Who would decide who has to be protected and who gets to be “in the herd”?
There was a time when a vaccine was universally given that prevented large scale spread that was not a huge profit windfall: Salk’s polio vaccine. He gave it away for the benefit of public health. We all took it and polio, which my father had and miraculously recovered from, pretty much went away after being a fact of life for ages. Too bad at a time when it is most needed, there is so little earned trust in government as a way forward that benefits everyone.
But do you think that some societies are doing a better job than others?
Well from data we can see who is most vulnerable, most affected…can we not? Who decides today who gets to be protected?
A lot of time has passed since 50s and also, I never said I am anti vaccine. I was vaccinated too and there are vaccines I will give to my children.
Comparing a person like Salk to people we deal with today makes no sense, not does implying all vaccines are good for us…or needed for that matter.
Yeah, he gave it away as he should have. The foundation got millions of public money for research and field testing.
He also used it on him and his children. If Bill Gates gives to his kids and takes every vaccine he wants others to take, I will take it too and FROM THE SAME NEEDLE.
Too bad he never will. If he does it will be something like this.
Yes and there is a good reason for that. More informed one is, less trust one has unfortunately.
If there was less censorship and person assassinations, more transparency, I would trust them more.
What is your opinion on censorship being done nowdays?
We already had “pandemics” from which someone was going to make huge profits but people have short memories nowdays.
Yes, I believe the Swedes and the Dutch will show much better results long term just because their measures were not as severe. Considering the rest of the world was paralyzed, their measures were much less effective too as that affected them as well.
Can’t really tell, we are just being fed just daily stats of infected, hospitalised, dead.
This supports a part of your argument - the most promising vaccine effort so far in the USA was entirely funded by American taxpayers, yet the pharma company plans to sell it for big money to recoup an investment the company did not make.
What I find incredible is that nobody seems to be bothered by the fact the information we receive is being heavily filtered or transformed into half truths by people who are far from being experts in the subject of the discussion…they are however becoming experts in manipulation and censorship. I spent a lot of energy, sharing a lot of info which can be called controversial to say the least. It seems to fall on deaf ears so I will go invest my energy into other things. I have so much to do.
If we have some freedom and comfort today, it is thanks to the millions of people who fought for it before us. I also find it incredible people don’t take few hours of their time to research the subject and make sure they don’t lose what others fought so hard to obtain…not only for their own sake but for the sake of their children. For the sake of humanity.
It’s so easy to say “oh, it’s complicated so I will trust in authority”. Later you can always say: “what was I supposed to do? The authorities said…”
Much easier than taking responsibility for our choices, actions, isn’t it?
Well future will show what is really going on here and I hope then you will accept responsibility for your inaction…and learn from it for next time. Because there will be next time.
Ok, but that is potentially true for all information, including that that you consume and reshare. If, confronted with a disagreement, we all say “My information is correct and well researched, yours is manipulated and distorted” there is no way to ever converge. This would be very bad, as we know that the evolutionary success of homo sapiens is driven by collaboration at ever larger scales, and there is no collaboration without a shared understanding.
Hence “trust the science”: there is a process for falsifying scientific statements that has historically worked well enough, in the long run. In the long run, I am sure the COVID controversy will be put to rest, and we will know the hows and the whys. Unfortunately, we are now not in the long run, and we must live with the hasty preprints and the retractions, the academic posturing, the ineffective procurement (here are the UK, and the Dutch govts buying millions of defective masks, and don’t get me started on Belgium), the (yes, definitely) corrupt companies out to make a quick buck. During all this, different papers are saying different things. This is a feature of science, not a bug. Like Ed Yong, one of my favorite biology writers, remarked:
This is how science actually works. It’s less the parade of decisive blockbuster discoveries that the press often portrays, and more a slow, erratic stumble toward ever less uncertainty. “Our understanding oscillates at first, but converges on an answer,” says Natalie Dean, a statistician at the University of Florida. “That’s the normal scientific process, but it looks jarring to people who aren’t used to it.” (source)
This is not what we’d like to hear, but I believe it to a big part of the truth.
This is simply not true and it takes very little to see which side is being transmitted by mass media and which one is being silenced. This kind of relativising a very serious matter is very dangerous.
