You're confusing what you can infer from a claim with what a claim means. — InPitzotl

No, I'm arguing that what we can infer from a claim and what it means are intrinsically linked. The argument is to say that if they meant different things, then from where would a claim derive its 'meaning' if not from that which a language community can infer from its use?

You're way too focused on beliefs. — InPitzotl

Too focused for what? For you? For Philosophy? For my mental health? I definitely am focused on beliefs, I make a career out of it, but too focused? Hell, my wife might agree given the breadth of dinner table conversation, but I'm not sue I understand what you could mean by it here.

It's about what you would see if you look outside — InPitzotl

How can it be? If I say "It's raining" when it isn't then what you would see when you look outside is {a lack of rain} so the expression "it's raining" is about {a lack of rain}? It doesn't seem to be.

I don't see what's stopping us from looking out windows. — InPitzotl

So once we've looked out of the window it definitely is raining? Ascertained to be an independent fact. If, rather, it turns out to be someone with a hose standing on the roof, then what? Is it post hoc relegated to a belief again? Do we have to go back in time and change what everything was about?

There's a difference between saying "a bachelor is an unmarried man because the language community uses the term 'bachelor' to refer to people they believe to be unmarried men" and saying "John is a bachelor because the language community believes that John is an unmarried man."

The former is true, the latter is not. The language community can be wrong about John. — Michael

I said there is nothing more to the 'meaning' of bachelor than it's felicitous use and you respond by saying the language community can be wrong about things. I don't see how the two are linked at all, you'll have to connect them up for me.

And in the same vein, there's a difference between saying "things that are known are true and justified because the language community uses the term 'known' to refer to things they believe to be true and justified" and saying "X is known because the language community believes that X is true and justified."

Not following this at all, they seem to be on two different topics. How does this relate to what it means to say "I know X"?
— Michael

What does "x" mean in this context?

To make it simpler, let's say that sometimes "I know that it is raining!" means "shut up, stop reminding me that it is raining!" and that sometimes it means "I believe that it is raining."

What do the emphasized parts mean? Do all three emphasized parts mean the same thing? — Michael

Parts of a sentence don't have independent meanings, that's why we construct sentences, otherwise what does "that it" mean in all those sentences, what does "up" mean in the second...

I don't think most victims are overweight or suffer from diseases they chose to have — frank

Most victims are people who refused to get a simple vaccine that would keep them safe. — EricH

Oh yes, I forgot to mention... I'm not interested in the opinions of any "crazed conspiracy theorists" who disagree with me about the health status of most victims.

Can you give me an example of harmful schadenfreude? — EricH

Yes. Thinking that thousands of people who died somehow deserved it because they had a different political outlook to you. If you can't see the harm that does to your moral virtue and the potential harm that being that kind of shockingly naive bigot could bring about then I doubt my pointing it out at this stage would be any more than throwing stones at a tank.

We are quite capable of asserting things that we don't believe. — Michael

Of course. The same sentence means different things in different contexts. Sometimes "I know x!" means "shut up, stop reminding me that x!"

John is not a bachelor even though the language community believes that John is an unmarried man. — Michael

That's the matter in question, so asserting it isn't an argument in favour of it.

You said:

There's nothing more to John being a bachelor than my felicitously using the term 'bachelor'. — Isaac


This is false. — Michael

I was referring to the meaning of the word 'bachelor'. It has no meaning beyond that which it is felicitously used for.

Your speech act may imply that you believe that it is raining, and my speech act may imply that I believe that it is raining, but the shared proposition isn't "Michael believes that it is raining" (which is true iff I believe that it is raining) or "Issac believes that it is raining" (which is true iff you believe that it is raining) but is "it is raining" (which is true iff it is raining).

So despite your continued assertion, the emphasized part of "I believe that it is raining" doesn't mean the same thing as "I believe that it is raining." There's no infinite recursion going on here. The proposition "it is raining" refers to the weather, — Michael

All of this is just re-asserting the position you started out with. Why is it the case that...?

Joe will not say: "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong", because that statement is a contradiction. The reason that statement is a contradiction is because Joe recognizes that "to know x" requires x to actually be the case. If "to know x" only required x to be believed, there would be no problem with Joe saying "I knew John was a bachelor yesterday, but I was wrong." — InPitzotl

An expression like "it's raining" can be used without the prefix " I think...", or "I believe", because it's part of the language game of making claims that it's taken as given. In the past one can reflect on the comparison between what one believed at the time and what one believes now, so a need for some prefix is required to distinguish which it is one means to claim.

