Глупости

Един астролог е починал днес. Не съм съгласен с израза "За умрелите или добро, или нищо".

Давам линк от уебсайт, един от най-големите български ежедневници (понякога наричано със старинната дума "вестник", ако това все още съществува). Защо от този сайт? Защото в заглавната му част, най-отгоре, до заглавието, на абсолютно всяка страница от уебсайта - е лицето на друга популярна астроложка. А ако го видите на мобилна страница или свиете ширината на прозореца - всичко друго се свива, но лицето остава. Сякаш тя самата списва вестника. Това е най-популярното лице, с което един от най-популярните ежедневници се гордее. Не с журналисти или редактори. С астролог.

Какво правят астролозите?

Ще се опитам да съм възможно най-доброжелателен. Вече писах защо не ги харесвам.

В най-добрата им картинка астролозите дават насока и надежда на хората, които вярват. Може би дават забавление или развлечение на други, някои си харчат парите, но пък това върти икономиката и позволява на някои хора да се препитават.

Но също като всякакви шамани, шарлатани, попове, баячки, леячки на куршуми, хомеопатици; вярващи в аури, чакри, рейки, вуду, магии, акупунктура, гледане на кафе, боб, карти, сфери, ръце, търсене на вода, прераждания, суеверия, безумни конспирации и богове, споменаващи думи като "енергия", "вибрации" и "кванти" извън физичния им смисъл - не ги харесвам. И винаги са ми били в повече.

От една страна разбирам, че хората явно имат нужда да вярват в разни свръхестествени неща. Едно време и аз вярвах в Дядо Коледа. Все още ми е яко в края на годината, в най-късите дни на годината да има светлинки, да се виждаме със семейство и приятели, да си почиваме малко и да се тъпчем. Това че не вярвам, че има старец, който да обикаля целия свят и да раздава подаръци на всички… християнчета (?) деца - не ми отнема от празника по никакъв начин. Като малък вярвах и в разни богове и суеверия, защото откъде да знам - като си малък, каквото ти кажат родители, семейство и средата - вярваш.

Така че - да приемем, че е до знание (опитвам се да съм доброжелателен). Не всеки може да знае всичко. Даже и аз понякога си мисля, че може би имам още едно-две неща да разбера за света :)

Това предполага, че в момента, в който обясниш на тези хора, че няма начин планетите да действат на живота ти сега или в миналото, когато си се родил - би трябвало да спрат да вярват. Но уви - има някаква инерция, която ги подтиква да продължават да вярват в глупости.

Каква е тази инерция? Може би е желание за обяснение на дадени неща и продължително неразбиране или нежелание за разбиране на случайни явления, на които хората искат да припишат свръхестествени обяснения. Всякакви уклони като това да запомниш едното почти вярно, макар и много-интерпретативно предсказание от останалите 50, които не са се сбъднали.

"Днес може да получите финансова изгода" ще го запомните, ако намерите 10 лева на улицата, но може да го интерпретирате когато ви дадат заплатата, аванса или бонуса, намерите някой любим продукт на промоция или някой ви даде изгоден заем, върне пари, някакви акции се вдигнат и още куп неща. И ако никое от тях не се случи - просто ще го забравите.

Ето един експеримент, който се е провеждал много пъти. Отивате и ви питат да си напишете датата и града на раждане или нещо друго лично - може да е дори цял тест. Така си мислите, че следното описание е написано само и единствено за вас:

Имате нужда другите хора да ви обичат и уважават. С тенденция сте за самокритика, а същевременно разполагате с голям неизползван потенциал, който все още не сте обърнали във ваша полза. Макар и да имате някои лични слабости, като цяло сте способен да ги компенсирате. Макар отвън да изглеждате като дисциплиниран и владеещ се човек, вътрешно сте несигурен и загрижен. Понякога имате колебания дали сте взел правилното решение. Обичате промяната и разнообразието и сте разочарован, когато ви се налагат ограничения. Мислите независимо и не приемате чуждите твърдения без задоволително доказателство. Открили сте колко е неразумно да се саморазкривате пред другите. Понякога сте екстровертен, приветлив, общителен, но понякога и интровертен, предпазлив и резервиран. Някои от стремежите ви са доста нереалистични. Сигурността е една от главните цели в живота ви.

