The Vaccine Thread

[beeatnik]

For a disaster is directly experienced only by a minority of people. Everyone else hears about it thorough some network of communication. Even in the seventeenth century, the nascent popular press could sow confusion in people's minds, as Daniel Defoe found when he researched the plague of 1665 in London. The advent of the internet has greatly magnified the potential for misinformation and disinformation to spread, to the extent that we may speak of twin plagues in 2020: one caused by a biological virus, the other by even more contagious viral misconceptions and falsehoods. This problem might have been less serious in 2020 had meaningful reforms of the laws and regulations governing the big technology companies been implemented. Despite ample evidence after 2016 that the status quo was untenable, almost nothing was done.

Niall Ferguson, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

[zetroc]

For a disaster is directly experienced only by a minority of people. Everyone else hears about it thorough some network of communication. Even in the seventeenth century, the nascent popular press could sow confusion in people's minds, as Daniel Defoe found when he researched the plague of 1665 in London. The advent of the internet has greatly magnified the potential for misinformation and disinformation to spread, to the extent that we may speak of twin plagues in 2020: one caused by a biological virus, the other by even more contagious viral misconceptions and falsehoods. This problem might have been less serious in 2020 had meaningful reforms of the laws and regulations governing the big technology companies been implemented. Despite ample evidence after 2016 that the status quo was untenable, almost nothing was done.

Niall Ferguson, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe

zooming in:

The advent of the internet has greatly magnified the potential for misinformation and disinformation to spread, to the extent that we may speak of twin plagues in 2020: one caused by a biological virus, the other by even more contagious viral misconceptions and falsehoods.

(thinking emoji)

[beeatnik]

zooming in:



(thinking emoji)

More than one way to skin the proverbial cat.

https://twitter.com/HdxAcademy/statu...92008388415490

Niall Ferguson Retweeted

Heterodox Academy
@HdxAcademy

"Misinformation and bad policy can only be defeated by robust, open debate in the public square."

@NAChristakis

@reason
@Nickgillespie

https://reason.com/podcast/2021/11/1...ovid-pandemic/

All respiratory pandemics follow a script, one that's as much social and political as it is medical or epidemiological, says Yale sociologist and medical doctor Nicholas Christakis, who has just released a new paperback edition of his authoritative book, Apollo's Arrow: The Profound and Enduring Impact of Coronavirus on the Way We Live.

In his conversation with Nick Gillespie, Christakis pulls no punches when slamming the failures of our politicians and public health officials to act quickly and speak honestly about the COVID-19 pandemic which has left 750,000 Americans dead.

As a newly minted member of the advisory council for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) and a high-profile target of ultra-woke campus activists, Christakis talks about how COVID misinformation has also been spread by pundits and politicians who seem more interested in pushing ideology than science and why the best way forward—really, the only way forward—is through robust debate in the public square. He also argues that recent events on campuses—such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology canceling a talk by a scientist due to his critical views on affirmative action—underscore the need for a radical shift in favor of free speech at our colleges and universities.

[gregl]

As long as we’re quoting Christakis: https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2021/...-buckley-talk/

He criticized the Trump administration for not taking the pandemic seriously in its early stages, and also broadly criticized the politicization of science and the increasing association between science and the “elite.”

“There’s a kind of anti-elitist sentiment right now,” Christakis said. “But this has been pasted into a suspicion of scientists. Scientists are seen as just another elite that wants to rule us and tell us what to do. … You don’t need to signal your membership in a political party by whether you get vaccinated or get a mask.”

Christakis emphasized the need for people to get vaccinated, and said he believes the United States has an obligation to “vaccinate the world.”

Greg

[beeatnik]

^That's kind of the point, no?

[echappist]

I don't really understand what you are saying here. Who is saying that "unlimited speech not curtailed by the government" is an unalloyed good? And what do you mean by unalloyed? Are alloys bad? The metaphor doesn't make sense to me.

That quote is a summation of what i often heard in college and grad school, mostly espoused by those believing that odious ideas should be debated and shown to be inferior (figuratively beaten into submission) but not curtailed in any other way. It’s something i remember vividly, b/c I attended Columbia for grad school when Bollinger invited Ahmadinejad for a speech on campus. His rationale for the invite was pretty much along the line I described, that Holocaust denial should be vigorously debated against, but people espousing it should be given a platform to voice their odious opinion.

