not right wingers, they tended to be more of a pure-play authoritarian variety based on the arguments I had.
> I read along from Australia during that period and I saw little evidence that people who knew what they were talking about "[Dismissed] a lot of legitimate studies related to Ivermectin".
Bit of a tautology there, we'd expect the people who got things right to know what they were talking about in hindsight and vice versa. People who spread misinformation have a fairly particular profile, it just isn't partisan.
Those studies have consistently shown that Invermectin (a de-wormer) helped people with COVID when those people lived in countries where people have a lot of worms.
The studies were not faulty, but any meta-analysis of the studies that did not take this into account was.
In case this was needed to be said, Ivermectin is an antiparasitic substance. If used to a player with parasite infection debuff, it may remove the effect and restore small amounts of hit points.
It is not established, but a player's hit points remaining and parasite infection status may negatively affect COVID survivability dice roll.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation. It’s the typical case, there are studies showing the former, yet it absolutely does nothing for COVID, it was a “hidden” third variable all along (having parasites).
You're presenting evidence that it is causative. The chain of causation is: take ivermectin -> kill parasites -> better COVID outcomes.
This would be correlation not causation if it were something like parasites caused better COVID outcomes and people in the global south were being given sugar-water. Then there'd be studies showing that sugar water caused better COVID outcomes but it'd be correlation not causation.
In this case though the correlation was because of causation.
In a study, you are usually interested in the relation of two things — here, ivermectin intake and COVID morbidity. The two variables do correlate in countries where parasites are a commonly infecting people. What can we claim from such a study? That the two correlate, that’s it. To conclude causation, you would have to make a double-blind study with control groups, where both have COVID (and neither have parasites) and one are given sugar pill, the other ivermectin. If that showed a significant difference between the two groups we could say that ivermectin causes decreased morbidity. But no such evidence has been shown.
What the actual studies show is simply a correlation, and we can do some educated guesses based on prior knowledge: ivermectin is an effective dewormer, the human body can produce anti-bodies against COVID, and that the immunesystem is better fighting a single thing, than multiple ones. Putting these together, we get a reasonable hypothesis showing a third variable that explains the measured correlation, through a causative mechanism (parasite hindering healing and parasite getting killed).
But surely you'll have to admit that if we do a double-blind study where all the participants have parasites we would probably get a significant difference between the two groups? Then we could also say that ivermectin caused decreased morbidity. We'd probably even say "it caused a decreased morbidity in populations with parasites, as expected". You can't just pretend people without parasites don't exist, they do. There are countries where the base rate is really high. That is where the results that show ivermectin as causing better COVID outcomes are coming from.
You've misunderstood the correlation-causation complaint. We have a pretty clear theory of causation here and the results back it up. Just because causality depends on specific conditions doesn't stop it being causal. Any medical treatment that isn't 100% effective (ie, most of them) depend on specific conditions being present - otherwise they'd be perfectly effective. Of course since the chain of causality is quite clear on this one we can conclude from the base rates of parasite infections there isn't much point taking ivermectin for COVID in the west.
Okay, why don’t we also waste money on bullshit like proving that tylenol increases intelligence (if you measure IQ tests on people with headaches)? It is just as useless. It was known that dewormers.. deworm.
There are zero new info in studies like that (unless you believe every logical conclusion requires a new study? If A is proved, should we separately prove A or B or what?), and they can’t even shut up all the idiots that still go on about ivermectin, so not even that goal is achieved..
I imagine the study-ers started with something like "hmm, these people have parasites and are getting COVID, we should see how big an effect giving them antiparasite medications has" and then went from there. Or maybe "we're throwing everything at the wall with COVID, this thing was involved in Nobel Prizes, lets try it to". Something like that. Maybe other things I can't think of. Proving up effect sizes is valuable in itself.
> There were a large body of studies showing that Ivermectin helped with COVID.
Nope. Not now, not then, and not in the absence of parasites.
The early pandemic studies you "recall" were real studies, meta studies that looked at the use of Ivermectin in "the Global South" in countries with high incidence of worms | parasites | etc.
These studies showed a distinct improvement in the face of COVID for treated groups .. eg: those untreated that had parasites and caught COVID Vs. those treated and caught COVID but now had immune responses uncomprimised by parasites.
more recent studies, in G20 type countries,
A Cochrane meta-analysis of 11 eligible trials examining the efficacy of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19 published through April 2022 concluded that ivermectin has no beneficial effect for people with COVID-19.1
Since May 2022, an additional 3 large randomized clinical trials including several thousand participants have been published, each reaching a similar conclusion.
Today JAMA publishes a new trial of ivermectin treatment for mild to moderate COVID-19 that addresses the possibility that the existing literature may have missed the efficacy of ivermectin because the previously tested dose (approximately 400 μg/kg daily for 3 days) was insufficient.
