coryfklein

The Covid vaccine is hardly a “completely novel” health intervention, but rather it rests on a huge body of knowledge of the immune system and decades of vaccine science, does it not?

Sure the process used for this particular vaccine was novel, but do you think it’s mechanism of action is so fundamentally different from other vaccines such that it is likely to have fundamentally different long-term outcomes?

I wholly agree with you that the approach you outlined is the correct way to arrive with a map that reflects the territory!

But what I’m pointing out above is the contradiction of how most of the folks worried about long term effects (and I have no idea whether this includes you specifically) seem to selectively apply this behavior strategy to only the COVID vaccine! And I personally think that one would miss out on a lot that is good and enjoyable in life by applying that strategy consistently across all decisions, but to each his own.

But for average folks that apply this caution to the Covid vaccine, I am highly skeptical that they are also applying it to all many other things in their life that could have equally high or even greater risk. (Which is why I intentionally included examples of behaviors that we know to have long term negative consequences.)

Exactly! What was all that talk about using the vaccine to achieve herd immunity and reduce the R0? That was SO the narrative.

> What if it turns out the vaccines do have negative long term effects

This is like the inverse of Pascal's Wager [1]!

"What if taking some action results in negative long term effects that we don't yet know about? Better not do anything new just to be safe."

That reasoning could be applied to anything novel, and yet folks seem most ready to apply it to COVID-19 vaccination. The flu vaccine changes every year, but I've never heard folks expressing concern of the long-term effects of this year's new formulation. Let me rattle off a few more off the top of my head:

* Was there a large cohort of the population that refused microwave ovens in the 1970's?

* What if a doctor prescribes you a new medication that was developed in the last 5-10 years?

* VR headsets?

* Social media!

* Sitting at a desk in front of a computer working 8 hours a day

* Getting a smartphone

Is there some reason why we would expect a priori for the COVID-19 vaccine to have a particularly high risk of adverse affects that only show up long-term?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_wager

Fortunately, since a high mortality rate makes for poor Darwinian fitness, viruses tend to evolve over time into variants with lower mortality albeit higher infectivity.

In a few decades, coronavirus may actually end up being just as lethal as the flu! One can hope, at least.

I'm impressed how quickly folks here are able to arrive at the most certain conclusion that this was staged! While that explanation seems possible (and not unlikely), I keep coming back to Hanlon's Razor:

> Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

The individual seems to have decent skills at YouTube'ing and probably paragliding, but most of the video seems easily explained by him simply being a stupid pilot. Let me spin an alternative narrative and you compare it to the narrative of malicious intent to see whether one is more obviously true than the other.

Amateur pilot YouTuber has invested money in several GoPros. Costs him nothing to mount them all over the airplane for some cool footage on the way. The engine stops midflight. The pilot tries a few things (cut from the video so he doesn't look incompetent to his subscribers), but he hasn't flown in a while and has forgotten what he's supposed to do in this scenario.

"Was there an acronym? ABC: abort, blame, no that's not it. GLO: Glide, Land, Observe?" The tiny plane has no radio so he can't phone a friend for help. Could he land on that stream bed down there? Possibly...

"Dammit, I might be skilled enough to land this, but I have spent a gajillion hours live-streaming my skydives recently and THAT I definitely know how to do."

Pilot grabs the GoPro off the dashboard just like he did on his last 10 skydives and jumps out of the plane. In his panicked state of mind, he doesn't realise that he should pull the chute ASAP and he falls back on his skydiving experience and freefalls for a decent amount of time before thinking to pull the chute.

Like the terrible pilot he is, he didn't spend much time looking at the route of his flight plans and he doesn't know where he is. He has a bag of gear in the plane, so he follows the plane to where it crashes in hopes of getting his water bottle, even though it means he has to land in the brambles. Unsurprisingly, he can't locate his gear but he's able to escape with only some scratches. He barely escaped a death caused by his stupidity, but maybe he can salvage this difficult situation with a well edited YouTube video...

Now some of you might say that this is a just-so story crafted to spin a particular narrative, but how is that different from all the other stories here portraying him as a well-trained pilot and ascribing all sorts of other characteristics to him?

Honestly I won't be surprised whichever direction the FAA investigation comes back, but I am surprised at how certain all the "skeptics" here are of the facts they're able to extract from such a heavily edited video.

Unless you're a skydiver by trade in an emergency situation and you fall back on what is familiar to you?

Let's say instead they did pull the chute immediately after bailing and then used the extra altitude to sail back to safety. Would you be more inclined to believe the stunt was real?

Why should he go to prison? Faking an airplane crash for YouTube views, while clearly in bad taste, doesn't seem worthy of jail time.

Reckless self endangerment maybe? But that also doesn't seem to rise to the level of "put you in jail".

If the crash was intentional, then he's certainly liable for violating littering laws by depositing a moderate amount of wreckage in the mountains which he didn't clean up. Again, not worthy of prison time. Probably a hefty fine though.

Last I can think of is if he makes a fraudulent insurance claim; in that case then yeah he might be eligible for jail time, but I don't think we know whether he filed an insurance claim in the first place.

> this youtuber was trying to get some easy views

I think the word "easy" means something different to you than it does to me. Even staged, I wouldn't call what he did easy. But it certainly seems like a way to get guaranteed views!

FWIW, I migrated off paid LastPass onto the free BitWarden plan recently and my experience has been much improved. I was a huge LastPass proponent in the beginning and at the time they seemed like the obvious best choice in a field with few options. But they have definitely not been able to keep up with the times and their paid service just isn't even comparable to what is now available for free.

