Some similarities to lessons from the 1918 flu epidemic that we relearned in 2020. We should build some "COVID stones" so we don't forget.
Both "half" and "rooting" are exaggerations. No need for that. But yes, a depressing number of one party's politicians are willing to use Ukraine foreign policy as a domestic division issue.
Now, don't go and make this a division issue by disagreeing with me.
What on Earth was Ukraine thinking of by taking Russia's bait and getting involved in its own invasion!
/light humor
My brother in pro-democracy, you are literally exaggerating right now. If half the US adult population people really wanted Russia to conquer Ukraine, you would be able to easily cite polls showing it in rather stark terms.
Yes, it's definitely become a red/blue partisan issue, and yes, Republican "leadership" needs to be raked over the coals for their extended support for the Emperor's New Clothes, and yes, if Russia won they'd probably make up a bunch of "this is fine" nonsense... However!--Even if you assumed every single person of any party who thought "the US gives too much aid" was actually a crypto-Putinist hiding their dark desires for an outright Russian victory... Well, that's still only 37%. [0]
That far-reaching assumption almost certainly wrong through, especially since general sentiment toward Russia has almost hit rock-bottom. [1] That's why nobody even bothers polling for "which country would your rather see win."
[0] https://apnews.com/article/poll-ukraine-aid-congress-b772c97...
That's the problem. Now lets see how the facts compare to your feelings.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2022/03/15/public-expre...
>More than eight-in-ten Democrats and Democratic leaners (88%) and Republicans and Republican leaners (85%) favor keeping strict economic sanctions on Russia. And at least six-in-ten in each party strongly favor maintaining strict sanctions (68% of Democrats, 61% of Republicans). Chart shows Democrats much more supportive of admitting Ukrainian refugees to the U.S. than are Republicans
>Similar shares of Republicans (75%) and Democrats (81%) favor keeping a large military presence in NATO countries located near Ukraine. And there is limited support among both Republicans and Democrats for taking military action, even if it risks a nuclear conflict with Russia: About a third of the public (35%) and nearly identical shares of Democrats (35%) and Republicans (36%) favor this.
This took less than 30 seconds to look up, btw.
The rest of the world cares as much as we do about the wars in Africa.
The western world. Don't forget that the early economic sanctions were largely ignored by the BRICS countries, which make up ~45% of the world's population.
The only lesson here is (core)West cannot be trusted and you're on it's own. At least this is the lesson I learned living 30km from (pseudo)Russia border.
This isn't a new thing, unfortunately.
Given that the KKK has been around for 100+ years — and the fact that the Eugenics movement really started in the United States[1] (so clearly so that Hitler mentions it in Mein Kampf), Nazism & Hyper-Nationalism have been in and out of fashion for over a century and we are still here.
[1]:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-guarded-gate-daniel-okr...
Pandemic commandments:
0. Thou shalln't eat wild animals.
1. Thou shalln't mix wild animals and animal agriculture.
2. Better yet, thou shalln't eat any animals to prevent this entire risk category.
Supply chain improvements have been made to increase diversification and resilience.
There was a lot of individualism to cast a shadow, but also cooperation and solidarity was shining on a small scale (hobbyist 3d-printing and donating shields and face mask relief thingies), but also globally.
Without getting into the healthcare and technology advancements we accomplished as a species.
- That a respiratory disease can spread quickly before you show symptoms, and kill millions
- That even though the government is wrong a lot, sometimes they're right about important things
- That you don't get to defect from polite society one day and then whine about being an outcast the next. Of course I'm mad at people who refused to take any precautions at all. They made things worse.
- The government will lie to you because it is not prepared.
- They will then spin on a dime with no consequences and all those who were towing the line will switch with them.
- Those who follow the government's direction will ostracize people in both cases and doesn't matter because they are "right".
We may be wrong together but at least we are together. Having people running in three directions at once will get everyone killed in wartime or disaster. Once the avalanche starts it is too late for the pebbles to vote.
>We may be wrong together but at least we are together.
Is a great way to get everyone killed.
We, in the west love to tout how our diversity and free thinking makes us better than those who do not have those values. What I saw were a bunch of countries that wished they could rule the populace in the same manner as China and Saudi Arabia.
If we can not uphold our values when we face difficulties, then they are not values.
You speak of martial law and preventing chaos. Envision the outcry and response if Trump had enacted such a policy in early February when members of the Democratic Party were encouraging people to gather in crowds to show support for Chinese New Year?
