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Your last statement relies on the assumption that the authorities actually know what information will save lives. I do not believe that is true.
I do believe in the reasoning and self preservation instincts of most people. The way these experts have acted shows very little respect for the sanctity of the individual.
"Conspiracy riddled garbage" which has turned out in more than one case to be right (the effectiveness of masking, effectiveness of social distancing, the effectiveness of lock downs). Just because the evidence currently looks to be in favor of vaccination doesn't mean we should shutdown dissenting opinions.
Millions of people have given their lives to protect the ideal of free speech and similar freedoms. I have no issue with the fact that exercising that right may cause some harm. I fundamentally believe that free speech leads to better outcomes over the long term.
Additionally, in this particular case the harm is not immediately obvious to me.
If you are in a position to affect outcomes in this area (as many on HN probably are, given ties to social media), I hope you reflect on the environment of freedom you currently benefit from. Are comfortable restricting freedoms for future generations, who's situations and trials are unknown to you?
i'm also curious if there's a source on the halving of vaccination rates?
See the chart (oddly) titled "Over Half of Joe Rogan's Fans Are Vaccinated Against COVID-19" about 2/3 down.
Avid fans: 55% vaccinated, 45% unvaccinated
Nonfans: 76% vaccinated, 24% unvaccinated
1 in 10 people are avid fans (3 in 10 if you include casual)
7 in 10 are under the age of 45 - negligible covid deaths, so we'll look at the 3 in 10 over 45
~20% could have been vaccinated if they didn't listen to JRE
it's estimated that ~200k lives could have been saved by the vaccine [0]
so
.1 * .3 * .2 * 200k is the number of deaths attributable to Joe Rogan
[0] (i'm extrapolating the ratio at the time to todays 1M deaths) https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid19-and-other-...
I pick the latter. However, COVID itself was never existential (some fracction of people are immune, or get sick and then don't die, but instead reproduce, and over time, genetic immunity increases due to natural selection), although it was absolutely a threat to a healthy global economy (which in turn determines how much health care is available to society). So the calculus is more complicated. Probably, it's best to: promote the correct message, while allowing dissenting opiniions to be stated, but firmly refuted, and people who are saying things that are outright risky ("inject bleach") are shut down with the full force of law.
your example implies "free speech" = some advice that will get you killed
and "institutional message" = some advice that will definitely save your life
it also implies that "officials" only act rationally and morally.
Covid was not existential.
Here's a though experiment for you:
If a group completely blew something out of proportion with massive restrictions on the world...would you want to know about it, to regain your freedom?
Or continue to be lied to in order to save face for your ideological peer group?
It didn't happen (large scale intentional lying), but if my government openly lies, I will complain about it up and until they restrict my freedom of speech, and I'll use the mechanisms I know (using social media, salon discussion websites, etc) to promote my message.
