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> T-cell immunity was considered borderline conspiracy theory until recently. It's funny how the pandemic caused people to toss our decades of understandings o

> T-cell immunity was considered borderline conspiracy theory until recently. It's funny how the pandemic caused people to toss our decades of understandings of viruses out the window because it was politically expedient. It's always been known that if your immune system allows you to recover from a virus, you will have some level of lasting immunity.

api 5y ago
One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. They did do so every once in a while, but it was so throughly mixed with shit that it became contaminated. If Trump said the sky was blue, suddenly it would have to be red and if you were a red sky denier you were a racist. We are still dealing with the echoes of this and will be for at least five years. This is why having a super-polarizing troll in office is inherently bad for society. I think that's true regardless of their stripes. An obnoxious troll from the "left" would be no better in this particular regard. There's a reason high office leaders need to carry themselves professionally. Class (of the behavioral sort) is not some old fogie cultural superstition. Leaders that carry themselves like Trump actually damage the cognition of the people in their society.
- Veen 5y ago
  There's truth in the idea that Trump supporting an idea made it toxic even if it was a good idea, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened because the anti-Trump media attacked everything Trump said, whether it was sensible or not. They could have taken a neutral perspective and assessed his speech on its merits, but they did not and they bear some repsonsibility for that. (To be clear: I'm not a Trump supporter and I think that when he was right it was by accident rather than design. However, many media organizations shamed themselves by embracing partisanship and abandoning even the pretence of neutrality).
  - nonameiguess 5y ago
    This is kind of arguing in circles, though. A big part of the reason media is so hard on Trump is that he is classless and they were embarrassed he was their president. It's not like his public image was any better in 1990 well before he ever openly declared political ambitions and decided he was a Republican. He'd been a sideshow clown for decades. Arguably, the ridiculous level of polarization we already had is the only reason he got to where he is. Even most Republicans were embarrassed of him until he won the nomination and they rallied to the only option left that wasn't a Democrat. But thanks to having way too many candidates in the primary, he didn't need the support of "most" Republicans. He just needed more than Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.
  - kenjackson 5y ago
    Are there a lot of examples of this? In general when Trump said the right thing it seems like the media didn't go too far overboard. The most obvious example was about vaccination itself. While people were worried that he would push out a vaccine that wasn't ready, people were on board with vaccination. That said, I do think that Trump's brand was largely about division on social issues. So to that extent he often put at the forefront of his narratives positions that forced you to take a side. E.g., should Kaepernick be fired or not. Etc...
    - naasking 5y ago
      > In general when Trump said the right thing it seems like the media didn't go too far overboard. I'd say those aren't the problem so much as the borderline cases where there are true and untrue interpretations of a certain statement, but of course they ran with the most uncharitable possible interpretation because they're convinced Trump is a ruthless dictator in the making.
    - brimble 5y ago
      I think media treatment of him was really weird. Some things were exaggerated, but something like suggesting, during the '16 campaign, in a plainly favorable tone, that his supporters might assassinate his opponent if she won, should have been the only thing anyone wanted to ask him or his proxies about until he was hounded out of public life. Instead it was dropped surprisingly quickly.
      - kenjackson 5y ago
        I think the media treatment was fair and evenhanded. I think what has changed with the media is that nothing sticks for very long. As you note, what might have been a big story in the past has a really short news cycle now. What was remarkable about Trump was the shear volume of stories -- each lasted for days, but was then followed up immediately (or concurrently) with another. Even Jan 6 is having trouble sticking in the news. I think this was one of the issues that the Republicans ran into with the election. They thought that certain stories about Biden would stick and last. They missed that none of these stories last any more. You need a huge volume of stories to paint a narrative over a long period of time. Someone else mentioned the uncharitable interpretations of things he said. That was earned over years of such statements. It wasn't a new isolated incident.
- anshorei 5y ago
  As someone who considers themselves an outside onlooker, I disagree. Trump allowed all of the tribal people to out themselves. It's made it a lot easier to find people who stick to their principles and praised/criticized him where appropriate.
- kerneloftruth 5y ago
  One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. That wasn't the worst thing about trump.... it's the worst thing about the media coverage of him. You're blaming him for how media covered him.
  - kingsloi 5y ago
    What about things said by them directly, their Twitter, etc?
  - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
    Why not both? Trump behaved in a provocative way for a reason - it's not like he was a poor misunderstood thing and the media picked up on him for no reason.