They weren't right during the pandemic though. From initially refusing to acknowledge the situation to lying and cohercing people into taking untested injections whose side effects on the population remain unknown, and of course censoring and character assassinating anyone who dared rise any objections against its conduct. And lets not forget actively avoiding finding out the origin of the virus because it wasn't politically convenient during an election year.
Reasonable at first. Once it was known that the virus is transmitted via aerosols then forcing masks was the wrong thing to do, specially on children. Useless and damaging.
> minimizing in-person interactions
What benefit did it achieve? As a quarantine it was too leaky and it also led to mass psychological distress.
> funding medical research
What medical research? For some reason, the most obvious approach, repurposed drugs, was nowhere in sight. If anything demonizing it was the official policy (ie. the smear campaign against ivermectin).
This seems like a ridiculous thing to say; both useless _and_ damaging? Even if one of these things were true, they can't _both_ be true.
> What benefit did it achieve?
Minimizing the spread of covid.
> What medical research?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
> the most obvious approach, repurposed drugs, was nowhere in sight
Didn't the J&J vaccine use a more traditional approach? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janssen_COVID-19_vaccine
Also, people tried repurposing drugs (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19).
So your claim of "nowhere in sight" is incorrect.
Not really. This was the first widely deployed modified adenovirus vaccine. Not the first developed, but if I'm remembering correctly, none of the others made it out of trials.
Of course they can: useless at preventing disease, damaging to the social development of children.
> Minimizing the spread of covid.
Did it?
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
The result: injections sold as vaccines that don't do what you expect a vaccine to do: stop transmission.
> Also, people tried repurposing drugs (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#COVID-19).
Individuals did, not the government, and the former were punished by the latter for it.
Vaccines activate immunity against specific pathogens, reducing infection severity and transmission risk. COVID-19 vaccines decrease disease severity and transmission probability.
This whole thing of "they arent vaccines" is bologna and everyone knows it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox_vaccine
"Vaccine" is actually a pretty broad term and loses usefulness in these conversations outside of its use as a rhetorical tool. Yes MRNA vaccines are vaccines and yes they are different from other types of vaccine such as Live-attenuated vaccines, conjugate vaccines and others.
Their rapid development and adaptability make them probably the best type of vaccine for fighting quickly mutating viruses. This is shown by the rapidity and relative ease of development and deployment of bivalent vaccines. mRNA vaccines are one of the great technological triumphs of the American industry and science apparatus.
And that's the reason we have governments for. So that people like you can't do unlimited damage. You can privately hate the government, but as long as you follow the rules, the damage is contained.
Masks saved people, including children: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9968482/
This study doesn't control its variables properly. Places with no mask mandates are also places where people typicaly didn't take other precautions such as avoiding mass gatherings.
...
Therefore, the differential impact of face masks on emotion recognition can have an effect on children’s social interactions. For example, better recognition of anger can facilitate greater physical and social distance from one another (Calbi et al., 2021). On the other hand, lower recognition of happiness and sadness can be potentially detrimental for children’s social interactions. Happiness has been identified as key to boosting social interactions (Quoidbach et al., 2019), whereas recognizing sadness in others is important to display appropriate interpersonal emotion regulation (Kwon & López-Pérez, 2022)."
Partially(mostly?) was because during class breaks they were not allowed to interact.
Please state in quantitative (percentage) terms what "the damage is contained" means at object level reality.
Also please state the source(s) of this knowledge (this way it makes it explicit whether what you are describing is your opinion vs facts, as you seem to be presenting it as).
Let's check out the language from the link you did include:
>> Our results imply that...
>> This suggests that...
Wow, that's a neat trick. Is science not THE institution that we can turn to for non-misinformative information? I always hear that it is LITERALLY THE BEST at discovering and distributing truth, but then I constantly encounter this sort of thing, and rarely anything else.
Does this situation seem strange to you, even in the slightest?
No I don't.
This might help you understand your experience:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind
> ...but you have not reciprocated that patience.
Apologies. How could I have done that?
> It is so easy...
So is what you are doing. I'd say your approach is even easier.
> when you foist expectations on others
I've foisted no expectations, I have only posed some questions or requests for clarifying detail regarding your facts.
Please do not misrepresent reality, it is rude, and can be harmful. If you would like others to be concerned about the safety of the collective, you should reciprocate.
