—? As a serial defender of Covid vaccine severe efficacy who nonetheless argues that no one should take Covid vaccines, please explain this to me. If the argument against Covid vaccines is that they do not prevent severe outcomes, how is that argument not pro-vaccine?
And the statemrnt : ". . . do not prevent severe outcomes, how is that argument not pro-vaccine?" does not in any way imply that it is pro-vaccine! It could just as well be making a point that the vaccines don't prevent anything at all!
February was crazy... I went to jail twice! One of those times was a miracle... so strange to have the Blessed Virgin Mary lift you up and make you fall on your butt on the sidewalk leading to, as you would later find out after your lawyer did some discovery, a manager at the grocery store that knows you calling 911 which brought out one of the notoriously, let's say, extra-vigilant, local police to pick you up for public intox and hauling you off to a night in jail that eventually gets you straightened out on the same day that your mother finished praying a 9 day novena for you. And all this jail crap started MLK weekend of 2022 or pretty much the beginning of the post-covid era, so these recent experiences seem to be reiterating an important point about our current broader social circumstances...
A little spirituality can make one's reality a lot more interactive; anyway
I couldn't understand this post at first, but I identified with it in the way that I can often write stuff that to me is extremely penetrating and crystalline which emerges in a moment of inspiration out of a backdrop that temporarily assumes the validity of universally understood truth (not unlike the miracle I've recounted above) Also, probably my greatest pleasure is occasionally being provocative in a way that allows another person to connect some dots in a way that surprises them, and it feels as if elaborating too much would detract from that. Another passion of mine is finding out that I'm wrong... so, it's odd but I feel more kinship with Unglossed than I have with any writing project... other than probably Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Beckett's "Molloy", which is strange company... I haven't ever explicitly thought that before, Kafka, Beckett... Mowrey?
But going through the comments it's like oh yeah I remember Brian's position now... *a week later* OH WOW, yeah it's like the "turtles all the way down" recounting of how vaccines are trialed in a way that makes their adverse effects practically nonexistent, but one of a more analytical utilitarian persuasion might argue that the net positive would outweigh the negative effects of viruses running amok (this is essentially coded into the trialing structure itself as an ethic that you can't not give someone a vaccine) but you can't be outright about something like that... so for those who wish to be analytically consistent you have to take it back to what even am viruses* in the grand scheme of things.
So in a similar way to the above post, "turtles all the way down" might be said to be a "pro-vaccination" book (at least the first chapter which has the main argument and research outline). Of course, I'm not being a purist, it seems like in your post and here we're kind of pushing the categorization to draw out a point that is ultimately disinvested in the disingenuous parameters of the pro-/anti- vax. Or I might be more radical than I've ever been, shit I don't know, I could just be used to saying nuanced looking stuff like that!
Maybe I'm just too stupid to 'get' what you're saying, but I'll just answer straightforwardly. It is an anti-vaccine (specifically, anti-covid vaccine) position because it removes the last remaining benefit that is claimed for these covid vaccines after prevention of infection and transmission have been shown not to exist. Therefore, it is an anti-vaccine position.
Ok, I’m ready to answer your question Brian. The argument IS pro vaccine because it implies that some vaccine DO prevent severe outcomes. That claim is now something I don’t believe anymore. I am a medical doctor and was a vaccine believer up until 3 years ago. My faith has been destroyed and like a stepwise decline I have lost vaccine beliefs one faulty science commandment at a time. At this stage I am seriously considering the No Virus camp.
I usually feel like I'm in over my head with your posts and often with some of your commenters. But I'm pattin' myself on the back because I understood your post immediately. Feeling mighty smug right about now...😉😄
Wow Brian you've really stirred up a hornets nest here :^0
I'd say your argument is nonetheless obliquely pro vaxx as it doesn't place proper evidence based safety front and centre.
Once of the central tenets of the covid regime is that the vaxx is unquestionably safe, we 'know so' because it's offered to healthy young people and expectant mothers, and is even mandated to students and school pupils in some places. So to refuse it is morally wrong, and those who do so must be coerced in some way for the benefit to themselves and the good of society.
Now people who believe in this for whatever reason will want to believe in the efficacy hype just as much... it's not that they're too pro vaxx or whatever, more that they've lost the ability to reason objectively and so wilfully avoid it. Almost like they've gone through a kind of conversion experience.
All men are mortals. Socrates is a mortal. Therefore Socrates is all men.
Is there severe efficacy for pregnant women or young men or babies or people who have already had Covid? Do you take your wifes birth control pills to help avoid an unwanted pregnancy?
Is it a big efficacy? Medium? Small? It's raining right now in Seattle, but so lightly I may not wear a rain coat. If your severe efficacy was the rain, would I need a coat?
Does severe mean going to the hospital because of covid or going to the hospital with, or dying from covid or dying with? Yes, I am sure you covered this previously, still...
And at the hospital did the vaxxed and unvaxxed get the same medical treatment?
Was there severe efficacy demonstrated in the trials?
