[m348e912]

I think people in general have been conditioned to downvote or report dissenting views that they understand to be not only false but fall into the category of dangerous misinformation. It's especially noticeable on HN because generally these types of views are not of a technical nature and it's easy to dismiss as simply "not relevant to the discussion". (which is generally true)

HN doesn't claim to be an unfettered open forum of free discussion. In fact it's heavily moderated (not just for wild opinions) and you could argue that's what makes it so good.

[lez]

This is exactly how the most disturbing downvotes happen to me.

When enough people are conditioned to believe X is a dangerous misinfo about Y topic, we are in a bubble and cannot discuss Y anymore openly because of "safety of the readers".

And people are easily conditioned to believe anything, if all media sources, including tech sites are "following the science" by silencing opposing views. This, we've seen A LOT in the last 2-3 years.

[orwin]

Honestly, if you're talking about covid, it's because "dissenting" science is hijacked by dumb science, and lumped together.

The "probably an unintentional lab break initially unnoticed then covered up" got lumped with the "aaaaah! China virus! Bill gates bad!".

Not by one person, in one comment, it's like a chain. Someone make a reasonable, skeptic comment, someone agree but goes further, the third one goes even further, and by the fourth we have a dumb idea that doesn't have any basis, and it's easier to reject the thread entirely.

But i made several comments highly suspicious of the real efficacy of mRNA comapred to usual deactivated virus (i do have a friend working at Valneva, so i might have been partisan), and had pleasants conversations about it, and learned a lot. But several time some big "vaccine = autism" guy showed up on the thread. It's just tiring.