Comment by BoxOfRain | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BoxOfRain | Hacker News Reader

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>Way too many comments and articles that try and keep the fear training running full steam.

Enragement is engagement, and how better to enrage people than scaring everyone out of their wits and politicising everything as far as humanly possible? I'm certainly no COVID denier nor vaccine sceptic, though to me it's astonishing how little discussion has happened around the fact that everyone from some randomer's blog to major media outlets have every incentive towards alarmism and sensationalism and no incentive at all for moderation and sober analysis.

If you're a media outlet of any description and you write articles / film videos using hard-hitting emotional language to make people as terrified as possible, they'll be doomscrolling through your content all day and seeing lots of ads in the process. Even if it turns out your content was complete bollocks, you still got the engagement and ad revenue and by the time you post a correction (if you even bother) the news cycle has moved on to the next Horrible Truth you Must Read All About Right Now Or Else Bad Things will Happen to You. If you instead write a calm, measured article that right off the bat admits the caveats with any scary claims then nobody will read it and your potential readers/cash cows will be off on your competitor's sites that are using sensationalist and alarmist language.

The depressing thing is that even the average 'masks and distancing every winter forever' people and average 'restrictions are just a cover for politicians to consolidate their authoritarian power' people have far more in common with each-other than they do with say, Rupert Murdoch. So much completely artificial hatred has been generated and it has driven completely needless shards of anger and resentment between colleagues, between friends, and between families.

The evidence of the past year or two suggests otherwise.

For the first few months of 2020, media outlets were constantly downplaying the threat of pandemic. They consistently under-reported the risk. "Should we be worried? No! The threat is remote!"

What also sells papers (or attracts eyeballs) is giving people an impression of superiority: "look at all those ridiculous other people panicking!"

There's also the generation of anger: "you're being lied to! It's all a hoax / other people are trying to manipulate you by making you scared!"

Another angle is making people feel good: "everything is fine, don't worry about anything!"

I think it's more of "all of the above". Anything and everything that creates engagement will be published and spread out.

I agree, its strange the different bubbles we live in, but none of my news sources didn't have the "Omicron likely weaker" headline?!

Mine had. Not less than 24hours before the story emerged. Which result in 2 things: loss of trust in public authorities public faces ("omicron is a christmas gift !") and loss of trust in the scientific public faces ("omicron may be milder").

>For the first few months of 2020, media outlets were constantly downplaying the threat of pandemic. They consistently under-reported the risk. "Should we be worried? No! The threat is remote!"

This hasn't been my experience, in fact the British government's SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies) was advising the government to lean on the press in order to increase 'the perceived level of personal threat' early in the pandemic[1]. I really do think the use of behavioural psychology to encourage compliance with government policy is one of the lesser-discussed aspects of the pandemic that future historians will correctly give more importance to than we did at the time. In all honesty this isn't so much a criticism of how the British government acted during the pandemic but how it acts in general. This institutional bent towards the manipulative is partially what led us into the unmitigated disaster that is the War on Terror in my opinion, consent for which largely stemmed from a state of fear among the general public made worse by poor journalistic norms.

>Another angle is making people feel good: "everything is fine, don't worry about anything!"

I've not seen a single bit of serious journalism along those lines, it's either been 'COVID is going to kill us all and it's the plaguebearing hordes of the unvaccinated who are to blame' or 'The government is turning totalitarian and it's the fault of out-of-touch bureaucrats that need to be removed' (the article I linked is very much a member of that species). I've come across very little in the way of sober analysis, almost every piece of journalism I've come across on the topic carries some kind of moral judgement against $group in it. The point I'm making is that moral judgement sells and feels good to dole out to people you don't like, but it also robs us of a little humanity every time we do it.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/05/14/scientists-admit...

I think GP is referring to earlier than that: when Covid was in China and was starting to blow up in Italy

Like this: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/2/13/21128209/coronavirus-fe...

But at the time the risk was still small, because the virus was mostly not in the US yet. Article doesn't say the risk will remain small in the future, does it?

Oh man remember this?

If they’re used correctly, P95 and P100 face masks can reduce the likelihood of being exposed to coronavirus by blocking contaminated air particles. Currently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises against people in the US using face masks because most people who aren’t trained medical professionals may not know how to fit them properly, and the risk of exposure in the US is so low to begin with.

Fix the incentives, fix the world.

it’s worth always keeping in mind that the only dichotomy that matters in political economies is that between the wealthy and powerful and everyone else, not left-right, black-white, east-west, socialist-capitalist, or anything else. it’s been this way for all of human history past and will likely be so for the rest of it too. that’s a sober position to take, not a cynical one, as some might argue. the more dynamic our political and economic engines are, the better for the general welfare (obviously at the extreme this breaks down, but we’re not in danger of that extreme any time soon, if ever).

masks provide no added protection in most common situations where they’re used, but provide much political leverage, which is why they’re popular. same with (non-sterilizing) vaccine mandates and other arbitrary public restrictions. these are political wedges, not effective public health measures. if we were worried about public health, vaccination status wouldn’t be considered at all, only infection status. we’d also be policing private behavior (family/social gatherings) much more invasively, rather than public behavior (grocery stores and restaurants).

