I’m not the person you’re replying to but I do think anyone who comes to HN to discuss primarily one narrow (and politically contentious) topic isn’t participating in HN in good faith. There’s no effort to “gratify one’s intellectual curiosity” or “have curious conversation” if you’ve arrived with an agenda.
Because you know the links I click on. Or maybe, and I know this is crazy, but maybe this isn't my primary account as people have been mobbed and cancelled for having contrarian views on Covid!
I didn't interpret that comment the same way at all.
I think the gist of it can be summed up by (purportedly) Winston Churchill:
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
If, as you suggest, you're using a semi-throwaway account specifically to discuss COVID, unless other folks know that, your posting history with this account would likely give that impression.
Well, in salmon30salmon's defence: the mainstream media are completely and utterly missing in action when it comes to COVID.
They only parrot what the gov tells them and investigate nothing these days.
There are countless credible scientists saying that we are getting this incredibly wrong on so many levels yet mainstream media does not mention anything other than government narrative.
When did you see any news coverage of criticism of the "vaccine"? I mean, on a scientific level, not government ineptitude at rolling it out.
Edit: I can't reply for some reason but here's a video talking about the "vaccine"[0] and here's the Great Barrington Declaration[1]. Here is criticism from the BMJ [2] stating that (according to my maths) it's only 19% effective... in addition, it's designed to TREAT the symptoms, not cure you... what kind of vaccine is that?
I love you and thank you for coming to my defense but please do not link vaccine distrust with my views. I trust the data and the science behind the vaccines and believe we need to be getting them distributed as soon as possible
My point wasn't about vaccine distrust although that's part of it. It's more about not having a competent media that will at least say "we will question everything" and investigating along those lines. COVID is the prime example in my opinion so I provided links when asked.
I think it isn't the media not questioning, I think the media realizes that Covid is the gift that keeps on giving and they won't look that gift horse in the mouth.
It's like the trope about media coverage of plane crashes except instead of being an acute incident the media can play off of our fears day after day
This is the first point where 300 odd people were excluded from the analysis because of protocol deviations. Worryingly, this number was much higher in the treatment group. While I hope that blinding would have prevented any motivated exclusion, it's still quite concerning.
His second main point (which is actually really interesting), is that there were 3500 cases of symptoms consistent with Covid-19 that weren't revealed by a PCR test. I'm not sure what to think of this (and note that this number swamps the actual numbers of confirmed cases by about 10x), except that it matches with anecdotal evidence I've seen around negative tests in the presence of symptoms.
Credibility is in the eyes of the viewer: what you view as credible may not be what I view as credible.
And, to that end, whether you would agree with the criticism or not, there is none anyway. No questioning or investigation by media of any sort around COVID science. That was my point.
Even if a hillbilly right-wing conspiracy theorist came onto CNN to talk about aliens or lizard-people that would at least be something but there is nothing but acceptance that what the government says is the ONLY answer.