I am well aware everybody has a point of view or understanding of a subject and in that sense, is filtering information…including me. I am also well aware I could be wrong, as I stated in my first comments.
What I am talking about is clear censorship. Censorship as in deleted content, banned accounts, omitting important information etc. Real people are risking everything they have, and they are being punished since the beginning, to reveal that very same heavily censored information. I don’t know if you just are unaware of these things or what but, saying what you said is just disrespectful to all of them.
Where is the science behind the measures in place? Where is the science when we haven’t even allowed scientific method or peer review? Oh there is plenty of peer review but no media is showing it and few governments are taking it into consideration.
Yes we will find out, and how many people will be hurt before we find out because it’s all relevant anyway so let’s just wait it out?
I know you people think it’s conspiracy theories etc but, I am not pulling info from my ass but rather listening to most competent people in the field. The world’s top virologists, microbiologists etc are giving you real info but you are too lazy or scared to hear it?
Here is some science for you.
And here is another real person, giving real info, real stats which I have checked as well, giving real names…
Crazy thing is some of these things could be logically figured out just by looking at the numbers. Now we are getting the info too. Let’s see how many people come out with stories of medical personnel asking them to sign off they family member died of COVID while it was cancer, organ failure or many other things.
There are hundreds of people already reporting it, many got money to do it in indirect way in Croatia (like being paid all funeral costs).
Flu magically almost disappeared? Please…doesn’t take a virologist to figure that crap out.
Peace, Jasen. I wrote “potentially”. Of course disinformation exists. Since it exists, it follows that any source is “potentially” suspicious.
In cases where science has established something beyond reasonable doubt, I even support censorship in certain contexts, like education and mass media. For example, some people believe the universe is 6,000 years old, created by God like the Bible say. These people have their own paleontologists and scholars, their journals and universities. And they say “teach the controversy between creationism and evolutionism in American schools!”. Their opponents say there is no more controversy, evolution has won it long ago. Let them keep their conferences, of course, but do not teach 16th century science in 21st century schools.
Something similar goes with climate change: denialists have also research institutes and deep pockets. They use them to get policies in favor of fracking and things like that. “Why should we sacrifice our ways of life just because of some lousy prediction made by some scientists? Here, we have our own counterpredictions!” And if you shut them down, they (rightly) call it censorship. But you still want to shut them down, because their tactic is doing real damage (if you believe the other side, which I do).
With COVID we do not know much yet, it is not a situation like creationism and climate change denial. So, let’s be mentally flexible, entertain all possibilities, and read more meta-studies (like this) and fewer studies. Deal?
I have to say I’m with @jasen_lakic on this one guys. If your point of departure is that which does see the light of day as being the sole foundation on which you can draw conclusions then the reading looks very different from if you, like myself, are interested in that which is not.
Sorry but you made a blanket statement previously. That is more for European Commission, not an open discussion. I speak of specific cases, which are very real.
If sometimes I look harsh it is because I am increasingly frustrated with the situation, it’s certainly nothing personal but I am a very passionate and direct person.
Like this, it’s not meant to be demeaning. I just think highly of you, as an intelligent, educated and capable human being. So following my own logic of course, those are the 2 options I could consider plausible. When I see automatons around, not thinking and just wondering around in their everyday tasks, it certainly bothers me but I am used to it by now. When I come to a platform like Edgeryders where I like to think we have a community of very open minded people, creatives, entrepreneurs and scientists, and encounter almost the same attitude, I get VEEEERY WORRIED ABOUT HUMANITY.
And I totally agree with this, in certain cases. So why then you don’t see a problem in the way media and policy makers are treating the COVID crisis or people giving an alternative opinion?
I gave a lot of specific cases and backed it with sources, just like I will do now again.
I already wrote in previous post about
In this specific example: based on that Lancet published research French government has banned the use of hydroxychloroquine just 24hours after! Some US states have even allowed pharmacists to refuse selling it to patients who had it prescribed by their doctor. WHAT? Does that sound like science to you? A medicine used for 80 years, on over 2 billion people? Based on a study by some incognito monkeys now is harmful?