Either that or this ludicrous situation where a word refers to something we can't ever ascertain... The former sounds simpler to me, but to each their own...

I don't believe that experiencing schadenfreude is a sign of mental illness - provided you acknowledge it. — EricH

Ah, so "most victims are anti-vax Trump supporters and brought it on themselves" is just harmless schadenfreude

How about "most victims are overweight, or suffer from similarly lifestyle inflicted comorbidities, so brought it on themselves"?

Similarly healthy bit of schadenfreude?

They all (incorrectly) believe that John is a bachelor. I correct them to inform them that John is in fact a married woman. They thank me for correcting them. — Michael

At which point it's no longer true that your entire language community believes John is a bachelor.

This is contrary to your earlier claim that John is a bachelor iff the language community believes that John is a man and the language community believes that John is unmarried. — Michael

You asked about the interpretation of a claim and I answered...

I'd interpret the claim as...

John is a bachelor iff:

1) My language community generally believe that John is a man, and
2) My language community generally believe believe that John is unmarried — Isaac

As I've said, quite a few times now, I'm not making any claims at all about what's actually the case, only about what claims that something is the case mean, claims such as "John knows x".

There's two issues. The first is about language and refers your second question.

Are you going to continue to say that John, who is in fact a married woman, is a bachelor iff the language community incorrectly believes that John is an unmarried man? — Michael

To whom are you going to say it? In what context? Your entire language community, every single speaker believes John is a bachelor. So to whom are you going to use a sentence in which you use the term "John is a wife"?

The second is about what it means for something to be treated as being the case.

John is a bachelor iff John is a man and John is unmarried. Whether or not John is a bachelor has nothing to do with what anyone believes about John's sex/gender or marital status; whether or not John is a bachelor depends on what the facts are. — Michael

To say 'x is a y' is to say something about what it is to be an y (at the least that x is one of the sorts of thing a y is). But what it is to be a y is determined by the community for whom a y is a thing. A y is not a thing outside of a community for whom it is a relevant aspect of their life.

So John is not a bachelor by virtue of properties of John alone. He's a bachelor by virtue of a relationship between properties of John and the role of those properties in the community for whom 'John', 'bachelor', 'wife', 'married', and 'man' mean anything at all.

The language community around you can incorrectly believe that I am not married when in fact I am and so incorrectly believe that I am a bachelor. — Michael

They can indeed. My claim wasn't about their correctness. My claim was about felicitous use.

The entire claim here has nothing to do with whether I or my entire community can or cannot be wrong about things.

The claim is about what "I know x" means.

"John knows X" doesn't mean "John and I believe X." — Michael

So far you've only asserted this, not argued for it. When people say "John knows x", they mean that John believes x and that they (and their community) would agree with him. It means that because that's the set of circumstances under which it's used (mostly).

If you're arguing that it 'really' means something else you need to present some criteria by which we're judging what expressions 'really' mean. Otherwise I might just say it 'really' means that John has a hat on, and you have no ground to tell me I'm wrong.

When the entire language community claimed that the Sun revolved around the Earth, they didn't mean something else by "the Sun revolved around the Earth." They meant exactly what we mean now; they were just wrong. — Michael

See above. The example was about felicitous use, not rightness or wrongness.

The correct definition is the one I gave:

John is a bachelor iff:

1) John is a man, and
2) John is unmarried — Michael

If the entire language community uses the term 'bachelor' of a person, but you use 'wife's, how are you going to make yourself understood? What more is there to the definition of a word than it's felicitous use?

Felicity here seems to be a matter of the spell you have cast, by speaking the word ‘bachelor’, coming off. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, and if everyone starts using 'bachelor' of John despite his obviously being a woman and married, then it's the meaning of the word 'bachelor that will have changed, not the truth of my statement.

Whether or not your use is felicitous does not depend on what you believe. — Michael

No. It depends on what the language community around me believes.

Your belief that John is a bachelor has no bearing on whether or not John is a bachelor. You can be wrong. John being a bachelor and you believing that John is a bachelor are two very different things, with very different truth conditions. — Michael

Agreed. I don't know how you've ended up thinking I don't believe I can be wrong.