"the only dichotomy that matters in political economies is that between the wealthy and powerful and everyone else"

I always think of this as putting on different pairs of glasses to see the world through different lenses. That is one lens. left-right is another lens.

There is no "the only lens that matters". There are many lenses which have different degrees of predictive power depending on what you are observing. You don't use a microscope to look at the stars.

left-right is the worst of political dichotomies. it provides no purpose other than to arbitrarily divide the world into good vs. bad from the perspective of the viewer. that’s meant to solely benefit politicians, not provide any clarity, because it collapses the acceptable political narratives down into a palatably small set from which the politician can form a base. in short, it’s pure bullshit.

Very confusing statements, any sources?

To start with one, https://twitter.com/maxplanckpress/status/146668793563865497...

I was with you for the first paragraph, but the second makes a number of concrete statements about the virus that are contrary to what I've heard elsewhere, so I'd second the ask for sources.

Your second paragraph assumes our governments have the means to do that. They don't. Which breaks the logic of your conclusion. And masks do add protection. Their political leverage is null. What is gained by authorities ? There's no advantages.

> if we were worried about public health, vaccination status wouldn’t be considered at all, only infection status.

Ww are worried. Infection status is considered. Vaccination status is considered. You are building a counter stance to drive a point that aims to minimize the covid problem.

You can fight reality with logic and interpretations and a different philosophical approach of the situation but facts don't care. Hospitals are regularly overwhelmed, people are dying when they shouldn't and the virus doesn't care about our psychotic or neurotic bouts. We know that if we do nothing it gets worse real fast.

Of course there's a political advantage. It's something that forces everybody to visibly declare an affiliation with a side at all times in public. That will always be used for political advantage.

What nonsense the only ones that have made masks political is the right-wingers of the world for whatever convoluted "freedom" reasons they have come up with.

I don't wear a mask because of my political beliefs. I wear a mask due to the abundance of evidence that it helps prevent transmission. If you assume my political affiliation from that not only would you be wrong but you know what they say about assuming.

> It's something that forces everybody to visibly declare an affiliation with a side at all times in public.

No. Forcing people to wear a police badge or a yellow star or a hijab or a a beard in some places would fit that outlook but the first reason to wear a mask is a medical/prophylactic one. The fact some people (right or left) decided to associate that with political beliefs is another matter that has nothing to do with the inherent advantages that wearing a mask provides in some occasions.

If I put on a seat belt while driving in a car, what political affiliation does that signal?

you are building a counter stance to drive a point that aims to maximize the covid problem.

you can fight reality with fearmongering and projection, but facts don’t care. hospitals are only irregularly overwhelmed because of greed, not covid. the people dying are overwhelmingly likely to have a comorbidity, and the virus doesn’t care about our hysteria over masks and political misguidance when it kills them. we know that if we do exactly the wrong things, the pandemic and the panic is prolonged for maximal mediopolitical benefit.

> you are building a counter stance to drive a point that aims to maximize the covid problem.

You are trying a weird (and childish may I add) apparent mirror strategy but subtly adding twist of your own making that weren't there to drive your point that Covid is not a problem:

> we know that if we do exactly the wrong things, the pandemic and the panic is prolonged for maximal mediopolitical benefit.

Fixed:

> we know that if we do exactly the wrong things, the pandemic and the panic is prolonged.

No need to get all conspiracy on that one.

> you can fight reality with fearmongering and projection, but facts don’t care. hospitals are only irregularly overwhelmed because of greed, not covid.

They are overwhelmed and they shouldn't and they weren't 2 years ago. It'd be very weird that all around the world the hospital infrastructure just happened to show their limits at the same time and that it'd have nothing to do with the current pandemic but only with greed (I suppose you refer to the impoverishment of public hospitals). Occam's razor and all that.

Would you please wear a mask and get a vaccine or keep your distance a bit if you don't want/can't ? Thank you.

> the people dying are overwhelmingly likely to have a comorbidity, and the virus doesn’t care about our hysteria over masks and political misguidance when it kills them.

So what if they have a comorbidity ? It's still happening. There's a strong underlying current in anti-* that suggest to let people die and let selection plays its game. Are you advocating for that ?

Unfortunately for your weak ass arguments the virus does care about masking in the sense that it hinders its efforts to infect us. Vaccination is also shown to work.

> we know that if we do exactly the wrong things, the pandemic and the panic is prolonged for maximal mediopolitical benefit.

Ah yes, the media and the politics are manufacturing a crisis. Media do it to make money (or something) and politicians to their benefit (whatever that is).

You rather believe in a pharma-political conspiracy to manufacture a global pandemic than face the fact life is unfair and unpredictable ? You rather believe that behind the shadows there's someone that is pulling the strings over all this for their own political or financial gains because then it would make the world less scary, less unjust ? I am sorry, this is not how the world works. Things are fucked up and it's not fair and it's not (y)our fault but it is what it is.

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