Dude, I love this. Let's directly threaten the anti-vaxers with death by germ.
It's not a threat when it's a statement of fact, because viruses don't give a damn about anyone. And yes, THEY would be the ones most jeopardized by it.
To quote Doctor Gregory House "You know another really good business? Teeny tiny baby coffins. You can get 'em in frog green, fire engine red...really. The antibodies in Yummy-Mummy only protect the kid for six months, which is why these companies think they can gouge you. They think that you'll spend whatever they ask so that you'll keep your kid alive. Wanna change things? Prove 'em wrong. A few hundred parents like you decide they'd rather let their kid die than cough up forty bucks for a vaccination, believe me! Prices will drop really fast! Ribbit-ribbit-ribbit-ribbit."
I'm like you in that I like seeing some artwork like this from time to time. The anti-vaxxers need a bit of perspective.
Though, your statement is moronic on other levels, since that would mean essentially entirely shutting down our air, land, and sea transportation networks and associated economic infrastructure. Our economy would probably not survive shellshock on that scale. Yes, that is what it would take, because a disease could emerge anywhere, and its most likely route into the country is probably by air, with sea and then land behind it. That's not accounting for a disease popping up in wildlife, turning zoonotic, and then jumping to humans once it is already inside our borders.
That said, we do have response strategies when an epidemic is reported. Still, entirely preventable epidemics because idiots buy into refuted and retracted research that claimed vaccines cause autism are, well, preventable... as are the associated deaths. I think there's a little Dr. House clip that sums up the matter well enough.
People who are against vaccinations do so on the basis that they may cause harm. Not that they cost money. They don't trust the government or the drug companies to tell the truth, and who can blame them? They lie about everything, especially when they're responsible. Case in point, the Anthrax vaccine given to military personnel.
People think vaccines aren't safe. Even if they protect against one thing, they might cause other problems, like brain damage.
From their point of view, a disease that for all practical purposes is extinct is less of a risk than a bad medical product that hasn't had it's long term effects studied or has been covered up.
True, it absolutely is. I mostly used House because of the baby coffin line... since that is the most likely end result long term. Herd immunity only works when enough of the herd is immune. Get past the point, and it's lots of expenses- and potentially deaths- when the inevitable happens. It doesn't help that there's already a population that, because of immune issues, cannot be vaccinated and so rely entirely on herd immunity because they have no other choice. There was (relatively) recently a measles outbreak in New York State. Controlling it cost about 400k USD and roughly 10k man hours. That was for an outbreak with only 58 instances.
Point is, these diseases mostly aren't extinct. The only one which really is extinct in the wild is small pox- polio still lingers in places, and is not fully eradicated (off the top of my head, Afghanistan and Sudan still report cases of polio). And we still keep small pox around in labs. The rest are pretty much just waiting for a chance to pop up. The whole point of vaccination is to prevent them from getting that chance. AFAIK, the only one we've actually phased out of routine use is smallpox, precisely because it actually is extinct in the wild.
And the research showing that these vaccines caused autism was thoroughly refuted, and then retracted.
Here in Mexico a lot of people has opted to not vaccinate their kids. The curious thing is the vast majority of those persons are from medium-high or high income families, so a lot of kids in private schools are in danger.
Vaccination does work and I am a strong proponent of it, but I think there is a fine line some people don't get which I think is why vaccination skepticism continues. I do find it a bit disturbing how there are many parents who will administer any kind of treatment to their child just because a "professional" advises it. I remember seeing middle school kids being given aspirin like candy but when I reported it in a memo, most parents interviewed didn't see an issue with it. Really? I don't like the kind of mindset some people have when promoting vaccinations to argue simply "do it or you're dumb". I like what Garrus did, the best way to counter skepticism of vaccination is to explain it. Skepticism should never be berated as that is a component of scientific pursuits and a sign the parents care about their child. Skepticism should be matched with logic and fact, because the irony is that other methods like shutting down or belittling the other side just spurs on more meat for conspiracy theorists to go on about. And in reference to Solarchos' comment, I don't think bringing in another conspiracy theory exactly helps to negate the first.