I'm talking about what the expression "I know x" means. I'm claiming that it means something like "I believe x and most people in my language community would agree with me". I'm making this claim on the basis of the fact that this is how the expression is actually used.

You seem to be arguing that there's some special meaning of "I know x" which is not determined by the way it's used, but rather determined by some other criteria, but I've yet to get clear on what those criteria are.

There's nothing more to John being a bachelor than my felicitously using the term 'bachelor'. There's no God of languages checking the 'truly' correct use.

You want to interpret this as the claim that John is a bachelor iff:

1) I believe that John is a man, and
2) I believe that John is unmarried
— Michael

Not quite. I'd interpret the claim as...

John is a bachelor iff:

1) My language community generally believe that John is a man, and
2) My language community generally believe believe that John is unmarried

It's just about the correct use of the term 'Bachelor'

Given the proposition "I believe that it is raining", what does the part in bold mean? It doesn't mean the same thing as the entire quoted proposition; "I believe that it is raining" doesn't mean "I believe that I believe that it is raining." — Michael

I think it does. I'm deflationary about truth. "It's raining" and "I believe it's raining" are just two ways of saying the same thing. In many contexts, the former might indicate a higher level of certainty.

The proposition "I believe that it is raining" is a proposition about my belief — Michael

So the conversation...

"Will I need an umbrella?",
"Yes, I believe it's raining".

...makes no sense to you? What does my belief have to do with whether you'll need an umbrella? What's relevant is that my belief is a belief about the world, the same world you inhabit, the one in which you'll need an umbrella if it's raining.

If I say "I believe it's raining" I'm not talking about my mind, I'm talking about the rain, but I'm willing to accept that there could be some niche contexts in which I might be talking about my mind. I don't see how that explains a supposed distinction between proportions and speech acts. They're just two different contexts in which "I believe it's raining" mean two slightly different things. they're still both speech acts.

I wouldn't say "John knows X if I believe that X is true." — Michael

Nor would I say "John knows X if X is true.". Both are just weird things to say.

As a speech act asserting that one knows X may be equivalent to asserting that one believes X, but as propositions "I believe X" is not equivalent to "I know X" — Michael

If propositions are not speech acts, then where are they used? Do we mime them? Communicate them through the means of interpretive dance?

It is important to understand (contrary to sime's claim above), that we don't interpret this as:

1) John believes that X is true,
2) John is justified in believing that X is true, and
3) I believe that X is true/John believes that X is true — Michael

How do we not (apart from just never using the expression "John knows that X is true"). The only distinction between me saying "John believes x is true (but it isn't)" and "John knows x is true" is my belief about whether x is true.

you seem to think that knowledge of X depends on first knowing that the third condition is satisfied, but that is not the case. Rather, knowledge of the third condition is entailed by the three conditions being satisfied (indeed; that's exactly the JTB definition). — Michael

Then the entire human race is misusing the word 'knowledge' (as they're using it in cases where they merely believe x is true)...or...your definition is wrong. Which is more parsimonious an explanation?

If you have justification that X is true, and if X is true, then you have ascertained that X is true. — Michael

So what I mean when I say 'I know x' is 'I believe x', 'I have justification for believing x' and 'x is an independent fact'?

What I mean when I say 'I believe x' is quite clear. What I mean when I say ' I have justification for believing x' is relatively clear.

What do I additionally mean by adding 'x is an independent fact'. That meaning is already covered by 'I believe x' and 'I have justification for believing x'.

If Jack said to you 'I believe x and I have good justification for believing x', then John said ''I believe x and I have good justification for believing x, and x is true', what is John communicating that Jack isn't?

it is an independent fact that — Michael

But since you cannot ascertain whether it is an independent fact that I had toast this morning (by your own admission), your claim 'l know you had toast this morning' is always, forever undeterminable. It it contingent on a fact that can never be established. So how is it any different from 'I believe you had toast this morning'? All it tells me, the act of communication, is that you believe I had toast this morning. It tells me nothing different to 'I believe you had toast this morning'.

I asked how you ascertain whether I had toast this morning and your answer requires that you first know whether I had toast this morning. Try answering again but without the contingency 'if you had toast this morning'. That is yet to be ascertained so cannot form part of our method for ascertaining.

