@ducheng
It's particularly insideous because I can no longer trust Fediverse applications to provide a neutral social media network. The application authors feel entitled to "speak for me" through their software, whilst using my platform's voice. Completely dishonest.

If the banner said "don't kill kittens", it would still be dishonest, because it would imply to users that the server admin actively holds that believe. Forwarding a statement from WHO implies I read it enough to know, understand, and believe it is good advice.

I will review what WHO has to say, when I want, and I'll post an announcement if I deem it necessary on *my* platform. I trust you to write code, not editorial stances.

And banners are bloody annoying.

@NEETzsche @ducheng @torresjrjr looks like Pixelfed allows admins to set their own covid disclaimer to whatever they want, it doesn't have to be WHO page

@mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr This code has been around since June 28 when it was committed: https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/commit/f2fb64ecd4b76a3c3ab406e40baca8947eb41ec2

See lines 64 to 74. The message is hardcoded into pixelfed.

@NEETzsche @ducheng @torresjrjr the message itself is hardcoded, but it doesn't have to link to WHO.

@mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr Sure, but this kind of hardcoding really doesn’t bode well for pixelfed in the long run. It would be like hardcoding 9/11 shit into a codebase in 2003

Follow

@NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng
I had voice my concern ages ago.

qoto.org/@torresjrjr/105640058

I also remember writing a draft reply to a toot he promptly deleted, though I can't remember what he said, nor prove that that happened.

@torresjrjr

I'd be against this as well, but being optional I would personally give it a pass from a "do i want to host this software" standpoint.

@NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng curious that they would combat misinformation by linking to the world leading purveyors of misinformation :agummyparty:

@icedquinn

I wouldnt go quite that far, but yea WHO has leaned towards addressing public confidence as a priority over factual unbias information, particularly sugar coating their language and presentation of data in an effort to not have the general public loose confidence in vaccines. So yea... I dont really trust them as a great source.

@NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr

@freemo @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng
I'm sad to hear that. I would have wanted my fedi admin to have stronger convictions against slippery slopes like this. Surely do I have to go through the laundry list of "optional" things that have enable the "embrace, extend, and extinguish" of many of our beloved libre technologies?

@torresjrjr

I mean, its not like the **user** needs to go through anything. A server admin is expected to configure the server when it is first deployed. I would hope a responsible admin would turn this off. What is or isnot default in the configuration process for the admin, a one-time thing that doesnt effect the users, is not a huge issue for me.

I have strong enough convictions to turn off the feature should I run such a server. That should be good enough for you as a user (as it doesnt effect you).. if not, so be it.

@NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

Would you give the same attitude to a default installation of OpenSSH preconfigured to, say, enable login to root?

I would further hope a reasonable OpenSSH developer would not enable that in the first place. Software is an inherently collaborative endeavour, which requires trust across many domains.

@torresjrjr

Yea I have no problem with that being the default so long as I can configure to change it. I might think its a poor choice of a default (as I do in this case), but I wouldnt start a fuss over it or particularly care, I just turn it off.

@NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

I just visited the WHO site and right now, Dec. 11, 2021, it recommends that people "Keep physical distance of at least 1 metre from others..." to prevent COVID-19 transmission. For a disease that is airborne and nearly as contagious as the measles, and they're telling people that staying one meter away is going to help?

They are responsible for more deaths than those wacko anti-vaxer/antimaskers because people actually believe what WHO says, especially when sites put up official-looking messages that give then cred.

@Pat

Do you feel people shouldn't keep distance or that the distance should be larger?

@torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

You shouldn't be in the same room as others without a properly worn respirator. You shouldn't go into a room that others have recently been in.

It's an airborne disease. That means if anyone else within temporal/spacial proximity were smoking and you could smell the smoke, you're too close (in time or space).

Although smell is a parts-per-billion sensor and likely can detect levels that would not result in viral inoculation, it's a simple way to explain to people how cautious they should be if they don't want to get infected.

@Pat

Fair.

Though to be clear airborne diseases arent o literally airborne. That is the virus only persists in droplets. So smoke is going to carry way more than the virus would.

@torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

>"Though to be clear airborne diseases arent o literally airborne. That is the virus only persists in droplets. So smoke is going to carry way more than the virus would."