When some people start saying vaccinations should be mandatory or the parents written up for child abuse even I push the brakes on hard. People should be strongly encouraged to take advantage of vaccinations but it should never be forced, because then who knows what other treatments are forced on us simply because some technocratic decree. Best example are lobotomy.
Vaccination does work and I am a strong proponent of it, but I think there is a fine line some people don't get which I think is why vaccination skepticism continues. I do find it a bit disturbing how there are many parents who will administer any kind of treatment to their child just because a "professional" advises it. I remember seeing middle school kids being given aspirin like candy but when I reported it in a memo, most parents interviewed didn't see an issue with it. Really? I don't like the kind of mindset some people have when promoting vaccinations to argue simply "do it or you're dumb". I like what Garrus did, the best way to counter skepticism of vaccination is to explain it. Skepticism should never be berated as that is a component of scientific pursuits and a sign the parents care about their child. Skepticism should be matched with logic and fact, because the irony is that other methods like shutting down or belittling the other side just spurs on more meat for conspiracy theorists to go on about. And in reference to Solarchos' comment, I don't think bringing in another conspiracy theory exactly helps to negate the first.
When some people start saying vaccinations should be mandatory or the parents written up for child abuse even I push the brakes on hard. People should be strongly encouraged to take advantage of vaccinations but it should never be forced, because then who knows what other treatments are forced on us simply because some technocratic decree. Best example are lobotomy.
The problem with that argument is that while you mention the difference between a healthy degree of skepticism and solipsistically just plugging your ears and refusing to listen to anything, you don't set any standard for that determination and there is no logical connection to your conclusion.
To take the logic your conclusion uses reductio ad absurdum, why do we let "doctors" and "the police" tell us that feeding our children rat poison is bad for them just because there's documented evidence of it? Why do we hold that parents that feed their children rat poison are "mistreating" their children or "attempting murder"? If we don't stop them here, it's a slippery slope to them telling us drinking lead-based paint is bad for our health!
It's not like there isn't real-world evidence of lack of vaccinations leading to outbreaks of epidemic diseases once thought contained. Parents are making choices risking not their lives, or even "just" the lives of their children, which they are risking, but the lives of other people's families. Keep in mind that herd immunity is necessary to protect other children who, due to compromised immune systems, would be at risk of death taking a vaccine, themselves.
However, even if you ignore that and want to go full-on, "people should be free to be as stupid and suicidal as they want to" route, that's also settled case law from cases like challenges to the constitutionality of laws requiring seat belts or motorcyclists to wear crash helmets: The state can make laws pertaining to self-destructive behaviors because no such harm is ever truly self-contained. It is harmful to society as a whole to have people taking up hospital beds because they couldn't be bothered to take rudimentary care of themselves, much less the loss to society as a whole for losing what was at least presumably a productive working member of society.
There absolutely is a place for skepticism - either in the legal process for what actually becomes mandated (even in cases of supposed overreach of "Nanny State" politics regarding high-calorie food and drinks, there's a lot of money at stake and funding lobbying those same politicians such that much less gets done than is talked about), or in applying that skepticism scientifically.
Outside of the furor, the paper the vaccination scare was based on didn't say "all vaccines are a government conspiracy to kill your children", trying to create a study to test if there were negative side effects to a common drug is the healthy way to go about skepticism... they just did it in a deliberately shoddy manner, using a too-small sample size (12 kids), and the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. The people running the study were funded by someone suing vaccine makers to give them evidence in court. Even IF the findings had been true, however, it wasn't "all vaccines cause autism", its findings were, supposedly, "this particular binding agent in MMR vaccines specifically may lead to higher rates of autism", and when the furor rose up, even after debunking the paper's findings, they switched out that binding agent, which in any rational world, would have made any lingering doubts caused by that paper die down.
Which gets to the problem of that "skepticism of technocrats" - it's not like you can refuse to listen to absolutely everyone, so people are choosing who the "wrong" people to listen to are. Why are the people who say that all the "technocrats" are wrong, who are generally just celebrities, people who you think are much more qualified to listen to about medical advice than the people who actually had to get an education and prove their mastery of their field to earn their credentials?
