Doctors Are Tweeting About Coronavirus To Make Facts Go Viral (wsj.com) 98
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Bob Wachter, the chairman of the department of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, has had a front-row seat to the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Wachter's job, at least in part, is to keep the department's 3,000 or so faculty, trainees and staff current on developments in research, education and clinical care. But most days he sets aside at least two hours to keep another group informed: his Twitter followers. Dr. Wachter, 62 years old, is part of a growing group of scientists and public-health officials who are increasingly active and drawing large audiences on social media. They say they feel a moral obligation to provide credible information online and steer the conversation away from dubious claims, such as those in "Plandemic," a video espousing Covid-19 conspiracy theories that drew millions of views last week. [...]
Dr. Wachter typically writes his tweets in threads, long strings of posts on a single topic or idea; on Wednesday, he posted about masks. [...] To compose his tweets, Dr. Wachter keeps a document open throughout the day, where he drops in material he believes could be relevant to his followers. He starts writing posts between 4 and 6 p.m.; his wife, a journalist, often proofreads them, he says. His tweets post between 7 and 8 p.m. The doctors feel like they "have an obligation to put out information that is as correct as it can be," says Dr. Wachter. This is important during amidst a pandemic, especially after a new paper in the journal Nature this week found that antivaccination views are drowning out the more mainstream voices online, "partly due to the ways antivaccination advocates interact with some users of social media platforms," reports the WSJ.
"As a result, researchers predict, antivaccination views 'will dominate in a decade.'"
Dr. Wachter typically writes his tweets in threads, long strings of posts on a single topic or idea; on Wednesday, he posted about masks. [...] To compose his tweets, Dr. Wachter keeps a document open throughout the day, where he drops in material he believes could be relevant to his followers. He starts writing posts between 4 and 6 p.m.; his wife, a journalist, often proofreads them, he says. His tweets post between 7 and 8 p.m. The doctors feel like they "have an obligation to put out information that is as correct as it can be," says Dr. Wachter. This is important during amidst a pandemic, especially after a new paper in the journal Nature this week found that antivaccination views are drowning out the more mainstream voices online, "partly due to the ways antivaccination advocates interact with some users of social media platforms," reports the WSJ.
"As a result, researchers predict, antivaccination views 'will dominate in a decade.'"
Re:no wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: no wonder (Score:2, Insightful)
That's not actually how evolution works. Most of the dead are like 65+. They wouldn't have been having any kids. Killing them off does dick all for evolution. The people in their 20s with preexisting conditions ... yeah, that would have some evolutionary impact if we allowed them to die off in large numbers. But we don't (and shouldn't) so that doesn't work either.
Yeah, 300k is a rounding error, but don't bring evolution into it. It's just a sad part of life. It's insane to ruin the lives of billions
Re:no wonder (Score:5, Informative)
Natural selection is an amoral and purpose-free phenomenon. There is no "should" to it. As soon as you say "should," you have brought moral values into the discussion. And all modern cultures value human life, and its preservation, above the benefits that natural selection might confer on our species.
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...And all modern cultures value human life, and its preservation, above the benefits that natural selection might confer on our species.
No they don't. Ask the FAA, they can tell you the exact dollar value of a US human life. They use this value to determine if aircraft defects should be repaired based on number of estimated crashes and lives lost per crash and number of crashes over time because of said defect. Last I looked, the base value of a US human life was 4.3 million, might be wrong.
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Yes, well, in every culture there are amoral people who do not buy-in to the general moral consensus. Though, from a practical perspective, life is full of risks. Perfect safety is impossible. So we must always make trade-offs. Risk-vs-reward evaluations. That includes the individual's choice to travel in an airplane, as well as the manufacturer's litany of cost-to-benefit ratio assessments.
If they valued every human life at one billion dollars, and so amped up the safety thresholds across the board, f
Re: no wonder (Score:2)
Ask the FAA, they can tell you the exact dollar value of a US human life. They use this value to determine if aircraft defects should be repaired based on number of estimated crashes and lives lost per crash and number of crashes over time because of said defect.
That's pure nonsense. I've worked in aerospace, and I know with 100% cerrainity that there isn't a single regulatory body which takes this approach to risk assessment. I mean, maybe if you suggested that the Chinese equivalent of the FFA was doing it I might be a little more inclined to believe you, but even then I'd be asking for citations. As it stands, anyone who isn't a complete moron will immediately know that you're full of shit.