It's not the particle size with the smoke/virus comparison. Airborne COVID-19 can be in particles nearly as small the virus itself, <200nm. Anything below 1um is going to hang around in the air a long time. The difference between smoke and virus is that smoke particles can continue to cause sensors in the nose to detect them for days or even weeks, whereas a virus will die usually within hours. The virus dies before their particles settle.

But particles containing virus can spread throughout an entire room within a few minutes while the virus is still viable.

@Pat

The maller the droplet size the shorter it can persist since it will dry out faster. larger droplets fall out of the air quicker and also dont persist. Smoke will persist much longer in terms of smell as they are smaller, dont dry out, and most importantly are ionized.

@torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@Pat

To put it in perspective, according to studies normal breathing produces virtually no aerosol and no risk (unlike smoke). Which that alone should give you a good idea why airborne doesnt really mean airborne in the usual sense you think of.

@torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

There's a lot more to it.

Every breath contains sub-mircon particles. Smaller particles also tend to come from deeper in the respiratory tract, which is where more COVID-19 virus is in an infected person. Also, smaller particles are more likely to infect a person deeper in their respiratory tract when they breath them in. (which is bad)

Re particle size, larger particles can partially evaporate after leaving the mouth/nose before they come in contact with a surface and then become airborne, even though they leave the mouth/nose as "droplets" (>1um). This is why cloth masks are partially effective (20-30%), because they stop some of the larger droplets, but sub-micron particles flow right through a cloth mask or a surgical mask.

But a respirator can stop sub-micron particles using electrostatic filtering and prevent virtually all particles containing virus from entering the wearer's respiratory system (when properly worn).

@Pat

sub micron particles are considered aeresol. They arent really produced in any detectable quantity with normal breathing, though they arent non existant. However unless its humid out they are going to evaporate super fast as well.

The point here is that airborne isnt airborne in the same sense as smoke.

@torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng

@Pat @freemo @torresjrjr @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng those categories basically exist as part of anti-discourse shaming psy-ops.

masks have always been exceptionally situational and a lot of the 'science' behind them has been proxied off influenza or garbage (ex. a hospital claiming they did a study that showed they worked, but the study had no control group, but because their outcome matched the WHO narrative all the flaws were handwaved)

most people don't even clean them which means they're just giving each other pneumonia.
@icedquinn That they'll handwave critiques of bad science for the narrative shows that it's totally reasonable to handwave "the science" itself. Academic scientific journals are now just opinion columns.

@mkljczk @Pat @ducheng @freemo @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche

Depends on the journal. There are many great journals, some stink. Journals arent about validating conclusions, they just make sure the data and quotes and citations are all valid. Its up to the scientist reading it to evaluate the weight of the study itself based on the content. The journal just assures the reader that there arent bald face lies.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo Yeah but how does one know which ones are robust and which ones are trash? You can’t. Not really. Especially not without reading the content first and not just the abstract. So in the end, most people, including most smart people, make it an issue of trust. In the last decade or so, reason after reason to distrust academia has emerged.

Interesting that starting in 2020, the most extreme demand for trust blasted forth: not only are you required to trust, but you aren’t allowed to question without the right credentials. Comply or lose your job, get ostracized from your friends and family, and basically just see a game over screen. They did this to people with plenty of reason to distrust, and who had guns.

This is a powder keg.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche

You are right, you need to read the content and understand it and be trained as a scientist to understand it.

Reading abstracts or otherwise being untrained wont help you. Thats my point, the journals are fine, they arent trash, neither are the studies. What is trash is how those studies are abused and misrepresented to sell an agenda.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo The issue isn't that these journals are written for a certain audience -- academic scientists, basically -- the issue is that people are having the expectation that they trust a body of institutions that are notoriously untrustworthy imposed upon them by pain of the destruction of their lives.

Even assuming that these academics are all pure of heart, the expectation that you have to either get a doctorate in virology or have no real say what public policy is ultimately going to be is abusively technocratic. When you take on board the reality that academic journals and universities have a long history of being bribed into just conveniently arriving at the "correct" conclusions or having those conclusions guided by ideology even in cases where money isn't involved, and you combine it with government/corporate policy being based directly on those conclusions, you get outright tyranny. You get Stalin shit.

