zlacker

>>themgt+(OP)
> One CDC scientist told us about her shame and frustration about what happened to American children during the pandemic: “CDC failed to balance the risks of Covid with other risks that come from closing schools,” she said. “Learning loss, mental health exacerbations were obvious early on and those worsened as the guidance insisted on keeping schools virtual. CDC guidance worsened racial equity for generations to come. It failed this generation of children.”

>>theand+q3
The worst part of the pandemic beside policies that would swing back and forth (which is kind of understandable if you're learning as you go) was the inability to have discussions about the pros and cons of shutdowns and other pandemic related policies.

Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning.

The only people they allowed to be wrong about the pandemic were govt officials. They could get it wrong and right it as many times as necessary.

>>mc32+wR
> Social media and mainstream media saw it fit to censor dissenting voices --not those of quacks, we can mostly all agree on minimizing the voices of quacks but shutting down medical professionals and medical academics and so on is very concerning.

No I don't agree with censoring _any_ voices - precisely because of this issue. The decentralized market of ideas will address the "quacks" in the room, as I don't trust any central authority to do that for me.

If a centralized authority wields power in a way that creates negative consequences, you don't give them _more_ power, or just hope that they'll do the right thing.

>>s3r3ni+IU
> The decentralized market of ideas will address the "quacks" in the room, as I don't trust any central authority to do that for me.

It'll magically take care of itself? Based on what evidence?

>>majorm+qV
Based on all of recorded history.

For example, we didn't need the Vatican, a king, or some other central committee to tell us that the sun was the center of our solar system - eventually the data and market of ideas exposed the best & correct ideas.

The best disinfectant for bad ideas is more sunlight - not coverups.

>>s3r3ni+jX
It feels different now, as if the quacks have voice-amplifying tools they didn't have hundreds of years ago.

Tools that have been painstakingly engineered to exploit bugs in the human brain's OS.

>>Camper+1Z
People said the same thing when they invented the printing press and the radio and pretty much any other time it suddenly became easier for people to get their message out.

On the whole I tend to view it as a good thing overall rather than a negative.

>>buscoq+cc1
I agree, but still... it feels different this time, somehow.

Maybe because few people had the means to shout everyone else down in the past. When everybody has a printing press or a radio station, it turns out that the noise floor gets really high. Everybody spends more time writing and talking, and less time reading and listening.

We're finding that the ability to boost your signal above the noise floor isn't even vaguely correlated to the merits of the message, the way overcoming resistance from editorial gatekeepers was in earlier times. Freedom of the press used to be the exclusive preserve of those who owned one, and that wasn't right, but now it goes to whoever yells the loudest, and I'm not convinced that's going to work out better for us all in the long run.

Sure hope it does, but early signs aren't inspiring.