2 ms·

Your argument is resorting now to a very crude defense of white lies and Pascal Wagers. Not only this is borderline unethical to be used as support for any ser

Your argument is resorting now to a very crude defense of white lies and Pascal Wagers. Not only this is borderline unethical to be used as support for any serious, national-level health policy, it is also bound to backfire and create even more suspicion from those who are not ideologically aligned with the Government du jour. In other words, if your health messaging is hiding crucial details because more information "is less effective" (at what? Informing or getting people to comply to a certain pre-defined plan?), then don't complain later when people share videos online about "what they don't want you to know".

Retric 2y ago
> white lies and Pascal Wagers What white lies? Same deal with a huge number of other heath issue, you can tell basically anyone to exercise more and it’s good advice. Not for Olympic athletes, but from a public health perspective “get up a move” is a perfectly reasonable message. > at what? Keeping people healthy. The idea that the only possible benefit is saving your life is moving the goalposts on health policy. You specifically would benefit from getting an annual flue vaccination. Your doctor’s recommendation that it’s not something to stress about is likely correct, but it doesn’t somehow mean getting it would be a net negative for you personally. Skipping it isn’t a big deal for you, so if you’re stuck with some irrational fear then no big deal. But would you benefit? Yes.
- rvnx 2y ago
  There is a difference between irrational fear, and the situation here, which is about not willing to self-inflict pain and days of suffering for a potentially helpful vaccine. The physical pain and struggle that you endure during vaccination is very real (you fight the spike protein fragment) versus a relatively weak virus now. Also with the vaccination and the virus, you get some very nasty side-effects (micro-thrombosis, etc). Calling it a guaranteed benefit is odd. It may benefit in some circumstances, but each case has to be individually assessed. For now it has very low real-world utility for most people but it practically guarantees real suffering, not just “irrational fear“. Because of that I don’t think that forcing everybody to get again vaccines is a good idea.
  - Retric 2y ago
    > The physical pain and struggle that you endure during vaccination is very real (you fight the spike protein fragment) versus a relatively weak virus now. If you think of vaccination as meaningful pain and struggle I can wonder how you rate actual illness. Compared to the vaccine, I’d rate Influenza at about 3 orders of magnitude worse. > Calling it a guaranteed benefit is odd. The odds of avoiding it for 40+ years is quite low when it hits ~10% of the population each year. So balancing getting the shot every year for the rest of your life vs several effectively guaranteed infections is an obvious benefit. I mean sure you could die tomorrow, but assuming an early death is hardly a winning strategy for life.
- rglullis 2y ago
  > from a public health perspective “get up a move” is a perfectly reasonable message. How? Does it achieve any real result? It's ineffective and does not address other issues that have a much greater impact in the obesity epidemic in the US: food deserts, the corn industry pushing processed foods everywhere and making it so cheap that leaves no good choice for poor people, a horribly wrong "food pyramid" recommendation, car-centric urban environments that robs people of opportunities for natural activity, etc, etc, etc... > The idea that the only possible benefit is saving your life is moving the goalposts on health policy. This is the complete opposite of what I am saying. I don't even know how you could interpret what I said as such. I am saying that if obesity is such a serious problem that even a flu can be fatal, then the health agencies should be putting more effort in spreading that message instead of "hey, this flu might save you in case you are obese, so you should take it. Don't worry about addressing the real problem you have, you should be fine as long as you can keep taking the drugs we think it's best for you". To put another way: if you get the FDA to put cigarette-style, super-graphic pictures of diseases affecting obese people in the label of every food product that comes in a box or can, then I will start giving some credibility to them. Until them, I have absolutely no reason to care about or listen to any of their "general" recommendations.

Retric 2y ago

> white lies and Pascal Wagers What white lies? Same deal with a huge number of other heath issue, you can tell basically anyone to exercise more and it’s good advice. Not for Olympic athletes, but from a public health perspective “get up a move” is a perfectly reasonable message. > at what? Keeping people healthy. The idea that the only possible benefit is saving your life is moving the goalposts on health policy. You specifically would benefit from getting an annual flue vaccination. Your doctor’s recommendation that it’s not something to stress about is likely correct, but it doesn’t somehow mean getting it would be a net negative for you personally. Skipping it isn’t a big deal for you, so if you’re stuck with some irrational fear then no big deal. But would you benefit? Yes.

rvnx 2y ago
There is a difference between irrational fear, and the situation here, which is about not willing to self-inflict pain and days of suffering for a potentially helpful vaccine. The physical pain and struggle that you endure during vaccination is very real (you fight the spike protein fragment) versus a relatively weak virus now. Also with the vaccination and the virus, you get some very nasty side-effects (micro-thrombosis, etc). Calling it a guaranteed benefit is odd. It may benefit in some circumstances, but each case has to be individually assessed. For now it has very low real-world utility for most people but it practically guarantees real suffering, not just “irrational fear“. Because of that I don’t think that forcing everybody to get again vaccines is a good idea.
- Retric 2y ago
  > The physical pain and struggle that you endure during vaccination is very real (you fight the spike protein fragment) versus a relatively weak virus now. If you think of vaccination as meaningful pain and struggle I can wonder how you rate actual illness. Compared to the vaccine, I’d rate Influenza at about 3 orders of magnitude worse. > Calling it a guaranteed benefit is odd. The odds of avoiding it for 40+ years is quite low when it hits ~10% of the population each year. So balancing getting the shot every year for the rest of your life vs several effectively guaranteed infections is an obvious benefit. I mean sure you could die tomorrow, but assuming an early death is hardly a winning strategy for life.
rglullis 2y ago
> from a public health perspective “get up a move” is a perfectly reasonable message. How? Does it achieve any real result? It's ineffective and does not address other issues that have a much greater impact in the obesity epidemic in the US: food deserts, the corn industry pushing processed foods everywhere and making it so cheap that leaves no good choice for poor people, a horribly wrong "food pyramid" recommendation, car-centric urban environments that robs people of opportunities for natural activity, etc, etc, etc... > The idea that the only possible benefit is saving your life is moving the goalposts on health policy. This is the complete opposite of what I am saying. I don't even know how you could interpret what I said as such. I am saying that if obesity is such a serious problem that even a flu can be fatal, then the health agencies should be putting more effort in spreading that message instead of "hey, this flu might save you in case you are obese, so you should take it. Don't worry about addressing the real problem you have, you should be fine as long as you can keep taking the drugs we think it's best for you". To put another way: if you get the FDA to put cigarette-style, super-graphic pictures of diseases affecting obese people in the label of every food product that comes in a box or can, then I will start giving some credibility to them. Until them, I have absolutely no reason to care about or listen to any of their "general" recommendations.