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/20...d-ahmadinejad/

The same point is basically present in the Tweets mentioned above, about bad policy should only be defeated via public debate. It makes for a good slogan, but is naive and impractical. After all, ideas aren’t really defeated and disembodied. No matter how many times the whole vaccine skepticism is shown to be misguided, it will always rear its head elsewhere.

As for “unalloyed”, it is an adjective meaning something that cannot be tarnished or tainted (n.b. I didn’t use a metaphor). An unalloyed good thus refers to something that is necessarily good and not possible to have negative effects. I’m claiming that there are negative aspects to free speech (e.g. vaccine conspiracy and Holocaust denial) that are much more serious than previously imagined, and that the old attitude of elevating free speech to the level of being unalloyed good is misguided.

[sk_tle]

I am tired of the antivax here. It used to be a US only thing that we in europe were laughing about but it is as much a pandemic as the covid is these days. People just dismiss the vaccine with the argument that it is not 100% efficient while they forget we got rid of poliomielitis with vaccines only 85 to 90% efficient by systematic vaccination of all kids. How is that so hard to understand?

Are people so nostalgic of the 45y life expectancy and 15% infant mortality rate of the early XXth century ?

[bigbill]

I think the anti-vax movement will be discussed and broken down in Universities for decades to come. How did our culture and social media contribute to the movement? From The Guardian article I linked, 12 influencers were responsible for 65% of the anti-vax postings on social media. It would be an interesting study to break down each influencer and determine what motivated them to spread disinformation. I would take it on, but I'm currently working on a project linking environmental events with Hualapai tribal folklore, plus my day job as an engineer.

[j44ke]

That quote is a summation of what i often heard in college and grad school, mostly espoused by those believing that odious ideas should be debated and shown to be inferior (figuratively beaten into submission) but not curtailed in any other way. It’s something i remember vividly, b/c I attended Columbia for grad school when Bollinger invited Ahmadinejad for a speech on campus. His rationale for the invite was pretty much along the line I described, that Holocaust denial should be vigorously debated against, but people espousing it should be given a platform to voice their odious opinion.

https://www.columbiaspectator.com/20...d-ahmadinejad/

The same point is basically present in the Tweets mentioned above, about bad policy should only be defeated via public debate. It makes for a good slogan, but is naive and impractical. After all, ideas aren’t really defeated and disembodied. No matter how many times the whole vaccine skepticism is shown to be misguided, it will always rear its head elsewhere.

As for “unalloyed”, it is an adjective meaning something that cannot be tarnished or tainted (n.b. I didn’t use a metaphor). An unalloyed good thus refers to something that is necessarily good and not possible to have negative effects. I’m claiming that there are negative aspects to free speech (e.g. vaccine conspiracy and Holocaust denial) that are much more serious than previously imagined, and that the old attitude of elevating free speech to the level of being unalloyed good is misguided.

I get it now. Thanks for the good explanation.

With this understood, metallurgy makes a decent metaphor. I actually think that alloys typically are used to make metal stronger or resist negative events or compensate for weaknesses of other metals/materials in the mix to make their strengths usable. So I think free speech is stronger when it gives rise to a greater plurality of voices, essentially creating an alloy against accusations of the primacy of a single ruling voice or a historical unfairness or singular ownership of the podium. But you can also blow a hole in the tube at the weld and end up cutting up what was otherwise a perfect product. But then the next frame is built with what was learned by failing on the previous frame.

And that's to me what free speech is about. The opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them without being jettisoned from the discussion. There isn't perfection. It is a state of continual ambiguity and shifting definitions of decorum and negotiation. It requires self-awareness and vigilance alongside forgiveness and respect. Imperfect for sure. And I think that's why it creates so much anxiety among those who believe that good things always must be perfect things. Robert's Rules of Order to the rescue!

And I am probably making less sense than I asked of you, so back to the regularly scheduled broadcasting before I pull a hamstring.

