What the ..., ?
We were just chatting about regular fellows becoming infected with virulent pseudo-information, and sure enough, a bunch of influential creeps are doing just that: polluting "the airways". (Did you check yet?)
I suppose that can happen when "mainstream media" is replaced with garbage, and the regular fella' doesn't read Nature journal papers — and really shouldn't have to.
Keep exposing creeps. Not a "psychological game", "hand-waiving", ... It's part of the pandemic story. You're free to comment on how to improve the situation. Or, is that impossible?

I'm the only voice — Isaac

By all means, keep it up. And do get vaccinated. ;)

243012770_1310505819406426_3879163455009871205_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=110474&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_eui2=AeEVEHidSEdvxR3EWqD7WIJHte2dD0oZNIC17Z0PShk0gPcKFJIhESxJcphu9Wz8100&_nc_ohc=gyAI3_QzvfcAX-TY4FT&_nc_ht=scontent.fmid3-1.fna&oh=58c08d5d8d717355094ac0e9fd415718&oe=617B1780 — The Opposite

Come again? :D

Except, , not all "mainstream media" reports are bullshit and pseudo-information.
Inflated or blanket distrust can be wacky just the same. Perhaps even paranoid? Not everything and everyone's McDoucheCanoe, and not all reports are technical journal papers.
You're free to check up on the creepy dozen, Mercola, and Willner yourself of course.
In fact, I say expose them. (As was done, to an extent.) Why not?

Hannah Arendt - Disinformation and Democracy (Aug 6, 2020)

• 12 prominent people opposed to vaccines are responsible for two-thirds of anti-vaccine content online: report | The Disinformation Dozen (Mar 24, 2021)

• Joe Mercola: An antivaccine quack tycoon pivots effortlessly to profit from spreading COVID-19 misinformation (Jul 26, 2021)

• CNN tracked down a super-spreader of Covid-19 misinformation. See how he reacted (Aug 5, 2021)

• This Woman Secretly Runs One of the World's Biggest Anti-Vax Websites From Her House (Aug 12, 2021)

• Anti-vaccine chiropractors rising force of misinformation (Oct 8, 2021)

Don't think they've done anything illegal, but "we know where you live". ;)

Stick to reading reputable journals and expert opinion. — Isaac

The more of them the better, giving more weight, and history, context, ability to spot apparent anomalies/outliers, overview. I just don't think everyone has time (or knowledge/skills/inclination) to do that, not if we're talking technical papers anyway (many wouldn't know where to look).

It's on a scale. — jorndoe

Reuters and Associated Press, for example, seem good. Or just good enough perhaps?

People hear about it from news sources they already don't trust. — frank

There sure are plenty of sources around. Distrust can also be fed by questionable sources. :meh:

(Wasn't there a song called "'round and 'round we go" (kid's song)...? 1980s maybe?) :)

There's just a community that's soaked in misinformation. — frank

I've come across similar stories. It's not unique.

With online filtering, raging discussions about censoring versus free speech, all that, sites like bitchute·com, banned·video, rumble·com, orwell·city have become popular homes for "the real unfiltered news" — read: pseudo-information — presented like whatever "mainstream media" you might come across.

It's on a scale.

Publishers like The Epoch Times blends subtle suggestions, select styles of loaded verbiage, misrepresentations, pseudoscience, hasty generalizations, conspiracy theories, unsubstantiated accusations, and less biased, more straight material, and they have a few subscribers. They're just one stop over from pseudo-information sites like those above.

Because of the amount of crud available from several sources, people sometimes tend to pick whatever confirms existing beliefs or biases, regardless of accuracy (or much else), altogether readily giving multiple vectors of propagation, forming an ad hoc polluted landscape peppered with destabilizing ulterior motives or what-have-you.

If rejecting "mainstream media" means turning to garbage, then it's neither smart nor doing the right thing, and that's apparently (happily and ragingly) happening — fertile grounds for bullshit, dis/mal/misinformation, and propaganda. And so it goes, systemic unreliability.

What's regular (perhaps unsuspecting) fella' to do?

