NationStates

Austreylia wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:...that's not how it works. If you make the claim, it's on you to cite a source and/or elaborate on the reasoning your assumptions are based on.

That is how it works. I'm not gonna provide citations for my claims that the LGBT people want to teach kids about their ways.

It's been part of the debate for a while now. Everyone knows that it's on the table.

Austreylia wrote:

Necroghastia wrote:okay, what's reasonable about that?

It's having something injected into your body by some scummy, profit-chasing company that has probably killed more people than you've had hot dinners. It's perfectly reasonable.

okay, what's reasonable about that?

Not supporting people who insist on being referred to as another gender, and who try to get you fired for not supporting their agenda, is perfectly reasonable.

okay, what's reasonable about that?

It's reasonable because people might not want foreigners coming in who won't abide by their countries laws, and will bring their own customs.

strawman and you know it lol

No.

lol like what

Teaching kids about transgenders and gays, advocating porn for kids and so on.

Ifreann wrote:The ideas behind the lie that the MMR vaccine causes Autism have never stood up to even the slightest scrutiny. It was debunked years ago.

Ifreann wrote:And even putting aside all of this, there have been subsequent studies of millions of children that have turned up nothing. Maher isn't some enlightened sceptic, he's an arrogant piece of shit who shouldn't have any kind of public platform.

Ifreann wrote:I don't really care about the comment sections of clips from Bill Maher's show.

Austreylia wrote:

The Federal Government of Iowa wrote:I know right? How dare someone with an unpopular view even be allowed to EXIST! WE MUST C A N C E L HIM! Oh please, give me a break, it is necessary for a functioning republic that people be able to handle dissenting viewpoints without going ballistic.

The thing with leftists is that they want to silence people for perfectly reasonable viewpoints, such as being vaccine-skeptic, anti-LGBT, anti-immigration, or even being proud of your culture or national history...

...but they'll insist on being allowed to propagate absolute, gutter-tier degeneracy with no penalty at all.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ifreann wrote:The ideas behind the lie that the MMR vaccine causes Autism have never stood up to even the slightest scrutiny. It was debunked years ago.

Only according to the experts. We still need debate, as a means to gauge whether the idea of believing the experts on a particular topic stands up to more scrutiny than the idea that we shouldn't.

If in December of 2019 you said the World Health Organization was wrong to doubt how contagious the novel coronavirus was you'd have been dismissed as "going against the experts" too.

Ifreann wrote:And even putting aside all of this, there have been subsequent studies of millions of children that have turned up nothing. Maher isn't some enlightened sceptic, he's an arrogant piece of shit who shouldn't have any kind of public platform.

What, might I ask, are you suggesting others do about it?

Ifreann wrote:I don't really care about the comment sections of clips from Bill Maher's show.

You should. They tell you which sort of audience he attracts.

I don't always agree with these commenters either (how little they challenged Bill's insinuation that bombing Palestine is okay because they're not as progressive as gender issues as Israel is a bit unsettling, especially when you see them challenge him on other things) but more than anything else I need alternatives to the left-right false dichotomy, partly to challenge my own beliefs, and partly because it's not like I already trusted left-of-centre echo chambers on everything under the sun much more than right-wing ones anyway.

Ifreann wrote:Andrew Wakefield made children undergo colonoscopies and spinal taps without telling their parents the risks of those procedures for what he knew to be no reason beyond lining his own pockets. And then he lied about the results of those examinations anyway. He's an utterly corrupt piece of shit. No one dismisses him as "going against the experts".

Ifreann wrote:I'm not suggesting anyone do anything, expect perhaps that you stop credulously believing the likes of Maher when they act like there is some question about a link between vaccines and Autism.

Ifreann wrote:I don't care what kind of audience he attracts. Why would I? I'm not looking to advertise on his show.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ifreann wrote:Andrew Wakefield made children undergo colonoscopies and spinal taps without telling their parents the risks of those procedures for what he knew to be no reason beyond lining his own pockets. And then he lied about the results of those examinations anyway. He's an utterly corrupt piece of shit. No one dismisses him as "going against the experts".

Put aside Wakefield as an individual. Of course he, as an individual, is a scumbag.

But this has no bearing on whether or not he could have happened to be right by accident. Probably wasn't, but I can't blame people for thinking that's less of a case around what he has to say than that the other side sometimes comes across as avoiding the debate.

This is only one of many reasons why which experts to listen to, on what, and why or why not, should be as fair game for debate as everything else.

Ifreann wrote:I'm not suggesting anyone do anything, expect perhaps that you stop credulously believing the likes of Maher when they act like there is some question about a link between vaccines and Autism.

Don't put words in my mouth. My claim isn't that the case for such a link is strong, or that the case against it is weak. My claim is that the number of people who believe anti-vax rhetoric in the first place is the fault of the other side of this debate for how they handled it.

Ifreann wrote:I don't care what kind of audience he attracts. Why would I? I'm not looking to advertise on his show.

Of course not. But you should know what sort of approach appeals to millions of people at a time.

Nanatsu no Tsuki wrote:Maher is shit. Why people still gobble his fuckery is beyond me.

Ifreann wrote:How could he have been right by accident when he found evidence proving him wrong and didn't include it in his published results?

Ifreann wrote:That is patently absurd.

Ifreann wrote:Even if the nature of Maher's appeal weren't obvious, why should I care what appeals to millions of people?

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ifreann wrote:How could he have been right by accident when he found evidence proving him wrong and didn't include it in his published results?

It's like striking oil; dumb luck is always possible.

Ifreann wrote:That is patently absurd.

