alt Hacker NewsThe subversion of scientific expertise to replace it with podcasters and political sycophants is one of the biggest disasters of the current years.
The very concept of merit has been destroyed and replaced with judgement calls on celebrity (necessary for leadership role) and subservience to the political whims of the last 15 minutes (and you had better switch in the next 15 minutes or you're out).
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Really reminds me of the Russia leadership portrayals in Chernobyl.
One thing that's particularly frustrating about all this is that any conversation with the growing contingency of distrustful people has been made very difficult by what I would call poor, avoidable, and illiberal decisions made by the federal government during COVID. (TBF, decisions during a crisis are always hard.)
Lab leak theory was dismissed and actively suppressed. Inflated claims were made a priori about absolute vaccine efficacy that any responsible researcher who have not made.
Moreover, the trouble with trying to shut down real disinformation, eg claims that vaccines were more dangerous than the virus, is that many people will view any sort of paternalistic behavior by the government, especially around speech, with suspicion. ("Why do they care so much about what I say? They must be hiding something")
In the age of social media, I think the study of public health needs to consider more seriously the effects of viral psychology. The irrationality and stubbornness of people needs to be expected when planning public policy.
> The subversion of scientific expertise to replace it with podcasters and political sycophants
> The very concept of merit has been destroyed ...
It's the subversion of truth. I think that way of saying it is more accurate, addresses the consequences, and is less occluded by jargon: People care about truth; 'scientific expertise' may seem esoteric to most people.
I think HN is frequently part of that process: Merit - expertise, actual trials and evidence - is replaced both by sensational too-clever hot takes / takedowns, and by political/social advocacy.
Most threads begin with a takedown, a 2 minute drive-by from an amatuer, often of years of research by someone spending their life studying the matter. For some issues, we all know what side many will take before you know any facts or evidence.
These comments are normalized and given greater credibility than the OP and than valuable comments. How is that any different than the things we criticize (other than the FDA's subversion of truth [EDIT:] is far more consequential [sorry, I didn't finish that sentence!])
There are valuable comments to be found; maybe that's one difference, but I'm wonder how the signal-to-noise compares with other forums.
(i must preface that this block was 100% trying to extract payment, like it was documented some coubtries did even during covid, but)
even the lead researcher of mrna vaccines before covid said she would not consider mrna vaccines safes outside of the covid emergency. and this study focus on effectiveness, not side effects.
so while turning away from science for politics is as bad as pushing it irresponsible for commercialization.
“Scientific expertise” was already sold out to politics as we saw during covid. The further degradation to podcast bros is the cherry on top.
It is not a disaster. It is a part of carefully orchestrated attack on Western democracies by enemy states.