For every other mandatory vaccine, there is a safety net for the case that something goes wrong, but not for the covid vaccines. — baker

That's not quite accurate.

Canada: Vaccine Injury Support Program (VISP) (modeled after a compensation scheme available in Quebec since the late 1980s)
Israel: Vaccine injury compensation: the Israeli case
UK: Vaccine Damage Payment
USA: Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP)

In July 2021, Tommie Crum, Kirsten Mooney, and Birendra R Tiwari apparently identified 17 countries operating well-established vaccine injury compensation programs.

WHO: No-fault compensation programme for COVID-19 vaccines is a world first

(y) Well said (err written)

Why COVID vaccines didn’t win a science Nobel this year (Oct 7, 2021)

, have you bothered checking historical (textbook) case studies?
It's not like someone just came up with outbreak protocols last year.
There's precedence, long history, subject matter experts have a large body of material, ...
So, no, it's not just @Benkei-says-@AJJ-says. :roll:

Caren White opines ...

Trump is Showing Us What His Second Term Would Look Like (Oct 3, 2021)

Hmm... , if someone were to say
"you must severely spank your kids every day, or they'll turn into immoral losers, and, besides, they probably did something wrong anyway"
then I'm thinking most would say that's not the right thing to do, i.e. passing judgment, a bad starting point.
I don't think you'll find that in the Quran (or the Bible, Vedas, Avesta), it's just an example.

, the 10 commandments in the Bible may be the best known example (in the West).
Most people can evaluate those.
I suppose, in a way, the Adam + Eve + Serpent + Fruit and Abraham + Isaac + Sacrifice stories could suggest abandonment of autonomous moral agency (to adherents), though it depends on how they're read — ambiguities, another can of worms.


(y)
By the way, there's more to say about (programmable) rule-following, eisegesis, and such, which seems relevant to divine command theory and theological voluntarism.


, well, yes, contradictions are explosive, if that's what you mean.
All bets are off, a whole other can of worms. :meh:


, you mean it's all redundant confuzzlement, that could just be put into one statement and be done with? :)
But, hey, arguments are so en vogue these days.


, I suppose there are semantics involved here.
We might say that, in principle, autonomous moral agency is a prerequisite for (would-be) autonomous actors.
In analogy, we don't allow hazards to roam free in kindergartens either.



Maybe autonomous moral agency can be thought of as a kind of know-how?
Except, under normal circumstances, we tend to assume other people can figure out the right thing to do by default, absent whatever concerns of course.
(By the way, it's not so much my argument, as it just seems intuitive to me.)


, right, yes, coincidental congruence, ...
A bit technical, though. :)
But 2 could fail on that.

As far as I can see there's a potential cohort of 150 for whom the risk is 1. — Isaac

Nah, not 1 beforehand.
Kids are an example of where an assessment has led to caution, hence ineligible (as of typing).
Whatever factors continue to be assessed; not just for COVID-19.

Uhm...

A quick read regarding "the distance" between science/mathematics and the general public, exemplified with the pandemic:

What we've got here is failure to communicate – and adequately educate! (Keith Devlin; MATH VALUES; Oct 1, 2021)

Unfortunately, "the distance" itself invites noise, distrust, ... I'm sure many here already know, but, anyway, here's Devlin.

Oh, 1, 2, 3 isn't on the usual modus ponens form, please take your syllogism-hat off.

The delta wave is waning. You probably only have a week's worth of mileage left. — frank

'bout time. :clap: Only a week, tho'?

Reiterated a few times by now ...

I've already mentioned that the evidence is the ground authority. And we'd be fools not to learn from it. — jorndoe

The evidence is the authority here more so than some (unweighted) "he-said-she-said", the truth of the SARS-CoV-2/pandemic matter more so than some sort of radical cultural relativism. Would be kind of neat if the virus could just be argued away though. :smile: — jorndoe

But you want to make it about me, ? Cool. :) (old comment)

The BMJ article is more measured — Isaac

(y)

the one you're after — Isaac

?

