3 ms·
> You can never know anything for sure. But you can? e.g. "We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern."? What deficie
by cheph 5y ago
> You can never know anything for sure.
But you can? e.g. "We know that there are no side effects that are common enough to be of real concern."?
What deficiency do I have that prevents me from knowing anything for sure that you don't have?
- DangerousPie 5y agoFair enough, I clearly should have phrased that differently. I simplified the wording at the cost of accuracy. The correct wording would be "We know that it is highly unlikely that there are any side effects that ...".
- cheph 5y agoThanks, that is a much more reasonable statement, and I agree. On the one hand we don't know, but on the other hand a lack of knowledge does not mean everything has equal probabilities. I personally don't see any good reason to think that the risk for long term side effects from the vaccine is higher for the vaccine than for COVID itself.
- dnautics 5y agoYour deficiency is that you're not a time traveller. You can't know what the long term consequences are no matter how many studies you do, until the long term has come to pass. You can however guess, and make good guesses (I'm planning on getting the vaccine). But it does no one any good to fail to outline unknowns that are steelmanned by "we can't possibly know".
- pcl 5y agoDangerousPie probably meant "One can never know anything for sure", not "you, cheph, can never know anything for sure, but I, DangerousPie, can". This is a common, but confusing, use of "you" in American English.