5 ms·

I think other comments may have pointed this out already, but there are several problems with this line of reasoning. When deciding on whether or not to admini

I think other comments may have pointed this out already, but there are several problems with this line of reasoning. When deciding on whether or not to administer a procedure or treatment, one must consider the balance of potential harms and benefits, while accounting for uncertainty. In this particular case, the potential for harm from the vaccine is quite low (this is borne out by the data), and the benefits are mostly unknown. The potential harms of NOT taking the vaccine are mostly unknown (data is still coming in), and the potential benefit of that course of action is quite low. So it seems like the positive expected value / utility decision here is for them to get the vaccine. In your comment you use the analogy of a procedure with a much different risk / benefit profile. So that does not really hold up. A much better analogy would be something like routine screening for prostate cancer once you pass a certain age.

ithkuil 5y ago
> In this particular case, the potential for harm from the vaccine is quite low (this is borne out by the data), Which is why a common anti-vax argument is sow doubt about the harmful effects. I noticed a few options: a) conspiratorial: "the government is lying about side harm" b) anecdotal: "I personally know at least 3 people who couldn't walk after the vaccine. Do you call me a liar?" c) hyper-skepticism: "how can we know if it long term side effect? Yes it's proven safe for X months, but what about in Y month? what about Y years?" I found it hard to defuse such positions with "just more data". They seem to be memes (crafted or just evolved?) that resist quite strongly to data.
- peteradio 5y ago
  It seems to me very reasonable to worry about long-term outcomes when we are talking about vaccinating every man woman child. Maybe its got precedence but damn if its not worrying, and honest skepticism ought to be treated with respect not derided.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    I'm not deriding the honest worry. Nobody can know with certainty anything about the future. I'm worrying about the paralyzing effects of a meme that says that since it's technically possible for an adverse affect to happen at an arbitrary point in the future, we cannot consider an option to curb the effects of a known problem we have right now. Often I'm accused of dismissing the possibility of adverse effects like if I knew with certainty that they can't happen. How could I? Nobody knows. That's not the point. The point is to make a guess and take balanced risks. We take risks all the time, about everything. What's so special about vaccines that causes such widespread reaction? Is it because people feel forced to take them? Is it something about the way they work that triggers such a reaction in people that often (anecdotally) don't care about things like effects of second hand smoke? (Genuine questions)
    - peteradio 5y ago
      I will try to answer your questions from my point of view. It appears "off" that there is no nuance to this vaccination strategy. It seems especially odd to advocate for vaccinating children who stand to benefit very little personally. I had planned to get vaccinated but have been pretty concerned by the totalitarian vibes I've been getting lately. So I guess I've decided to let my civics slide to match. I will get the vaccine for my own personal benefit (if I deem it so) and I expect that is basically what's motivated everyone else anyway. So far I've not seen a clear benefit to me. According to this page https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/ https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/ these are my stats: "probability of catching COVID-19 through community transmission in a week is 0.027%" "If you get sick from COVID-19, the risk of hospitalization is 1.3% , the risk of requiring an ICU is 0.67% , and the risk of not surviving is 0.053%" If I tell the calculator I'm vaccinated then most those stats go down by 2 which is good but my threshold for action is on an absolute scale and staying unvaccinated does not trip the sensor. I choose to live life in rural America in some part to avoid such calamities. As an unvaccinated person I am less of a risk to other people person than a vaccinated person in da big city. To me personally the main issue has little to do with vaccines and more to do with frankly unnecessary (in some cases) overreach. I'm not saying overreach has happened already, but recent overtures are quite alarming to me.