    - themaninthedark 5y ago
      Preface by saying the I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things. Lets look at this from a parenting perspective. If i have a child who misbehaves often, is it appropriate for me to punish them when they do something good? Holding the media to the same accountability, if Trump is saying stupid/outrageous/provocative things, then lambast him when he says those things. But if the media lambasts him when he is saying something reasonable, then that is on the media. I think most of the annoyance I see in the thread is because there was blame being assigned to Trump or even someone on the same stage as him because they were on that stage with him. >One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. So rather than examining an idea based on the merits, ideas were discarded due to the messenger or the who the messenger associated with.
      - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
        Yes, I fully agree: criticizing Trump when when he was saying/doing something that makes sense just because it's Trump was very stupid.
- mynameishere 5y ago
  You just described one of the many problems with the media and then blamed it on Donald Trump. Why couldn't you have said "One of the problems with the media is..."
- 62951413 5y ago
  70M people would like a word with you. Don't confuse legacy media propaganda with what regular people think. Especially when you hear newspeak.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - krapp 5y ago
    And 230M people would like a word with you. Trumpists seem to forget that neither their movement nor their President have ever had the support of the American majority, much less of all "regular people." Never even the popular vote.
    - TMWNN 5y ago
      >Trumpists seem to forget that neither their movement nor their President have ever had the support of the American majority, much less of all "regular people." Never even the popular vote. Neither did Hillary, who won 48% of the popular vote in 2016 to Trump's 46%. Does the fact that not until 2020 did Trump's opponent win a majority of the popular vote invalidate the validity of the opposition until then?
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I don't recall that happening. Can you give examples? That sounds like Trump's behavior, not others.
ben_w 5y ago
While true, “some level of lasting immunity” is not necessarily all that useful. Norovirus infection and recovery for example, only last 6-24 months. I don’t know what the long term immune system response is for covid, but I do know that planning in general needs to be for the more pessimistic end of what is seems possible, and that quite a lot seemed possible in the early days of the pandemic.
- skocznymroczny 5y ago
  Why the "only" wording? Seems like the covid vaccines don't even last this much, and they are praised.
  - darkcha0s 5y ago
    I'm guessing because they give you protection without actually catching the potentially harmful virus in the first place?
    - chucksta 5y ago
      No they used "only" as in "not very long". The question is asking how can you say it's not very long when the covid vaccination lasts less than a year in comparison
      - ben_w 5y ago
        6 months is pretty short in both cases, but I think darkcha0s has me right, the cost is much lower in the vaccination case. For a much most positive example of how that matters: “How long did he retire for?“ “Only six months“ vs. “How long did he go on holiday for?“ “Only six months“
  - SigmundA 5y ago
    Covid vaccines have less side effects than the virus so are still superior option, hence the praise.
spookthesunset 5y ago
Calling Covid a "novel" virus was a mistake. Technically it's true but that didn't mean we needed to toss out everything we learned about viruses and start from first principles. Even from way back in March of 2020 even the most basic things we knew about viruses felt controversial. People were seriously thinking you could catch and transmit covid after like 3 months or something--like you'd just constantly get re-infected over and over again. And people flipping out about outdoor transmission... like when has catching a virus outside ever been a real thing? Everything we knew about the subject had to be re-proven. It was and still is completely crazy.
- beebmam 5y ago
  Many people got Delta and then Omicron even 1 month later. Kai Ryssdal from NPR for example, and one of my friends did too. So this isn't crazy; it literally happens to many respiratory viruses. Viruses mutate
  - enchiridion 5y ago
    I always wondered how people claim that. Did they have two pcr tests or something else telling them what variant they had?
    - rsynnott 5y ago
      Most PCR tests will discriminate between (B.1) Omicron and things which are not B.1 Omicron, so it's feasible to know this. I mean, strictly speaking all you'd know is that you had B.1 Omicron plus something else, but if you had the non-B.1 Omicron one in October, then in most parts of the world you'd be pretty safe in assuming that was Delta.
    - ddek 5y ago
      I had delta in late October and omicron in early December. I was PCR positive for delta, although I had a mild case. I wasn't allowed to take a PCR test for the December infection, because it was too soon after my delta test and my symptoms were very mild. I did test positive multiple times on LFT, my symptoms matched the 'ultramild' omicron (scratchy throat, slight cough, lower back pain). The day I tested positive for omicron was 4 days after my friends had gathered in a pub, of the 30 of us in attendance 27 tested positive on the same day. The group chat was wild. Some of those that got PCR's were informed they had omicron.
ViViDboarder 5y ago
But did it? I don’t ever remember T-cells being considered anything close to conspiracy theories, nor their importance being downplayed.