Re: no wonder (Score:1)
Re: no wonder (Score:2)
Of course they do. So do insurance companies. There's nothing inherently wrong with placing a monitary value on human life. Maybe read the discussion you were responding to? The proposition being put forth by $random_jackass was that the FAA makes safety determinations based on those evaluations. Your (broken) link does not support that assertion. It states upfront:
"Executive Order 12866 requires agencies to examine the costs and benefits of both
proposed and final regulatory actions. DOT administratio
Re: no wonder (Score:2)
Chinese equivalent of the FFA grounded the Boeing murder planes long before the America FFA did.
Maybe the Chinese just value lives higher?
>
Yes, the Chinese value lives higher than the USA. You're so smart.
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300,000 deaths is 3 months a 9/11 daily. the US went to war for this
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Doctors seem to have a lot more pull than politicians or "health organizations" that both lied their teeth out on the start of this thing.
So well, do use this pull to save lives.
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No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions sick (Score:5, Informative)
Covid shows that when nobody gets a vaccine, millions of people get sick and hundreds of thousands die - even after you shut down the economy to try to reduce the casualties. Covid shows what many diseases would be like if we didn't use vaccines to prevent constant pandemics.
Re: No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions sic (Score:2)
Sure, if you already accept that vaccines help. But to the antivaxxers, all it shows is that governments panic and impose draconian measures at the drop of a hat.
I'd love to have a vaccine for this shit. I get my flu shot every year. I always try to encourage others to do the same; not just for the flu, but for every preventable disease. Thanks to the bullshit surrounding COVID-19, my efforts in that direction are now even more fruitless than ever.
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Sure, if you already accept that vaccines help. But to the antivaxxers, all it shows is that governments panic and impose draconian measures at the drop of a hat.
I don't even wear a hat and I still drop it more than once a century.
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I used to wear a hat, in the Before Times, in the Outerdoors. I haven't worn it in months and I still dropped it twice yesterday just trying to find some CMOS inverters.
Re: No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions si (Score:2)
Hey, no worries, I've got a solution for both of you clowns.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D... [amazon.com]
No need to thank me, I'm glad to help.
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Scarf and hat clip? How is that going to make things better? Now when I drop my hat, it's just going to take my scarf with it.
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You do realise that the flu shot is only 40% effective? And even then it won't necessarily stop you getting the flu, but only reduces the symptoms.
It doesn't protect you, it just reduces the load on the health service. Its a cost-benefit thing more than anything.
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It doesn't protect you but still can stop you from getting the flu and if not can reduce the symptoms...
You sure have a funny definition of protection.
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> Sure, if you already accept that vaccines help.
One can point out to those exploring vaxxer BS that we aren't worried about smallpox, we ARE worried about COVID-19. Why? Because we're vaccinated against smallpox.
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Re: No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions sic (Score:1)
The communists are made up of either ignorant people, gullible people, or people who actively want to destroy us. Because of the last type in that group, sadly, all the above have to be stopped by any means possible and without mercy. Stupidity cannot be rewarded, and malicious intent must be punished. PERIOD. There can be no other way.
Re: No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions si (Score:2)
Re: No vaccine = 300,000 dead so far, millions s (Score:2)
Shit. I like your version better.
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andyet, the most prominent "antivaxxer" isn't anyone you'd recognise (ie I presume the alt-right, the freedomtarians or other extremist idiots) but ex-Dr Andrew Wakefield, who (along with 11 other eminent doctors and scientists) authored the 1998 paper on the MMR vaccine that linked it to autism and colitis disorders.
The Lancet, an esteemed medical publication, only withdrew the article 11 years afterwards.
Turns out that yes, there was financial conflicts of interest involved. Who could have guessed!
so the
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Prior to vaccinations, it was an arms race between the mutation and cross-species transfer of infectious disease, and the evolution and natural selection of the human race. A new disease would come about, many humans would die, but those that survived had the natural ability to defend against the disease.
With vaccinations, we have changed that to an arms race between disease and our technology / ability to produce new vaccines. It is a blaring fact that, due to vaccinations, there are many millions of peo
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So your theory is that by not dying from smallpox, people who don't have smallpox antibodies are here to die from covid-19. You're suggesting that if people were allowed to die from smallpox, leaving only people immune to smallpox, the remaining "strong people" wouldn't have to worry about COVID-19 much.
That would make sense if:
Smallpox antibodies protected against covid-19
And
Surviving smallpox left a person strong, rather than half paralyzed and sickly
In fact neither of those are true. Surviving a smallpo
Re: no wonder (Score:5, Informative)
From the article you linked:
"A relentless vaccination campaign has succeeded in eradicating the polio virus from most of the world, reducing the burden of the disease by 99 percent since the year 2000 and preventing more than 13 million children from contracting the disease"
What exactly are you complaining about again?