  - pfisherman 5y ago
    Reasonable skepticism should not be derided. But I would say (a) the skepticism is borderline, and (b) poor decision making is what is being derided. So why is the skepticism borderline? Well we have over 100 years of data showing that vaccines I’m general are safe and effective. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has drastically improved during that century - especially in the last 20 years. mRNA vaccines is a new platform, but all the preclinical and clinical data tee have shows they are safe and effective, and if we were going to see long term effects (which would be related to abnormal inflammatory / immune) response; it is highly likely we would have seen some indicator by now. Which specific long term effects are people even worried about? And this brings us to why it is a poor decision. SARS-COV2 rewires your innate immune response, and has been observed to cause abnormal inflammatory/ immune responses that cause to death and long term disability with alarming frequency. So it seems like extremely poor judgement to be worried about long term effects from the vaccine more than the virus. The first concern is largely unsupported by the data, while the second is unquestionably supported by the data.
    - ithkuil 5y ago
      Yes we have plenty of data about past vaccines: https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine# https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-va... "The history of vaccines shows that delayed effects following vaccination can occur. But when they do, these effects tend to happen within two months of vaccination: ...<some examples>" Whenever I show this kind of info to my family/friends that are against vaccines the response follow the three categories I posted earlier above. I categorically do not want to make fun of anybody. I really want to understand either: a) what's wrong about my understanding of the safety of this vaccination campaign (i.e. can really the world governments conspire so efficiently to hide the real data, or other arguments above) Or is it just a big identity politics problem, where we all think we engage in a rational discussion while each of us has already taken a stance that we cannot be moved out with arguments? (I'm putting myself into question too) b) how can I understand and reach my family members and friends and engage in a discussion that is not shut off quickly by one of the aforementioned unfalsifiable positions
Retric 5y ago
This line of thinking assumes you can reliably separate people that have had covid from those that haven’t. In the real world requiring vaccines for everyone means vaccination of people that thought they had covid but didn’t. Which I suspect may be the underlying reason studies are showing the vaccines are more effective than getting covid.
- nomoreplease 5y ago
  I have proof of infection from several tests. I’m starting to wonder why I can just use that instead of vaccine evidence?
  - Retric 5y ago
    You have evidence of infection from several tests, they could still be false positives. Even ignoring that I t’s really difficult to have a policy around this because of how limited and error prone testing was early on. Many people where told they had covid based on symptoms or a single low accuracy test. Things have improved, but when you start talking millions of people being tested it’s really just a question of the rate of false positives not their existence.
    - nomoreplease 5y ago
      How common are false positives? I had multiple different tests from different locations. Slow and fast tests. My tests were not early on either. I’d rather trust that than my neighbor’s paper vaccine card which can be easily faked