Knowledge, according to JTB, requires more than just a justified belief; it requires that the justified belief is true. — Michael

Then the JTB account is clearly wrong because we use the term 'knowledge' all the time and yet can never ascertain that the beliefs therein are 'true' by means other than justifications.

How would you ascertain I had toast for breakfast, other than by your justifications for believing I had toast for breakfast?

I'm saying:

3) if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true — Michael

But...

if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true.

...unarguably.

So what's 'justified' doing?

Really? Then I strongly suggest you seek some professional psychological help. If you're seriously asking whether you should be pleased that thousands of people are dying, just because they happen to be of a different political persuasion...

I assumed it was a rhetorical device...

OK, so

1. if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true

2. if one has a justified true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true

You're saying that 1 is false, but 2 is just a tautology.

So the question of how one ascertains whether one's belief is true, other than by justificatory beliefs, seems to remain unanswered.

if one has a true belief then one has ascertained that one's belief is true.

The above is a meaningless tautology, yes?

So the only thing added is the justification.

Yet you say that it's not the justification which makes a belief true.

So a belief that's well justified is 'true'?

Then what purpose does 'true' serve in 'Justified True Belief', that is not satisfied by 'Justified Belief'?

The justification for a true belief is how the truth is ascertained. — Michael

Go on...

(this doesn't seem to be a complete answer to the question of how I ascertain that it's raining other than by survey of my beliefs)

If you disagree with my political stance and think I should become a Libertarian/Marxist/Buddhist? That's fine - but I will not respond — EricH

If you are a crazed conspiracy theorist and think that the data is faked? That's not fine - but I will not respond — EricH

Sums up how the thread has gone...

"I'll only respond to people who already agree with me"

If it is raining — Michael

How do you ascertain this other than by survey of your beliefs about whether it's raining?

Note the position of the quotation marks.

If 'I know it's raining' is taken to be a claim about both my mental state, and the world, then it can be false if I don't believe it's raining (whether or not it actually is), or it can be false if it's not actually raining (whether or not I believe it to be). But this latter state cannot ever be ascertained, it can only ever be assumed by survey of my (and other's) beliefs.

The point goes back to what you said earlier, which really is the crux here. If there is some 'strict sense' of an expression which is other than the actual sense in which it is used, then you need to first establish what the truthmakers are for this 'strict sense', otherwise I might just as well say that the meaning of "I know" in the 'strict sense' is "I have a hat on", and I'd be no less justified in such a claim.

"It is raining" doesn't mean the same thing as "I believe that it is raining". — Michael

That's not what I claimed though. I claimed "it's raining" means the same as 'I believe "it's raining" - note the location of the quotations, I've tried to clarify.

So the claim 'it's raining', at the end of the exploded JTB claim is the same as 'I believe "it's raining".

So...

'I know it's raining' is to mean...

'I believe it's raining' [my state of mind],...

'I'm justified in that belief' [a social claim that I could mount a generally acceptable argument],...

and 'it's raining' [a claim about the world].

But that means that the claim 'I know it's raining' contains the claim 'it's raining', which itself can never be anything more than the claim 'I believe it's raining', which is just the first part of the claim.

there's a difference in meaning between "it is raining" and "I believe that it is raining". The former is a statement about the weather, and is true if it is raining. The latter is a statement about my belief, and can be true even if it is not raining. — Michael

I agree. But 'I know' doesn't seem to be properly of either kind, using a JTB definition.

You say that 'I know it's raining' is different to 'I believe it's raining' (I can be wrong about the former but not the latter, the former being about the weather itself in some way).

So 'I know' still seems no less pointless this way around. His could...

'I know it's raining'

...differ from...

'it's raining'?

You're conflating the strict meaning of the sentence with its use in practice. — Michael

How do we determine what the 'strict meaning' of a sentence is outside of its use?

In the first case I'm saying that I believed my prior belief was justified and true, whereas in the second case I'm saying only that I had a belief. — Michael

So, if you ask 'where's the pub?' and I say 'I think it's at the end of the road', I'm implying that my belief is neither justified nor true?

If so, why on earth would I have said it?

1. I thought I knew that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist

The above statement can be true even if I don't know that aliens don't exist. The above statement is true if aliens don't exist and if in the past I thought that I knew that aliens exist. And, of course, the above statement is false if aliens exist. — Michael

Indeed. But that's not the question I asked. To use your example, how does...

