7 ms·

"Can we just admit this isn't about logic or statistics, and never was? It was always a persuasion game either way." Kind of? The fact is that we've turned int

by jzb 4y ago

"Can we just admit this isn't about logic or statistics, and never was? It was always a persuasion game either way." Kind of? The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease. If "the left" is for vaccines, masking, social distancing, etc. then "the right" has to immediately be against it. I don't recall any of my friends or family needing persuasion at all. They believed in the science and were willing to adapt as we learned new things about COVID (e.g. around masking and social distancing). When vaccines were becoming available I know my circle spent time looking over what information we could find about which ones were better, side effects, etc., but were onboard with vaccine risk being better than COVID. The FOX crowd, OTOH, went looking to scare people off vaccines and made not masking a point of pride. It was tribalism, pure and simple. If it were a persuasion game you might have seen a lot more diversity in who was for/against the vaccines. 30 years ago if we'd faced COVID (at least in the U.S.) and had the vaccines available, I think we'd have fared far better. People who couldn't agree on much else could've come together in the face of a deadly disease. Persuasion, and logic, are out the window.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago
I'm against social distancing because there is no scientific basis or justification for it. Scientists just went on TV and talked about an idea they pulled out from their behinds. I guess that makes me on the right for not believing everything that was presented to me on television, unlike my family, who are on the left.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." Not advocating for social distancing as a policy at this point in time, just saying, it made a lot of sense from a risk-prevention perspective at the time. But again, this is my point. It's trivially easy for me to provide a logical explanation for why social distancing was a sensible tactic. You are (probably) not going to be persuaded. You (probably) like your evidence because it matches how you feel, and I like mine because it matches how I feel. To be clear, I don't mean this in an aggressive way - I don't think it is bad that you don't agree with me on this in some kind of a moral way, at this point. I just don't think any sort of evidence-based argumentation will bridge the gap between us.
  - TurkishPoptart 4y ago
    >If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." that wasn't the guidance. It was stand 2 meters from anyone, even if no one is sick. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/572926-gottlieb-nobody-knows-where-six-foot-distancing-recommendation/ https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/572926-gottli...
linuxftw 4y ago
> The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease The vaccines weren't trialed and aren't approved to prevent the spread of the disease....so? I don't know about you, but I actually read the FDA's initial report on the Pfizer trials, and it was complete nonsense. They didn't even test each participant for covid, only some participants, with no clear reasoning as to which. I'm never going to take experimental gene therapy drugs, it's just never going to happen.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  > gene therapy drugs The use of this term to describe an mRNA vaccine suggests you do not understand how these vaccines work whatsoever. I am not surprised you didn't understand the FDA's report given that you don't understand how the vaccines work at all.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    A vaccine requires an antigen. There's no antigen in the mRNA or Adeno-vector vaccines. I'm not willing to pretend that these new medical products are in any way similar to the previous technology. Gene therapy accurately describes the drug's effect. It injects instructions into your cells to replicate a protein, that's gene therapy. In this case, rather than treating some disease, it's designed to provoke an immune response. Hard pass.
    - ivraatiems 4y ago
      > "A vaccine requires an antigen. There's no antigen in the mRNA or Adeno-vector vaccines." That's not what a vaccine is. Vaccines do not "require" an antigen, they "act as" an antigen. Whether they include the antigen directly or a mechanism for producing it doesn't matter. Live-virus vaccines are just a more imprecise version of the technology that powers mRNA vaccines. They're doing the same thing, but more sloppily. > It injects instructions into your cells to replicate a protein, that's gene therapy. Again, you don't understand the term. "Gene therapy" involves actually changing the DNA housed in the nucleus in your cells. mRNA vaccines can't do that. This is also how every virus, including COVID works. "Injected into cells" is imprecise terminology that makes it sound like it's doing something novel that will persist in your cell after the mRNA decays. That isn't true. The mRNA doesn't become part of your DNA. It eventually decays and becomes useless. Until then, mechanisms within the cell use it to produce the protein - one of the same proteins COVID produces when you are sick with it. If you are scared of this mechanism of action, you should be downright terrified of ever getting a viral infection, or any vaccine at all, or really just living in the world. Real viruses do the exact same thing, except some of them (like retroviruses) also alter your DNA. The human genome is littered with the genes for viruses that wormed their way in over time. mRNA vaccines are just doing the same thing the virus already does, but in a more controlled, less dangerous way, and obviously without viral replication in the host. But, again, the whole point of my original comment is that none of this will matter to you, most likely. I suspect you will keep believing false things about these vaccines which justify your position that you don't want to take them. Hopefully this information makes some difference to someone else. Anyway, I think this is enough back-and-forth with you; between this and the "Marxist-level thinking" comment it's pretty clear there's nothing to gain by this anymore.
ivraatiems 4y ago
> I don't recall any of my friends or family needing persuasion at all. They believed in the science and were willing to adapt as we learned new things about COVID (e.g. around masking and social distancing). And now that science shows the vaccines have risks that weren't clear before, will this change how they feel about them, or are they going to stick to their preconceived ideas? Did they believe the science because they understood it, or because they chose to trust people who were ideologically aligned with them?
- ohiovr 4y ago
  Its useless at this point. You can't unvaccinate someone and there is no antidote. So I don't go around saying I told you so. I am really sorry this all happened. The best thing would be to dismantle gain of function and figure out the intention of a company that called themselves ecohealth aliance. The answer is in the name.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Bhilai 4y ago
Quite a bit of vaccine drama is not political but either mistrust of the system or alternate beliefs. Here is an anecdote - My family has a bunch of anti-vaxers who have not had a single dose of COVID vaccine yet and claim they have never gotten COVID. These are highly educated (masters in engineering) and hard left leaning (Bernie/AOC supporters.) They also mostly reject modern medicine and believe in Homeopathy. So much so that their toddler had a pretty bad fall that almost cut his tongue in half but they refused to take the kid to emergency room and treated him with some homeopathy chart of medicines they keep in their home. Their family doctor convinced their elderly mom to get the vaccine and now the mom claims to have gotten nut allergy from the vaccine. Their mom is pretty left leaning too.
ohiovr 4y ago
I don't watch TV. I hate TV. I am a programmer. I will never be programmed. People who fear, they do so because they were programmed.
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  How do you deal with the fact that the majority of people are programmed into absolute submission? I hate it.
  - ohiovr 4y ago
    I pray a lot, it is all I can do. :(
nonethewiser 4y ago
> Kind of? The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease. If "the left" is for vaccines, masking, social distancing, etc. then "the right" has to immediately be against it. That's your takeaway? Perhaps you should start taking people at face value. It was about coerced vaccination, and enforcing masks, lockdowns, expanding government power, etc. You're conflating that with spreading the disease.