The only reason that didn't is because anti-"technocrat" hysteria was a rich vein for the unscrupulous to mine for views or means of promoting their own patented snake oil cures sold right through their radio show.
You may not think it is necessary to explain anything... and that is exactly the kind of attitude that allows the propagation of these conspiracy theories even to this day. It is as simple as that. It is tiring, but there is never a reason that educating people is somehow worse than forcing or shaming people into submission. It may not seem reasonable but it will backfire as we see here. It is something I learned quickly from my work, if the goal is to manipulate or convince people you have to understand how they think and cater to it, even if you think you shouldn't have to. If your goal is just to convince yourself you are right, then of course you don't have to consider anything outside of your perspective, but nothing in the world will change as a result. What is the goal? To simply be superior in perspective, or to actually get people to do something?
Science by nature is decentralized, I'm not sure where you are going with the snake oil stuff. Sophistry unlike science involves the group-think mindset that lead to the end of Socrates. Science does not simply believe any one individual or a conglomerate of associations for who they are, it only is a process where we can systematically observe the world. The scientist does not matter as much as what he is presenting. Which again goes back to my main point that there is never an excuse to ignore education for technocracy. You don't need to make someone a doctor to understand the value of medical practices, but you are unlikely to convince anyone of your expertise if your rely simply on your title. What many people don't seem to realize is that most people don't really care about your background as much as you and your peers. Persuasion requires a higher level of reasoning than a resume or a club membership.
People who believe things simply because a figure of authority tells them without reason are bound to believe anything they are told. Those kind of people are the kind we find to be victims of cults and we would be taking steps backward if we cultivated that kind of mindset as a default setting for the layman. Remember, the guy who started the whole vaccine scare had a medical doctorate. No one is immune to scrutiny, it isn't reserved for one issue and not another, it applies everywhere and at all times. You have to fight misconceptions with education.
People who believe things simply because a figure of authority tells them without reason are bound to believe anything they are told. Those kind of people are the kind we find to be victims of cults and we would be taking steps backward if we cultivated that kind of mindset as a default setting for the layman. No one is immune to scrutiny, it isn't reserved for one issue and not another, it applies everywhere and at all times. You have to fight misconceptions with education.
Again, there's just no reasonable standard to differentiate reasonable skepticism from solipsism, here.
If the American Dental Association (I.E. an authority on dental care) tells you that brushing your teeth with toothpaste after every meal prevents cavities and that this advice is backed up by decades of peer-reviewed science, and the weird hobo living in a pile of dead animals in a dark alley tells you that you should only brush your teeth with dead rats because it will appease the rat god and give you incisors that will never break, I certainly hope you place more trust in the people who have earned their credentials and have their facts checked.
If anything, the people who reflexively disbelieve anything authority figures tell them, and believe anything said by some person they like on YouTube or talk radio is arguably far more into a cult mentality than the person who trusts peer-reviewed medical papers.
79248cm/s said:
Remember, the guy who started the whole vaccine scare had a medical doctorate.
HAD would be an operative word, here. That guy was convicted of fraud, lost his license, and lost all credibility, and hence, authority.
Again, yes, there is a place for skepticism, and one definitely shouldn't take everything a single scientist finds in a single report to be an untouchable truth just because it "seems sciency", but there's a reasonable limit to how far skepticism goes. Peer review is skepticism, that's why most scientific publications take their peer review process very seriously. Any scientific paper should be backed up by further scientific experimentation to ensure that the evidence gathered by others backs up the conclusions drawn by the first experiment. This is where you find healthy skepticism of hearing just 'a study found X' in the morning news having much meaning until you find out more about the nature of the study, and if it is backed up by further experimentation. That skepticism, however, doesn't extend to refusing to believe anything no matter how much corroboration those things gain.
And yes, expecting people to follow every study for everything they hear is a lot of work. That's why there should be someone who does that work for other people, and simplifies the process. Some sort of group that can speak with some kind of authority on their subject matter, and where trust in their authority can be constantly checked by people in their field who have a vested interest in maintaining the credibility of people in their profession.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of authority and good ways to test that skepticism, but blanket refusal to listen is neither.