Тези изречения за наречени Barnum statements и подобни се използват всеки ден в хороскопите или от медиуми, които твърдят, че могат да разберат неща за вас. Когато пък става въпрос за наистина 1в1 предсказания, има книги и процедури, които могат да се приложат, за да ви накарат да повярвате, че тези неща са истина. Нарича се cold reading, ето една pdf книга която прегледах набързо от първия резултат в нета.

Това вярване може и да е просто непукизъм или инат. "Аз си вярвам в нещо и съм вярвал десетилетия без да ми пречи, а дори ми е помагало. Ти откъде знаеш? Що си толкова сигурен? Що си толкова тесногръд? Не можеш ли да приемеш, че има неща, които не разбираме и науката не може да обясни?" И така нататък.

И кво?

Може би реално им помага на тези хора да си живеят живота - да са по-малко самоубийствени и депресирани, да вярват в чудеса или пък дори да си самовнушават, че могат да направят всичко използвайки "силата на подсъзнанието". В медицината плацебото е реален изучен ефект, който помага в определени ситуации, така че - заслужава ли да се премахне нещо, ако всъщност работи?

Какво лошо има в това някой да вярва в нещо, дори да е грешно, ако това нещо му помага да е по-щастлив?

Нищо. Всичко е наред, вярвайте в каквото си искате, стига да не ми пречите или натяквате вашите вярвания.

…

Докато не стигнем до решения, които уж взимаш само за себе си, но влияеш на околните.

Няма да споменавам горещата тема на годината или десетилетието, за това как грешни вярвания на критична маса хора могат да доведат до проблеми за цялото общество. Това е само един пример, който достатъчно се дъвче, но няма чуваемост от двете страни. Тезата ми е, че вярвайки в гореизброените глупости позволява на хората да открехнат вратата за вярвания в още глупости и да кара и другите около теб да вярват в тези безумици.

Избягвах такива хора доста време като чумата. Опитах да прогледна в техния свят - но може би прекалено много време съм прекарал от тази страна и моя инат не ми позволи да продължа. Това лято имах толкова много случки с безумни твърдения, че дори се случи да чуя изречението "ако искаш да си спокойна, дишай през вагината си". Не смеех да попитам какво да правя, ако нямам този орган.

Джеймс Ранди беше един фокусник, който отдаде голяма част от живота си да се бори срещу всякакви шарлатани. Магията и фокусите са нещо, които винаги са ми показвали колко лесно може да се манипулират човешките възприятия. Дори когато знаеш, че фокуса е фокус очите ти не могат да свикнат и все още виждат сякаш магията. Трябват ни повече такива хора.

Ти па си много убав!

Да приемем, че аз лично съм бил доста привилегирован, както е популярно да се казва днес. Учих в гимназия за наука и то специализирах физика. Като поразбереш малко физика и сякаш не намираш място за свръхестествените неща. Макар че да - все още има много неизвестни неща като Тъмна материя, енергия, квантова гравитация и пр. Във физиката търсиш обяснение за всяко едно нещо, искаш да разбереш всяка една частица и взаимодействие, всяка възможна причинно-следствена връзка.

Разбира се, аз съм по-скоро мажоретка-физик. Учих в гимназията, но спрях в университета. Поддържам връзка с баш-физици, астрономи и така наречени хора на науката. Не твърдя, че знам или съм запомнил дори и процент, от това, което приятелите ми могат да ми кажат и обяснят, но в един момент удряме границата, защото не съм учил езика на науката - математика и сходните ѝ отрасли, които са необходими, ако наистина искаш да разбереш, а не да си просто мажоретка.

И да, не знам много неща. Няколко месеца писах статии, гмуркайки се в дълбини на конспирации, питайки се какво е истина и как да я търсим. Лесно манипулируем, подлъгващ се от елементарни думи и действия, всеки ден в работата ми се убеждавам колко малко разбирам и колко много още неща не са ми ясни.

Ама поне не вярвам в Дядо Коледа.

Още ли сте ЗА електронното гласуване?

В края на април тази година написах пост защо онлайн гласуването НЕ Е добра идея.

След усилени "хакерски атаки", Националният Статистически Институт (НСИ) вчера (2021-09-08) временно ограничи достъпа до електронната система "Преброяване 2021". Оригиналната идея беше онлайн преброяването да започне от 7 септември и да продължи десетина дена, а междувременно да се пуснат хора по стария начин - този от каменната ера - където преброяването става с камъни и тояги.

Какво стана?

