It’s at least meaningful action with merit, even if flawed potentially.
Meanwhile the USA sits while people like you posit on these potential alternate realities and tens of thousands of people per month are convinced not to vaccinate their children, to homeschool, to back Ponzi schemes and MLMs, to treat autism with bleach enemas, treating cancer with all sorts of scams, etc because some stupid asshole grifter on social media said to do it.
I don’t think you realize just how bad it is. I don’t think you realize just how ineffective our regulatory bodies are. I had a patient where I was working with their child over behavioral issues and they were desperate. They were low income, Medicaid, and they spent $800 on a device that “used magnetic stimulation” to help their child “realign their brain and body”. They found it via instagram.
When I asked about it they sent many links: one from the seller about “research” that was all about transcranial direct current stimulation/tdcs. That does have some potential evidence but this device did not work in that fashion. It made no contact with the temples and it had no electrical output, it guaranteed this to allay safety concerns. They clearly just put together a list of citations that looked somewhat relevant to the laymen but did not hold up to scrutiny in any way. The device itself had 0 research behind it, obviously.
The second link was the website to purchase and find out more about the device. The notable thing here was references to the FDA being plastered all over the site. This is the major lapse in regulatory body. I was shocked to see this. Looking into it more I found that it was a loophole utilized by these scummy scams. They will find a facility that is approved by the FDA for manufacturing something that is FDA approved (like a tens machine) and hire it out to manufacture their scam product. They can then plaster “manufactured in an FDA approved facility” all over their packaging, website, and ad copy, which is extremely misleading. As long as they don’t explicitly say FDA approved or use the FDA logo, which is government property, they are okay.
This is just one example. I’ve been working with mostly kids for almost 2 decades now. I’ve seen many more terrible things embraced, anti vaccination being the most popular. I’ve seen people waste precious time that is essential during early intervention periods on quack bullshit like facilitated communication then when they finally give up on that their child is years behind and never truly gains any meaningful communication ability (which, to be fair, may have been the case from the beginning, but it also may not if they had embraced evidence based practice).
I’m sick and tired of hemming and hawing about this bullshit and “what about the morons right to be an idiot?”. Not when the moron robs their child of the capacity for meaningful communication, a proper education and social development, facilitates outbreaks of disease, or is fronting to scam people.
Similarly China saw the obvious issue with loot boxes and banned them. Meanwhile we are still hemming and hawing about the ethics of allowing children to gamble because we desperately need to allow them to funnel cash to tech billionaires and start addictive behavioral patterns as young as humanly possible, apparently. They also saw the inherent ethical issues with fee for service medical billing and are taking huge steps to transition away from it. Meanwhile our health reform plan is apparently “go fuck yourself and die”.
It is unbelievably frustrating how badly we are failing and how much we have been conditioned to do nothing with statements like yours. “Well, if we do that, it could blow up in our face, much like it’s currently blowing up in our fucking face right as we speak, so I guess we should just do nothing then”
Advocating for authoritarianism from an anarchist instance. Interesting. Yes, we have major problems with misinformation in the United States. And it’s coming from within the government. You don’t hand that fucking government that power. There is no authoritarian easy fix. The only way to fix this is to foster curiosity and a desire to actually inform oneself.
Anything proposed without facts or data can be dismissed without facts or data. And you’ve given none. So what are you even calling out?
Do I really need to give you more data. When we are literally discussing one of the countries that polices/suppresses speech the most? I wouldn’t trust our government with it. Let alone China’s. Hell go look up lysenkoism and the persecution Vavilov suffered under a similar administration. Then tell me with a straight face they will value facts regardless of their convenience. Historically its a horrific idea. But I do look forward to any facts or data you have that proves otherwise.
So something needs to be done to restore trust in institutions. If we do what you suggest, education, how does this work? People don’t have trust in those institutions to allow them to have an effect! Unless your solution is to exterminate Trump people and moderates that “don’t trust the clot shot and would homeschool their kids if they had the time and money”.
You need an interim solution that may be drastic. And I’m not saying this is the right solution, but it is a solution, which is better than the nothing we are trying while our institutions continue to erode. Perhaps the solution is a complex solution of regulation with verified experts that still allows free speech that can be countered or suppressed if truly extreme (essentially twitter in theory when they first started the verified accounts but with higher bar for verification). I don’t know but I do know we need better solutions than “increase education and reap the rewards in 20-50 years”. How will that even take hold??
What you are arguing for is authoritarianism. What you want is accountability. The aren’t the same thing, and none of what you’ve posted justifies authoritarianism.
I want accountability as well. The kind of accountability we need will never be achieved by thought policing. Does the irony of what you’re calling for really need to be pointed out? The vaccines were only mandatory to be in public school. They always could have opted out and homeschooled. But even that minor inconvenience was enough for them to be harnessed along with similar groups. To install a fascist. A fascist that would be exponentially worse with the kind of power you’re dying to give them. They need to understand why and want to be vaccinated. Imposing that on them without that knowledge will only make things worse. Previous generations understood that from personal experience. As well future ones unfortunately. My mother personally suffered from polio, and you better damn well be sure she made sure we were always vaccinated.