That said, of course the Wuhan lab leak theory remains on the table, just not with the added thrust you suggest — jorndoe

the Chinese state — Apollodorus

Not that it matters, but I'm no fan personally.

REVEALED — Daily Mail Online

calling into question their impartiality — Daily Mail Online

, The Sun already ran an article about that, posted here on the forum.

As per this old comment, I'd watch out for the slant they put on their ("impartial") articles.
(And with "REVEALED", now a bit pseudo-sensational, too.)

not listening — baker

‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen (Sep 14, 2021) ← to listen

What role, if any, do the machinists of the long-running anti-vaxxer machines play? Do they assume any responsibility (of avoidable suffering/death)? Do they care about the consequences of their yelling? I don't recall them telling the friends/families of ☣ victims that they're sorry anyway.


_{• 12 prominent people opposed to vaccines are responsible for two-thirds of anti-vaccine content online: report (Mar 24, 2021)
• The Disinformation Dozen (Mar 24, 2021)
• Covid anti-vaxxers: 'Shut down fake news sites,' begs daughter (Aug 6, 2021)}

COVID-19 must be eliminated, not become endemic, if America is to survive (Oct 3, 2021)

Might be a bit late now.

White terror: Millions of Americans say they'd support violence to restore Trump to power (Oct 1, 2021)

Weird.

Incidentally scrolled by the other day:

I don’t want to play Study Wars with you. Can you throw studies at me such that your view becomes definitively correct? Because in my view that’s what you need to do in order to justify bothering people to misery and death with oppressive mandates. — AJJ

You'd most likely lose out. ;)

How about taking a look at what actually takes place, then?

• Anatomy of our battle against COVID-19 (Jun 2, 2021)

And there are historical (textbook) case studies. Common sense is allowed, too, ya' know.

• lockdowns can save lives (+ needless suffering)
• lockdowns have socio-economic and psychological effects
• lockdowns and quarantines work in containment situations
• the more wide-spread the pathogen, the less effective the lockdown (planning needed)
• non-compliance with lockdowns + protocols (mask, distance, sanitize) have an effect

So, make lockdowns decisive, swift, not pro-longed (especially) in containment situations.

Doesn't have much to do with fear-mongering panic or evil tyrant authoritarian government feeding on your misery or conformism for conformism's sake or whatever bullshit; has to do with learning from evidence, common sense, doing the right thing, being socially responsible, not being a loose cannon, and history is a fine teacher.

, you offered roughly nothing, and called my comment shallow rhetoric? :D

I've already mentioned that the evidence is the ground authority. And we'd be fools not to learn from it.

Maybe you and I could offer the same to those harmed/killed by the virus and those harmed/killed by the vaccine? Plus their loved ones? "Concerted efforts did its best to both contain and avoid this tragedy." (We could also mention the vaccinated that lived to see another day I suppose, unless that'd be insensitive.)

Sep 14, 2021 :sad: ‘The virus is painfully real’: vaccine hesitant people are dying – and their loved ones want the world to listen

Either way, you've been given plenty of information by now, but oddly brush it off with a hand wave. Are you looking for something else altogether...? Of course, if you're afraid or fearful or anxious or something, then that's understandable.


