Matt Taibbi

xp I don't think there's a hard criterion for "objectionable" but I, personally, did not care for it.

Physicians have a limited toolbox to treat patients who have contracted covid, especially if they are showing severe symptoms. Adding to that toolbox seems like a good idea. ivermectin should be investigated on that basis alone.

But none of these potential treatments are cures and they should not be discussed by anyone as if they were an adequate substitute for the vaccines, which are extremely safe and effective at preventing covid infections from happening at all. Once you're ill with covid it's all a roll of the dice how sick you get or how long it might take to recover... or die.

i'm not a taibbi fan but this isn't a pro-ivermectin article

I read Taibbi's ivermectin article. By and large he peddles the same thinking I just wrote, above. But he drops in little poison pills of conspiracist thinking and structures the whole article to confuse the issue and avoid his own stated positions. Witness the final paragraph and the "some say this, others say that" refusal to commit himself:

Should people on their deathbeds be allowed to try anything to save themselves? That seems like an easy question to answer. Should the entire world be allowed to practice self-care on a grand scale? That’s a different issue. Some would say absolutely not, while others would say the corruption of pharmaceutical companies and the medical system unfortunately make it a necessity.

i would also be confused if i thought this was an article about whether people should be allowed to use unproven medications. but it's not, that's why he titled the article "can a drug be right wing" and the last sentence is "the world is increasingly divided along this trust/untrust axis." and this sentence: "Ivermectin has suffered the same fate as thousands of other news topics since Donald Trump first announced his run for the presidency nearly six years ago, cleaved in two to inhabit separate factual universes for left and right audiences."

If that were the whole point of the article, then just stating that thesis and connecting it to ivermectin could have been accomplished in 10% of the word count he employed. All the rest was beside that point, which leads me to think the point was not what the headline indicated.

On reflection, I think what bothers me about Taibbi's post is its structural similarity to "just asking questions" posts about climate change; the same "experts almost universally think X but I found some equally credentialed people who say Y," the same "look there's no evidence that the mainstream view is wrong and every attempt to find evidence like that has failed, but that's not proof the mainstream view ISN'T wrong," the same sense that "the people promoting the mainstream view SAY there will be big negative consequences if they're not listened too but who made them the absolute arbiters?"

I guess articles like that about climate change, you could say, "they're not denying climate change, they just say that climate scientists shouldn't be so sure of themselves and the view that climate change is either not happening or could actually be solved easily without reducing fossil fuel consumption should be given a fair hearing and not be dismissed." But *is* that what you'd say?

Do a lot of climate denial apologists reiterate the findings of experts who warn of climate change?

Stories like these aren’t proof the drug works. They don’t even really rise to the level of evidence. People recover from diseases all the time, and it doesn’t mean any particular treatment was responsible. Short of the gold standard of randomized controlled trials, there’s no proof.

and

There clearly is not evidence that ivermectin is the next penicillin, at least as far as its effects on Covid-19. As is noted in nearly every mainstream story about the subject, the WHO has advised against its use pending further study, there have been randomized studies showing it to be ineffective in speeding recovery, and the drug’s original manufacturer, Merck, has said there’s no “meaningful evidence” of efficacy for Covid-19 patients. However, it’s also patently untrue, as is frequently asserted, that there’s no evidence that the drug might be effective.

This past week, for instance, Oxford University announced it was launching a large-scale clinical trial. The study has already recruited more than 5,000 volunteers, and its announcement says what little is known to be true: that “small pilot studies show that early administration with ivermectin can reduce viral load and the duration of symptoms in some patients with mild COVID-19,” that it’s “a well-known medicine with a good safety profile,” and “because of the early promising results in some studies, it is already being widely used to treat COVID-19 in several countries.”

The Oxford text also says “there is little evidence from large-scale randomized controlled trials to demonstrate that it can speed up recovery from the illness or reduce hospital admission.”

Is it just that he typed the word ivermectin at all?

Stories like these aren’t proof the drug works. They don’t even really rise to the level of evidence.

Yes. These observations are made, briefly, but only after retailing a very long, detailed anecdote that suggests the exact opposite and is given the prominence of leading the article with no hint that the point of telling it is to call it into question. Rhetorically, it is the main course, not the supposed disclaimer.

Also it carefully fails to mention that ivermectin has had adverse effects in patients, and it's currently recommended against because it can do more harm than good.

i don't think it's quite a just asking questions thing but it's close enough; the thing i hate about him is he makes all these observations like wow there's such a political divide on the topic of ivermectin! there's no place for people to look up information on it! then that's it, no discussion of what causes this or who is benefiting, this phenomenon just appeared out of thin air. similarly his subtitle calling is "hostage to a global fight between populists and anti-populists." like populism is where the line is drawn.

There does not seem to be a media blackout on fluvoxamine. Maybe ivermectin just isn’t that good for covid.

I thought this was a good discussion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlLr8xuJcF8

"Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" isn't so much a red flag as a matador's cape

Whatever. Free speech is important, and it’s insane that somehow that is seen as some kind of racist dogwhistle now.