Also, that “research” published was such nonsense that it was never gonna pass peer review. Not only that, nobody in the community could even figure out who are the people behind it…that tells us a lot about their credentials. At the same time we have people like Dr. Didier Raoult (who is a living monument) and organisations like American Frontier Doctors are treating people with hydroxychloroquine successfully. But American Frontier Doctors have their videos taken down by Youtube and their livestream (followed at that time by millions of people, including me) interrupted and taken down by Facebook. Do you find that normal?
Where is the science there? Is that science or politics and lobbying? So yes, I trust science and scientific method. But when I see examples like this one, which are facts, my trust in the policy makers goes down drastically.
How much damage was done by policy makers and media in that case? (Media treated VERY DIFFERENTLY the published study and the retraction of the same). And what is the solution if we have no cure? Well of course it is vaccination…and judging by the articles being placed in media for months now, we will have a yearly vaccine (or vaccines) for it. They, of course keep feeding us articles with titles like “Human immune system does not work”, “There is no cure”, and obviously 197823 articles about incoming vaccines.
Does it sound like science to you that billions of public money are spent to buy vaccines which haven’t even been tested or manufactured, while we have only censured anything contradicting that vaccine-is the-only-solution narrative???
Let me go back to censorship: in specific cases that you stated, I would certainly not censor them. I am a firm believer in open discussion and you know why? Simply because it is more productive.
Let’s take a subject like race superiority:
What happens if you censor the discussion about it? Well it goes underground. Those who believe it will surround themselves with likeminded people, enforcing the belief and creating serious extremism. Not only that but, censorship will give them a higher ground than they will actually have and motive even, proving their “race is in danger of being wiped out” blabla all the bshit.
As long as you have an open discussion, you cannot lose really. Why? Well because their arguments make no sense and can so easily be dismantled. If you do it publicly or through debate, you will have waaaaaay bigger impact than if you just ban them from talking.
Specially if you make blanket statements which make no sense to an average person. They need to see real life examples and there are plenty of those.
Same goes for creationists and same goes for those who deny climate change is happening.
It’s not the same to not allow certain teachings in public school by the way and not allow open discussion about certain things, as is the situation now.
I cannot trust the same people who censure, do character assassination and downright punish those most relevant to give us information about the subject at hand. People losing their jobs, their licences, being suspended…what is that? Trusting people/organisations using such methods goes against all common sense. Especially when on one side you have an individual who risks everything by saying what they say, and on the other you have organisations gaining so much from saying what they say…
Let’s put all current matters aside and just consider censorship. This is how I see it:
The powers that be make the population increasingly dependent of the authority, they dumb down the population enforcing obedience and discouraging critical thinking, then they filter and manipulate information to manufacture public consent and THEN THEY JUSTIFY CENSORSHIP saying “population should not have access to that information as we essentially consider them too dumb to properly process it”. Sorry but we are either homo sapiens or we are not. We can’t call our species that if we don’t believe the members of the species cannot use logic and understand information given to them.
Well obviously masks work to a degree, that is the most logical thing and I don’t see who even said the opposite here. I only said that pieces of cloth people wear nowdays don’t make us safe and certainly do more harm than good. Do you know that these masks are supposed to be used once? So handled once, placed on the face ONCE, removed ONCE and thrown away? Everyone is bombarding us with “wear masks” but who talks about proper use? You know why they don’t? Because a lot of active people would have to use 10 per day if they don’t want to wear them all day long. Who is going to pay for that? Here is a short guideline but it does not state everything.
Here is CDC published result of %of people wearing masks who got infected. So 70% of them wore the mask all the time in public, but 40% had close contact with someone who was positive. Also, they considered only symptomatic people, which is very important. 90% of all tests are either mild cases or asymptomatic.
What I find incredible is having children wear them for 9 hours…that makes no sense and is downright harmful. Especially when you consider the mortality rate or effect at all for 0-19 years old. I go back to, protect those who need to be protected, make sure you create all necessary support systems to increase their safety. Do not inflict damage on 99.5% of the population for increased safety of 0.5%. Not only that, with our policies and paranoia we have probably killed way more senior citizens as well…we have definitely killed way more young people (and we will kill so many more) with our policies so far.
I gave examples for that in previous posts, but there are way bigger consequences.
