[mike_hearn]

The industries don't matter. They are all subject to very broad and powerful government licensing rules that can overrule their own opinions at any time.

For example, during COVID there were doctors who lost their license to practice because they disagreed with the government stance on vaccines. Therefore, the remaining doctors spoke with one voice. The government used them as sock puppets, in effect. Whether you agree with this policy or not, it is an example in which the healthcare system became one system that "said" things in concert.

[sorcerer-mar]

No, they aren't "all" subject to licensing rules. That's why the specific industries do matter.

Can you share some examples of these doctors? AFAIK the only doctors who lost their licenses are those who created fake medical documentation or who shared verifiably false medical information. Not for "disagreeing" with the government stance on vaccines.

I don't know if you lived in a different timeline than me, but I remember a lively debate throughout the entirety of COVID. Consensus (and evidence) was overwhelmingly on one side, sure, similar to how consensus is that you should go to the hospital if you get a heart attack. And yeah, if a doctor advises someone against that despite strong clinical evidence that the patient is best served by going to the hospital, they'll jeopardize their license.

[Bnichs]

The problem is that when the government itself spreads verifiably false information, there are no reprocussions like there are for the individual who does it. Just like when an individual steals money they tend to face consequences, banks who do the same thing on a much more massive scale face nothing.

[sorcerer-mar]

You're suggesting the government shared information that was verifiably false at the time it was shared?

Can you give some examples?

[Bnichs]

Just to preface. Covid is the new Nazis, all arguments end up devolving into its discussion. Im tired of talking about covid but it's hard to get past how our country handled it, both the people and the government. To answer your question: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/06/did-fauci-say...

>He said the 6-foot guideline “sort of just appeared” and wasn’t based on any data, and that such a study would be difficult to do. He also said he didn’t recall any studies about masking young children, but said the guideline was the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision.

https://oversight.house.gov/release/hearing-wrap-up-dr-fauci...

Making up arbitrary rules and then enforcing them saying "trust the science" is not coming from a place of honesty. Especially when combined with the deletion of emails.

[sorcerer-mar]

Excellent example!

First the strong rebuttal: "Verifiably false information at time of sharing" in this case would mean you have evidence that Fauci knew distance played no role in infection rates, or that a distance other than 6 feet was better, and put out information suggesting 6 feet was correct anyway. You have no evidence of this, of course, because this is not what happened.

The more general rebuttal is that you are revealing exactly the type of "can't be trusted with details" that kneecapped public health communications throughout COVID.

The question is why Fauci selected 6 feet instead of 4, 5, 7, 8 or even 6.1, 6.148, or even 6.489598365983 feet.

The reality is that there's no real reason to select any of these over any other. There's a continuous curve of difficulty of adherence and a continuous curve of transmission reduction.

Any specific number would have been "arbitrary", but very obviously a clear guideline is better than a completely non-actionable "stay as far away as you reasonably can."

This is like hauling out the guy who set interstate speed limits at 60mph and not 59 or 59.5 or 59.84846898 and then blasting him for selecting the "arbitrary" 60 miles per hour.

Does that make sense to you?

[mike_hearn]

> you have evidence that Fauci knew distance played no role in infection rates, or that a distance other than 6 feet was better, and put out information suggesting 6 feet was correct anyway.

There are three options:

1. Fauci knew the correct answer to some degree of accuracy and picked a rounded off version.

2. He didn't know the correct answer but thought he did.

3. Fauci didn't know the correct answer, was aware he didn't know, and he made one up in order to sound knowledgeable.

You're arguing what happened is (1). What actually happened is (3), which we know because he admitted it.

Social distancing had no effect, and this was known early on. There is no known distance curve that correctly models SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the real world, largely because it spreads via aerosol clouds as well as droplets. The data for this was available nearly from the start because:

1. SARS-1 acted this way, as do other coronaviruses. Outbreaks of SARS-1 could be found spreading between apartment buildings on the wind.

2. The outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship showed cases appearing all over the vessel at random, even though everyone was confined to quarters. There was no physical contact in that case and it made no difference whatsoever.

Social distancing had no visible effect anywhere it was tried. What did work was high quality air cleaning equipment, as found on planes - places that remained remarkably infection free despite everyone being much closer than 6ft together.

[Bnichs]

The number isn't the point, the messaging of "this number is science" is. If it were delivered clearly as "we done have all the information, but our best judgement based on a, b, c says the number is X" that would be far better and most of all honest than "it is 6ft and that's the science, follow the rules or don't enter public spaces"

Does that make sense to you?

[mike_hearn]

I'm not going to get into the weeds about COVID because you said:

> the things these systems "say" are emergent phenomena ... Consensus was overwhelmingly on one side ... [those who disagree] jeopardize their license

Rephrased, it's not happening and it's good that it's happening.

Pick your side: either you want agreement in the healthcare system to be trusted because it's the result of many independent decisions pointing in the same direction, or you want a system that punishes dissent. You can't try to claim the benefits of the first whilst cheering on the second.

[sorcerer-mar]

Wait wait, can you tell me what was actually inside the [ ellipsis ] that you substituted out?

Arguing in bad faith is one thing, but I suspect you might even be tricking yourself!

[mike_hearn]

You're claiming healthcare advice is an emergent phenomenon and also agreeing that people who spread "verifiably false" misinformation lost their license - a totally non-emergent phenomenon. I get that your faith in authority is so strong you don't really believe there were any mistakes made there, and thus that the people who were fired for opposing public health mandates weren't really part of the healthcare system at all in some sense. But they were a part of it, and mistakes were made by public health officials, many of which they later admitted to.

Again: pick your side. Advice motivated by career-ending penalties for non-compliance cannot be said to be an emergent phenomenon.

[sorcerer-mar]

How many licensure boards are there in the US? Roughly 60.

How many allow their doctors to relay verifiably false medical information with their patients? Roughly zero.

Is this because there's some big conspiracy of all 60 licensure boards getting together to suppress information, or is it because each of them has independently reached the self-evident conclusion that licensees spreading false information destroys the credibility of the profession?

Emergent phenomena, amigo.

[mike_hearn]

You seem to be under the impression there were no conspiracies during COVID, which is nonsense. You can read the Slack logs of the channels where conspiracies were organized (e.g. the papers denying lab leaks were organized that way). You can read emails where people were given their top-down orders. You can read meeting notes and journal reviews where people say that whilst claim X is true it would cause people to stop following government orders so it should be suppressed. You can read interviews with public health officials who say they organized conspiracies to lying, and you can observe that the entire medical profession went along with that. The synchronized flipflops on masks alone was enough to destroy many people's belief in doctors and public health.

By all means, try and wordsmith your way out of these facts. It doesn't work. Trust in the medical profession has dropped through the floor, and it will keep falling further for as long as responses like yours are common in discussions of it.

As for your 60 number, those are mostly state level boards, who have a monopoly over licensing in that state. If a doctor gets struck off in a state they could move to another, lose all their customers and home, and try to start again, but in practice those boards don't approve doctors who were struck off in another state regardless of reason. So in reality it's not much different to having one. The wider argument is of course silly, akin to arguing that if two dictators happen to make the same decision their countries aren't dictatorships because all decisions are emergent phenomena arising from the wisdom of the crowds.