Free speech is important but this is a bit more "free speech" - FIRE is funded by a bunch of right-wing zealots (Scaifes, Kochs, etc.). Do you think they're really invested in free speech in a meaningful sense?

Dude just watch/listen and engage with the ideas or don’t. I’m so tired of the label-and-ignore crowd.

Following the money to look at an organization's motives and goals isn't "labelling and ignoring."

Campus free speech warriorism is a right-wing project to turn a mole hill into a mountain.

Our student newspaper called Student Press Law Center and FIRE about a decade ago for advice on a possible legal matter; both offered similar, sound advice. I was aware of the Koch leanings but this was standard practice then.

I don't regret the students called them: a case-by-case thing, I guess.

the fire doors don't object when someone is fired or denied tenure for being pro-palestinian and they were conspicuously absent when the journalist with the 1619 project was denied tenure due to interference from the UNC board.

Lol fire doors, ieant fire dorks

It’s all context and no substance with some of you.

There's no substance to campus free speech warriors, though (for the reasons Boring refers to). It's primary use is to play the fear of the olds into mainstreaming white supremacists.

That Taibbi and others have pushed all in on it and cancel culture is a demerit to them, not a sign the reactionaries have a point.

looking through Amna's timeline at it's all the same cancel culture heroes you'd expect to see ... McWhorter, Chatteron, Pinker, Bari, Friedersdorf ... but zero arguments from anyone who disagrees with them.

Yes, look through their timelines! So enlightening!

Well I’m not going to watch a video for crying out loud.

Imagine watching these cretins on a fucking zoom call for like an hour

fucking bleak

the fire doors don't object when someone is fired or denied tenure for being pro-palestinian

https://www.thefire.org/fire-warns-temple-against-punishing-professor-marc-lamont-hill/

https://www.thefire.org/fire-ncac-call-on-fordham-to-recognize-students-for-justice-in-palestine/

https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-unc-trustees-alleged-nixing-1619-project-creator-tenured-position/

I'm sure lots of them are dorks tho, you couldn't pay me to watch that video

It’s all context and no substance with some of you.

― DJI, Thursday, September 16, 2021 9:07 PM (two hours ago)

what are your thoughts on ivermectin?

Here's FIRE on Nikole Hannah-Jones, mentioned above

https://www.thefire.org/fire-urges-transparency-in-nikole-hannah-jones-tenure-denial-at-university-of-north-carolina/

I still don't care for Taibbi though

After a person has endorsed enough irresponsibly stupid opinions in public, it's OK to regard their judgment as hopelessly flawed to the point where even when they are 'right' it is clearly the result of an accident, not intrinsic ability.

Hm Aimless is right in this case but he’s posted some stupid opinions before so I’m not sure how to judge this one

regard me however you think best, silby.

Do you think they're really invested in free speech in a meaningful sense?

Just taking a quick look at the Cases section of their website, I personally get the impression they're invested in free speech in a meaningful sense, fwiw. Here's one from a couple weeks ago where they called upon a university to retract its demand that a student paper remove any articles about alleged sexual harassment by a former professor. A couple weeks before that, they took action that appears to have forced a medical school to approve a student's request to start a club promoting single-payer healthcare, which the school had been unfairly denying for months. See also symsymsym's and eephus's posts above.

Don't get me wrong, there is a HUGE amount of "free speech" infrastructure which exists only to bash liberals and create an impression that colleges are PC dungeons, almost all of it better-funded and more widely shared than FIRE's stuff, and FIRE is by no means perfect, but they're better than you'd think they are if you only knew them from when somebody on Fox News cited them.

OTM

Fair enough. The phrase "Individual Rights" though gives me right wing vibes.

https://taibbi.substack.com/p/the-cult-of-the-vaccine-neurotic

I’d be the last person to claim there aren’t dumb people out there in America, but at least the audiences of channels like Fox and OAN know that content has been designed for them. The people gobbling down these pieces by Bloomberg and the Times that have the journalistic equivalent of child-proof caps on every paragraph that even parenthetically mentions COVID really believe that content has been dumbed down for some other person. They think it’s someone else who can’t handle news that vaccines work and that there also might be a pill that treats the disease, without freaking out or coming to politically unsafe conclusions. So they put up with being talked to like children — demand it, even.

So sick of this.

sick of what

"You liberals are the real closed-minded dummies!"

The comments section is of course a poem.

that paragraph doesn't make any sense at all

Conservative Contrarian51 min ago

A few friends and I have concluded that one reason folks who have been jabbed are so insistent everyone receive the jab is because even though they hope it was a smart, safe decision; on the chance it was a bad decision, they want everyone to have been equally deceived. It stems from the same trait that causes their craving for “group think”.

but it never was a bad or unsafe decision, ever. people are so stupid

I truly don't understand what that paragraph is meant to say -- it is possible it makes more sense in context but I just don't have the strength to click through.

I know a lot of liberals and they, ok we, go around saying "vaccines work" all the time. Who does Matt Taibbi think I think can't handle that news and how does Matt Taibbi explain why I'm not hiding that news from those people