And this really gets to the big problem, which is that, as previously mentioned, unless you're SO skeptical of everything everyone says that you're living as a hobo trying to shiv anyone who gets close to you, you're believing in the words of someone and operating in society. This line of argument is so dangerous because it's just an excuse to say that you can believe whoever you want to believe no matter how massive the mountain of objective evidence is stacked against you. I mean, why are you still believing in a round Earth just because people TELL YOU that there are satellites and stuff? Obviously, ships appearing mast-first over the horizon is a government conspiracy to hide the truth about the giant turtle and four elephants, man!
What this argument supports is not "healthy skepticism", but "only hearing what you want to hear".
79248cm/s said:
Science by nature is decentralized, I'm not sure where you are going with the snake oil stuff.
And this, again, is part of why there needs to be authority to designate which people are trustworthy purveyors of medical advice. Before laws on truthful disclosure of ingredients, patent "snake oil" medicine was touted by "medical professionals" in spite of basically being watered-down whiskey with some opium in it.
Likewise, modern-day snake oil salesmen will tell you that fluoride in the water is a Communist mind control plot, then helpfully sell you their own patented water purification system. The entire "vaccines cause autism" scare was created by a study funded by people with a financial interest in the outcome of that study.
As if there wasn't enough reason to trust the ADA that toothpaste was good for your teeth, you should definitely stop and check the hobo's credentials if his plans to brush your teeth with dead rats involves a special offer to buy some special "100% organic dead rat festering with genuine pure bubonic plague - accept no substitutes!" from him at the low, low price of just 4 payments of $99.99!
79248cm/s said:
Sophistry unlike science involves the group-think mindset that lead to the end of Socrates.
I'm not sure where this comes from or how it's relevant, but OK...
Socrates wasn't killed by science or a group-think mindset in any way other than a group thinking that he was a political rival whose rhetoric was dangerous and possibly seditious since he was denouncing Athenian democracy and praising the enemy city-state that was threatening to conquer them.
79248cm/s said:
You may not think it is necessary to explain anything... and that is exactly the kind of attitude that allows the propagation of these conspiracy theories even to this day. It is as simple as that. It is tiring, but there is never a reason that educating people is somehow worse than forcing or shaming people into submission. It may not seem reasonable but it will backfire as we see here. It is something I learned quickly from my work, if the goal is to manipulate or convince people you have to understand how they think and cater to it, even if you think you shouldn't have to. If your goal is just to convince yourself you are right, then of course you don't have to consider anything outside of your perspective, but nothing in the world will change as a result. What is the goal? To simply be superior in perspective, or to actually get people to do something?
I'm a little confused by this part, being as I did take the time to explain far more than anyone else. If I just want to convince myself I'm right, then I probably could have saved myself a lot of time by just thinking what I know rather than taking an hour to type it out.
Beyond that, if you're trying to say that everyone should respond to any form of criticism or disbelief by sitting down and writing out a referenced essay on the subject, well... There's a saying that gets tossed around regarding global warming science that goes, "It takes a scientist 30 pages of peer-reviewed study to refute what a charlatan can say in 10 seconds." Asking for there to be nobody in all of society who will respond to someone making an argument they've already heard dozens of times before by just dismissing it is functionally demanding that literally every single person in society have infinite patience. Maybe it's not ideal, but the thoughts and emotions of all of humanity are way more decentralized than science.
Beyond that, there is again the problem of your not setting any reasonable limit to these claims. There are many people out there that throw out arguments in bad faith, are trolling, or are just insane. If someone comes in brushing their teeth with their dead rat, and saying that listening to THE MAN and "authority" about what to brush your teeth with, you're probably going to do yourself better by giving up on reasoning with that person, and just staying away from the bubonic plague boils he's flicking out in his spittle.
