Look at the damage Andrew Wakefield managed to cause
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
It will probably be executed badly, but the underlying idea is, as often, ahead of the western world. The sheer amount of stupidity that even earns money from being the village-idiot with a megaphone is mind staggering and saddening.
E.g. if only doctors if medicine (or equivalents) would be allowed to talk about vaccination, instead of every assclown with an “opinion”…that’d be societal progress and a tiny leash on social cancermedia.
Sure, a well paid doc telling vaccination is bad would inflict equal harm, but at least he’d be one out of 50.
Also sure, who gets to set the rules, who gets to judge and enforce? Can’t even be half-assed fair.
Tomato666@lemmy.sdf.org 9 hours ago
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
Yeah sure, that’s the kind of idiot doc I thought of. But dumdums seeking confirmation for their beliefs, not the truth, will always find a way.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
I for one value my freedom of speech
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
Oh I do too.
Eldritch@piefed.world 8 hours ago
The problem isn't who is speaking. Even if it's only one out of a thousand doctors, the idiots will seek out and gravitate towards that one that confirms the thing that they want to believe. This will do absolutely nothing to even slow that down. If anything, it will even accelerate it.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
True. Confirmation bias is a thing. But at least it could help the few who still seek meaningful advice. Then again, why would they be on social media in the first place.
Sadly I have no better idea to tackle that problem. You can’t cure Idiocracy-is-live-now
Eldritch@piefed.world 6 hours ago
It's impossible for everyone to verify the veracity of everything on a daily basis. We absolutely must decide for ourselves on a few arbiters of truth on important subjects. That way we can focus on verifying their understandings of and dedication to the facts. Reducing our load. There's nothing wrong with that. However, when they've shown to be a faulty in their representation of the facts, there have to be consequences.
For instance, on YouTube, I watch an ungodly amount of science and computing content. With a few video essays or let's play YouTubers thrown in to fill in by watching the content. PBS, SciShow, and Space Time are favorites. When it comes to astrophysics, et etc, Matt Odowd definitely knows his stuff and is committed towards representing things fairly. Similarly, with SciShow, Hank Green is all in for testing his hypothesis and admitting or fixing his mistakes. Recently on his own channel, putting up a video about the gros michel banana and banana flavoring. And upon testing his hypothesis and finding it wrong committed towards fixing the mistakes he made years ago.
Contrast with Sabine Hossenfelder. Who as a then particle physics researcher at CERN. Decided to bless everyone via her platform with her misunderstandings on poly sci and biology. Which to the best by knowledge she has never recanted or apologized for. Her content is blocked in my feed, and she is no longer with CERN to say the least.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 4 hours ago
Of course there might be shining exceptions on YT, not arguing here. But a platform where people post content simply to get money (or fame or both, why else use youtube at all?) is maybe not the best start to get good info. Or weed the crap out to find actual good content. I gave that up a long time ago.
It’s just tiresome to seek for pearls in a vast ocean of dullness. Especially if it’s a topic i don’t know much about but WANT to. On those topics where i’m already expert at, it’s easy to separate, but there i don’t need it :)