The interim solution is education. I get the juvenile need for instant gratification. Again that’s part of the problem. Have you ever told a juvenile what they can and can’t do? How did it go for you? Now understand the average person is even more juvenile and far more self gratifying. The more you thought police, the more they will push back. Deeper and deeper into the hole you will go. Till you’ve failed so much you’re left with a “final solution”. And at that point, no matter how right you started out as. You’re wrong.
Literally, read up on lysenkoism. That’s what this will be. And it killed MILLIONS. I realize not everyone on ML is ML. And if there’s one universal truth it’s that we anarchist are shit at gatekeeping. But one would hope your proximity to them might have rubbed off.
The vaccines are only mandatory in public schools because we once again value personal liberty over collective responsibility. So much so that it is something indoctrinated into us from birth and culturally ingrained; being asked to wear a mask is seen as an act of violence by a significant portion of the population.
I again agree that education is the long term strategy. But two big things: again, key word is “long term. Second, what does this look like? You seem to think it’s as simple as presenting the benefits and reasoning and suddenly they’ll “get it” after being indoctrinated by disinformation campaigns. These people need to be deprogrammed. And further, what do you do about the populations until they’re “ready” to be reintegrated into society. You’ve now run into chinas Uyghur dilemma. What’s the solution? Optional education that they can simply eschew or easily find loopholes around, making the entire effort largely meaningless as they strengthen their own system of beliefs and recruit followers?
You mention popper’s paradox of tolerance; does that not apply here? Sure it is easy when it’s a Nazi but how does it work when it’s your aunt that fell for facebook memes about the Covid shot? Does that intolerance count? Because that intolerance literally kills people. Or do you just not care about that because you are a young adult who is healthy and unlikely to be a statistic in that epidemic? Sorry to the 3 kids that died preventable deaths and the 1648 that have gotten measles just this year alone; they have to wait for your “educate people and hope it works” plan.
It’s at least meaningful action with merit, even if flawed potentially.
Meanwhile the USA sits while people like you posit on these potential alternate realities and tens of thousands of people per month are convinced not to vaccinate their children, to homeschool, to back Ponzi schemes and MLMs, to treat autism with bleach enemas, treating cancer with all sorts of scams, etc because some stupid asshole grifter on social media said to do it.
I don’t think you realize just how bad it is. I don’t think you realize just how ineffective our regulatory bodies are. I had a patient where I was working with their child over behavioral issues and they were desperate. They were low income, Medicaid, and they spent $800 on a device that “used magnetic stimulation” to help their child “realign their brain and body”. They found it via instagram.
When I asked about it they sent many links: one from the seller about “research” that was all about transcranial direct current stimulation/tdcs. That does have some potential evidence but this device did not work in that fashion. It made no contact with the temples and it had no electrical output, it guaranteed this to allay safety concerns. They clearly just put together a list of citations that looked somewhat relevant to the laymen but did not hold up to scrutiny in any way. The device itself had 0 research behind it, obviously.
The second link was the website to purchase and find out more about the device. The notable thing here was references to the FDA being plastered all over the site. This is the major lapse in regulatory body. I was shocked to see this. Looking into it more I found that it was a loophole utilized by these scummy scams. They will find a facility that is approved by the FDA for manufacturing something that is FDA approved (like a tens machine) and hire it out to manufacture their scam product. They can then plaster “manufactured in an FDA approved facility” all over their packaging, website, and ad copy, which is extremely misleading. As long as they don’t explicitly say FDA approved or use the FDA logo, which is government property, they are okay.
This is just one example. I’ve been working with mostly kids for almost 2 decades now. I’ve seen many more terrible things embraced, anti vaccination being the most popular. I’ve seen people waste precious time that is essential during early intervention periods on quack bullshit like facilitated communication then when they finally give up on that their child is years behind and never truly gains any meaningful communication ability (which, to be fair, may have been the case from the beginning, but it also may not if they had embraced evidence based practice).
I’m sick and tired of hemming and hawing about this bullshit and “what about the morons right to be an idiot?”. Not when the moron robs their child of the capacity for meaningful communication, a proper education and social development, facilitates outbreaks of disease, or is fronting to scam people.
Similarly China saw the obvious issue with loot boxes and banned them. Meanwhile we are still hemming and hawing about the ethics of allowing children to gamble because we desperately need to allow them to funnel cash to tech billionaires and start addictive behavioral patterns as young as humanly possible, apparently. They also saw the inherent ethical issues with fee for service medical billing and are taking huge steps to transition away from it. Meanwhile our health reform plan is apparently “go fuck yourself and die”.