With regards to shaming, I remember one of my mother's old bosses had a son who was a problem child when he was very young. The instant he was out of sight, he would strip naked, sneak outside, climb onto his father's truck, and start playing with his penis in full view of the neighborhood. This isn't exactly the kind of behavior a civil society can withstand having constantly happen among adults. The very basis of social interaction is built upon the notion that there is a negative consequence for wild misbehavior.
Shaming absolutely does have its place in society. Fear of shaming and loss of credibility is supposed to be the first line of defense stopping any good scientist from risking publishing bad science. Fear of shaming is what the First Amendment keeps as the counterbalance to Freedom of Speech - that you can say what you want, but saying something really stupid will in people telling you that you're really stupid.
That's not to say it's an absolute good that cannot and does not get abused by any stretch, but again, there has to be a reasonable limit to what arguments get taken seriously, and which ones should just get the people who espouse them mocked.
I never said you should reflexively disbelieve what someone tells you. I said that you shouldn't believe what someone tells you as default, that doesn't mean to disbelieve but to confirm what you are told. When you are told something it is always wise to look it up yourself and get second opinions. I really am surprised you would even defend the stance of avoiding education. Again, remember the guy who even started the whole vaccination scare had a M.D. Yes he lost it later, but when he wrote the paper he had it. So are you saying the people who believe in the vaccination scare are right because they believed his conclusion that vaccination may cause autism?
No organization should be believed as default, just as no individual should be believed simply because of their title. You seem to have this preconception that people are too stupid to make their own decisions, and that kind of mindset again, just propagates the whole conspiracy theory mindset in the public that we are trying to avoid. When you push something on someone, people will push back, regardless of what you are promoting. And it isn't like well established people and organizations haven't had their mistakes. Gregor Mendel's foundation work on genetics was dismissed by peers for a long time before it was "rediscovered" outside of that society. The progress of science always suffers when you leave the process to bureaucracy rather than a straightforward analysis of the raw data and conclusion.
To give your example of the hobo. Would a hobo have any recorded data on animal testing to suggest any finding to the contrary like the ADA published? Again, we do not believe the ADA because they are the ADA, but because of the facts and research they have presented us. Oral B is the "recommended" toothbrush brand by the ADA, yet many dentists would advise a Phillips Sonicare. While the head of Oral B allows for a closer brush to the gumline, patients are known for being sloppier at oral hygiene than a dentist working on someone's mouth and so the wider coverage of the Phillips Sonicare tends to lead to more complete brushing on individual experience.
And again, this all is moot when the goal is to convince people to take shots. There is never an excuse for attempting to educate others, and when people understand the why they are much more likely to be resistant to being tricked by unfounded opinions. It is a lot of work but it takes work to change minds. You don't like that there isn't a limit to claims. Research publications are filled with bullshit all the time, but that doesn't mean we ignore them, everything is addressed either by bringing in previous works or starting new one. Science is a never ending process but people are more likely to believe something backed by facts they already know than something radical that contradicts their education. Hence why it is important to educate people in order to spur them to action. Shaming may be right, but if it doesn't accomplish the goal of dissuading the behavior you are shaming and instead propagates it, why are you even doing it? It is like the people who want to torture criminals as punishment rather than just issuing the death penalty. Being fair takes the back burner when the whole objective is the outcome, not the process. We want people to be vaccinated, we don't want to give fuel to the conspiracy theorist fires.
Yes you did type out the comment rather than thinking it, and I appreciate it. But I already agree with vaccination and at the same time you are typing out a comment explaining why others should not have to explain themselves to vaccination skeptics...
I never said Socrates was killed by science (Socrates took his own life according to Plato's works), his end was orchestrated by a group think mindset. Read up about the Sophists and who they were. Sophists were basically teachers rather than using their education to simply educate, they leveraged the public's lack of education in order to further their own agenda. Yes they attacked Socrates for political reasons, but the way they did it was through the technocratic mechanisms you support. Hence why Socrates beveled that philosophers and other truth-seekers should not follow in the path sophists. When you believe a person and not an argument or fact, you are bound to be betrayed. I have to say every time I comment to you seem to take knee-jerk conclusions and argue on hyperbole and statements that I never even said. This is like the discussion I had with you previously in PM where you thought Rom Collector's comments were mine.