Ето какво представлява тази хакерска атака, цитирана като "Отказ от услугата" (Denial of Service или DoS):

Представете си автобус от градския транспорт. Капацитета на автобуса е примерно 100 човека (сутрин едно време беше около 7000, сега не знам как е по пандемийно време). Имаме примерно 10 човека на една спирка, които искат да се качат - всичко окей, ще успеят. Обаче Бате Гойко (или който и да е) плаща и организира една тълпа от 500 човека на тази спирка и всички се опитват да се качат - избутвайки тези оригинални 10 човека, които искат да използват услугата градски транспорт. След това започват разговори как автобусите са хакнати и Столичен градски транспорт не е организирала достатъчно автобуси.

Това е. Същата работа става в момента с онлайн преброяването - имаме някакво население, което иска да се регистрира, но така наречените Хакери са успели да организират тълпи, които да посещават сайта, докато той не клекне и оригиналните хора не могат да се преброят. Както казах няколко пъти в предишния ми пост - не че такива атаки не могат да стават и в така наречения реален живот. Но технологиите правят тези неща много по-лесни. Вместо да наемаш реални тълпи с реални хора, просто си плащаш някъде и атакуващия поток от роботи тръгва.

Откъде идват тези онлайн "тълпи"?

Сещате ли се едно време имаше вируси по компютрите? Все още ги има. Сега има и по-хитри. На изток и на запад домакинствата вече имат десетки умни устройства свързани с интернет като камери, домашни асистенти, колонки и тостери. Всички те се продават веднъж и не се обръща особено голямо внимание на кибер сигурността или ъпдейти след това, защото - какво печели компанията която ги продава след като ги е продала да продължава да ъпдейтва?

Така че тези устройства (а и нормални компютри, телефони и прочие) се атакуват тихо от стотици групи по света с разнообразни интереси - от държави, през компании, които намират тези пробойни и ги инфектират. Всички тези устройства стават част от така наречената Бот мрежа (botnet). Тази Бот мрежа след това може да се наеме от бял, черен, сив или розов пазар където може да натъпка определен сайт за кеф ("for the Lulz" както е познато на драгите тролове), за финансова изгода, за политическо съобщение и какво ли не.

Разбира се, има и други начини. Въпроса е да успееш по някакъв начин да се сдобиеш с повече трафик (мерено в гига/тера-байти за секунда, нещо като дебит) отколкото тръбата от другата страна може да поеме (в случая сървъра на НСИ или каквото там са си наели). Статията в уикито е сравнително изчерпателна

Как се предотвратява такова нещо?

От тривиално през трудно до почти невъзможно освен ако не си нещо като Гугъл. Не ми е платено да го казвам, просто Гугъл, както и много телекомуникационни и Интернет компании разполагат с огромни тръби, които трудно ще бъдат напълнени, дори от цялата останала част от Интернет. Има компании като cloudflare, които предлагат подобна защита - и изглежда НСИ ги използват гледайки скрийншотове по сайтове. И въпреки това проблемът не е тривиален, дори когато си плащаш. Много огромни компании вече са плакали от такива атаки - международни с хиляди експерти по сигурността. Та НСИ ли няма?

И кво за онлайн гласуването?

Та - ето го експеримента с преброяването онлайн. Нали може да пазарувате онлайн. Що да не може и да гласувате вместо да се редите? Нещо е такова става в деня на гласуването - кво правим? Да не говорим за останалите проблеми, за които вече говорех в предния ми пост. Не съм против прогреса, но не сме готови и онлайн преброяването само го демонстрира.

Машинното гласуване по-трудно ще пострада точно от този специфичен проблем. Но други проблеми съществуват и при него особено когато няма алтернатива да се върнем на гласуване с мъртви дървета.

Ще правим трети избори за парламент тази година. Сега все още въпроса е дали ще са 2в1 с президентските. Но ще се реши в следващата седмица или две (надявам се).

Ако са 2в1 искам само да отбележа - писане на софтуер за 2 месеца, който да поддържа 2 гласувания с една машина + изясняване на процедурата… ще е трагедия. Всеки, който е работил за софтуерна компания знае как (не) се спазват сроковете и как се пише хаки-софтуер до посред нощ, когато има краен срок. Ако не са 2в1 освен допълнителните пари и време на избирателите ще трябва да се флашнат за 1-2 седмици хиляди машини - пак неясно как ще стане логистиката на това.

Не-преброяването на отрязъците поставя под въпрос какво въобще се случва в тази машина, на който нямаме софтуера и нямаме верификация, че софтуера е този, който трябва да бъде. Да не говорим за пробойни, които може да съществуват, дори да не са вързани в Интернет. Няма неразбиваема ключалка.

