17 ms·

your response tells me everything though, you think one thing is "rightly viewed as an unacceptable position", neither nuance or complexity is allowed, my origi

your response tells me everything though, you think one thing is "rightly viewed as an unacceptable position", neither nuance or complexity is allowed, my original paragraph spoke on tradeoffs, on nuance itself. if you don't address that then you yourself are dogwhistling, how are you better than the strawman you paint of RFK? regarding the anti-semetic bit, not only did you completely avoid the main point of what was being said by both RFK and me, which is the potential for ethnic targeting, you've quoted his statement yourself with "there is an argument...", its not "i support the idea that...". its like people can't even speak hypotheticals without baseless accusations coming around every corner, what's the point of dialogue if we act like this? let's just settle presidential elections in a wrestling ring.

therealcamino 3y ago
I think the issue is that the "I'm just asking questions!" technique is used to express opinions without taking responsibility for them. When anxiety-producing questions keep getting "asked" by a politician when they already have rigorous, data-backed answers, they are being used as a political tool, disguised as skepticism or genuine scientific inquiry.
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  taking responsibility for a question? yeah that's ridiculous as a human being, you're allowed to have discussion on topics in order to flesh them out.
tsimionescu 3y ago
There are questions where looking for nuance detracts rather than add to the conversation. The earth is round, there is no need for nuance there. Similarly, vaccines work and have been proven to be better than not getting vaccinated in every single case in the last, say, 20 years. Adding nuance to that only serves to muddy the waters. The same sort of thing happens with hypotheticals. Sure, they are important and not every hypothetical should be read as an affirmation. But then there are cases like OJ Simpsons "If I had done it" - where the hypothetical framing is such an obvious fig leaf that it's ridiculous to pretend. And saying "there's an argument that" in the middle of a discussion about bio weapons, bringing up highly disputable facts like the supposed ethnic differences in Covid-19 effects, and then not spending even another second to acknowledge that there is 0 evidence for this supposed hypothetical - that all brings it to a level where it's comical not to recognize what was actually being said.
- eindiran 3y ago
  > The earth is round, there is no need for nuance there. Clearly there is _some_ need for nuance there since the Earth isn't exactly a sphere. Even calling it an oblate ellipsoid isn't a perfect model. There is nuance everywhere, and clearly some models are more wrong than others; modeling the Earth as flat is much less accurate than a sphere, which in turn is less accurate than the somewhat flattened spheres common today, which in turn is less accurate than whatever the true shape of the Earth is. But the takeaway from that shouldn't be creating a dogma that "the Earth is round" and moving on, just to own the guys that claim its flat (who are by and large just trolling you). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth
- stainablesteel 3y ago
  even if a vaccine has passed all the required clinical trials for america's FDA to certify it, if and when you release it on a population you can still find things to be wrong with it, or effects its having that weren't understood. this is how all of medicine works, to try and dismiss the complexity of biology is a detraction from honesty itself. long term safety studies of vaccines, especially those given in early childhood, need to be used to determine that they don't cause harm, worse than the disease they're meant to prevent, 10-20 years down the line. can you explain what i've detracted from this conversation? the nuance is appropriate. the complexity belongs as a natural part of the conversation. your oversimplifications are more dangerous than the so called "detractions" that you haven't given a proper example of.
  - tsimionescu 3y ago
    Why do you keep implying that such studies are not already being done? Most vaccines we use are by now decades old, and adverse effects of all medicines, especially serious adverse effects, are reported, there is a whole system for this. Vaccines, by and large, have proven to be some of the safest medicine we take. Will the mRNA vaccines prove different? I hope not, but it is of course relatively early in their existence. But thing like the MMR vaccines and the polio vaccine have been administered on a huge scale for decades, and all the possible data has been collected - they are effective and safe.

therealcamino 3y ago

I think the issue is that the "I'm just asking questions!" technique is used to express opinions without taking responsibility for them. When anxiety-producing questions keep getting "asked" by a politician when they already have rigorous, data-backed answers, they are being used as a political tool, disguised as skepticism or genuine scientific inquiry.

stainablesteel 3y ago
taking responsibility for a question? yeah that's ridiculous as a human being, you're allowed to have discussion on topics in order to flesh them out.

tsimionescu 3y ago

There are questions where looking for nuance detracts rather than add to the conversation. The earth is round, there is no need for nuance there. Similarly, vaccines work and have been proven to be better than not getting vaccinated in every single case in the last, say, 20 years. Adding nuance to that only serves to muddy the waters. The same sort of thing happens with hypotheticals. Sure, they are important and not every hypothetical should be read as an affirmation. But then there are cases like OJ Simpsons "If I had done it" - where the hypothetical framing is such an obvious fig leaf that it's ridiculous to pretend. And saying "there's an argument that" in the middle of a discussion about bio weapons, bringing up highly disputable facts like the supposed ethnic differences in Covid-19 effects, and then not spending even another second to acknowledge that there is 0 evidence for this supposed hypothetical - that all brings it to a level where it's comical not to recognize what was actually being said.

eindiran 3y ago
> The earth is round, there is no need for nuance there. Clearly there is _some_ need for nuance there since the Earth isn't exactly a sphere. Even calling it an oblate ellipsoid isn't a perfect model. There is nuance everywhere, and clearly some models are more wrong than others; modeling the Earth as flat is much less accurate than a sphere, which in turn is less accurate than the somewhat flattened spheres common today, which in turn is less accurate than whatever the true shape of the Earth is. But the takeaway from that shouldn't be creating a dogma that "the Earth is round" and moving on, just to own the guys that claim its flat (who are by and large just trolling you). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_the_Earth
stainablesteel 3y ago
even if a vaccine has passed all the required clinical trials for america's FDA to certify it, if and when you release it on a population you can still find things to be wrong with it, or effects its having that weren't understood. this is how all of medicine works, to try and dismiss the complexity of biology is a detraction from honesty itself. long term safety studies of vaccines, especially those given in early childhood, need to be used to determine that they don't cause harm, worse than the disease they're meant to prevent, 10-20 years down the line. can you explain what i've detracted from this conversation? the nuance is appropriate. the complexity belongs as a natural part of the conversation. your oversimplifications are more dangerous than the so called "detractions" that you haven't given a proper example of.
- tsimionescu 3y ago
  Why do you keep implying that such studies are not already being done? Most vaccines we use are by now decades old, and adverse effects of all medicines, especially serious adverse effects, are reported, there is a whole system for this. Vaccines, by and large, have proven to be some of the safest medicine we take. Will the mRNA vaccines prove different? I hope not, but it is of course relatively early in their existence. But thing like the MMR vaccines and the polio vaccine have been administered on a huge scale for decades, and all the possible data has been collected - they are effective and safe.