1. I thought I knew that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist

...differ from...

1. I thought that aliens exist, but aliens don't exist

Take P1 to be 'I know the earth is flat'. We'd like to be able to say P2 'I thought I knew the earth is flat, but I was wrong, the earth is not flat'.

But P2 is contingent on knowing that the earth is not flat. Otherwise it's merely 'I thought I knew the earth is flat, but I think I was wrong, I think the earth is not flat'

So what's 'I know' doing in the expression?

How does...

'I thought I knew the earth was flat, but now I think I know it's not flat'

...differ from...

'I thought the earth was flat, now I think it's not flat'?

JTB seems to do away with 'know' meaning anything at all.

I think it's reasonable, yes. Ultimately inaccurate, but reasonable. — Xtrix

To be honest we could leave it there. I've no interest in convincing anyone of the rightness of my beliefs on this, but there may be some interest in exploring our differences further. It's not that I'm unconcerned about being wrong, only that I'm fortunate enough to be in a position to speak directly with experts in the field (through work and ex colleagues), so any concerns I have would be explored there, not on an internet forum. I don't doubt your mastery of the resources you've examined, it's just that's not the sort of conversation I'm interested in having here. That said, however...

it turns out we're in the same field. — Xtrix

...so I'd be interested in your insights from this perspective (being directly what I'm currently working on) and an alternative perspective is never wasted. Turns out psychologists agree about as often as philosophers (which is to say hardly at all). What would you expect to be the most significant long-term impacts on decision-making heuristics from this crisis? Do you think we'll see he unprecedented 'disillusionment' stage (Raphael - if you're not already familiar) of disaster recovery that some are predicting?

So let's restrict the argument only to companies or organizations that mandate vaccines (1) for individuals without acquired immunity and (2) without offering testing/precautions as an alternative. This seems to be the issue. — Xtrix

Agreed.

This then becomes an issue about (a) whether these alternatives, on their own (without vaccines), are as safe and effective at slowing the spread of the virus as (b) the vaccines are, either on their own or in combination with the masks/distancing/testing. — Xtrix

Here I disagree, and I think this is a shift we've seen in risk assessment rhetoric in public discourse with this crisis. We don't normally require that every lower risk strategy be adopted purely on the grounds that it lower in risk. Normal risk assessment heuristics are to compare remaining risks to a (often imagined, rather than calculated) threshold of risk which we deem it unacceptable to breach. It's how we handle the conflict between autonomy of ends and the rights of other affected by choice of means. It shouldn't matter if someone rejects the vaccine because they don't like the colour of the vial, so long as in doing so the risk they pose others is below a threshold of risk we consider acceptable for trivial personal preference. The less trivial that preference, the greater the threshold has to be to justify any mandate. Without this important feature of risk assessment, we end up with a homogeneity of response, which is a) an unnecessary and possibly damaging imposition on freedom, and b) simply bad risk management in the face of uncertainty.

For mandates (in the restricted cases we've already circumscribed) to be acceptable, they'd have to be both more safe and effective than the alternatives and be so to such an extent that the increased risk from not taking them exceeded this normal threshold.

The trouble is that this threshold is a psychological feature, not a strict number. It's not easy to directly compare. Analysts have come up with models based on population testing, figures such as 1 in a million per event and 1 in 5000 lifetime risk are typically used, but much higher figures are usually found in personal assessment (ie we expect our governments to me more risk averse than we expect ourselves to be, even with the well-being of others around us).

I don't think there's an easy solution to this, but I think we'd be reckless to ignore the potential psychological impact of imposing a risk threshold for personal behaviour that people felt was much lower than that they have previously been using. It's one of the reasons why ordinary adult vaccine mandates are a very different concern from childhood vaccine mandates (where there's very little chance they'll have acquired any strong sense of acceptable risk), or specific mandates such as travel or healthcare (where assessment of risk thresholds is typically relinquished to a higher authority for the specific activity). Mandating a specific risk threshold for ordinary life activities (such as one's normal job) that's seen as far outside a person's normal risk threshold is potentially extremely damaging.