ithkuil 5y ago

> In this particular case, the potential for harm from the vaccine is quite low (this is borne out by the data), Which is why a common anti-vax argument is sow doubt about the harmful effects. I noticed a few options: a) conspiratorial: "the government is lying about side harm" b) anecdotal: "I personally know at least 3 people who couldn't walk after the vaccine. Do you call me a liar?" c) hyper-skepticism: "how can we know if it long term side effect? Yes it's proven safe for X months, but what about in Y month? what about Y years?" I found it hard to defuse such positions with "just more data". They seem to be memes (crafted or just evolved?) that resist quite strongly to data.

peteradio 5y ago
It seems to me very reasonable to worry about long-term outcomes when we are talking about vaccinating every man woman child. Maybe its got precedence but damn if its not worrying, and honest skepticism ought to be treated with respect not derided.
- ithkuil 5y ago
  I'm not deriding the honest worry. Nobody can know with certainty anything about the future. I'm worrying about the paralyzing effects of a meme that says that since it's technically possible for an adverse affect to happen at an arbitrary point in the future, we cannot consider an option to curb the effects of a known problem we have right now. Often I'm accused of dismissing the possibility of adverse effects like if I knew with certainty that they can't happen. How could I? Nobody knows. That's not the point. The point is to make a guess and take balanced risks. We take risks all the time, about everything. What's so special about vaccines that causes such widespread reaction? Is it because people feel forced to take them? Is it something about the way they work that triggers such a reaction in people that often (anecdotally) don't care about things like effects of second hand smoke? (Genuine questions)
  - peteradio 5y ago
    I will try to answer your questions from my point of view. It appears "off" that there is no nuance to this vaccination strategy. It seems especially odd to advocate for vaccinating children who stand to benefit very little personally. I had planned to get vaccinated but have been pretty concerned by the totalitarian vibes I've been getting lately. So I guess I've decided to let my civics slide to match. I will get the vaccine for my own personal benefit (if I deem it so) and I expect that is basically what's motivated everyone else anyway. So far I've not seen a clear benefit to me. According to this page https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/ https://19andme.covid19.mathematica.org/ these are my stats: "probability of catching COVID-19 through community transmission in a week is 0.027%" "If you get sick from COVID-19, the risk of hospitalization is 1.3% , the risk of requiring an ICU is 0.67% , and the risk of not surviving is 0.053%" If I tell the calculator I'm vaccinated then most those stats go down by 2 which is good but my threshold for action is on an absolute scale and staying unvaccinated does not trip the sensor. I choose to live life in rural America in some part to avoid such calamities. As an unvaccinated person I am less of a risk to other people person than a vaccinated person in da big city. To me personally the main issue has little to do with vaccines and more to do with frankly unnecessary (in some cases) overreach. I'm not saying overreach has happened already, but recent overtures are quite alarming to me.
- pfisherman 5y ago
  Reasonable skepticism should not be derided. But I would say (a) the skepticism is borderline, and (b) poor decision making is what is being derided. So why is the skepticism borderline? Well we have over 100 years of data showing that vaccines I’m general are safe and effective. The safety and effectiveness of vaccines has drastically improved during that century - especially in the last 20 years. mRNA vaccines is a new platform, but all the preclinical and clinical data tee have shows they are safe and effective, and if we were going to see long term effects (which would be related to abnormal inflammatory / immune) response; it is highly likely we would have seen some indicator by now. Which specific long term effects are people even worried about? And this brings us to why it is a poor decision. SARS-COV2 rewires your innate immune response, and has been observed to cause abnormal inflammatory/ immune responses that cause to death and long term disability with alarming frequency. So it seems like extremely poor judgement to be worried about long term effects from the vaccine more than the virus. The first concern is largely unsupported by the data, while the second is unquestionably supported by the data.
  - ithkuil 5y ago
    Yes we have plenty of data about past vaccines: https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-vaccine# https://www.chop.edu/news/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-va... "The history of vaccines shows that delayed effects following vaccination can occur. But when they do, these effects tend to happen within two months of vaccination: ...<some examples>" Whenever I show this kind of info to my family/friends that are against vaccines the response follow the three categories I posted earlier above. I categorically do not want to make fun of anybody. I really want to understand either: a) what's wrong about my understanding of the safety of this vaccination campaign (i.e. can really the world governments conspire so efficiently to hide the real data, or other arguments above) Or is it just a big identity politics problem, where we all think we engage in a rational discussion while each of us has already taken a stance that we cannot be moved out with arguments? (I'm putting myself into question too) b) how can I understand and reach my family members and friends and engage in a discussion that is not shut off quickly by one of the aforementioned unfalsifiable positions

Retric 5y ago

This line of thinking assumes you can reliably separate people that have had covid from those that haven’t. In the real world requiring vaccines for everyone means vaccination of people that thought they had covid but didn’t. Which I suspect may be the underlying reason studies are showing the vaccines are more effective than getting covid.

nomoreplease 5y ago
I have proof of infection from several tests. I’m starting to wonder why I can just use that instead of vaccine evidence?
- Retric 5y ago
  You have evidence of infection from several tests, they could still be false positives. Even ignoring that I t’s really difficult to have a policy around this because of how limited and error prone testing was early on. Many people where told they had covid based on symptoms or a single low accuracy test. Things have improved, but when you start talking millions of people being tested it’s really just a question of the rate of false positives not their existence.
  - nomoreplease 5y ago
    How common are false positives? I had multiple different tests from different locations. Slow and fast tests. My tests were not early on either. I’d rather trust that than my neighbor’s paper vaccine card which can be easily faked