Re: no wonder (Score:2)
I'm complaining about your -automatic unquestioning- acceptance of its appropriateness in all contexts.
Then you're just ignorant. I dont accept it's appropriatness in all contexts. For instance, I would never accept injecting people who are already immune. That would be retarded. I only accept it in situations where the benefit significantly outweighs any potential harm.
Because it's "what the science says", when you're incompetent to evaluate the science but have heard a meme, probably incorporating some dismissal of a group you don't like for entirely unrelated reasons--sciencey enough for you.
You pulled all of that right out of your ass.
More specifically, it goes directly to the question of how much testing a proposed vaccine needs before we know it's safe and won't cause widespread harm.
That's a question which has been addressed adequately in the scientific literature. If you have an argument to make against the accepted standards, please, feel free to do so. If you're just
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Re:no wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to understand, They've been vaccinated against facts and logic.
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Questioning automatic uncritical acceptance didn't start with the pandemic.
No, but its keeping it active very nicely.
If you want to really promote this narrative... (Score:2)
Make a video and use the proper inflammatory promotion it takes to get it banned on Facebook and YouTube. Nobody will realize it contains facts they have already downloaded it from the "above top secret" torrent and leaks sites you steered them to.
You have to explain yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want people to believe the truth, you have to explain it to them. If you want people to believe in science, scientists, or at lest science popularizers, must explain it to the masses. This should be quite obvious, but in the current political climate "love of science" has become tribal signalling (OTOH, distrust of science has been tribal signalling for quite some time). In the "cancel culture", a vocal group of people don't want to see scientific truth debated or explained, because they think deplatforming the opposition is more important than convincing people of the truth.
It's not.
So, if you want the voters to vote as if evolution was true, and we damn well do, you must explain it to them, without being insulting or dismissive of counter-arguments, or talking down to people. If you say "if you don't believe in evolution you're just a big dummy" you will not convince anyone. If you deplatform religious views to the contrary, you will only strengthen those views among rebellious teens, and then it's very hard to get those people to see the truth as adults. The same goes for climate change. The same goes for vaccination.
You can't just say "science says so, so shut up". Well, you can if you only want to feel good about yourself, and accomplish tribal signalling, but you can't if you want to persuade people. And since this is a democracy, you should want to persuade people. Back before cancel culture, all of this was obvious, and the wonderful folks on the talk.origins newsgroup made a heroic effort when it comes to evolution. All the common counter-arguments to evolution were taken seriously, and the flaws explained in details, with examples. You can still find much of this online. [talkorigins.org] This is the way. This is the right model.
At least for flat earthers, there are people doing the right sorts of things: engage, and explain the truth. Heck, the just-released SpaceX Docing Simulator has a flat earth mode. Of course, this is there largely because Elon likes to meme, but making a flat earther comfortable with ideas like orbital mechanics or even just "the ISS is real" is exactly the right approach. We need more of this sort of thing, and less abuse, if we don't want society as a whole to abandon faith in science.
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All the common counter-arguments to evolution were taken seriously, and the flaws explained in details, with examples.
Which in no way alters the fact that if evolution is false, you lose, and if evolution is true, you lose.
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How's that? I mean, if evolution is false that's basically in the realm of philosophical skepticism at this point, where we can neither trust or sense or our memories, so yeah, that would suck, but it doesn't suck more to persuade someone of it as all beliefs are unreliable. But I don't see the downside, if evolution is true, of persuading someone that evolution is true.
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How's that? I mean, if evolution is false that's basically in the realm of philosophical skepticism at this point
Well, no. You're just overevaluating the implications of your simple illogical non sequitur.
"Evolution occurs" is fact and has great scientific predictive power. But that isn't sufficient for the actual purposes and motivation and hand, that is, above all else, maintaining the viability of atheism as the preferred personal bias.
Therefore, the stance is non sequitured to "-only- evolution occurs", which is both unfalsifiable, and unsupported by the evidence. With respect to stepwise survivability of compl
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"Evolution occurs" is fact and has great scientific predictive power. But that isn't sufficient for the actual purposes and motivation and hand, that is, above all else, maintaining the viability of atheism as the preferred personal bias.