[j44ke]

I am tired of the antivax here. It used to be a US only thing that we in europe were laughing about but it is as much a pandemic as the covid is these days. People just dismiss the vaccine with the argument that it is not 100% efficient while they forget we got rid of poliomielitis with vaccines only 85 to 90% efficient by systematic vaccination of all kids. How is that so hard to understand?

Are people so nostalgic of the 45y life expectancy and 15% infant mortality rate of the early XXth century ?

I used to tell my students to use the year lookup on Wikipedia to see what was going on every 50 or 100 years previous. Basically the world has always been a mess.

[Chik]

It seems that division is the goal.

"Division" sounds too neutral and benign.

There is power to be gained from subverting and destabilising.

In my preceding post, I posited that education has failed to provide the solution. We see physicians, scientists of various stripes, lawyers, financiers, politicians, etc., who are, on paper, well educated, promoting the anti-vax agenda. And we're talking about parts of the world with very high literacy rates, not Guinea or the CAR. The intellect and cunning -- call it critical thinking -- are being used for purposes other than what one may have envisaged.

I'm a terrible student of history, but I think that clever men who want to subvert and destabilise society are nothing new. They just happen to have a new game today, and dare I say that they are doing a pretty good job.

[beeatnik]

I am tired of the antivax here. It used to be a US only thing that we in europe were laughing about but it is as much a pandemic as the covid is these days. People just dismiss the vaccine with the argument that it is not 100% efficient while they forget we got rid of poliomielitis with vaccines only 85 to 90% efficient by systematic vaccination of all kids. How is that so hard to understand?

Are people so nostalgic of the 45y life expectancy and 15% infant mortality rate of the early XXth century ?

You're in Spain?

https://english.elpais.com/society/2...d-19-shot.html

There is little margin for Spain to increase its Covid-19 vaccination rates. A total of 79.3% of people in the country have had at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine – the equivalent of 90% of the vaccinable population, given that no vaccine has been approved so far for the under-12s, who account for 11% of the population. If this figure is added to the so-called “anti-vaxxers” (who represent around 4% of the population, according to the latest surveys), as well as the vaccine-hesitant (i.e. people who do not reject vaccines but have no interest or intention of getting immunized), and to those that the healthcare system has difficulty reaching, such as migrants in an irregular situation, it leaves a very small group that is still unvaccinated.

[echappist]

"Division" sounds too neutral and benign.

There is power to be gained from subverting and destabilising.

In my preceding post, I posited that education has failed to provide the solution. We see physicians, scientists of various stripes, lawyers, financiers, politicians, etc., who are, on paper, well educated, promoting the anti-vax agenda. And we're talking about parts of the world with very high literacy rates, not Guinea or the CAR. The intellect and cunning -- call it critical thinking -- are being used for purposes other than what one may have envisaged.

I'm a terrible student of history, but I think that clever men who want to subvert and destabilise society are nothing new. They just happen to have a new game today, and dare I say that they are doing a pretty good job.

I mean, look no further than Prof. Drew Faust (there's case of nominative determinism), former president of Harvard. When she took the reins, she lamented at the fact that so many of Harvard grads choose to pursue careers in banking or consulting (totaling ~40% at the time, iirc). She urged them to try to focus on what they actually want to do and not be concerned primarily with remuneration. To be fair, it's quite the naive view, but she that comment as the president of Harvard.

What does Prof. Faust do after stepping down as pres of Harvard? One would think that being as well-remunerated as she had been for a decade, she could retire, continue teaching, or pursue something once she exhorted others to pursue. After all, unlike many history PhDs (e.g. there was an article ~25 years back about a Harvard history PhD working as a 18-wheeler driver), she was good enough to secure a tenured full professor position at one of the preeminent institutions of the world. In daily parlance, she's got it made: as she pursued her passion and was able to make a more than comfortable living doing it. However, onto the board of Goldman Sachs she went. At least her students are paid for their 60+ hrs/week of work; Prof. Faust, otoh, essentially took on a well-paid sinecure in exchange for academic-washing (think sports washing, except worse here, b/c the academic literally does know better). Gives a whole new meaning to Faustian behavior.