The fundamental issue of distrust, and the issue of that distrust being completely reasonable, is a bit of context that can't be sidestepped with an appeal to theory land. That's why these conversations getting into the weeds about the size of the virus vs the size of the mask holes, or transmissibility of different variants, etc, are a waste of time; because anybody has intellectual and moral license to just casually blow off any of these details as dubious. From an epistemological perspective, the response to COVID-19 has poisoned the well on academic science for years to come, and shouting "ANTI-VAXXER! BLAGGGHHH!" or just carrying on with these in-the-weeds debates like they mean something won't do anything but exacerbate it.

Academic science has been reduced to the same epistemological weight as an opinion column in a tabloid.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche

> the issue is that people are having the expectation that they trust a body of institutions that are notoriously untrustworthy imposed upon them by pain of the destruction of their lives.

Yea largely not true. The academic institutions arent untrustworthy, its the people (media and general public) misinterpreting the studies that is the issue. Everytime someone goes on about this shit and how untrustworthy they are every time its just them completely misunderstanding the material or its purpose.

Its easy to think science is failing when you cant even understand science to begin with.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo I have a formal science background. Universities are extremely tainted by money and ideology. Spare everybody this crap about how trustworthy they are.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche

After your last multi-day tantrum I really dont put much stock in your ability to objectively evaluate much of anything.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo Glad to hear you're going to be taking my seriously then, in the interest of being correct for once.

@icedquinn @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr
@NEETzsche @icedquinn @mkljczk @Pat @ducheng @freemo @torresjrjr
>academic journals and unis have a long history of being bribed
Do you have an example?

@Hyolobrika

I suspect if he actually means anything legitimate (he has a history of talking nonsense) he is probably thinking of cases where scientist were paid to publish knowingly bad science. An example being that scientist who created the whole vaccines cause autism nonsense.

That said the whole implication that it is commonplace is of course complete nonsense.

@icedquinn @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo incidentally VICP has formally ruled that they do.

its because adjuvants can cause an autoimmune response which in turn attacks the brain.

@Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@icedquinn

Oh you dont mean a study shows it causes it, only that an individual happened to get some sort of brain damage indirectly where a vaccine was implicated. Thats a bit different and not in line with the origina claim.

@Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo @icedquinn @Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr

>"don't have the case number on hand. they paid damages though."

I see. A jury of their peers said so.

That's what they mean by "peer reviewed " -- 12 randomly selected people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

@Pat >That’s what they mean by “peer reviewed “ – 12 randomly selected people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

Reminds me of academia. It’s a handful of people who weren’t smart enough to make it in the private sector.

@freemo @icedquinn @Hyolobrika @mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr

@gentooman

Not my experience at all. I routinely try to hire experts from academia who have dont impressive work. More often then not they refuse because they arent in it for the money.

@icedquinn @Hyolobrika @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

Show newer
@Pat @freemo @Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @torresjrjr there is no jury in a VICP trial. Its a cabinet of vaccine advocates who try to find any excuse your claim doesn't fit within the narrow rubrick of allowed claims.

Juries used to find the companies liable so they had their own custom court made.
@icedquinn @freemo @Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @Pat @ducheng @mkljczk @torresjrjr Freemo claims any studies that find autism are junk, and then ask for studies showing vaccines can cause autism. Why even waste your time with a guy whose logic circuits were obviously destroyed by vaccination?

@duke

Me and my nearly 20K followers would suggest otherwise... but hey im sure those 10 followers of yours wait to hear what you have to say with baited breath.

@icedquinn @Hyolobrika @NEETzsche @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche

Awww how cute, you think you are an adult now... Have fun you two playing make believe.

@icedquinn @Hyolobrika @duke @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@freemo You said that, and I’m quoting, “blocking people and exiting the conversation simply means you have no value to bring and that their time is better spent elsewhere.” @duke blocked you. Therefore, you have no value to bring and that his time is better spent elsewhere. Basically, you’re wrong.

So.

You lost this argument, per your own standards. That’s decided. Would you like to retract this claim and issue an apology so that it can’t be used to summarily dismiss your positions in future conversations with prejudice?

@icedquinn @Hyolobrika @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

@NEETzsche
Having no value to bring is not the same as being wrong. I admit, and dont particularly care, that he perceives me as having no value. To him.
@icedquinn @duke @mkljczk @ducheng @Pat @torresjrjr

Show newer
Sign in to participate in the conversation
Qoto Mastodon

QOTO: Question Others to Teach Ourselves
An inclusive, Academic Freedom, instance
All cultures welcome.
Hate speech and harassment strictly forbidden.