But now you're back to mere tribal signalling. If the problem at hand is, say, understanding the spread of the Corona virus, or how to develop a useful vaccine, then understanding that viruses regularly demonstrate evolution is critical. So, sure, there are people only interested in the tribal signalling portion of the discussion but that's not the useful part of the discussion. What's more important is the practical problems we have to decide as a democracy how to face. Let people on both side have the
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then understanding that viruses regularly demonstrate evolution is critical.
I have made no claim otherwise, nor does my position limit that in any way. My view is a superset of yours, which includes such factors as having some rationale as to why we try to keep someone alive in the first place--which naturalistic evolution can't speak to, and has no "moral" element to be able to even theoretically speak to it.
Religion is not any sort of useful collection of statements about how the world is.
Well, no, it's the most universal collection, and absolutely useful collection, of statements about how the world is that exists. You cannot make any statements about "how t
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Well, no, it's the most universal collection, and absolutely useful collection, of statements about how the world is that exists.
The stories in the Old Testament vary in how old they are, but probably average around 3000 years, as they weren't new when written down. So we're talking about a work meant to be understood by pre-technological people, possibly stone age. If God had wanted to teach them quantum mechanics and general relativity, presumably He could have, but instead the Book is an explanation of "how the world is" that fits that stone age or bronze age world view. It's not useful for understanding physics today.
You cannot make any statements about "how to live in the world" without a justification on the basis of "how the world is",
Well, I d
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Largely correct, but noting that all axioms are "embarrassingly simple" as they form the basis of every more complex conceptual structure.
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That assertion is incorrect.Religion is an embarrassingly simple set of social behaviors (including expectations) to ensure populations form similar internally stable cultures across great divides of resource availability, location and education (information availability). It's practical, in a sociological sense.
No, that's the selection pressure, not the purpose. And we know for certain that environment selection pressure is inadequate to explain evolution. Psychology plays just as large a roll in any species capable of having preferences in a mate.
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A lot of strawmanning.
Atheism is not a worldview. Atheism is not being convinced a god exists. It has nothing to do with evolution. The Catholic Church accepts evolution.
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Atheism is a worldview. It "has to do with" evolution in that without it, that worldview is immediately invalidated. You have no other vaguely plausible causal explanation for human life.
This is why, lie about it or not, you will always be compelled to defend evolution like a puppet on a string.
And indeed, the Catholic Church does accept evolution. And that atheists will be destroyed, or, extincted, if you prefer.
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All trees die, and you die, yes, by default. They are related under the context of existence you can't escape within your naturalist/atheist worldview.
Your "default" ignorance is no more to your credit here than for any other topic.
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Okay, useless troll. Proceed with being gone, to the objective benefit of everything in existence.
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One doesn't need to know how human (or any other) life came to be to not believe in something that's, even if it exists, is not distinguishable from a mere fantasy.
But I took your bait hoping to make your meaningless existence a bit better.
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is not distinguishable from a mere fantasy.
Must be nice, that whenever you don't know something, that means nobody else does either. Because of your global psychic powers to know what's in everyone else's life experience.
But no, Google "Lancet peer-reviewed NDE", "fine tuned universe", "statistical improbability of prophecy", "EAAN", "irreducible complexity directed evolution nobel prize" for starters, and you'll find extensive evidence clearly differentiating it from "mere fantasy". When you then directly lie about it, or goalpost shift to a "pro
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If you really want to understand vaccines then there are lots of great resources to learn from. This one struck me as being particularly good https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Dr Brianne Barker Drew University Biol 348 (Immunology) Lecture Vaccines. If you want a taster then this clip is included "History of Vaccine Preventable Diseases in the USA, 1912 to 2017" https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] Note that the lower scale of case counts rescales to a tiny fraction of the starting number of cases in 1912 over
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If you want people to believe the truth, you have to explain it to them.
since when does that work?
If you say "if you don't believe in evolution you're just a big dummy" you will not convince anyone.
If people don't accept evolution by now they are in fact big dummies and literally nothing will convince them.
If you deplatform religious views to the contrary,
Someone is taking away churches now?
In the "cancel culture",
"Cancel culture" is what pissy righwingers call it when uppity liberals (a) use their fr
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"So, if you want the voters to vote as if evolution was true, and we damn well do, you must explain it to them, without being insulting or dismissive of counter-arguments"
The problem is that many of those voters don't have the education to understand the facts, and their counter-arguments are consequently fucking stupid. The public education system has been perverted and compromised to produce low-information voters, and you can't talk to them like they're intelligent and educated. They might be the first o
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The problem is that many of those voters don't have the education to understand the facts,
See, you talking down about people, which is not helpful. You're being dismissive, which is not helpful.