I love the example of US demonstrations and people wearing masks there, as the proof masks work. Well we kept the masks all along, so why we see such spike in cases now? How come the covid cases rise so much but flu has all but disappeared? Sorry but don’t even need science for that.
You talk about masks but, I will talk about PCR tests.
Why are we testing the asymptomatic? How reliable are the tests at all? In the article I linked above there is a lot of science and investigation behind it, backed by links to direct sources, by real people staking their livelihood on it. So why do you consider your meta study so much better? Even though I agree with the findings of the study.
We were testing 30000 people per day lately, ramping up to 60000 people per day. Compared to 10-25 000 in May. If the test is not reliable, and all data shows it is not, why are we basing everything on it? If it is so sensitive, and it is. If it cannot distinguish between various corona viruses, and it cannot. If it gives a covid positive result on a plethora of other diseases, and it does.
Only now they are deciding not to test the asymptomatic in Belgium, finally.
Now let’s go to the manipulation with mortality rates. First of all, it is a fact that most people dying of/with it lived longer than the average age expectancy.
It is also a fact most of those people had more than one comorbidity. Latest estimates by CDC and few other sources state 6-12% (depending on country) of all who died actually died of covid19.
Let’s go now to big financial incentives for declaring covid 19 patients, both positives and dead. Are you aware of that fact? Combine that with the fact a lot less regular patients go to hospitals and tell me, how much integrity is there when people are faced with losing their businesses/jobs during a crisis as this one?
I have been to hospitals 3 times since the beginning of all this. First 2 times I was there in the peak of the epidemic. I never saw so few people at the hospital…
Just yesterday almost all Croatian media reported “The youngest case of COVID19 death in Croatia, a 39 year old female”.
Well guess what, her brother publicly replied asking then why are they spreading lies? She suffered for a long time, had internal organ failures as a result of her condition and she died from internal bleeding finally…
Underneath his message there is an incredible number of people reporting they were encouraged by the medical personnel to sign their relative died of covid19 and offered all funeral expenses covered. In Croatia, that is a big deal. In some cases they just received a letter later, informing them the relative died of covid19. All of them had very serious health issues and were not admitted to the hospital for covid19.
Same is happening in many other countries and medical practitioners are talking about that. I directly know of one case like that in Belgium (late stage cancer battle), so I will cite only that one. But let’s wait and see, how many people will come forward. More and more I believe, as bshit of this magnitude cannot stay hidden really.
Also, why are practitioners stating these things being silenced? Fired, suspended etc? I understand somewhat if they went against the interests of the company they work for and got fired or suspended, but why is mainstream media complicit? Why are platforms like youtube and facebook complicit? Youtube has a lot worse things on there than a doctor or coroner talking about FACTS and data manipulation, actually reading from the internal memo. What happened with investigative journalism?
Crazy part is, this whole situation does not affect me much. My family is safe and very independent, no need for masks or anything special. I don’t have to wear a mask much. I felt the economic impact as I lost money but it didn’t affect me much. I am not in any danger nor do I feel any pressure there. In fact, I lost around 15 000 euros and by conservative estimates I will make 6-8 times more next year…probably x10. I am just sorry I couldn’t continue paying 5 people for their services.
My only issue is obligatory vaccination and that is what is coming. You think our policy makers would have ordered hundreds of millions of them if it wasn’t the case? We will be “free” to choose but our lives will pretty much be miserable if we do not take the vaccine.
I am still very upset with the state of the world and if, in my frustration, I sometimes use harsher language than I should - I apologise.
You say “they” a lot. Who do you mean? And who is doing the censoring? It is my understanding that governments censor. News outlets choose to report or not report. Social media are private companies who have discretion, which they use for better or worse. But it isn’t really censorship since they own the platform.
My point here is trying to separate out who you think is doing what to whom.
You already showed in your previous “answer” that I am wasting energy and time. Didn’t even bother to answer a very simple question.
Again, i gave clear examples and names. You can’t be bothered to read and want me to regurgitate an overview for you as well?
Yes, they are private companies.
That exactly is the problem, private power overtook public power long time ago. Do you think a private company with such huge impact should not be held accountable for their actions? Also, why do you think a company more powerful than most countries does not affect policy making for its own purpose?
