Scott Alexander's correction on ivermectin and its meaning for the rationalists
The &quot;rationalist community&quot; is morbidly fascinating in their tendency to be so self-important while also having a deficit of self-awareness. The author of this piece can&#x27;t understand why an internet-famous blogger&#x2F;Substack writer that he follows doesn&#x27;t have time to drop everything and debate the minutia of a blog post he wrong last year on a topic that has long since been settled. Note that Scott did listen to him, work through his reasoning, and update his blog with a note about it, but that didn&#x27;t satisfy the author:<p>&gt; Step 6: Semi-Permeable Membranes<p>&gt; One thing that shocked me was how hard it was to discuss even a simple thing with Scott, even when he knew I could have made a big deal about this without giving him an opportunity to make whatever correction he thought appropriate. It felt like communicating through a straw. I get the sense that Scott is busy. Busy and&#x2F;or surrounded by people who think the world of him; a community of readers that compliment his writing early and often.<p>This piece also shares several other characteristics of &quot;rationalist&quot; writings: Unnecessarily long and rambling prose, flowery language and dramatic subsection titles when basic text would suffice, hedging in the middle of the article in case the author turns out to be incorrect, and a relentless insistence that the conversation revolve around <i>their experience</i> and some perceived sleights instead of letting the argument stand alone.<p>Regardless, this seems like a silly diatribe after the medical community has already investigated the Ivermectin idea to great lengths and at massive scale and concluded that any effects it <i>might</i> have are too small to be worth pursuing. It&#x27;s weird to see someone writing volumes about re-litigating last years&#x27; amateur scientist social media battles.<p>This author is either obsessed with Ivermectin and the TOGETHER trial or playing a game to pander his Substack to a certain audience who loves this content. His first post was only a month ago but he&#x27;s already written 11 articles suggesting errors and alluding to conspiracy theories.