I'd like to separate the issue of children for the time being, as it's true there's not as much data on this as yet. I, as of yet, haven't read carefully or widely enough to have a strong opinion. If it turns out the risks of vaccinating children outweigh the benefits, then so be it. — Xtrix

Fair enough, but bear in mind that the issue of children does affect the issue of adults quite significantly. If it ere shown that the risk/benefit calculation for a 16 year old was not sufficiently above the normal threshold to recommend the vaccine, then it is at least borderline for a 17 year old. It's not like something magical happens on one's 17th birthday which completely changes ow one responds to both virus and vaccine. Now how do we justify imposing extreme coercive measures on that 17 year old (threat of unemployment), if they know that the risk/benefit judgement for them is barely above that which has been assessed as insufficient?

The significance of the decision regarding children is not only about that age group. It has two very important consequences on people's psychology.

1. It shows that the risk/benefit assessment is sufficiently finely balanced that some ordinary groups (not obscure medical exceptions) fall the other side. That automatically makes people think "well what if I'm more like the average 16 year old than the average 25 year old?", and that's not even an irrational thought - as I said above, physiology is just not that age specific in this respect.

2. It shows that unforeseen consequences are being considered and so reminds people of them. The vaccines (in terms of known consequences) are perfectly safe for children - where 'safe' here means low risk. It's not the known safety that's a problem for the JCVI, it's the fact that the benefit is insufficient to justify the unknown risk.

So for the 25, or even 30 year old worker being coerced into taking a vaccine, they have in mind, not only that they might not even be on the right side of a normal risk benefit assessment (they might be physiologically more like the 16 year old), but they are reminded that the reason why we don't normally give prophylactic medicine 'on the off chance' is because of the unknown risk, thus rendering reassurances of current safety fairly redundant.

The natural immunity issue is relevant for a different reason. The more irrational the imposition, the more people become frightened of it (and not without good reason). The moment someone raises natural immunity and institutions say "nah, we'll just vaccinate everyone" the apparent irrationality of that decision makes people more resistant. It the considered the main mechanism behind mandates backfiring in the past. "why would they be so insistent on vaccinating me when they haven't even checked if I need it and they actively don't want to even find out?"

There's a serious underestimation of the psychological impact of saying to people "we're going to inject you with this drug, we don't even want to know if you need it or not, some people are better off not having it, but we 'reckon' you're probably not one of them based on your age - even though age is just a proxy for other metrics which we're also to going to bother checking. Oh and you'll loose your job if you don't". Think about it from an average Joe's point of view. It sounds extremely like they really just want to get the drug in his arm more than any other objective. Add that to a (again, completely justified) distrust of government and pharmaceutical companies - the two institutions involved here, both with a track record of lying, and putting the public a serious risk, for financial gain... Well, you've a recipe for serious discontent which weighs very heavily against the potential benefits.

I understand the sentiment but does this claim undermine the safety of the vaccines? I assume you think not, so I don't see the relevance.... — Xtrix

See above basically. It's not really about undermining the safety because it's an unknown.It's about there being a reason to avoid it (unknown risk), but obvious alternatives not being considered. That just changes the trust relationship immediately, it sets up a institutional appearance of an alternate agenda, and that's just counterproductive and potentially very dangerous (if it stops people who need to take the vaccine from doing so).

In summary, we're facing an unprecedented health crisis, we really need people to take the advice of their healthcare professionals, take the precautions necessary. To achieve this people have to trust those institutions and believe the advice is in their best interests. People are not blank slates onto which we can just impose beliefs convenient to us, they have prior beliefs which need to be accommodated. Governments and pharmaceutical companies have behaved appallingly in the past. Ignoring alternatives and vilifying experts who disagree with policy exacerbates existing suspicions, and risks a serious breakdown of the relationship essential to public health.

Basically, there's limits to what you can push people to accept and we'd be better off staying within those limits and accepting a small increase in risk as a result, than trying to push them and so doing taking a much larger risk from the breakdown of that relationship.

So no intention of either defending, nor apologising for your slanderous baseless assertions. Just more childish hyperbole.

Let's be clear about what's happened here.

I've cited an article about the policy response to covid by an expert in health policy.

You didn't agree with it, so rather than mounting any actual counter argument, you quickly trawled a few previous posts for anything you can use to discredit him. (Despite apparently missing the fact that he's a well respected contributor to the world's top health journals on exactly this topic).

The irony being that's exactly the kind of response he was writing about...brilliant stuff.