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Notes -
(1) If this is a genuine question, then yes. Back when this was first mooted, I came down on the side of "it's the anti-parasitic effect freeing up the immune system", before ever Scott addressed the question, because I grew up in an agricultural region where ivermectin was advertised morning, noon and night for treating various animal ailments.
(2) Yes, ivermectin is used to treat humans. FOR WORM AND PARASITE INFESTATIONS.
(3) No, you will not convince anyone except your partisans that Scott was wrong, wrong, wrong and you are right, right, right about this. When the list of trials was posted on ACX, I trawled through them all. All the positive results were also in countries that are Second or Third World regions, except for Florida. And duh, Florida. Flesh eating screwworms, anyone? A case from 2016 which is mainly in deer, but which can spread to livestock and to humans.
Hence you are not going to get your Canossa moment from Scott, with him going on social media everywhere to tender a grovelling apology to you. And even if he does change his mind, I'm not going to because see points (1) and (2) above. Scott did not convince me, I already held the opinion and was mildly chuffed to see him later come out on that side of the question.
This is your hobbyhorse, and while you may have a bee in your bonnet about it, please give it up. We've already had one of your partisans over on ACX to chivvy Scott into the grovelling apology, and as I said - it won't affect my opinion since I arrived at it independently. Ivermectin is not a miracle Covid cure. If people are suffering from existing medical problems, such as worm or parasitic infestations, then ivermectin in conjunction with other treatments probably helps by killing off the parasites and freeing the immune system of that burden to fight the virus. Ivermectin on its own in otherwise healthy people won't do anything.
He's been banging on about this endlessly over on his own blog or Substack or whatever it is. Fine, that's his space and he can do what he wants there. But he's also constantly issuing challenges to Scott and now he's come on here, still chasing that car.
I'm not convinced by what he says, and I'm not eager to wade back into the same fight because I'm tired of the same old "Scott Alexander is wrong and should admit it publicly everywhere!" And by the looks of it, neither is anyone else on here as of now.
In that case I think the correct response would be just to ignore the content and move on.
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