It is unbelievably frustrating how badly we are failing and how much we have been conditioned to do nothing with statements like yours. “Well, if we do that, it could blow up in our face, much like it’s currently blowing up in our fucking face right as we speak, so I guess we should just do nothing then”
Advocating for authoritarianism from an anarchist instance. Interesting. Yes, we have major problems with misinformation in the United States. And it’s coming from within the government. You don’t hand that fucking government that power. There is no authoritarian easy fix. The only way to fix this is to foster curiosity and a desire to actually inform oneself.
What you describe is a generational fix, and it is warranted. We still need something that can improve conditions tomorrow
That thing doesn’t exist and what was proposed would only make it worse.
Again - defeatist attitude, predicting outcomes without data
Anything proposed without facts or data can be dismissed without facts or data. And you’ve given none. So what are you even calling out?
Do I really need to give you more data. When we are literally discussing one of the countries that polices/suppresses speech the most? I wouldn’t trust our government with it. Let alone China’s. Hell go look up lysenkoism and the persecution Vavilov suffered under a similar administration. Then tell me with a straight face they will value facts regardless of their convenience. Historically its a horrific idea. But I do look forward to any facts or data you have that proves otherwise.
Okay the data is that our complete lack of teeth within our regulatory bodies have led to year by year declines in vaccinations, consistent lack of an ability to hit herd immunity targets, an 88% increase in financial loses due to crypto scams in just the year 2022 (couldn’t find newer data), etc.
This doesn’t touch upon the corruption that has infiltrated regulatory bodies and PASPA was overturned in 2018, allowing stuff like fanduel to advertise constantly and everywhere legally leading to sizable increases in addiction, because god forbid we not allow capitalists to maximize their wealth accumulation even if its demonstrably harmful
So something needs to be done to restore trust in institutions. If we do what you suggest, education, how does this work? People don’t have trust in those institutions to allow them to have an effect! Unless your solution is to exterminate Trump people and moderates that “don’t trust the clot shot and would homeschool their kids if they had the time and money”.
You need an interim solution that may be drastic. And I’m not saying this is the right solution, but it is a solution, which is better than the nothing we are trying while our institutions continue to erode. Perhaps the solution is a complex solution of regulation with verified experts that still allows free speech that can be countered or suppressed if truly extreme (essentially twitter in theory when they first started the verified accounts but with higher bar for verification). I don’t know but I do know we need better solutions than “increase education and reap the rewards in 20-50 years”. How will that even take hold??
What you are arguing for is authoritarianism. What you want is accountability. The aren’t the same thing, and none of what you’ve posted justifies authoritarianism.
I want accountability as well. The kind of accountability we need will never be achieved by thought policing. Does the irony of what you’re calling for really need to be pointed out? The vaccines were only mandatory to be in public school. They always could have opted out and homeschooled. But even that minor inconvenience was enough for them to be harnessed along with similar groups. To install a fascist. A fascist that would be exponentially worse with the kind of power you’re dying to give them. They need to understand why and want to be vaccinated. Imposing that on them without that knowledge will only make things worse. Previous generations understood that from personal experience. As well future ones unfortunately. My mother personally suffered from polio, and you better damn well be sure she made sure we were always vaccinated.
The interim solution is education. I get the juvenile need for instant gratification. Again that’s part of the problem. Have you ever told a juvenile what they can and can’t do? How did it go for you? Now understand the average person is even more juvenile and far more self gratifying. The more you thought police, the more they will push back. Deeper and deeper into the hole you will go. Till you’ve failed so much you’re left with a “final solution”. And at that point, no matter how right you started out as. You’re wrong.
Literally, read up on lysenkoism. That’s what this will be. And it killed MILLIONS. I realize not everyone on ML is ML. And if there’s one universal truth it’s that we anarchist are shit at gatekeeping. But one would hope your proximity to them might have rubbed off.
the state is inevitable
I am well aware of Lysenko.
The vaccines are only mandatory in public schools because we once again value personal liberty over collective responsibility. So much so that it is something indoctrinated into us from birth and culturally ingrained; being asked to wear a mask is seen as an act of violence by a significant portion of the population.
I again agree that education is the long term strategy. But two big things: again, key word is “long term. Second, what does this look like? You seem to think it’s as simple as presenting the benefits and reasoning and suddenly they’ll “get it” after being indoctrinated by disinformation campaigns. These people need to be deprogrammed. And further, what do you do about the populations until they’re “ready” to be reintegrated into society. You’ve now run into chinas Uyghur dilemma. What’s the solution? Optional education that they can simply eschew or easily find loopholes around, making the entire effort largely meaningless as they strengthen their own system of beliefs and recruit followers?
You mention popper’s paradox of tolerance; does that not apply here? Sure it is easy when it’s a Nazi but how does it work when it’s your aunt that fell for facebook memes about the Covid shot? Does that intolerance count? Because that intolerance literally kills people. Or do you just not care about that because you are a young adult who is healthy and unlikely to be a statistic in that epidemic? Sorry to the 3 kids that died preventable deaths and the 1648 that have gotten measles just this year alone; they have to wait for your “educate people and hope it works” plan.