Well, again, what's the alternative? To self-censor and let everyone else be an echo-chamber of like-minded science-worshippers?

Ifreann wrote:Even if the nature of Maher's appeal weren't obvious, why should I care what appeals to millions of people?

Well, for starters, they vote...

Gravlen wrote:H.Bomberguy presents - Vaccines: A Measured Response

The long video is really good, and has an analysis of the Wakefield study and the media representation of it.

He also looks at that anti-vaxxer asshole Bill Maher.

By the way, I think Real Time with Bill Maher is an elaborate hoax. It's a show which doesn't really exist. I've never seen it, and it has had no footprint in popular culture (at least not since 2003).

Ifreann wrote:The alternative is for you not to say nonsensical things like blaming fraud on "the other side", whoever that is meant to be.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ifreann wrote:The alternative is for you not to say nonsensical things like blaming fraud on "the other side", whoever that is meant to be.

As in, you cannot blame people for dissenting. They're supposed to dissent. Against the scientists, if need be. A mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the hell scientists tell them with no skepticism whatsoever would be just as ridiculous as a mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the right; or the left; tell them.

Therefore, the only legitimate option is to try to be more convincing than the other side.

Dakini wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:As in, you cannot blame people for dissenting. They're supposed to dissent. Against the scientists, if need be. A mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the hell scientists tell them with no skepticism whatsoever would be just as ridiculous as a mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the right; or the left; tell them.

Therefore, the only legitimate option is to try to be more convincing than the other side.

Unless the people have advanced degrees and expertise in immunology, their dissent is only going to be based on ignorance.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Dakini wrote:Unless the people have advanced degrees and expertise in immunology, their dissent is only going to be based on ignorance.

If you said in late 2019 that the World Health Organization was downplaying the contagiousness of a new disease that was about to spread around the world and kill millions of people, you'd have been accused of "dissent based on ignorance" too.

Scientists are just as prone to bias and perverse incentives as everybody else. They should be doubted like every other walk of life.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Ifreann wrote:The alternative is for you not to say nonsensical things like blaming fraud on "the other side", whoever that is meant to be.

As in, you cannot blame people for dissenting. They're supposed to dissent. Against the scientists, if need be. A mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the hell scientists tell them with no skepticism whatsoever would be just as ridiculous as a mindless echo chamber of people believing whatever the right; or the left; tell them.

Therefore, the only legitimate option is to try to be more convincing than the other side.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Dakini wrote:Unless the people have advanced degrees and expertise in immunology, their dissent is only going to be based on ignorance.

If you said in late 2019 that the World Health Organization was downplaying the contagiousness of a new disease that was about to spread around the world and kill millions of people, you'd have been accused of "dissent based on ignorance" too.

Scientists are just as prone to bias and perverse incentives as everybody else. They should be doubted like every other walk of life.

Omniabstracta wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:If you said in late 2019 that the World Health Organization was downplaying the contagiousness of a new disease that was about to spread around the world and kill millions of people, you'd have been accused of "dissent based on ignorance" too.

Scientists are just as prone to bias and perverse incentives as everybody else. They should be doubted like every other walk of life.

Scientists may be prone to bias (in all manner of directions), but science itself is not some monolithic “thing” or “viewpoint,” it is already an inherently adversarial process. That’s like, the entire point of the scientific method and competition in publishing, to play ideas and people against each other and to encourage looking at what we think we know and seeing if it’s accurate. Scientific publishing already contains lots of incentive for “dissent,” to question past results and come out with more accurate, (and juicer), results over time.

The difference is that that adversarial process already occurs between people who are actually fucking qualified, not random people on the street who think they know better on a topic they don’t actually know anything about. Which is, you know, logical.

Dakini wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:If you said in late 2019 that the World Health Organization was downplaying the contagiousness of a new disease that was about to spread around the world and kill millions of people, you'd have been accused of "dissent based on ignorance" too.

Scientists are just as prone to bias and perverse incentives as everybody else. They should be doubted like every other walk of life.

There's a difference between the WHO working with incomplete information (because there wasn't enough information on this new emerging disease in late 2019) and later correcting themselves and being an anti-vaxxer in the face of all evidence.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Dakini wrote:There's a difference between the WHO working with incomplete information (because there wasn't enough information on this new emerging disease in late 2019) and later correcting themselves and being an anti-vaxxer in the face of all evidence.

And yet, people who operated on "well, this wouldn't be the first time the Chinese wildlife trade created an international disease epidemic the World Health Organization failed to warn us about in adequate time" reasoning turned out to be onto something people operating on the World Health Organization's reasoning did not.

Heloin wrote:

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:And yet, people who operated on "well, this wouldn't be the first time the Chinese wildlife trade created an international disease epidemic the World Health Organization failed to warn us about in adequate time" reasoning turned out to be onto something people operating on the World Health Organization's reasoning did not.

A broken clock can be right sometimes. Still makes the clock broken as hell.

GuessTheAltAccount wrote:

Heloin wrote:A broken clock can be right sometimes. Still makes the clock broken as hell.

Based on what, though? "The scientists' methods are right because they're right"? Or is it another one of those "because they said so" sort of things?

In theory, science is about putting ideas to the test, no? Both "hmm, let's see, this new disease is supposedly emerging from wildlife trade according to the same country downplaying it; which is plausible for now because of how fucked up that country's wildlife trade is; while the WHO is also somewhat downplaying it; gee I wonder what else these situations could have in common" reasoning and the WHO's reasoning that failed this time and before this time were put to the test. Need I remind you which one came out on top?