Няма да коментирам останалата политическа, икономическа и особено здравна ситуация в момента. Просто исках да напомня, да не се закопаваме още повече с новите ни технологии.

Conspiracies

I've been listening to a lot of arguments lately about the "safety of the vaccine", "the lie about the Corona". My last five or so blog posts (since about 3 months ago) are all about me going as deep as I can tolerate into some conspiracies and questioning truth, reality and authority. Now, I am spending my summer vacation in the worst country in EU regarding vaccination rate (~15% fully vaccinated as of writing of this post in August 2021) but also one of most corrupt - 69th/180, and with least press freedom - 112th. Correlation doesn't imply causation of course. So let me causate it using my observations.

In my view there are three types of conspiracists. Take "The Earth is Flat" conspiracy:

1. The first group might be schizophrenics and other categorically mentally ill people for whom is hard to discern reality. This is not a small group of people - prevalence of schizophrenia alone is 0.33-0.75% of the population so maybe up to 1 in 100 people might be having physiological issues with understanding what is real and how to judge any sort of truth.

2. Trolls - people that know the Earth is Round but for whatever reason want to put fuel in the fire. Their motivations can be as bening as for Lulz (i.e. just for fun, to see people freaking out and going over their heads to prove) and as bad intended as the proverbial Russian (or American, Australian, Chinese, Macedonian or pick-your-blame-country) state agent trolls hired to spread misinformation and undermine trust in science, authority or democracy. Possibly there may also be a group of corporate trolls that make it hard for other companies but nonetheless - these are people that are paid to spread missinfo.

3. The last group is otherwise seemingly healthy and rational people that have genuinely started believing the Earth may be (or is) flat - either due to the influence of the other two groups or (more dangerously) other people that are close to them that are already in group 3 (i.e. self-group influence).

The last group would be most interesting to me. What makes people throw away sanity, rational thought and start believing insane things such as the Earth is flat?

Well, maybe let's start that they may not be throwing away sanity or rationality. Especially from their perspective, they may believe they are totally coherent in their thoughts, beliefs and views. How come?

First of all, some conspiracies have been correct: The NSA tapping our computers and networks, the Opioid crisis, the Volkswagen test cheats - just to name a few.

Second - a lot of the elaborate conspiracies, the ones that survive are driven by forces similar to natural selection - they have answers to a lot of the standard rebuttals. They are also deep rabbit holes with lots of "proofs", some of them may require high technical knowledge, math and science skills that would be out of scope for "otherwise rational people". Even if you are good at math and some science, you for sure are not an expert in all of Physics, all of Biology and Chemistry and all of their subfields like Astronomy, Medicine, Pharmacology; or the more "softer" sciences such as History, Anthropology, Economics and Politics. Common misconceptions that you don't know in the science may be thrown at you and even if you notice one of the arguments in the field that you know that is off, you may not notice the other ones which are off your expertise, unless you are ready to become an expert in all of humanity.

But what would be the kind of person from the third group that would even consider following the initial link sent by a friend or found in a Facebook group, "news" website or other source? Well, not everybody, but a lot of people trust their friends and give a lot of credulence to someone who they knew were usually previously right about things. Remember - people from the third group are usually "otherwise rational".

So it's just the slippery slope, the slow boiled frog? I think there is one more ingredient.

General distrust in authority and/or people.

This could be at a lot of levels. A person may generally distrust the government and the information "they" are saying. Maybe they lived through a transition period of regimes and things didn't get perceptually better - what many people would say in Bulgaria that lived through the 90s. It could be distrust in "mainstream media" because of perceived corruption, lack of freedom of expression or influence. This can also be societal problem of the whole nation, percolating up and down groups of people. Or it could be that the individual in general distrusts people now or in the past. Perhaps their parents got divorced when they were little. Perhaps they had a long string of bad relationships, cheats by significant others, betrayals by friends. They now don't believe what people tell them and want to find "alternative" truths elsewhere. Or the reveal of the truth about Santa was somehow particularly harmful during a vulnerable period of their life.

Whatever the case may be, logic will probably not win. Explaining the geometry of the Earth, safety of the vaccines or anything else will inevitably trickle down to "why do you trust authority ?!" (either or all of NASA, ESA, WHO, EMA, TheGuardian, The Government of Country etc).