> then wonder why people don't want you engage with you
Do you believe yourself to know why people don't want to engage with me, or that I wonder about such things? How could you possibly acquire such knowledge?
> then claim it is the science that is wrong.
I made no such claim (though, I did criticize the questionably accurate memetic reputation and marketing of "science", the institution that proclaims in their scriptures and marketing (though not so much in behavior) to welcome all criticism), why are you speaking as if I have? Are you perhaps "trying" (I use quotes, as it may seem like I am implying conscious intent, which I am not) to trick people into believing something that is not true, are you perhaps at least to some degree engaging in rhetoric in order to persuade other people to believe your preferred story?
What?
The vaccines we do have are because we have vaccines for coronaviruses in animals and had nearly a decade of work for using them in humans.
> the smear campaign against ivermectin
The smear campaign against a drug that did not, does not, and could not work, because it is an antiparasitic, not an antiviral?
Combatting disinformation (and at a certain point, it became deliberate disinformation) is not a "smear campaign".
Which vaccine specifically are you talking about here?
> The smear campaign against a drug that did not, does not, and could not work, because it is an antiparasitic, not an antiviral?
I see you haven't checked out the research that's been done this past decade:
https://portlandpress.com/biochemj/article/443/3/851/80615/I...
The first reference to that study?
"Ivermectin for COVID-19: Addressing Potential Bias and Medical Fraud"
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8774052/
"The results suggest that the significant effect of ivermectin on survival was dependent on largely poor-quality studies. ... This highlights the need for rigorous quality assessments, for authors to share patient-level data, and for efforts to avoid publication bias for registered studies. These steps are vital to facilitate accurate conclusions on clinical treatments."
More specifically, to your point, and the research you cite, what actually appears to be happening:
> [patients] who were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (five with AIDS-defining conditions) and harbored Strongyloides stercoralis received ivermectin on a compassionate basis for persistent intestinal infection.
Strongyloides. A _parasite_.
I hate the "I did my research" trope and everything surrounding it.
The vaccines were extremely well-tested and anyone saying they weren't is either lying or was lied to by a liar.
They did not follow the typical drug approval process.
That does not mean they were not tested.
I was one of the test subjects.
Starting human trials before animal trials were finished is not what I'd call "extremely well-tested".
The standard testing procedure takes years. These injections were forced upon hundreds of millions of people after only a few months of testing, and that's even assuming that what little testing was done was done properly.
Citation needed. The FDA paperwork to authorize human trials and emergency authorization referenced the completed animal trials.
> The standard testing procedure takes years.
While testing processes do typically take years, this also factors in the production to testable levels of said vaccines, whereas mRNA vaccines are far more quickly and efficiently produced, reducing this time dramatically.
Also to be taken into account, work on coronavirus vaccination in humans had already been in the pipeline since the Avian Flu crises. This wasn't something new.
> These injections were forced upon hundreds of millions of people after only a few months of testing
Most people couldn't access the vaccine for much longer periods of time. Certainly no-one was being forced early on (and that goes for varying definitions of the word 'forced').
Sources:
- https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-covid-vaccines-animal-...
- https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N2NJ1IK/
- https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/09/10/fac...
Facts are irrelevant, for it is a religion-- half cult of individual superiority and half uncontrollable iconoclasm.
Like geocentrists but with medicine.
Ok.
> CLAIM: Animal studies for COVID-19 vaccines were “stopped” because the animals were dying.
Not my claim.
> https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL2N2NJ1IK/
> COVID-19 vaccines did not skip animal trials because of animal deaths
Again, not my claim.
> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/09/10/fac...
> Now some proponents of the anti-parasitic drug traditionally used for animals are falsely claiming COVID-19 vaccinations haven't passed animal studies.
Not my claim either.
This is my claim: human trials started before animal trials were finished:
https://ncirs.org.au/phases-clinical-trials
> While testing processes do typically take years, this also factors in the production to testable levels of said vaccines, whereas mRNA vaccines are far more quickly and efficiently produced, reducing this time dramatically.
The quickness of production is unrelated to how long it takes to test its effects.
> Also to be taken into account, work on coronavirus vaccination in humans had already been in the pipeline since the Avian Flu crises. This wasn't something new.
Can you point out the mRNA vaccines developed then?
> Most people couldn't access the vaccine for much longer periods of time. Certainly no-one was being forced early on (and that goes for varying definitions of the word 'forced').
Yes, lets pretend vaccine mandates didn't happen.