api 5y ago

One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. They did do so every once in a while, but it was so throughly mixed with shit that it became contaminated. If Trump said the sky was blue, suddenly it would have to be red and if you were a red sky denier you were a racist. We are still dealing with the echoes of this and will be for at least five years. This is why having a super-polarizing troll in office is inherently bad for society. I think that's true regardless of their stripes. An obnoxious troll from the "left" would be no better in this particular regard. There's a reason high office leaders need to carry themselves professionally. Class (of the behavioral sort) is not some old fogie cultural superstition. Leaders that carry themselves like Trump actually damage the cognition of the people in their society.

Veen 5y ago
There's truth in the idea that Trump supporting an idea made it toxic even if it was a good idea, but it didn't happen in a vacuum. It happened because the anti-Trump media attacked everything Trump said, whether it was sensible or not. They could have taken a neutral perspective and assessed his speech on its merits, but they did not and they bear some repsonsibility for that. (To be clear: I'm not a Trump supporter and I think that when he was right it was by accident rather than design. However, many media organizations shamed themselves by embracing partisanship and abandoning even the pretence of neutrality).
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  This is kind of arguing in circles, though. A big part of the reason media is so hard on Trump is that he is classless and they were embarrassed he was their president. It's not like his public image was any better in 1990 well before he ever openly declared political ambitions and decided he was a Republican. He'd been a sideshow clown for decades. Arguably, the ridiculous level of polarization we already had is the only reason he got to where he is. Even most Republicans were embarrassed of him until he won the nomination and they rallied to the only option left that wasn't a Democrat. But thanks to having way too many candidates in the primary, he didn't need the support of "most" Republicans. He just needed more than Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush.
- kenjackson 5y ago
  Are there a lot of examples of this? In general when Trump said the right thing it seems like the media didn't go too far overboard. The most obvious example was about vaccination itself. While people were worried that he would push out a vaccine that wasn't ready, people were on board with vaccination. That said, I do think that Trump's brand was largely about division on social issues. So to that extent he often put at the forefront of his narratives positions that forced you to take a side. E.g., should Kaepernick be fired or not. Etc...
  - naasking 5y ago
    > In general when Trump said the right thing it seems like the media didn't go too far overboard. I'd say those aren't the problem so much as the borderline cases where there are true and untrue interpretations of a certain statement, but of course they ran with the most uncharitable possible interpretation because they're convinced Trump is a ruthless dictator in the making.
  - brimble 5y ago
    I think media treatment of him was really weird. Some things were exaggerated, but something like suggesting, during the '16 campaign, in a plainly favorable tone, that his supporters might assassinate his opponent if she won, should have been the only thing anyone wanted to ask him or his proxies about until he was hounded out of public life. Instead it was dropped surprisingly quickly.
    - kenjackson 5y ago
      I think the media treatment was fair and evenhanded. I think what has changed with the media is that nothing sticks for very long. As you note, what might have been a big story in the past has a really short news cycle now. What was remarkable about Trump was the shear volume of stories -- each lasted for days, but was then followed up immediately (or concurrently) with another. Even Jan 6 is having trouble sticking in the news. I think this was one of the issues that the Republicans ran into with the election. They thought that certain stories about Biden would stick and last. They missed that none of these stories last any more. You need a huge volume of stories to paint a narrative over a long period of time. Someone else mentioned the uncharitable interpretations of things he said. That was earned over years of such statements. It wasn't a new isolated incident.
anshorei 5y ago
As someone who considers themselves an outside onlooker, I disagree. Trump allowed all of the tribal people to out themselves. It's made it a lot easier to find people who stick to their principles and praised/criticized him where appropriate.
kerneloftruth 5y ago
One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. That wasn't the worst thing about trump.... it's the worst thing about the media coverage of him. You're blaming him for how media covered him.
- kingsloi 5y ago
  What about things said by them directly, their Twitter, etc?
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  Why not both? Trump behaved in a provocative way for a reason - it's not like he was a poor misunderstood thing and the media picked up on him for no reason.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    Preface by saying the I don't agree with Trump on a lot of things. Lets look at this from a parenting perspective. If i have a child who misbehaves often, is it appropriate for me to punish them when they do something good? Holding the media to the same accountability, if Trump is saying stupid/outrageous/provocative things, then lambast him when he says those things. But if the media lambasts him when he is saying something reasonable, then that is on the media. I think most of the annoyance I see in the thread is because there was blame being assigned to Trump or even someone on the same stage as him because they were on that stage with him. >One of the worst things about Donald Trump was that if he or anyone adjacent to him actually said anything good, it immediately became toxic. So rather than examining an idea based on the merits, ideas were discarded due to the messenger or the who the messenger associated with.
    - hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
      Yes, I fully agree: criticizing Trump when when he was saying/doing something that makes sense just because it's Trump was very stupid.
mynameishere 5y ago
You just described one of the many problems with the media and then blamed it on Donald Trump. Why couldn't you have said "One of the problems with the media is..."
62951413 5y ago
70M people would like a word with you. Don't confuse legacy media propaganda with what regular people think. Especially when you hear newspeak.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- krapp 5y ago
  And 230M people would like a word with you. Trumpists seem to forget that neither their movement nor their President have ever had the support of the American majority, much less of all "regular people." Never even the popular vote.
  - TMWNN 5y ago
    >Trumpists seem to forget that neither their movement nor their President have ever had the support of the American majority, much less of all "regular people." Never even the popular vote. Neither did Hillary, who won 48% of the popular vote in 2016 to Trump's 46%. Does the fact that not until 2020 did Trump's opponent win a majority of the popular vote invalidate the validity of the opposition until then?
wolverine876 5y ago
I don't recall that happening. Can you give examples? That sounds like Trump's behavior, not others.