You bring up global warming which frankly is a perfect topic. Global warming is bunk, which is why they now call it climate change. We do not have a steady trend of universal global warming like originally claimed, but a cyclical change of climate that does not suggest any apocalyptic trends due to human intervention. The climate has always changed, no one has ever denied that, but the climate changing doesn't mean the causation global warming supporters claim. Why isn't there much professional challenge to global warming? It isn't because there isn't any room for skepticism, but because universities and other academic circles have taken on the mindset that anyone who doesn't believe in what they believe should be excommunicated and stripped of all titles. That is a pretty damn poor way of arguing when if proof is so clear then global warming skepticism if anything should be encouraged since it would rack up more instances of proof of global warming overriding any dissenting claims. However, the reality is that the evidence of global warming is mostly resided in hypothesis as correlation doesn't mean causation. I mean, when you get people calling the CA wildfires a sign of global warming despite the fact that the fires are the result of overpopulation of trees due to environmentalists blocking the regular logging of forests and the establishment of common firefighting tactics like firebreaks, the supposed "evidence" becomes shaky.
That's what I mean. Certain someone at least writes long walls diverging between about whatever he thinks. Yet the certain other buries the topic in any kind of content you can easily look up in Google and is totally unnecessary to write in a reply.
Try that in real life, get asked a simple question (anything) and respond taking out a book from the library reciting textually an answer and check the reaction if the person hasn't yet walked away letting you talk alone. All he asked about was what time was it or what was the value of π. There was any need to recite the history of time nor the first 50 decimal digits from it. But I suppose that could be completely normal to someone who doesn't get out from a dark room pretty often.
Adding to HiH because the US is seeing a surge in Delta variant Covid-19 cases, and almost all of the deaths are from the unvaccinated.
Same here in my country. I have no problem with the antivaxers, as long as they keep quiet and keep it to themselves. But when they're going out of their way to make it difficult to me (or provaxx in general) and preaching their sh*t 24/7, then do forgive me if i'll laugh like an idiot when you die because of Covid.
You bring up global warming which frankly is a perfect topic. Global warming is bunk, which is why they now call it climate change.
This statement right here is actually a perfect example of the results of politics driven solipsism, actually. You aren't at fault for this as much as you are simply repeating a myth. Whilst discussing why global warming is very real, the idea that the scientist stopped calling climate change 'global warming' and switching it to 'climate change' very much is. Climate change is, in fact, an older term than global warming. The term global warming was first used by geochemist Wallace Broecker of Columbia University in 1975 in an article he wrote whereas the term 'climate change' was first used in 1956 by physicist Gilbert Plass in his study called "The Carbon Dioxide Theory of Climatic Change". Climate change is understood, by climatologists, as the consequence of global warming and whilst the two terms are used interchangeably by laypeople, they mean very different things to scientists. Global warming is the cause whereas climate change is the consequence. The idea that 'climate change' was a term that was meant to replace 'global warming' is wrong, and is driven by politics rather than science.
It’s time for us to start talking about “climate change” instead of global warming and “conservation” instead of preservation…“Climate change” is less frightening than “global warming”…While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge
- Republican Political Consultant Frank Luntz, 2003
We do not have a steady trend of universal global warming like originally claimed, but a cyclical change of climate that does not suggest any apocalyptic trends due to human intervention. The climate has always changed, no one has ever denied that, but the climate changing doesn't mean the causation global warming supporters claim.
Global warming supports? As if we support global warming. No. We simply concur with the overwhelming scientific consensus. Whilst the whole topic of global warming and its trends would take literally hours to explain, the fact that almost every recent year has set a new record for 'hottest year on record' should be a cause of concern that should be transparently available to even laypeople with a modern education. That, of course, isn't even to mention the intensification of natural disasters worldwide.
Why isn't there much professional challenge to global warming? It isn't because there isn't any room for skepticism, but because universities and other academic circles have taken on the mindset that anyone who doesn't believe in what they believe should be excommunicated and stripped of all titles.