The CES Letter is an excellent jumping-off point.

Probably because they are a human and still subject to human constructs like morality?

Why bother obeying the speed limit if speed limits are just human constructs and you won't go to hell for breaking it?

I'm curious; do you believe that your subjective experience of God's love to be objective evidence for the existence of God, and thus you made a scientific observation that God must exist and therefore believe in him? Or is it more that your experience touching the divine had such a positive effect on your life that you simply decided to continue cultivating that experience? Or maybe a bit of both?

I'll agree with the other comment that atheism – almost by definition – is not a spiritual practice. But I'll point out that the transition itself, from dogmatic religion to atheism, is almost always a highly spiritual experience.

Having gone through this process myself years ago I can attest to this, while also I must give my strongest recommendation that you eventually begin looking for a spiritual practice. Organized religion's wild success among humanity is a great testament to it's Darwinian fitness, and it undisputably provides many benefits to believers that you most definitely lose if you simply subtract it from your life.

Many atheists struggle with finding a replacement for those benefits without adopting magical thinking in some other way, and I sympathize with this. But once you have had a few years to distance the pain of religion, I highly recommend looking for a routine source of spiritualism in your life. Sam Harris advocates for meditation which seems to be the most prominent atheistic alternative, but it doesn't come by default with many of the benefits that organized religion does (community and ceremony to just name a couple off the top of my head).

Whatever time and effort your parents and family invested into religion, I recommend taking some portion of that and investing it in your own spiritual well-being. And as a disclaimer to all this: I too am atheist, I don't subscribe to any magical thinking, and I am co-opting the word "spiritualism" significantly here but I can't think of a good alternative. I don't actually believe "spirits" exist.

Since I don't see anyone else mentioning it here, I thought I'd call out Zvi.

With all the constant noise around covid coverage, it's been such a huge relief that Zvi has been able to provide the excellent summaries that he does at least once a week. It's nearly impossible for every individual to spend enough time to parse through the deluge of information and parse the signal from the noise.

Forgive my ignorance, but why is excess CO2 such a challenge? Isn't it extremely easy to simply vent it into space/the nearly-empty moon atmosphere?

The regulations that would make Warren Buffet pay more than an effective 0.1% tax rate are the first that comes to mind.

I think we're pretty far beyond "double taxation" at this point. I think my money gets taxed at least 3-5 times in the various stages it passes through my use.

Yeah this is probably the best explanation. Elsewhere on the page you can see examples of photos of lighter skin-toned individuals, and when viewed holistically – both photos and copy – this particular section is actually trying to communicate that the camera can capture well _darker_ skin tones. But I guess it's rude to specifically say it that way, and more "inclusive" to simply say "all people".

> to better capture non-white skin tones

The copy on the page itself seems to disagree with you

> Portraits on Pixel represent the nuances of different skin tones for *all people* beautifully and authentically.

(Emphasis mine)

There does seem to be a discrepancy between the copy saying "all people" and the photos above that paragraph only including individuals with darker skin.

Edit: I'm acknowledging that there are photos of white males elsewhere on the page, but I think my comment's parent is specifically talking about that one section?

> it's the packaging that is massively unfriendly to the environment, stupid.

Of all the garbage my family produces over the course of time, my Apple products probably take less than 0.1% of my family's share of the landfill. Do you find this to be different for you? Or am I speaking past the point you're trying to make here?

A nearby home security camera actually captured a short glimpse of the meteorite falling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwHxuhVA_8o

As a grown man, I have never been treated more like a child than during this pandemic. And that infuriates me.

No. It was exactly what the prisoner's dilemma dictates an intelligent actor would do when they don't have the ability to coordinate.

If you suspect there is going to be a run on toilet paper, the obvious choice is to stockpile toilet paper before it is all gone. If you buy just enough for the next couple weeks, and you risk running out because of shortages.

The optimal solution to this IMO is to embrace raising prices during crisis, because then the market ensures that those with the most need get access to goods, and it eliminates the whole point of hoarding 3 months worth of TP naturally.

OP: When in Rome, do as the Greeks do because their way is better.

Would you advocate for government mandates on everyone else for your sole benefit? Or do you feel that you're a representative sample of the high-risk group?

> Letting covid 'rip' through the remaining unvaccinated population

Aren't unvaccinated individuals the ones who made this decision? You may disagree with the conclusion of their dubious risk analyses, but if you choose not to get vaccinated then all bets are off.

Or is it that the risk that the unvaccinated pose to the vaccinated are so high that they warrant strong arm solutions?

I was very fortunate to be warned about these CPAP woes and hassles by a friend who went through it before I did. His advice? If you think you might have sleep apnea, do NOT get diagnosed, just buy a CPAP machine second hand and see if it helps you feel better.

I did, and the CPAP helped a lot. Eventually I figured out that simply sleeping reclined (on a triagle pillow) actually gave me 90% of the benefits with 0% of the hassle of the mask though.

If you made a copy of you down to the atomic level, and this copy appeared on a planet several kilometers away, is that new copy "you"?

Does that new copy become "you" if you simply incinerate the original?

I'd really like to know the answer to this as well. From all the research I've done in the past 10 minutes, you'd think that plastic is simply immutable and indestructible, and that even after millenia has passed it will still be plastic (even if in smaller pieces). But the Google SEO on this is dominated by environmental groups trying to emphasize the short-term life cycle of plastics, and it's hard to find anything with a longer-term perspective.

I think if you wait long enough (billions of years) then the landfills will eventually be under miles of earth and subjected to high enough pressures that they fundamentally change; in the same way sedimentary rock can change into metamorphic.