by jzb 4y ago

TurkishPoptart 4y ago

I'm against social distancing because there is no scientific basis or justification for it. Scientists just went on TV and talked about an idea they pulled out from their behinds. I guess that makes me on the right for not believing everything that was presented to me on television, unlike my family, who are on the left.

ivraatiems 4y ago
If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." Not advocating for social distancing as a policy at this point in time, just saying, it made a lot of sense from a risk-prevention perspective at the time. But again, this is my point. It's trivially easy for me to provide a logical explanation for why social distancing was a sensible tactic. You are (probably) not going to be persuaded. You (probably) like your evidence because it matches how you feel, and I like mine because it matches how I feel. To be clear, I don't mean this in an aggressive way - I don't think it is bad that you don't agree with me on this in some kind of a moral way, at this point. I just don't think any sort of evidence-based argumentation will bridge the gap between us.
- TurkishPoptart 4y ago
  >If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." that wasn't the guidance. It was stand 2 meters from anyone, even if no one is sick. [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/572926-gottlieb-nobody-knows-where-six-foot-distancing-recommendation/ https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/572926-gottli...

linuxftw 4y ago

> The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease The vaccines weren't trialed and aren't approved to prevent the spread of the disease....so? I don't know about you, but I actually read the FDA's initial report on the Pfizer trials, and it was complete nonsense. They didn't even test each participant for covid, only some participants, with no clear reasoning as to which. I'm never going to take experimental gene therapy drugs, it's just never going to happen.