If an expert advocates against the scientific understanding to prop up fringe theories for moneyed interests, they SHOULD be exiled from the scientific community. Disgraced scientists are not the ones that questions scientific data and questions hypothesis. They are the ones that fabricate data or misrepresent data and are, on closer inspection, almost universally in the pockets of oil and gas companies.
That is a pretty damn poor way of arguing when if proof is so clear then global warming skepticism if anything should be encouraged since it would rack up more instances of proof of global warming overriding any dissenting claims.
Research into global warming, again and again, keeps racking up instances of evidence for the global warming hypothesis and against the null hypothesis. Scientists get excommunicated because despite this, they verbally argue against what the data and the data analysis says.
However, the reality is that the evidence of global warming is mostly resided in hypothesis as correlation doesn't mean causation.
This isn't a matter of correlation not equaling causation. Climate science and chemistry are both extensively studied fields. We KNOW how the atmosphere retains heat. We know that carbon dioxide is a molecule with a large number of molecular bonds (and therefore a larger variety of electron shell sizes) that more readily absorbs energy from infrared radiation as well as many other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. This isn't just scientists looking at statistics and drawing a conclusion. We KNOW how global warming works and the statistics supports it.
I mean, when you get people calling the CA wildfires a sign of global warming despite the fact that the fires are the result of overpopulation of trees due to environmentalists blocking the regular logging of forests and the establishment of common firefighting tactics like firebreaks, the supposed "evidence" becomes shaky.
I am unaware of the specifics, but just because some environmentalists make policies that contributes to a certain type of disasters doesn't mean global warming doesn't contribute to it either. Higher temperatures leads to more extreme droughts and less water. Plants die sooner and dried grass and plantlife persists for longer before the wet season comes in again. More heat leads to faster evaporation which means less water and smaller lakes, streams, and ponds. So higher temperatures causes less water which leads to dryer seasons that lasts longer and therefore laying the groundwork for more common and destructive wildfires. This is caused by global warming. It might also be caused by bad environmental and logging policies, but just because it's not solely caused by global warming doesn't mean it's not caused by global warming.
Same here in my country. I have no problem with the antivaxers, as long as they keep quiet and keep it to themselves. But when they're going out their way to make it difficult to me (or provaxx in general) and preaching their sh*t 24/7, then do forgive me if i'll laugh like an idiot when you die because of Covid.
Are people choosing to take horse dewormer as a treatment for Covid in your country though?
It's also frustrating to hear people repeat "only 6% deaths were without comorbidity" in order to downplay the severity of covid-19.
Just in case anyone don't know yet, most viral diseases cause comorbidity and that low percentage is perfectly normal as in it's just that low of a chance that COVID-19 can kill someone without causing any other complications beforehand. Covid-19 itself causes pneumonia and cardiac arrhythmia, so those who think they don't have any comorbidity (or just don't know yet, which is more common than you think), they can still win stupid prizes ranging from permanent lung damage to early death from organ failure. This isn't even counting what private insurance company will do in order to deny COVID-19 survivors their care later on, like declaring them as having "preexisting conditions" for example.
It's also disgusting that deniers use this to basically dehumanize those with comorbidity or of old age range dying of covid-19, as if their deaths are less tragic than when it happens to healthier or younger people, which is what eugenicists do.
Random_Fanguy said:
Are people choosing to take horse dewormer as a treatment for Covid in your country though?
I've seen people defending the use of IVM by saying it's not livestock dewormer that's being pushed but the one prescribed for humans, which is like... still just anti-parasitical meds and not anti-viral. I recall it also requires far higher dosage to even work as anti-viral which then would be lethal to humans since it's a neurotoxin. Besides, it's more convenient to get the one meant for livestock than getting a doctor to prescribe it because visiting the latter costs far more (at least in US). It's just absolute horseshit.
It's also worth noting that IVM has only been used in very limited, well-designed clinical trials as treatment instead of cure. It's not for uneducated laymen to carelessly emulate in the first place. The studies haven't even shown meaningful evidence for clinical activity or clinical efficacy in patients with covid-19, not to mention safety concerns around its use. No sane medical expert would suggest ingesting IVM over getting the vaccine.