There is no point in explaining the workings of the mRNA vaccine, the rates of covid, transmissions, hospitalisations if one doesn't trust the numbers that are produced worldwide for an ongoing issue that is highly politicised and affects daily lives of pretty much everyone on the planet in the past year. I mean - people can believe something as inconsequential as "the earth is flat". Think about it - most people would not be really affected if tomorrow they woke up and indeed it turned out there was a big lie going on in all the science books and observations that one can do - sure a lot of trust will be lost, but in general people will still be able to order their Venti latte or whatever. And convincing people about a currently unfolding event, having huge consequences to their personal lives where the data from each country are with literal error bars - some almost unquantifiable… it's almost impossible, especially if there is no trust somewhere down the line.

So my point is: when you see an antivaxxer, climate change denier, flatearther or an astrologer - kill them, they are useless part of society that are just slowing down progress and we need a nation of rational beings that understand science.

JK. Try to think if you personally have ever gone down a path that you believed something that turned out to be false. I have. Many, many times. If you've never done it perhaps you are not as critically thinking as you would wish to be. I've been wrong many times and it's shameful to come out on the other end, admitting you were wrong and you were spreading bad information to your friends, family and other social groups.

Try to be more empathic towards the history of that person - where are they coming from, what made them go the "wrong" paths, give them the benefit of the doubt - maybe you could even find a nugget of truth in all the crap they are telling you. Maybe one of the 50 "facts" they tell you, you could even agree is somewhat correct. Hold on to that, show that you are on their side at least for one thing. Everyone wants to hear that they are smart and have found a "different truth", that they are unique, that they are special. It's now easier than ever to find an opinion of experts that agree with yours - whatever yours is. It is easier for them to confirm their beliefs that the world is evil, corporations and governments are lying and untrustworthy - some of them actually are!

I'm preaching but this is also advice for myself - I'm the worst at this. I am not that empathic, I dismiss bullshit and run away from it like fire. I stop talking to people even when I notice they may be obsessed with shit beliefs. It doesn't help me in the long run although it's tempting to show intellect superiority. I hope this is as much advice for me as it is for you, dear reader. I know it's some how more correct to be patient with people, not dismiss them and live among the ones with different opinions. But I'm not good at that and some days/weeks I'm not even trying. I hate irrationality, probably because of some of my own trauma somewhere in my life that I'm yet to realize. Who knows.

Hope this helped a bit. Till next time!

I'm an average idiot

"What if YOU are wrong? What if you’re not a Galileo Galilei, but an Andrew Wakefield?".

(source)

This ^ woke me up. Andrew Wakefield is the dude that started the initial conspiracy of "vaccines cause autism" back in the 90s. This long (but deservedly so) video explains in more detail that you ever wanted to know:

On the other side, the argument about being "Galileo" (which I also referenced in my last post) is refering to this article by Heather Heying, who usually co-host the podcast DarkHorse along with her husband Bret Weinstein.

So, as I started doing counter research to what I've been recently dipping my toes in the conspiracy theories, I found the good old investigative journalism articles that do a good job at dismounting "evidence" claimed by a fairly small group of people that reinforce themselves, claiming that "they" are silencing them and so on.

It's easy to go into the rabbit hole, spending hours into conspiracies, feeling that there are a lot more voices counter to the "mainstream narrative" where in fact one forgets how consensus is made and starts wishing that he is the special one along with the others that is discovering the truth rather than thousands and probably millions of health professionals around the world.

Sure, there are conspiracy theories and corporate scandals every once in a while. But what is the chance of such a huge conspiracy that encompass media, governments and health agencies around the world, each with thousands of people all blind, vs. a few that can "see" the truth?

It is more romantic in a way, but which is more likely?

Are these people Galileos or a Andrews?

When you put it like that - of course it's more likely that they are Andrews. But if I turn the question to myself - of course I dream to be a Galileo. So I want to think that I'm smart, a genius maybe by virtue of following "different thinkers".

But I'm most likely an idiot to even think that. Looking at the articles which disprove the claims - well, it makes me feel small. There are much smarter people than me and it's even difficult to follow all of the arguments.

These people are called part of the "Intellectual Dark Web". It's tempting to get there (the term is by the way claimed by the brother of the Bret's DarkHorse podcast guy referenced above). They seem smart and logical. But as with most humans - we are idiots individually. Different thinking is not necessarily a sign of intellect - most of the time it's a sign of stupidity.