ivraatiems 4y ago
> gene therapy drugs The use of this term to describe an mRNA vaccine suggests you do not understand how these vaccines work whatsoever. I am not surprised you didn't understand the FDA's report given that you don't understand how the vaccines work at all.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  A vaccine requires an antigen. There's no antigen in the mRNA or Adeno-vector vaccines. I'm not willing to pretend that these new medical products are in any way similar to the previous technology. Gene therapy accurately describes the drug's effect. It injects instructions into your cells to replicate a protein, that's gene therapy. In this case, rather than treating some disease, it's designed to provoke an immune response. Hard pass.
  - ivraatiems 4y ago
    > "A vaccine requires an antigen. There's no antigen in the mRNA or Adeno-vector vaccines." That's not what a vaccine is. Vaccines do not "require" an antigen, they "act as" an antigen. Whether they include the antigen directly or a mechanism for producing it doesn't matter. Live-virus vaccines are just a more imprecise version of the technology that powers mRNA vaccines. They're doing the same thing, but more sloppily. > It injects instructions into your cells to replicate a protein, that's gene therapy. Again, you don't understand the term. "Gene therapy" involves actually changing the DNA housed in the nucleus in your cells. mRNA vaccines can't do that. This is also how every virus, including COVID works. "Injected into cells" is imprecise terminology that makes it sound like it's doing something novel that will persist in your cell after the mRNA decays. That isn't true. The mRNA doesn't become part of your DNA. It eventually decays and becomes useless. Until then, mechanisms within the cell use it to produce the protein - one of the same proteins COVID produces when you are sick with it. If you are scared of this mechanism of action, you should be downright terrified of ever getting a viral infection, or any vaccine at all, or really just living in the world. Real viruses do the exact same thing, except some of them (like retroviruses) also alter your DNA. The human genome is littered with the genes for viruses that wormed their way in over time. mRNA vaccines are just doing the same thing the virus already does, but in a more controlled, less dangerous way, and obviously without viral replication in the host. But, again, the whole point of my original comment is that none of this will matter to you, most likely. I suspect you will keep believing false things about these vaccines which justify your position that you don't want to take them. Hopefully this information makes some difference to someone else. Anyway, I think this is enough back-and-forth with you; between this and the "Marxist-level thinking" comment it's pretty clear there's nothing to gain by this anymore.

ivraatiems 4y ago

> I don't recall any of my friends or family needing persuasion at all. They believed in the science and were willing to adapt as we learned new things about COVID (e.g. around masking and social distancing). And now that science shows the vaccines have risks that weren't clear before, will this change how they feel about them, or are they going to stick to their preconceived ideas? Did they believe the science because they understood it, or because they chose to trust people who were ideologically aligned with them?

ohiovr 4y ago
Its useless at this point. You can't unvaccinate someone and there is no antidote. So I don't go around saying I told you so. I am really sorry this all happened. The best thing would be to dismantle gain of function and figure out the intention of a company that called themselves ecohealth aliance. The answer is in the name.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Bhilai 4y ago

Quite a bit of vaccine drama is not political but either mistrust of the system or alternate beliefs. Here is an anecdote - My family has a bunch of anti-vaxers who have not had a single dose of COVID vaccine yet and claim they have never gotten COVID. These are highly educated (masters in engineering) and hard left leaning (Bernie/AOC supporters.) They also mostly reject modern medicine and believe in Homeopathy. So much so that their toddler had a pretty bad fall that almost cut his tongue in half but they refused to take the kid to emergency room and treated him with some homeopathy chart of medicines they keep in their home. Their family doctor convinced their elderly mom to get the vaccine and now the mom claims to have gotten nut allergy from the vaccine. Their mom is pretty left leaning too.

ohiovr 4y ago

I don't watch TV. I hate TV. I am a programmer. I will never be programmed. People who fear, they do so because they were programmed.

Traubenfuchs 4y ago
How do you deal with the fact that the majority of people are programmed into absolute submission? I hate it.
- ohiovr 4y ago
  I pray a lot, it is all I can do. :(

nonethewiser 4y ago

> Kind of? The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease. If "the left" is for vaccines, masking, social distancing, etc. then "the right" has to immediately be against it. That's your takeaway? Perhaps you should start taking people at face value. It was about coerced vaccination, and enforcing masks, lockdowns, expanding government power, etc. You're conflating that with spreading the disease.