@patrickc - Offhand — * Vacillation on masks, with abundant motivated
Conor Friedersdorf@conor64
A question for everyone: survey data suggests that by the end of the Covid-19 emergency trust in public health institutions had decreased significantly. If you are among the people who reacted that way, why specifically? I'm hoping for long, diverse, individualized answers.
Patrick Collison✓@patrickc
2026-03-28Offhand —
* Vacillation on masks, with abundant motivated reasoning in every case.
* Promulgation of made-up thresholds with no evidentiary basis (e.g. 6 feet).
* Authoritarian delight in nanny state intrusiveness (policing the beach and such).
* 180 on many issues around BLM.
* Lack of effective response from science funding bodies.
* Denial of aerosolized transmission.
* Changing of trial readouts so that they’d occur after the election. (Confirmed to me by senior OWS officials.)
* Crazy criteria for vaccine distribution.
* Adamant insistence on vaccine efficacy beyond what was supported by data.
* Almost complete lack of follow-through on OWS (on pan-variant vaccines).
I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones that stick out.