Is "extremely well-tested" an objective scientific term (as opposed to a subjective personal opinion)? If so, please link to an authoritative definition.
> and anyone saying they weren't is either lying or was lied to by a liar.
Not necessarily, they could simply be speaking subjectively, speaking untruthfully/misinformatively etc... hey, kind of like you are doing right now!
Aren't humans interesting when they try to practice logic? Let's hope our Dear Leaders and The Experts (including The Scientists) took some classes before they tried to pull it off under extremely difficult circumstances, in a problem space containing thousands/millions of variables, many of them hallucinated (but not realized as such, because science does not study that in a really serious way).
Do you think that they have? And if not, do you think this is something we should perhaps include in these highly intellectual conversations?
You're spewing bullshit right here. COVID vaccines went through clinical trials and had a great safety profile.
Vaccines don’t work on everyone who takes them, and they tend to be less effective in the elderly. Every one of those people are counting on the rest of us to not bring shit to their doorsteps.
The government is correct when they request large-scale public health interventions and you should go along with it when it makes large scale interventions since some of these require coordination on an urgent time-scale.
Paternalism does not work. Providing diktats from the throne result in some quarter of the population revolting against the idea, causing coordination failure.
- it is not possible to be aware of aware of the number of deaths avoided by government action, because counter-factual reality is not accessible; humans typically substitute a simulation in response, but often do not know that has occurred
- there is no requirement for documentation ("documented existence of disinformation networks") to be accurate
- in some cases, and for various reasons (choice of inadequate variable types in one's analysis/cognition, ie: "existence", cultural norms), it is not possible for documentation to be accurate and comprehensive, and this is one of those times
- in some cases it is not possible to apply this sort of level of rigor, this seems to almost always be one of those times (all people on all sides are engaged in deceit, intentionally or not), at least so far in humanity's evolution
- In most serious organizations, an event of this scale would prompt a post incident analysis, there seems to be little sign that anyone considers this event serious enough to justify such an analysis (COVID seems to have triggered one of the many paradoxes in the system in that it is super serious, but also not, simultaneously)
- this list is far from exhaustive
- humans will have very interesting (and typically predictable) reactions to the contents of this list, or others like it (the system is susceptible to a list based attack?)
When only 25% of the population has been exposed you expect 1/4 of the projected death toll. Then multiply by 2 and now you’re pushing an order of magnitude. But what we are seeing is a pretty steady .9% mortality rate for people who are exposed.
Meanwhile the fatality rate for this last flu season was 1/16th of COVID (which is another comparison they liked to make).
The problem with 1% is that almost everyone will know someone who died. But they took it like the odds of winning the lottery. Let’s just gamble that’s a small number!
The distribution of risk is almost entirely concentrated on people who have so few years left in their life compared to the rest of humanity whereas the burden of all the interventions falls squarely on the young, who DO propagate humanity into the future, and who are at essentially no major risk.
Representing covid as a .9% generalized risk is nothing short of willful (self?) deception.
I mean, there are all sorts of confounding factors, but in a rough sense we are now able to look at various populations (countries, states, or even friend/acquaintance cohorts) that leaned into one or the other of those positions, and compare how they fared.
For example, was it good that we closed parks? Remember when sand was poured into skateparks? Or the parks in NYC were padlocked? Was it good that we closed schools for so long? Remember the amount of shaming that happened when some people went to the beaches? Remember when the grocery stores had arrows about which way the direction of the aisle went? Remember how long we handed out bacteria wipes as though it was spread through dirty surfaces?
I'm not sure us peons in society are the only ones who need to learn lessons here.
The future I was expecting was a strong increase in ventilation, widespread adoption of CO2 measurements in public spaces (in the same way we measure temperature and humidity now), and experiments with things like UV to reduce disease particle viability. Along with behavioral changes, like staying home when sick, some continued use of masking, and use of mRNA techniques so people get something like quarterly vaccines that cover all the diseases we're trying to keep in check.
What I instead got was an anti-science politicization of reasonable public health measures that 20 years ago would have been inconceivable. And then a giant collective shrug where we see plenty of ongoing death and a continuing rise of long Covid such that we have millions partly or wholly disabled. Including with brain fog, a symptom that I, as a programmer, would fine particularly devastating.
The other thing we should bring back are brass and silver handles. Both of which can kill surface germs almost instantly. It has to be unlaquered though and you’ll find a lot of brass coated in plastic to keep it from corroding.