People consume inline educational content voraciously. Adult self-education is immensely popular. Provide the education needed to understand the facts. Simple as that. the tolk.origins guys did just that. It's called "respecting people who disagree with you".
they actively resist efforts to educate them.
Obviously if you're dismissive and insulting, people won't listen to you. Tribal signalling is the opposite of persuasion. By it's very natur
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"People consume inline educational content voraciously."
Which people? Certainly not the low-information voters. And even if they do, it's only the information that doesn't challenge their assumptions.
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Which people? Certainly not the low-information voters. And even if they do, it's only the information that doesn't challenge their assumptions.
Again you're dismissive. Not caring about political bullshit is an advantage when it comes to learning physics or biology, because it doesn't fill your head with conservation bias. People who obsess over politics make themselves dumber every day.
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"Again you're dismissive."
Of senseless arguments? Absolutely.
"People who obsess over politics make themselves dumber every day."
Any time you have people with differing opinions you have politics. You can't hide from it.
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Differing opinions in science aren't resolved by politics. There's a better way.
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If science made all the decisions it would be that simple. And maybe it should. But it doesn't.
Not everything boils down to science, either. There's judgement calls to be made. For example, is it best to extend life, or maximize quality?
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Judgement calls like that are obviously best left to the judgement of the person directly affected.
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That's almost creative. Almost.
Take it a step further. (Score:4, Interesting)
If the hackers have to break a few TOSs along the way, so be it. I'm well past the point of caring about playing nice. Let's fight for the attention span of the people who listen to angry shouting white guys, and the ones who can't distinguish fact from fiction. There are lots of them, they get to vote just like the smart people, and it would help if we spoke to them in what amounts to their own language. It would be worth it. We can't stomp down all the misinformation on the internet. Dilute it with a flood of good information USING THE SAME TOOLS.
Decades ago, this sort of info-spycraft would have been done by the FBI. Unfortunately, using that kind of thing for the common good requires competent leadership in the executive branch, At the moment, we're extremely short on that. Some other entity would have to do it. Any competent medical personnel feeling ambitious?
Re: Take it a step further. (Score:1)
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No matter where you are, the people in this category are almost exclusively male.
Re: Take it a step further. (Score:1)
Doctors are tweeting to make themselves go viral (Score:2)
Everybody wants to be a hereoeo
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Bloody do-gooders eh, I bet they save lives just for the glory too. ~
But who watches the Wachter (Score:2)
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Duh - the watcher watchers.
Good. They need to. (Score:1)
They need to, and it's up to us to continue to spread the valid science instead of the utter trash and lies that the anti-vaccine lunatics continue to share.
We *have* to keep fighting them.
I am so sick of the anti-vaccine losers. That trash called "Plandemic" is going to pop up again when the full length version comes out. Problem is, that the antis now think there's some deep state agenda when a private services removes objectionable and potentially harmful content.
Youtube has a lot of stuff that they stil
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Youtube has a lot of stuff that they still need to remove, though. Start by getting rid of the 9/11 truther garbage, and any trace of Infowars.
I know of a lot of people who used to watch Infowars, and every one of them has said they viewed it as fictional entertainment, not to be taken seriously. We also shouldn't forget that broadcast tv has produced and aired television shows about conspiracy theories [wikipedia.org]. I don't remember any push to censor them.
The sad thing is, as much as I disagree with those who believe 9/11 conspiracies or who won't vaccinate themselves or their children, when people such as yourself advocate for the use of force to silence th
Good luck, but I have my doubts (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is... facts are usually boring and often nuanced. Additionally, grasping the truth behind a fact often requires a fair bit of thinking.
It’s much easier to just memorize a simple four-word slogan and attempt to apply it willy-nilly to everything.
Not taking a side (Score:2)
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" logically, wouldn't the anti-vaxers be by definition "main stream" if that is what most people believe?"
Yes, but they don't. Most people believe in the efficacy of vaccination. Most people know they don't know everything, and they have to trust people who know more than they do about certain subjects. It's like getting your car fixed. If you don't know which end of a wrench is which, you don't try to fix it yourself. You call a mechanic. It doesn't mean you don't know anything, it only means that you're n
Straight-line Projections (Score:2)
Interesting how they make these death predictions, totally ignoring the fact that there are at least two effective treatments for Covid out there.
Tweeting? Facts? (Score:2)
How does one tweet facts on a network designed for twats?
Anecdotes aren't facts (Score:1)