ben_w 5y ago

While true, “some level of lasting immunity” is not necessarily all that useful. Norovirus infection and recovery for example, only last 6-24 months. I don’t know what the long term immune system response is for covid, but I do know that planning in general needs to be for the more pessimistic end of what is seems possible, and that quite a lot seemed possible in the early days of the pandemic.

skocznymroczny 5y ago
Why the "only" wording? Seems like the covid vaccines don't even last this much, and they are praised.
- darkcha0s 5y ago
  I'm guessing because they give you protection without actually catching the potentially harmful virus in the first place?
  - chucksta 5y ago
    No they used "only" as in "not very long". The question is asking how can you say it's not very long when the covid vaccination lasts less than a year in comparison
    - ben_w 5y ago
      6 months is pretty short in both cases, but I think darkcha0s has me right, the cost is much lower in the vaccination case. For a much most positive example of how that matters: “How long did he retire for?“ “Only six months“ vs. “How long did he go on holiday for?“ “Only six months“
- SigmundA 5y ago
  Covid vaccines have less side effects than the virus so are still superior option, hence the praise.

spookthesunset 5y ago

Calling Covid a "novel" virus was a mistake. Technically it's true but that didn't mean we needed to toss out everything we learned about viruses and start from first principles. Even from way back in March of 2020 even the most basic things we knew about viruses felt controversial. People were seriously thinking you could catch and transmit covid after like 3 months or something--like you'd just constantly get re-infected over and over again. And people flipping out about outdoor transmission... like when has catching a virus outside ever been a real thing? Everything we knew about the subject had to be re-proven. It was and still is completely crazy.

beebmam 5y ago
Many people got Delta and then Omicron even 1 month later. Kai Ryssdal from NPR for example, and one of my friends did too. So this isn't crazy; it literally happens to many respiratory viruses. Viruses mutate
- enchiridion 5y ago
  I always wondered how people claim that. Did they have two pcr tests or something else telling them what variant they had?
  - rsynnott 5y ago
    Most PCR tests will discriminate between (B.1) Omicron and things which are not B.1 Omicron, so it's feasible to know this. I mean, strictly speaking all you'd know is that you had B.1 Omicron plus something else, but if you had the non-B.1 Omicron one in October, then in most parts of the world you'd be pretty safe in assuming that was Delta.
  - ddek 5y ago
    I had delta in late October and omicron in early December. I was PCR positive for delta, although I had a mild case. I wasn't allowed to take a PCR test for the December infection, because it was too soon after my delta test and my symptoms were very mild. I did test positive multiple times on LFT, my symptoms matched the 'ultramild' omicron (scratchy throat, slight cough, lower back pain). The day I tested positive for omicron was 4 days after my friends had gathered in a pub, of the 30 of us in attendance 27 tested positive on the same day. The group chat was wild. Some of those that got PCR's were informed they had omicron.

ViViDboarder 5y ago

But did it? I don’t ever remember T-cells being considered anything close to conspiracy theories, nor their importance being downplayed.