Assumption 1- the true purpose of a treatment, not the publicly stated propaganda but the actual intent, is to cause harm, not prevent transmission or reduce severity of symptoms. Assumption 2 - treatment causes harm. Therefore, if my only objection is that the treatment fails to prevent severe symptoms, I am tacitly stating the treatment works exactly as intended, indicating my implied consent - which is the legal theory behind the entire national security apparatus.
Rolling out your crap product at the apex of a yearly seasonal curve does not indicate efficacy. The lack of a period where ACM fell beneath the average, despite being so far above average for so long, indicates something is terribly wrong with the roll out. "Dry tinder" burned in 2020, yet we simply replaced those with younger people in subsequent years. https://rumble.com/v27ijyo-the-efficacy-illusion-mathew-crawford.html
As for your question, I literally don't understand it. I don't take shit that doesn't work. It's really that simple
I'm not sure that I understand your question well, so may be looking in a wrong direction, but...
First, I unfortunately don't have time to read everything there is on the subject (I read most of your posts but usually with significant delay), so might be missing something, but for me the argument that these vaccines don't work vs severe disease is based mainly on the severe disease statistics in absolute numbers and on societal scale. Specifically, for the huge percentage of vaccinated in the society (f. ex. here in Finland) there was no improvement at all in hospitalization/ICU/mortality in post-vaccination waves. Actually, it only became worse on most counts. However good your relative risk ratios might be
(and they were "good" here only in 2021), every medical statistics book will say that that's meaningless
if there is no improvement in absolute risk.
Next, why the argument that vaccines don't work vs severe disease is anti-vaccine argument? Simply because it's self defense. Here in Finland we (people outside of the already well studied high risk groups, according to the papers published by our own MoH already in 2021) were forcefully asked to take this thing because "if we selfishly don't, then someone's non-urgent surgery might be delayed for a couple of months". So it did really help to show that vaccination did not improve hospitalizations at all.
If all you say is that there was a short period of time where these vaccines probably provided protection vs severe disease for some people, yes, there very well could have been such period. But on societal scale and in absolute numbers, it did not seem to have any positive effect.
Brian - may I ask - What do you mean by "severe efficacy"? . Once I get that concept I may be able to go to the next step of getting the point you are making. I just can't connect the dots yet, though in reading the comments I see it is potentially an interesting concept.
For just one post could you not beat up on my priors?
But that's why I'm here. I'm of a mind that the highest compliment you can pay another is that they've challenged you to confront why you believe what you believe.
There is no such thing as "severe efficacy".
And the statemrnt : ". . . do not prevent severe outcomes, how is that argument not pro-vaccine?" does not in any way imply that it is pro-vaccine! It could just as well be making a point that the vaccines don't prevent anything at all!
February was crazy... I went to jail twice! One of those times was a miracle... so strange to have the Blessed Virgin Mary lift you up and make you fall on your butt on the sidewalk leading to, as you would later find out after your lawyer did some discovery, a manager at the grocery store that knows you calling 911 which brought out one of the notoriously, let's say, extra-vigilant, local police to pick you up for public intox and hauling you off to a night in jail that eventually gets you straightened out on the same day that your mother finished praying a 9 day novena for you. And all this jail crap started MLK weekend of 2022 or pretty much the beginning of the post-covid era, so these recent experiences seem to be reiterating an important point about our current broader social circumstances...
A little spirituality can make one's reality a lot more interactive; anyway
I couldn't understand this post at first, but I identified with it in the way that I can often write stuff that to me is extremely penetrating and crystalline which emerges in a moment of inspiration out of a backdrop that temporarily assumes the validity of universally understood truth (not unlike the miracle I've recounted above) Also, probably my greatest pleasure is occasionally being provocative in a way that allows another person to connect some dots in a way that surprises them, and it feels as if elaborating too much would detract from that. Another passion of mine is finding out that I'm wrong... so, it's odd but I feel more kinship with Unglossed than I have with any writing project... other than probably Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Beckett's "Molloy", which is strange company... I haven't ever explicitly thought that before, Kafka, Beckett... Mowrey?
But going through the comments it's like oh yeah I remember Brian's position now... *a week later* OH WOW, yeah it's like the "turtles all the way down" recounting of how vaccines are trialed in a way that makes their adverse effects practically nonexistent, but one of a more analytical utilitarian persuasion might argue that the net positive would outweigh the negative effects of viruses running amok (this is essentially coded into the trialing structure itself as an ethic that you can't not give someone a vaccine) but you can't be outright about something like that... so for those who wish to be analytically consistent you have to take it back to what even am viruses* in the grand scheme of things.
So in a similar way to the above post, "turtles all the way down" might be said to be a "pro-vaccination" book (at least the first chapter which has the main argument and research outline). Of course, I'm not being a purist, it seems like in your post and here we're kind of pushing the categorization to draw out a point that is ultimately disinvested in the disingenuous parameters of the pro-/anti- vax. Or I might be more radical than I've ever been, shit I don't know, I could just be used to saying nuanced looking stuff like that!
*phrasing courtesy of Rune Soup
Natural immunity?