Peggy Noonan wrote in her WSJ column a few years back extolling the virtues of a liberal arts education (her focus was more specifically on Western Classics), stating that learning about Ovid, Homer, and Virgil makes one a better person (and not just merely someone learned). Otter rubbish, really. As you say, if there's any actual learning going on, often it goes to make one more cunning, calculating, and manipulative (think the OxBridge grads populating the current UK cabinet), all in the pursuit of how to make No. 1 better (and to hell with society at large).

ETA: sorry @j44ke, I think I've truly derailed this on a tangent. I promise not to derail the present thread further (and start a new thread if need be).

[sk_tle]

You're in Spain?

I am mostly speaking about what I hear from Switzerland where I still have a number of connections though friends and ex-family in law.

[j44ke]

...

ETA: sorry @j44ke, I think I've truly derailed this on a tangent. I promise not to derail the present thread further (and start a new thread if need be).

3 hail Tullios plus four laps of the neighborhood wearing leg warmers without arm warmers or long sleeves and all is forgiven.

Meanwhile FDA is planning on ok-ing boosters for all the "regular" people. Evidently this has already been happening in NYC if you know the right Walgreens to visit. But then what isn't available in NYC if you know the right place?

[beeatnik]

I am mostly speaking about what I hear from Switzerland where I still have a number of connections though friends and ex-family in law.

What's going with vaccine skepticism in the German speaking nations?

[zetroc]

What's going with vaccine skepticism in the German speaking nations?

It's probably the people spreading disinformation and casting doubt on vaccine efficacy on bicycle forums.

[Saab2000]

What's going with vaccine skepticism in the German speaking nations?

Switzerland is a multi-lingual nation, not just German speaking. The four include German, French, Italian and Romansh. All Swiss people speak all of them perfectly. ;-)

That said, most of the vaccine skepticism in that part of the world has similar origins to the skepticism in the US and elsewhere. It’s people who have been led to believe various conspiracies about the science and origins of the vaccine and/or virus.

[Mabouya]

I did a quick search of the thread but didn't find anything related to this question, so I'll post it here:

Has anyone seen any trusworthy information on whether there are benefits (or downsides) to mixing the booster relative to your first shot(s)?

Mine were the two Pfizer shots two (or was it three?) weeks apart, so I'm wondering about the next step.

TIA

[beeatnik]

Switzerland is a multi-lingual nation, not just German speaking. The four include German, French, Italian and Romansh. All Swiss people speak all of them perfectly. ;-)

That said, most of the vaccine skepticism in that part of the world has similar origins to the skepticism in the US and elsewhere. It’s people who have been led to believe various conspiracies about the science and origins of the vaccine and/or virus.

I don't think the same dynamic is at play in Germany. Less than 12 months ago, they were a model of pandemic response. The situation is interesting as the Mediterranean (Portugal, Spain, France and Italy) and Scandinavian (Sweden trailing) countries have high uptake relative to Germany and Austria.

It's probably the people spreading disinformation and casting doubt on vaccine efficacy on bicycle forums.

Nick Gillespie: How do you reach people who are vaccine hesitant? 20% of American adults are kinda like, "I'm not gonna get vaccinated." How do you persuade those people?

Yale sociologist and medical doctor Nicholas Christakis: I think, first of all, the people who are vaccine hesitant are a heterogenous group [emphasis added]. They have different sorts of reasons, some of them, And I think an overarching principle is not to lecture such individuals but to, first of all, listen to them and then try to address whatever their concerns are as reasonably as possible.


Anti-vaxxers are a different story. The Four Percent. The only one I know moved to Costa Rica before the start of the Pandemic after giving up her medical career for which she trained at a natural medicine college in Portland (one of two in the US, I believe). Half the people in that Guardian piece remind me of her.

Also, Mr. Cortez, be a bit more reasonable. My posts are not misinformation as they are always data with surface commentary. They are never exhortations. And if they were a danger as you suggest, then my rate of zero likes per 100 posts would be reversed. In other words, no one participating in this thread and likely no one reading these posts will have their perceptions influenced. Now if we were debating the "vaccine-related" myocarditis numbers, that's a different issue.