So that's what I think happened with me. I don't like much of the centralization of the web - but this topic is huge for me and probably for another time. I projected my own grievances, some of which may still be valid, into the whole situation, trying to find alternative narratives. The initial spark was outside of me - a new relationship - but this could've easily been some internal curiousity, an interesting conversation or an argument with a friend that I wouldn't let go.I started slowly dipping my toes until I stopped realizing that my whole body is now swimming in bullshit. One by one, as the proverbial "boiling frog" misconception goes - I didn't realize how many assumptions I've made - mistrusting thousands of smart scientists that do difficult work, coming to consensus for each new sentence that engulfs me.

I liked some of the journey - I thought a lot about what is true, what are the different ways that we can be manipulated and how many times in living memory we have been, true conspiracies that come to life and of course the whole experience of getting into one, at least for a while.

But I must now come back to rationality. Humanity has problems - more than we can count and measure. But there are choices we make every day that are not easy - either with too little, or too much information. As one of the sources above said: "which is better: conspiracy ideas spreading around like wildfire or some community guidelines that is the discretion of a private company, doing its best to protect some dangerous discussions with the cost of limiting some free speech"?

I still don't like centralization of the web, staying in one's own bubble and calling the other side "stupid". We all are on some level. Division is not good. But I fight with myself and try to pull myself up from the bullshit to see what is the consensus and trust the massive amounts of people, as I originally claimed in my first post. I can only appreciate more in what trouble we are as humanity if it's that easy to slip these days into shit but also hope that people will wake up see when they are sinking like I was/am doing.

Can YouTube be wrong?

No. This is simply, mathematically impossible.

YouTube (Google/Alphabet) is not made of people. It's made of omniscient gods. I am one of them, therefore it must be true.

So when YouTube puts this in their guidelines:

It is impossible that they (we) are wrong.

"OK, " - a mere mortal might ask - "Why are they (you) claiming this? Joe Rogan invited that guy that you talked about the other week and this new doctor dude to talk about some medicine. They seem calm, rational and calmly talking about evidence-based research, just look:"

Ah, so you are watching this outside of the exclusive deal that Rogan has with Spotify, you filthy pirate! How dare you!? Also, why are you going after this far-right idiot? He is American comedian, podcaster, and UFC color commentator - not a medical doctor! He likes being controversial, that doesn't mean he is right. There is a reason he is mostly off our platform now - other than some clips here and there

"OK, " - a shithead like you will say - "How about Dr. John Campbell with >1M subscribers on YouTube talking about a study called Ivermectin for Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 Infection - a peer-reviewed, Systematic, Meta-analysis, and Trial Sequential Analysis to Inform Clinical Guidelines"

One-doctor science does not make! He is not even a medical doctor but a nurse with a PhD. Besides, these are small-scale studies made by clinicians, not our trusted fact-checked sources, we need clinical studies! Stop spreading missinformation, it's hard enough for us.

Let me answer your stupid, uninformed, conspiratorial question. Just let me warn you that once you start going into questioning the dogma of the times, you are a conspiracist, you dumb, dumb flat-earther! What now, we didn't land on the moon?! How far-right you've gone - there is only left and far-right - either you are with us or you are crazy!

Few things, you 9-11 denier:

• First of all, YouTube (actually - Google LLC or the parent conglomerate - Alphabet) is a private entity that is holding, among other things, the domain youtube.com. They (we) pay for that domain that just so happens to be the second most popular. So what goes on that piece of the Internet is their (our) own business. They (we) can ban purple giraffes tomorrow if we want to. We can ban you from posting anything. We can ban The President (of the USA of course, you dummy, who else), we can make the whole site full of dickpics tomorrow if we want to. The fact that you are smart enough to be getting your information from that highly reputable source just shows how independent and thoughtful you are and we thank you.

• WHO, FDA, EMA says that this medicine is only up for clinical trials and that the evidence from current studies is weak. Therefore it's true because agencies have never been wrong. "No such piece of paper ever existed. You invented it, and later you grew to believe in it. You remember now the very moment at which you first invented it. Do you remember that?"

• By the way, EMA also links that Czechia and Slovakia have temporarily allowed the highlighted medicine for COVID-19. But they are not really countries, since they are not U.S.A. so who cares.

• By the way, the highlighted medicine is being studied as possible treatment in UK. But that's just studies so we still prohibit discussing the recommendation of it. The fact that so many people get their info from us and our rival partners just shows how thoughtful you are. You should trust us to block content that we don't want discussed on our domains even if science is still undecided. And also: UK is not U.S.A.

