Depending on your perspective — Isaac

Words have a meaning.

Oh and the articles I presented are not about knee-jerk reactions on twitter and the press. They are about actual scientific debate... but you'd have to have actually read them to find that out, and that seems too much to ask here. — Isaac

Actually I have read them. And they are not about 'actual scientific debate', most of the times. They are about:

Such division is especially evident in non-academic routes of communication such as declarations, letters, petitions, and personal views. Many of the worst examples are occurring in public forums.
-- from: Society deserves academic discourse that is civil, cool, unbiased, and objective

When scientists sign down grand declarations about what an appropriate response to covid-19 should be, they act politically, they enter the political arena. In doing so, they automatically expose themselves to the kind of fight that happens in political arenas.

All the 3 articles express concerns for the possible erosion of public trust in scientists and healthcare professionals. I seriously doubt you share this concern, when you declares urbi et orbi that one cannot trust the academia...

Indeed, it's rhetoric. But it is a type of rhetoric that undermines public trust in science.

Even a polemist such as yourself should keep a sense of proportion. To say that there are knee-jerk reactions on twitter or in the press about certain opinions published by scientists, is quite different from saying: "sadly, there are few scientists left".

Sure, progressivism is dead 'cause COVID killed it. Democracy too... Give me a break. All he is saying is: Prasad's capacity for nuance and reasonable discourse is dead, COVID killed it.

In any case, he does not conform to your standard of "suitably qualified experts in the appropriate field who have no discoverable conflict of interest or pre-existing bias". He's an oncologist and writes about this from a political perspective, one oddly close to the "Fauci is Mengele" MAGA perspective.

Check the people you spread the word of, before you spread their word.

Sadly, there are few scientists left.

This kind of talk being a clear red flag for wackos, I looked Mr Prasad up. His blog is poorly written, full of platitudes, and, yeah, paranoid.

How Democracy Ends
COVID19 policy shows a (potential) path to the end of America
Vinay Prasad, Oct 2

Progressivism is Dead
COVID19 killed it
Vinay Prasad, Sep 29

And he is not unbiased at all. He seems to be transitioning to the extreme right.

...

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Lest the azure sky turn to mauve
To think of, or move on to something else
Would be better...

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Think that there is, over the rainbow
Always higher the sun above
Radiant...

To believe in heavens, to believe in the gods
Even when everything seems odious
When our hearts are set on fire and blood

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Like a little mouse in the corner of an alcove
See the tip of its pink tail
Its feverish eyes...

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Think that there is, over the rainbow
Always higher the sun above
Radiant...

To believe in heavens, to believe in the gods
Even when everything seems odious
When our hearts are set on fire and blood

Fleeing happiness lest it run away
Sometimes wanting to scream "save yourself!"
Who can go to the bottom of things
Is unhappy...

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Think that there is, over the rainbow
Always higher the sun above
Radiant...

To believe in heavens, to believe in the gods
Even when everything seems odious
When our hearts are set on fire and blood

Flee from happiness lest it run away
Tell me you still love me, if you dare
I wish you'd find something else
Something better...

Thx, good to see I'm not alone. :-)

I must say, that looks promising. It would fit well with our intuitive sense of thought as fluid and flickering.

And you think this is the appropriate tone to use in conversations here? — baker

Enlighten me. What tone is appropriate to use in conversations here? Respectful? Diplomatic? Analytic?

I am not speculating. Your obsession about pharma is evidently clouding your judgement and making you agitated and irrational. Don't blame the messenger. Calm down, relax and enjoy life. Everything's gona be alright.

then perhaps hold back on the accusations of mental illness. — Isaac

You should not take it as an accusation, I'm rather trying to alert you about it. Your mind is not totally gone yet I think. You can still pull it together if you try. It's also a way to flag to other posters that there might be some mental toxicity involved there, in case they haven't noticed already.

Well, so sorry I didn't manage to convince you then.

Paranoids are very hard to convince of their own paranoia, as you must know. In fact it is most of times impossible to do so.

It's pointless to try to openly discuss a person's interests when the fulfillment of those very interests is at stake — baker

My point is rather that when you see some 'scientist' doubting climate change, remember that he could well be entirely paid for by some fossil fuel group or another. So we have a moral responsibility not to be a sucker, and not to relay their lies.

That is not true. You genuinely could not understand at first the very simple idea of rewarding pharmaceuticals for their good work on vaccines. And that's because in your mind they are inherently evil.

The interests remain and it remains that people protect them. — baker

So if someone wants to con you a few grands, you're okay with that because he defends his interests?

No, that's another issue. My question is: why did the idea seem so counterintuitive to you at first? Why did you initially (and during many posts) reject this very simple idea, that even the pharmaceuticals need incentives to do the right thing?

People will say all kinds of things to protect their interests. That doesn't make it okay, but it is what people do and should be taken in consideration as such. — baker

Rather, it should be discarded as such.

