4 ms·

This is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument. It works in a world where you have trustworthy institutions and its safe to just outsource your decision

This is the "nobody got fired for buying IBM" argument. It works in a world where you have trustworthy institutions and its safe to just outsource your decision-making to the authorities. Your interpretation of events might be that a collective of all well meaning people just got it wrong, and that's your right. A lot of people ended up with different conclusions, like the machine did what it does and made a lot of money, the truth be damned.

estearum 2mo ago
Not really. It's the "making decisions based on best-available evidence is good, even if every once in a while it leads you astray." You're more than welcome to read the evidence they use to create their policies. If you have evidence that is of higher quality than that which "the authorities" are using, then you should depend on that! But... you almost certainly don't have higher quality evidence than they do. That's the fundamental problem. If you think that you do, then you too could actually make a fuckton of money with that information. But again: you don't have superior information. I don't think people even got it wrong. They got it correct with the information available, and they for the most part got it right even in retrospect.
- ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
  I did read a lot of evidence available at the time. It's why I opted to skip the vaccine for myself given that I had already recovered shortly before the shots were available. That decision was very at odds with authoritative guidance at the time. You'd think I was a damn leper, yet that decision seems to have held up pretty well. I also frequently tested before any gatherings, and avoided contact when I had any kinds of symptoms, test or not. I saw plenty of people figure they had gotten the shots so why not go out with the sniffles? "Best information" and what was blasted out of the TV or considered "common sense" at the time I think have quite a bit of daylight between them.
  - estearum 2mo ago
    That's just not true. Here's the authoritative guidance on the rollout: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf What gives you the idea that a low-risk person opting not to get the vaccine is "at odds with authoritative guidance?" Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. Not sure that can be pinned on public health authorities. People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. Here's the guidance on whether vaccinated people with sniffles should go out in public: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 Answer: no. Go get tested, and if positive, don't gather. Yes, agreed that people were listening primarily to a game of telephone and vibes and not actually reading any of the linked PDFs or listening to the actual words spoken by actual public health officials firsthand, and then they (like you are now) were confused about what the actual guidance said.
    - ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
      I misspoke, right at rollout when supplies were short, they did say you could wait. Once they had enough to sell, everyone who didn't jump in line was a grandma killer. > Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. ... People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. This is asinine. There was never any indication in the data that a previously recovered person posed any kind of heightened threat to anyone else, and by testing and isolating like I was, I was doing likely the best you could possibly do for the folks around me. Also, I made the choice with my doctor's agreement.
      - estearum 2mo ago
        > There was never any indication in the data that a previously recovered person posed any kind of heightened threat to anyone else Nope, also not true. There actually was plenty of evidence of exactly this even by August 2021: https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210806/cdc-study-shows-covid19-vaccines-offer-better-protection-than-prior-infection https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210806/cdc-... Then found again in October: https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20211029/covid19-vaccination-more-protective-than-previous-infection-study-finds https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20211029/covi... > by testing and isolating like I was, I was doing likely the best you could possibly do for the folks around me. Short of vaccination yes, you were. But also people have no way to actually trust anything you say, whereas even saying that you aren't vaccinated (again, correctly) indicates quite a lot about some combination of your information, selfishness, or care for others. For example, if you had gone around thinking or saying "I'm not vaccinated because prior infection protections me (and therefore you)" you would have been wrong. That's why people's alarm bells go off when you go around saying that you're not vaccinated. This entire conversation is a validation of their heuristics. You're acting like public health authorities said X and then they didn't, or acting like there's no evidence of Y when there is, and then saying "see I didn't get vaccinated!" is exactly what everyone was cuing into: this is almost certainly either a confused or selfish person, or both.

estearum 2mo ago

Not really. It's the "making decisions based on best-available evidence is good, even if every once in a while it leads you astray." You're more than welcome to read the evidence they use to create their policies. If you have evidence that is of higher quality than that which "the authorities" are using, then you should depend on that! But... you almost certainly don't have higher quality evidence than they do. That's the fundamental problem. If you think that you do, then you too could actually make a fuckton of money with that information. But again: you don't have superior information. I don't think people even got it wrong. They got it correct with the information available, and they for the most part got it right even in retrospect.

ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
I did read a lot of evidence available at the time. It's why I opted to skip the vaccine for myself given that I had already recovered shortly before the shots were available. That decision was very at odds with authoritative guidance at the time. You'd think I was a damn leper, yet that decision seems to have held up pretty well. I also frequently tested before any gatherings, and avoided contact when I had any kinds of symptoms, test or not. I saw plenty of people figure they had gotten the shots so why not go out with the sniffles? "Best information" and what was blasted out of the TV or considered "common sense" at the time I think have quite a bit of daylight between them.
- estearum 2mo ago
  That's just not true. Here's the authoritative guidance on the rollout: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/103787/cdc_103787_DS1.pdf What gives you the idea that a low-risk person opting not to get the vaccine is "at odds with authoritative guidance?" Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. Not sure that can be pinned on public health authorities. People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. Here's the guidance on whether vaccinated people with sniffles should go out in public: https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/105629 Answer: no. Go get tested, and if positive, don't gather. Yes, agreed that people were listening primarily to a game of telephone and vibes and not actually reading any of the linked PDFs or listening to the actual words spoken by actual public health officials firsthand, and then they (like you are now) were confused about what the actual guidance said.
  - ifyoubuildit 2mo ago
    I misspoke, right at rollout when supplies were short, they did say you could wait. Once they had enough to sell, everyone who didn't jump in line was a grandma killer. > Yes, I would bet that it made you feel like a leper, but that's because people (correctly) think that it signals something about your attitude toward the rest of society. ... People who hold open the door to the cold are assholes and frequently treated as such. This is asinine. There was never any indication in the data that a previously recovered person posed any kind of heightened threat to anyone else, and by testing and isolating like I was, I was doing likely the best you could possibly do for the folks around me. Also, I made the choice with my doctor's agreement.
    - estearum 2mo ago
      > There was never any indication in the data that a previously recovered person posed any kind of heightened threat to anyone else Nope, also not true. There actually was plenty of evidence of exactly this even by August 2021: https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210806/cdc-study-shows-covid19-vaccines-offer-better-protection-than-prior-infection https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20210806/cdc-... Then found again in October: https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20211029/covid19-vaccination-more-protective-than-previous-infection-study-finds https://www.healio.com/news/infectious-disease/20211029/covi... > by testing and isolating like I was, I was doing likely the best you could possibly do for the folks around me. Short of vaccination yes, you were. But also people have no way to actually trust anything you say, whereas even saying that you aren't vaccinated (again, correctly) indicates quite a lot about some combination of your information, selfishness, or care for others. For example, if you had gone around thinking or saying "I'm not vaccinated because prior infection protections me (and therefore you)" you would have been wrong. That's why people's alarm bells go off when you go around saying that you're not vaccinated. This entire conversation is a validation of their heuristics. You're acting like public health authorities said X and then they didn't, or acting like there's no evidence of Y when there is, and then saying "see I didn't get vaccinated!" is exactly what everyone was cuing into: this is almost certainly either a confused or selfish person, or both.