Maybe I'm just too stupid to 'get' what you're saying, but I'll just answer straightforwardly. It is an anti-vaccine (specifically, anti-covid vaccine) position because it removes the last remaining benefit that is claimed for these covid vaccines after prevention of infection and transmission have been shown not to exist. Therefore, it is an anti-vaccine position.
Ok, I’m ready to answer your question Brian. The argument IS pro vaccine because it implies that some vaccine DO prevent severe outcomes. That claim is now something I don’t believe anymore. I am a medical doctor and was a vaccine believer up until 3 years ago. My faith has been destroyed and like a stepwise decline I have lost vaccine beliefs one faulty science commandment at a time. At this stage I am seriously considering the No Virus camp.
I usually feel like I'm in over my head with your posts and often with some of your commenters. But I'm pattin' myself on the back because I understood your post immediately. Feeling mighty smug right about now...😉😄
I don’t know. Maybe we are all saying the same thing but using different words 🤷♀️
Wow Brian you've really stirred up a hornets nest here :^0
I'd say your argument is nonetheless obliquely pro vaxx as it doesn't place proper evidence based safety front and centre.
Once of the central tenets of the covid regime is that the vaxx is unquestionably safe, we 'know so' because it's offered to healthy young people and expectant mothers, and is even mandated to students and school pupils in some places. So to refuse it is morally wrong, and those who do so must be coerced in some way for the benefit to themselves and the good of society.
Now people who believe in this for whatever reason will want to believe in the efficacy hype just as much... it's not that they're too pro vaxx or whatever, more that they've lost the ability to reason objectively and so wilfully avoid it. Almost like they've gone through a kind of conversion experience.
All men are mortals. Socrates is a mortal. Therefore Socrates is all men.
Is there severe efficacy for pregnant women or young men or babies or people who have already had Covid? Do you take your wifes birth control pills to help avoid an unwanted pregnancy?
Is it a big efficacy? Medium? Small? It's raining right now in Seattle, but so lightly I may not wear a rain coat. If your severe efficacy was the rain, would I need a coat?
Does severe mean going to the hospital because of covid or going to the hospital with, or dying from covid or dying with? Yes, I am sure you covered this previously, still...
And at the hospital did the vaxxed and unvaxxed get the same medical treatment?
Was there severe efficacy demonstrated in the trials?
Assumption 1- the true purpose of a treatment, not the publicly stated propaganda but the actual intent, is to cause harm, not prevent transmission or reduce severity of symptoms. Assumption 2 - treatment causes harm. Therefore, if my only objection is that the treatment fails to prevent severe symptoms, I am tacitly stating the treatment works exactly as intended, indicating my implied consent - which is the legal theory behind the entire national security apparatus.
"Anti-vaccine" vs. "Pro-vaccine" is a false dichotomy trap.
Rolling out your crap product at the apex of a yearly seasonal curve does not indicate efficacy. The lack of a period where ACM fell beneath the average, despite being so far above average for so long, indicates something is terribly wrong with the roll out. "Dry tinder" burned in 2020, yet we simply replaced those with younger people in subsequent years. https://rumble.com/v27ijyo-the-efficacy-illusion-mathew-crawford.html
As for your question, I literally don't understand it. I don't take shit that doesn't work. It's really that simple
I'm not sure that I understand your question well, so may be looking in a wrong direction, but...
First, I unfortunately don't have time to read everything there is on the subject (I read most of your posts but usually with significant delay), so might be missing something, but for me the argument that these vaccines don't work vs severe disease is based mainly on the severe disease statistics in absolute numbers and on societal scale. Specifically, for the huge percentage of vaccinated in the society (f. ex. here in Finland) there was no improvement at all in hospitalization/ICU/mortality in post-vaccination waves. Actually, it only became worse on most counts. However good your relative risk ratios might be
(and they were "good" here only in 2021), every medical statistics book will say that that's meaningless
if there is no improvement in absolute risk.
Next, why the argument that vaccines don't work vs severe disease is anti-vaccine argument? Simply because it's self defense. Here in Finland we (people outside of the already well studied high risk groups, according to the papers published by our own MoH already in 2021) were forcefully asked to take this thing because "if we selfishly don't, then someone's non-urgent surgery might be delayed for a couple of months". So it did really help to show that vaccination did not improve hospitalizations at all.
If all you say is that there was a short period of time where these vaccines probably provided protection vs severe disease for some people, yes, there very well could have been such period. But on societal scale and in absolute numbers, it did not seem to have any positive effect.
...my head hurts now.
Brian - may I ask - What do you mean by "severe efficacy"? . Once I get that concept I may be able to go to the next step of getting the point you are making. I just can't connect the dots yet, though in reading the comments I see it is potentially an interesting concept.
Thanks.
Might want to read this article, from an OG vaccine-injury litigator:
https://aaronsiri.substack.com/p/mrna-vaccines-are-vaccines?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=516360&post_id=103922621&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
For just one post could you not beat up on my priors?
But that's why I'm here. I'm of a mind that the highest compliment you can pay another is that they've challenged you to confront why you believe what you believe.
Thanks. I think.