At a higher treatment dose (600 μg/kg daily) and longer treatment duration (6 days), Naggie and colleagues again conclude that ivermectin is not beneficial for the treatment of COVID-19.
New study shows ivermectin lacks meaningful benefits in COVID-19 treatment (March, 2024)
New research led by the University of Oxford has concluded that the antiparasitic drug ivermectin does not provide clinically meaningful benefits for treating COVID-19 in a largely vaccinated population.
Damn- no effect in any trial in the absence of worms.
> Bit of a tautology there, we'd expect the people who got things right to know what they were talking about in hindsight
whereas I'm talking about qualified epidemiologists who were correct then (2020) and still correct today .. the likes of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Stanley (who I worked with in the 1980s) et al.
That is a powerful response against someone who I suspect you're imagining. Maybe try assuming I more or less agree with all that re-read my comment? I don't see any points of disagreement.
>There were a large body of studies showing that Ivermectin helped with COVID.
No, there wasn't. I haven't kept up with the science, so there may be such studies now, but there certainly wasn't back in late 2020, when the ivermectin craze spread like wildfire among right wingers.
> But there was a lot of misinformation that the studies themselves were fake
That was not misinformation. The idea that Ivermectin was helpful in dealing with CoVID was determined from a meta analysis that included a fake study that nobody can confirm happened and even used dead people. It was pushed by grifting doctors who sell Ivermectin.
Yes, if you have parasites and take an anti-parasite drug you're gonna feel better, whether you have CoVID or not.
> the tide of misinformation saying that the vaccine would halt COVID
It halted it as much as it could considering 30% of people didn't complete vaccination. I finished and have had every booster and never got CoVID despite all of my family members getting it (who refused to get vaccinated).
> No, those mistakes did not justify the downright biblical flood of COVID misinformation that emanated from the right.
> The examples you've given are just right wing apologetics.
> That particular delusion is entirely due to right wing misinformation
This is blatantly violating the HN guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), in addition to being logically invalid emotional attacks and fallacies that do nothing to actually respond to GP's points. Suggest against this - it absolutely destroys the credibility of the points that you do make, in addition to reducing the quality of HN.
> the statements you've pointed out either do not violate HN's guidelines
These statements:
> No, those mistakes did not justify the downright biblical flood of COVID misinformation that emanated from the right.
> The examples you've given are just right wing apologetics.
> That particular delusion is entirely due to right wing misinformation
Violate these parts of the guidelines:
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle.
> Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work.
There was virtually zero factual content to your comment. It almost pure partisan political activism.
> None of what I've said is "logically invalid emotional attacks and fallacies."
It seems like you don't understand the difference between an emotional plea and a factual statement. "the downright biblical flood of COVID misinformation that emanated from the right" is not a fact - it's an emotional plea, as are the other cited statements. It is impossible to find a citation for this statement because "biblical flood" isn't a technical term that you can back up with facts. "right wing apologetics" is another instance of something that you cannot prove because it does not have a factual status.
> "the downright biblical flood of COVID misinformation that emanated from the right" is not a fact - it's an emotional plea
The term "flamebait" is also an emotional plea, but we trust adults to use their brain and decide how to report that in good faith.
"Biblical Flood" is a euphemism indicating "a lot of" misinformation (which is a fact [1]) and anyone not being willfully obtuse could interpret what the commenter meant. but I suppose it's easier to immediately dismiss that very true statement than engage with it.
Incorrect. Emotional pleading is a logical fallacy wherein one manipulates the emotions of the listener in an attempt to convince them of an argument without actually supporting it. Labeling something "flamebait" is a characterization of the tone of an argument, and whether it appears to be designed to incite low-quality discussion/flaminess, which is orthogonal to the argument itself. An argument can be flamebait without containing emotional pleading, and vice versa. The two are unrelated, and the fact that you so confidently state that they are indicates that you don't actually know what either of them are.
> "Biblical Flood" is a euphemism indicating "a lot of"
Yes, I know that - and that's completely irrelevant as to its factual nature. It's still an euphemism designed to manipulate the listener, and is something that is impossible to prove factually. There is no objective test for whether something is a "Biblical flood" (and you can't even get different people to agree on what meets the threshold for it) - you thinking that it can assessed as true indicates that you don't have a good handle on what it means for something to be "factual".
> which is a fact [1]
Copy-pasting journal article links is not an argument, and that article in particular doesn't support the point that you think you're making.
> Labeling something "flamebait" is a characterization of the tone of an argument, and whether it appears to be designed to incite low-quality discussion/flaminess
Which is also not measurable and manipulates the reader. I don't see the readers comment as flamebait. Just because misinformation comes from right-wing media and people have eyes to see that and call it out doesn't make it flamebait. What should we call it? An unknown amount of totally apolitical misinformation from [insert party here]?
