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Comment by argvargc | Hacker News Reader

Won't even examine 400 counter-claims? That's "denialism".

Lockdowns working/not-working and/or causing collateral damage potentially eliminating other gains is not even remotely on par with astrology.

Lockdowns used in this manner are entirely unprecedented, and the long-term results cannot be known by anyone, only guessed at.

Your rigid adherence to them as beacons of purity only demonstrates your religious-like faith in them, which strikes me as having far more in common with astrology than well-evidenced arguments by well-credentialed individuals that they might not work or be counterproductive.

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I have no strong opinion on the lockdowns. In fact, when you have the optimal amount of lockdown, a large minority of the population might well think that they're too lenient, and a different large minority of the population might well think that they're too strong.

What I object to is your demand that anyone disagreeing with you first go through 400 studies, individually, and find the flaws in them, and destruct the credentials of the authors.

You just said it's been proven that lockdowns are harmful. Now you're saying the longterm results can't be known by anyone, only guessed at.

No, I didn't. I said:

> Here is a summary of over 400 studies demonstrating lockdowns are ineffective or harmful:

You're welcome to present studies demonstrating the opposite, but even if you can find 400 of them (and I doubt you can), the best we'd have arrived at would be equal uncertainty either way.

The longterm results of anything for which a long term has not yet elapsed can indeed only be guessed at. The fact I need to point this out to many people is striking in its resemblance to some kind of mass delusion on their part.

But then you also said

> Lockdowns used in this manner are entirely unprecedented, and the long-term results cannot be known by anyone, only guessed at.

So which one is it? Are your studies useful, or can the results only be guessed at, and so what's the point of your 400 studies?

> The longterm results of anything for which a long term has not yet elapsed can indeed only be guessed at. The fact I need to point this out to many people is striking in its resemblance to some kind of mass delusion on their part.

It's amazing that you tell other people this yet don't seem to understand it yourself.

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