What news outlets? Do you see the difference between news outlets today and 50 years ago? What makes you think news outlets are independent entities actually publishing real information? That used to be their purpose…today they are the most powerful weapons used as such. What am i talking about, it started long time ago. They were used to create paranoia and were an essential weapon for extermination of Native Americans. They were used also to sway public opinion when England went to war versus the Zulus. Again, used to spread the damn racist theories about all native peoples in order to further justify appropriating their lands and making slaves out of them. They are weaponised and they need to be treated as such. News outlets…please, let’s be real. They do more damage today than any weapon we used in warfare over the last 60 years…
They manufacture consent in supposed democracies with false information or filtered information to create certain world view. That makes any democracy obsolete. I am okay with that actually, let’s just call spade a spade. Just declare martial law, officialise fascism and declare freedom of speech is an illusion. In short, I have no problem with any of the actions they do. I just wish we called things their right names. See how much public support they get then. I also wish there were consequences for their actions, and judging by your answer…no wonder there are none. Who will hold them accountable.
I wonder would you say “well they report what they report” if they all dehumanised your people spreading lies, with goal of convincing the rest of the world it is okay to wage war against you. Would you still consider them news outlets, choosing to report that? Or “they are private companies so, they choose what they publish”???
I get it, you probably think this scenario is a conspiracy and it never happened…
War mercenaries are private companies too, nevertheless they should be kept accountable.
Thing with sources is this: each of us has to choose which sources to trust. I don’t trust Breitbart. And I don’t trust Fox. These are sources too, regularly invoked in many debates. Also, they sometimes publish accurate facts, when the facts suit their political agenda. In those cases, I will be making mistakes: I will think “bah, these guys are liars” and fail to recognize the truth. And yet, these are cases: on the whole I find my world map are more accurate if I ignore entirely certain sources.
That sounds like procurement. Which is a highly political process, with all the known bugs of capture, posturing, short-termism etc. etc. Why would you call it science?
Breaking news: science also is very, very far from perfect. “Perfect” is not on the menu. You know it, I know it.
That said, the science here is in Lancet’s (and other journals’) retractions. It is unfair to complain to “science” because the media misreport stuff. Also, I am frankly surprised that you are surprised. Misreporting is endemic. It was around before either of us were born, and we had to develop navigation tools around them. Using them is more effective than complaining.
What it comes down to: intelligent people, like me, do not “move like automatons”. We pick our readings. I, too, cited some of my sources. Occasionally I even read medical papers. Since I have a PhD in quantitative economics, I understand statistics, and I am a bit better than average in interpreting quantitative results (pro tip: “to increase death” is a poor formulation). And I certainly don’t get my salient facts from Facebook and YouTube videos. Come on, man! Really? We have known it’s tainted at least since 2016. If you want a bibliography for that, I will be happy to oblige.
I run a high risk of picking the wrong sources, and missing out on the right ones. But then, so do you. It’s life. If you, given your readings, want to go for hydroxycloroquine, more power to you. We stand to learn from what your actions. Will you treat me, and the rest of us, with the same courtesy?
Sorry, that’s been disproved since 1945, when Popper published The open society and its enemies. The argument is called the paradox of tolerance, and it is no longer challenged by any serious scholar.
My first assignment while an undergraduate at university was to look into the media landscape in Poland during communist times. More specifically, exploring how people produced and interacted with information in a situation of censorship, and the context within which this was happening. I guess @Wolha and @Jan will have a lot more to say about this. But my own (limited) understanding is that people developed an ability/extraordinary skill at communicating and “reading” with a kind of split vision. In a situation like this, how do you filter between speculation, reported facts, disinformation etc ?
let me be more specific - In a situation like this, where threat and oppression (or possibility) are not immediately tangible or perhaps distributed across many different actors, how do you filter between speculation, reported facts, disinformation etc ? i ask because I find it very difficult to do with the limited time, and more importantly, limited cognitive energy that I have at my disposal…
I think that Polish media in general are more opinion driven, than data driven. And now when the situation is unprecedented, the information in media is even more based on the opinions. Everyone becomes an expert, willing to sell the solution to the crisis.