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by renewiltord 1039 days ago
I was fortunately already equipped and with reuse (which I, as a superior epidemiologist to many currently so certified, concluded correctly was safe) was able to wear a mask against the advice of the HHS and the NIAID. As someone who already wore masks when ill so as not to infect others, this wasn't too much of a stretch, and it made for an interesting challenge running up Twin Peaks.

However, I have still lost trust in the HHS, who I'd hoped would have been honest about their objectives. A modern shift among institutional scientists has been a substantial loss of truth-speaking. It appears that if they were to consider a random variable x in (0,1) under the conditions:

- that they estimate it to be X

- that they believe the people estimate it to be Y << X

- that they believe the people will estimate it to be Y if they were to reveal that they estimate it to be Z >> X

then they will publicly claim that the variable is valued at Z. That is, despite being tasked with scientific examination, and knowing that they are known to be unreliable they attempt to manipulate the situation so that the public will have the same estimate as they do.

This has the unsurprising effect that their credibility reduces, and therefore the value of Z required rises sufficiently above X that their claims no longer seem reasonable, resulting in a positive feedback loop that results in catastrophically deteriorated credibility.