• Are you worried by some adverse side effects that happens to young males after their second vaccine? Yeah, don't. It's for the common good, you should all bear some individual sacrifice!

• By the way, this podcast that talked about this medicine and other stuff has been "removed for violating YouTube's Community Guidelines." so you know we mean business. Some idiots have saved copies on their self-hosted websites but you know - they are not that popular.

• By the way, we hold the whole .dev domain so if this fucker becomes inconvenient, we "reserve the right to slightly kick him off our domain".

• Anyway, here's what we would've told Galileo if we had ultimate control of what is being discussed in public in XVII century: Buy your own domain!

• But seriously, we would've obviously agreed with G.G. We applaud creative thinkers and challengers of the status quo. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia

C'mon: Think logically.

• Is it possible that all these worldwide organizations are blind or miss led? No

• Is it possible that the vaccine producers have cheated and minimized possible deaths or adverse effects from vaccines? No. No.

• Is it possible that the vaccine producers don't care about people but just money? No. Obviously no. I mean, why would you not be able to sue them if they turn out to be wrong!?

• C'mon, the whole scientific community can't be misled!

• Also, we, Google, are super-trustworthy

So we stand by banning discussion about content that we are experts in. We are the elite programmers in the world and therefore we also understand medicine and the whole world also, basically.

What would it mean for all this to be true?

</sarcasm> (which means ""end of sarcasm", you stupid non-programmer people. Why are you not a programmer? You should be! If you inspect the code of this article, you will actually see that it starts with a <sarcasm> tag meaning this whole thing was exagerated for fun. Stop doing other stuff that interest you and start programming, learn the truth! Okay, really </sarcasm>)

It would mean that really all the conspiracies that we've known so far, some of them linked above, must come true. That really all the trustworthy, hundreds of years old media, newspapers and agencies with decades of experience, agencies that have successfully eradicated smallpox in the past - have all been somehow manipulated.

But what about not manipulated but silenced?

Removing videos from the most popular video platform with a large stroke will inevitably have some rate of false negatives - i.e. videos that speak something "true" but are removed due to general guidelines.

Is it possible that a lot of doctors (or otherwise claimed authorities) are shutdown in the past >year (another programmer's thing: meaning "more than a year", just really: learn it already!) have been discredited and "cancelled" by the common narrative? How would we ever have Galileo's or any of the people that challenged the status quo in science?

The people in the Joe Rogan video might be wrong. But it's really, really hard not to listen to them. They don't sound like so called "conspiracy theorists". They don't sound like "anti-vaxxers" in general. They may be showing true data that needs to be discussed - but I'm not in a position to understand what the data really is - that's why we have specializations like doctors.

For sure, I see the point of YouTube and folks - it's a hard problem to allow true science while blocking quackery. There will be false positives and false negatives. You don't want everything to be questioned - that's the equivalent of a Denial of Service attack. Especially at a time with Prisoner's dilemma sort of choice in which the strategy of "wait until everyone else vaccinates" wins against some possible, albeit rare, side effects of the fastest vaccine in the world.

But these folks don't question everything. They question the following: * TL;DR(W): Is it possible that a particular medicine, from which companies won't have profit because its patent has expired, be somehow hidden from recommendations for public use so that vaccines are pushed to "emergency authorization" mode quicker to benefit BigPharma?

That's a much narrower question than "the whole pandemic is a scam".

They are also talking about possible under-reported adverse side-effects from the vaccine. Even YouTube's guidelines say that they prohibit "Claims that any medication or vaccination is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19". So why should this vaccine be different?

I urge you to watch or listen to Joe's podcast on his official Spotify thing. I download and host copies on my own self-hosted peertube because I don't know anymore what dissapears from the Interwebs and I don't want to have Spotify account. I guess until that podcast is still hosted officially, and you don't mind having Spotify account, it's probably best to listen to it there so that somehow he gets the $$$.

So, to sum up: I have no idea what I'm talking about but you go, listen to the show and tell me they are all crazy people. Listen to the whole thing that is, not excerpts, and tell me they don't make sense to you.

Then go to this DarkHorse Podcast Clips channel (while it still exist), watch some clips and tell me these folks don't know what they are talking about. I'm pretty sure they are wrong about some things but they don't seem arrogant. Is it possible that they are one of these Russian propaganda machines and they are doing a double-subversion - i.e. being pretty good experts but just throwing in miss/diss-information for the sake of confusion? Sure.

