4 ms·

What you are referring to is called the “transmission-virulence tradeoff theory” and while it does not guarantee that this virus will do what you claim, it is r

What you are referring to is called the “transmission-virulence tradeoff theory” and while it does not guarantee that this virus will do what you claim, it is remarkable that public health officials and journalists do not mention it. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30734920/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30734920/

ksaj 5y ago
They would mention it if they saw it occurring. It's not. You can imagine if they did, the propaganda engine of 2020 would have used the concept to launch lies about how it'll eventually become so mild you really don't need the vaccine. A certain president was stating early on that it would just fade away. It didn't. All the info floating about was already confusing (and even contradictory) to the general population. There is no need to muddy the water with details that aren't applicable at this time, and may never be.
- guscost 5y ago
  Even if your claim is correct: Hiding this kind of information from the public, and trying to steamroll them with “experts say” proclamations, has backfired spectacularly. Surely you can see that by now.
  - ksaj 5y ago
    You might recall the roller coaster that ensued when they thought it might be possible to reach heard immunity. The moment it became obvious that it wasn't going to happen, mostly due to an incredible lack of cooperation with everyone involved, they stopped talking about it. It was no longer valid, so why talk about it? What backfired is not so much what the experts were saying, but how there was always an 'anti' chugging away at the press and online to make sure nobody knew what was what. We spend way too much time debunking crap info instead of just dealing with the good-at-the-time info provided by the experts. They aren't hiding anything from the public. They just aren't planning on teaching the public absolutely everything about pandemics - just what is needed to be known at any given time. Otherwise you end up with too much information for anyone to even begin to understand what they need to do. Telling people that some viruses eventually weaken has no benefit to anyone. The current virus isn't doing that, and raising hopes that it might is bound to give propagandists more fuel to work with.
  - spookthesunset 5y ago
    The whole damn last year and a half has been nothing but raw appeals to authority. Critical thinking and healthy skepticism has been met with extreme vitriol.
    - alexanderdmitri 5y ago
      What's your frame of reference for this statement? Mostly I've seen a very mixed bag of opinions, reactions and measures over the past year and a half. I think people are pushed to extremes because there's a heady mixture of: 1. an invisible, unthinking enemy breaking through borders affecting everyone and causing an inflection in basic social etiquette that demands action in very grey and alien moral zones most people have no experience in 2. the internet increasingly dominating the human experience while still being a relatively new, mindfuck global network that (a) undermines basic instincts honed for thousands of years, (b) increases fringe and extreme communities by enabling distributed social networking, and (c) enables surveillance and individual targeting on a scale most preceding dystopian literature couldn't imagine 3. unsolveable, self-perpetuating issues such as racism (as a proxy for culture wars and systemic oppression), conspiracy theories / misinformation (as a means of fracturing and neutering political movements that empowers users and proponents like a heroin-dealer empowers the neighborhood) and wealth inequality (the 'meritocratic' cloak over the otherwise naked aristocracy of capitalist societies) all dominate discourse and news cycles with the apocalyptic 'slow' train of climate change coming into view that we can't avoid because the sheer scale escapes our petty existential crises and sadistic impulses that have driven history and gotten us here (wherever the hell 'here' is) 4. the release of the tiger king documentary

ksaj 5y ago

They would mention it if they saw it occurring. It's not. You can imagine if they did, the propaganda engine of 2020 would have used the concept to launch lies about how it'll eventually become so mild you really don't need the vaccine. A certain president was stating early on that it would just fade away. It didn't. All the info floating about was already confusing (and even contradictory) to the general population. There is no need to muddy the water with details that aren't applicable at this time, and may never be.

guscost 5y ago
Even if your claim is correct: Hiding this kind of information from the public, and trying to steamroll them with “experts say” proclamations, has backfired spectacularly. Surely you can see that by now.
- ksaj 5y ago
  You might recall the roller coaster that ensued when they thought it might be possible to reach heard immunity. The moment it became obvious that it wasn't going to happen, mostly due to an incredible lack of cooperation with everyone involved, they stopped talking about it. It was no longer valid, so why talk about it? What backfired is not so much what the experts were saying, but how there was always an 'anti' chugging away at the press and online to make sure nobody knew what was what. We spend way too much time debunking crap info instead of just dealing with the good-at-the-time info provided by the experts. They aren't hiding anything from the public. They just aren't planning on teaching the public absolutely everything about pandemics - just what is needed to be known at any given time. Otherwise you end up with too much information for anyone to even begin to understand what they need to do. Telling people that some viruses eventually weaken has no benefit to anyone. The current virus isn't doing that, and raising hopes that it might is bound to give propagandists more fuel to work with.
- spookthesunset 5y ago
  The whole damn last year and a half has been nothing but raw appeals to authority. Critical thinking and healthy skepticism has been met with extreme vitriol.
  - alexanderdmitri 5y ago
    What's your frame of reference for this statement? Mostly I've seen a very mixed bag of opinions, reactions and measures over the past year and a half. I think people are pushed to extremes because there's a heady mixture of: 1. an invisible, unthinking enemy breaking through borders affecting everyone and causing an inflection in basic social etiquette that demands action in very grey and alien moral zones most people have no experience in 2. the internet increasingly dominating the human experience while still being a relatively new, mindfuck global network that (a) undermines basic instincts honed for thousands of years, (b) increases fringe and extreme communities by enabling distributed social networking, and (c) enables surveillance and individual targeting on a scale most preceding dystopian literature couldn't imagine 3. unsolveable, self-perpetuating issues such as racism (as a proxy for culture wars and systemic oppression), conspiracy theories / misinformation (as a means of fracturing and neutering political movements that empowers users and proponents like a heroin-dealer empowers the neighborhood) and wealth inequality (the 'meritocratic' cloak over the otherwise naked aristocracy of capitalist societies) all dominate discourse and news cycles with the apocalyptic 'slow' train of climate change coming into view that we can't avoid because the sheer scale escapes our petty existential crises and sadistic impulses that have driven history and gotten us here (wherever the hell 'here' is) 4. the release of the tiger king documentary