Or you poor snowflake. You wanted to share your worst fears and darkest antisocial pessimism in the midst of a crisis, and people called you a coward or an enemy. Go figure!

Disinformation by the fossil fuel industry.

If we make use of their vaccines, we have to pay them for it, thus rewarding the good work done and incentivizing the future production of safe and effective vaccines. That's agreed then?
— Olivier5

Yes. So... — Isaac

So what was so hard to understand then? What were all these "WTF" and other expressions of disbelief for, in the past dozen posts since I introduced this now seemingly agreeable idea? Why did it take you so much time to get your head around it?

Blaming "artificial doubt and manufactured disagreement" is just a convenient distraction. — baker

Yeah? You think they did all this disinformation because it was not working?

Vaccination might help a bit, but I don't place faith in it. I certainly don't have the kind of enthusiastic, confident, optimistic attitude toward it the way some vocal proponents of vaccination expect me to have.
This is a major point of disagreement between myself and them. — baker

A minor disagreement, when you think of it.

where have I suggested we shouldn't make use of the vaccine? — Isaac

If we make use of their vaccines, we have to pay them for it, thus rewarding the good work done and incentivizing the future production of safe and effective vaccines. That's agreed then?

Si you got your two shots, huh? Any plan for a booster?

We're not discussing economic strategy here. We're discussing your dismissal of alternative perspectives as paranoid and crazy. — Isaac

I am saying that not using an effective vaccine would be irrational, counterproductive and perverse both in long term and short term.

Well, I didn't exactly say that. To be fair I said that this was a pragmatic, balanced, time-honored and generally effective strategy. I didn't say that anyone rejecting it is crazy, but simply that this would be the most rational, balanced and effective manner to move forward in a non-essentialist manner. I also predicted that you would struggle with the idea, because you have an essentialist view in which the pharmaceuticals can do noting right.

So anyone who disagrees that pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for making [safe, effective] vaccines (a type of product they actually chose to make anyway) by purchasing their vaccines, is absolutist and essentialist and therefore paranoid. — Isaac

Yes. Good summary.

Since the vaccines are effective, it is in our short-term interest to buy them anyway. Long-term, it incentivizes pharmaceutical to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future.

If on the other hand we say: "these people are inherently evil, hence we should not buy their safe and effective vaccines, or only buy as few of them as we possibly can", we shoot ourselves in the foot by depriving ourselves of these effective and safe vaccines, and by giving pharmaceuticals no incentives to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future. So this would be perverse.

I can't put it in simpler words.

Possibly. So how do you get from there to 'anyone who disagrees with this strategy must be suffering from some mental illness'? — Isaac

Because the carrot and stick strategy is balanced, effective and just, while using only the stick is imbalanced and has perverse effects. Your incapacity to understand this very simple point of pragmatic thinking stems from a dark place: the will to punish someone seen as inherently evil.

It is sinister.

I never said any such thing. I said they should be rewarded for doing the right thing. There's an important difference between doing the right thing and not doing wrong things, no?

Nope.

Let me take an example that an ex-behaviorist can understand.

Imagine you have a donkey -- let's call it Buridan -- and Buridan doesn't want to move while you want him to come with you to the market. You can do a number of things, among which hitting it with a stick (on his rear end), showing off a delicious carrot (on his front end) or a combination of the two.

The combination of the carrot and stick, of an incentive at one end + a disincentive at the other end, is generally more effective (provides a stronger cumulative incentive) in producing from Buridan the desired behavior than just using one technique without the other.

It works also for human beings, but more metaphorically (most people are not that into actual carrots) and this, my friend, is the essence of the so-called "carrot and stick approach" to management.

It is hard to understand from your standpoint, I guess. That would be because you see these folks as inherently evil and thus the only righteous action is to punish, punish, and punish them some more...

When they do the right thing, yes. Carrot and stick.

Do you 'encourage' people not to commit crimes by rewarding them when they don't? — Isaac

Nope, you encourage them to do the right thing.

Just to be clear, a non-absolutist (ie relativist) and non-essentialist (ie pragmatic, result-oriented) view of dishonest behaviors within pharmaceuticals would be to say something like this: "pharmaceuticals can do bad things (eg lobby for a dangerous drug) and good things (eg develop safe and effective vaccines). We should try and discourage them to do the former by using the law to its fullest extent against them when they do bad things, and also encourage them to do the latter, by purchasing their vaccines when they are safe and effective.

You will have recognized the time-honored stick and carrot approach, an excellent way to get incremental progress over time.

Because of its essentialist and absolutist angles. In reality, nobody is perfect. We are all sinners. That company X or Y has done something in the past or even many bad things isn't reason enough to not use their products when they are safe and effective. You know one computer or cellphone maker that hasn't been sued? One car maker that never did anything shoddy? Should we express blanket mistrust for all car and cellphone makers and stop using cars and cellphones?

You could have asked that question to @Wayfarer who called it "unbearably sinister". That's better phrased than "creepy and paranoid" but the meaning ain't that different...

It's creepy and paranoid alright.