I could be completely in the rabbit-hole now. I could've succumbed to negativity bias and went too far. I'm trying to balance and it's getting really hard to know what's true...

Normalizing what used to be taboo

I stopped watching US comedians a few months ago. Perhaps a month or so after their election. Why? Cause I felt what I have felt in my home country with a particular Bulgarian ex-comedian that is soon going to become president, prime-minister or I don't know what: extremely politically biased.

For me a true comedian is true to themselves. A political comedian will target mostly the current in-power. It would be a similar spin to proper news-information media but with in a fun way.

US comedians I believed are like that for some time. But they are not. They are annoyingly political.

However, a couple of weeks ago, this old legend came to a the new host of The Late Show and threw a bomb, ridiculing the ignorance of the Lab Hypothesis until a month ago:

The current host was struggling to contain him. Maybe it was an additional layer of skit to his comment (otherwise, highly probably, would've been taken down or not promoted by the show producers). But I feel a struggle in Colbert, a struggle that he has been wrong.

How many people have been wrong during this pandemic about one thing or another? I for sure have been - I've admitted that in the beginning I thought it's "the next scare from the media". Then I run the numbers and convinced myself that is serious. But I didn't have to - there were strong enough messages from canceled flights to events, work from home and masks everywhere. I'm pretty sure every single person has been wrong on some level, about something during these turbulent times.

But how easy is it for people to admit they have been wrong. Multiple. Times.

We divided into camps. Pro-masks and anti-masks. Pro-lockdowns and anti-lockdowns. Pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine. Communication between the groups became less and less as people got tired of convincing "the other side". Once you are in one camp, you accept all the other opinions of the group around you. You conform - you have other things to worry about. You isolate the messages, you get tired of digging for the truth as it is so difficult and hazy anyway. You don't want to switch about anything to the other side - you will lose your friends and people who have been with you during these times. The other group may not accept you for being a traitor anymore.

BigTech is not the only one at fault, but it helped the divisions. Showing "similar" or "recommended" videos and posts from what you already are like, it limits what you will see on the other side. But even if it didn't - you don't want to see it. You are scared of going to the other side or even learning about them. They are idiots or "libtards". "Nazis" or "soyboys" (I'm not good with this new terminology).

Journalists are people too. Tech are people too. People working in the big agencies, are people as well. They also chose camps.

And when the vaccination is so important to be done quickly any kind of hesitation will put off some people. So block this. Don't talk about this.

Tech people have had the mantra that "the user is drunk" for too long. That means - don't trust that the user is smart or is going to read anything - just present them with the easiest choice and easiest pre-digested information.

140 characters for "in-depth" information. Clickbaits journalism. Videos that are at most 10 minutes long or if they are longer - cut them into chunks of "ideal" 10 minutes.

Then it became worse.

Memes and infographics. Infinite scroll. Dancy videos. Always consume, never think. Or when you think, you may be conspiracist.

Then it became even worse.

Propaganda. Bots. Fake accounts. Fake groups. Fake fake accounts. Fake fake bots. Real bots behind fake people. Thousands and millions of unknown profiles, looking convincing. We lost what is true and how to know it. We depend on BigTech to figure it out with "AI, Blockchain or Big Data". But it's still mostly humans and some way-from-ideal technology that makes all sorts of errors.

All was good until some stupid elections in some third world countries were maybe manipulated and we all had a good laugh out of Brexit or Trump.

And now lives depend on these companies to be arbiters of science and truth.

We won't tell you the exact risks that are for you individually - we will group you under large cohorts and give you aggregated statistics, assuring you we've done the calculation for the global good for you. It doesn't matter if you had COVID before or not. It doesn't matter what is the current herd immunity - you still need to get it. We've calculated the DALYs and other risk-benefit calcs. And it seems like a stronger message from the politicians that "everyone needs to get vaccinated" rather than having a more gray approach - after all, you want to travel, don't you?

What if we are wrong?

Well, then, you can't sue us. It's emergency and we make billions, so all is good. We won't open source the vaccine or remove patents, even if that will accelerate the process.

We are fighting the good fight - removing missinformation. And if some legitimate information gets also removed - well, then - it's emergency, there is no responsibility. We are a private company, you chose to participate by clicking "I agree" and wanting the "cookies".

We control the information so that you don't have to.

The Internet was not supposed to be like this... But the monopoly game is in its final rounds and it shows.