> It's still an euphemism designed to manipulate the listener, and is something that is impossible to prove factually
As are most arguments when we use phrases like "a lot", "similar to", etc. If you dismiss things based on such broad criteria, I am puzzled by your comment history. You have told users they are bad and support Tyranny[1], said it's malicious to support infrastructure spending[2], and called Snowden a narcissist (which proves he had no altruistic motives?)[3].
These are not emotional statements supported by an argument, these are arguments supported by emotional pleas.
And a simple cmd+f shows "Emotional plea" is a phrase you do not use sparingly either. You are using this word very broadly. If you cannot hold yourself to the same standards you hold other users, you aren't debating in good faith.
You have obviously constructed a belief system that makes it impossible to engage with things you disagree with while allowing yourself to lash out at users however you see fit and bring up whatever politics suits you.
> Copy-pasting journal article links is not an argument
An argument is not a theoretical bottle exercise for one to wordsmith their way towards not engaging with the facts. In the real world, we have eyes.
Yet most people can still recognize it when they see it, it's relatively easy to provide good heuristics ("is it unnecessarily politically partisan? does it bring up irrelevant examples?"), and is against the guidelines.
> and manipulates the reader
I already pointed out that the characterization of "flamebait" is not an emotional plea, as you incorrectly called it, and you didn't respond to that characterization at all and merely ignored it, so I can only conclude that you're inventing some other definition to fit the word.
Regardless, it's also against the HN guidelines, so we can safely put aside the problem of whether or not it's appropriate to point out, because it is.
> I don't see the readers comment as flamebait. Just because misinformation comes from right-wing media
...and that's why you don't see it - because you're pushing the same political agenda that they are.
This is also deceptive goalpost-moving - the poster didn't just say that "misinformation comes from right-wing media", but that it was a "Biblical flood" from "the right", which means an objectively large quantity, which neither you nor they have provided any evidence for.
It's pretty clear that that comment is flamebait. It made a politically-charged claim meant to attack a particular political group that had zero evidence for it, which you have also provided zero evidence for. Most of that user's other comments have been flagged and the account was eventually banned, which pretty clearly shows that they were engaging in flamebait.
> people have eyes to see that and call it out
Yet more emotionally-manipulative rhetoric. You still haven't provided evidence for these claims, either (although even if you had, it wouldn't excuse this).
> I am puzzled by your comment history.
Yet more emotionally-manipulative rhetoric (you are clearly not puzzled - you're personally attacking me), coupled with profiling, which is an ad-hominem that is extremely inappropriate (for HN, and for anywhere) and bad-faith.
> said it's malicious to support infrastructure spending[2]
This is a straight-up lie. I said "Proposing that we should continue to throw more money at infrastructure, before diagnosing and fixing the problems that are causing that inefficiency [...], is straight-up malicious." This is very different than what you claimed I said. You read my comment, and lied about what I said.
> and called Snowden a narcissist
Which is an irrelevant, intentionally misleading and out-of-context fragment of what I said - which was saying that he had narcissistic tendencies as an explanation for his actions, not as a means of trying to distract from an argument that he made.
> And a simple cmd+f shows "Emotional plea" is a phrase you do not use sparingly either. You are using this word very broadly. If you cannot hold yourself to the same standards you hold other users, you aren't debating in good faith.
More profiling. This is not appropriate for HN. Please do not do it.
> You have obviously constructed a belief system that makes it impossible to engage with things you disagree with while allowing yourself to lash out at users however you see fit and bring up whatever politics suits you.
This is yet another character attack - again, inappropriate for HN. As we've seen, you're also willing to lie about my words, so this assessment isn't based on fact anyway.
> An argument is not a theoretical bottle exercise for one to wordsmith their way towards not engaging with the facts. In the real world, we have eyes.
More emotionally-manipulative and deceitful rhetoric. Also, it's worth noting that you ignoring my point and instead proceeded to link-drop like it proved your point.
This is completely irrelevant to claims that there's been a "downright biblical flood of COVID misinformation that emanated from the right".
I don't need to read the others - if you have a claim that you want to make, you can source the claim from the paper, because given that you lied about what I said, the burden is on you to prove that your claims are based in reality. Posting a link is not proof behind a claim.
If you can't argue in good faith without profiling other users, making personal attacks, making partisan political comments, justifying guideline-breaking behavior because you agree with the opinions made, claiming that your opinions are "facts" without providing evidence, sneering at people who don't agree with said opinions, and actively lying about other people's words and claims, then you shouldn't comment on HN.
Please do not respond if you can't avoid doing the above - especially if you can't avoid lying about my own words back to me.