^{Apr 04, 2020 :death: 11 Days After Fuming About a Coughing Passenger, a Bus Driver Died From the Coronavirus
Nov 17, 2020 :gasp: Many COVID-19 patients insist ‘it’s not real’ until they die, nurse says
May 26, 2021 :sad: Study confirms longer-term lung damage after COVID-19
Jul 25, 2021 :death: LA man who mocked Covid-19 vaccines dies of virus
Aug 05, 2021 :death: A Texas Republican leader who repeatedly mocked masks and vaccines has died of COVID-19
Aug 08, 2021 :death: Rightwing radio host and anti-vaxxer dies of Covid
Aug 09, 2021 :sad: More than 50 long-term effects of COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Aug 16, 2021 :up: To protect our kids from COVID-19, we have to be grown-ups
Aug 19, 2021 :death: Unvaccinated Mom’s Dying Wish: ‘Make Sure My Children Get Vaccinated’
Aug 19, 2021 :death: Man refused to get vaccinated even after his own father died of COVID – now he’s dead from COVID too
Aug 27, 2021 :death: Georgia cop who pushed people to take horse dewormer instead of vaccine dies from COVID-19
Aug 28, 2021 :death: Texas Anti-Mask 'Freedom Defender' Caleb Wallace Dies Of COVID-19
Aug 30, 2021 :death: Conservative Radio Host Who Called Himself 'Mr. Anti-Vax' Dies from COVID After 3 Week Battle
Sep 01, 2021 :gasp: Verbal and physical attacks on health workers surge as emotions boil during latest COVID-19 wave
Sep 13, 2021 :death: Right-Wing Anti-Vax Radio Host Who Mocked AIDS Victims Dies Of COVID-19
Sep 16, 2021 :death: Anti-vaxxer mother and daughter die from Covid in Belfast hospital
Sep 16, 2021 :death: A California father described his regret after his unvaccinated pregnant wife was ventilated and their unborn baby died
Sep 21, 2021 :gasp: The Unbelievable Grimness of HermanCainAward, the Subreddit That Catalogs Anti-Vaxxer COVID Deaths}

People are getting strokes from the covid vaccines, they are dying from the covid vaccines.

What do you have to offer to the survivors and their close ones? — baker

What about those killed by the virus ☣ and those saved by the vaccine?
Did you take those into account?
One could argue that withholding an effective vaccine would be a crime.

^{Recommended Vaccinations for birth through 6 years | Recommended Vaccines by Age (US CDC)}

As mentioned (several times in this thread alone), fatalities from the vaccine itself are very rare. Blood clotting and allergies continue to be monitored. Other vaccines (medication at large) aren't magic cures either; we've known this stuff for ages. But, of course, all fatalities are tragic.

If you're to have a get-together with the virus, then (suffering or) dying from the virus is markedly more likely than from the vaccine, ... Then there are the social/communal aspects. We learn from the evidence/science, regardless of how it's put.

Bonus. Maybe even a bit of health gain in some cases. (y)

• Air pollution and COVID-19 (Dec 2020)

• How Covid gave the world a lesson in tackling air pollution (Apr 22, 2021)

, the joy of watching your responses, being so anti-vax an'all. ;)

By the way, I typically argue for free speech, and the usual suppression accusations against YouTube are bound to come up. The sort of thing that may have led to sites like rumble·com.

YouTube to remove misinformation videos about all vaccines (Sep 29, 2021)

Elsewhere, someone posted a flurry of anti-whatever stuff, including this sample ...

Epidemic of heart attacks: Graphene Oxide and EMFs (rumble·com; Sep 20, 2021)
... which fronts ...
Epidemic of heart attacks: Graphene Oxide and EMFs (orwell·city; Sep 20, 2021)
... which refers to some elusive "biostatistician and researcher Ricardo Delgado" character. It goes on to tell a story about a magnetic compound in vaccines on which cell towers have a deadly effect, and an epidemic of such deaths no less. Whereas the Spanish news article (laprovincia·es) likely is true about a bicyclist having died from a heart attack, nothing else checks out. No independent verification, no corroboration, including other news articles, definitely no such epidemic, nothing. It all strands on elusive characters, creative story-telling, grand conspiracy theories, ...

Can Vaccines Make Our Body Magnetic? (Jun 11, 2021)
Fact Check-COVID-19 vaccines do not contain graphene oxide (Jul 23, 2021)
Graphene: 'Miracle material' singled out for Covid conspiracies (Oct 1, 2021)

When I called the poster out on it, they had nothing either (apart from the usual bullshit, personal attacks, hand-waving, all that, some of which we've seen here as well). Regardless, that was just one rumble·com page now anti-informing people out there. That's all it takes apparently.

So, maybe YouTube's move is for the better.

Anyone know of a specific (medical/biological) term for asymptomatic pathogen ☣ factories?

(infectees that aren't harmed, or are insignificantly or very slowly harmed, and the pathogen unexpectedly remains and does its propagation thing, which typically harms the host, unless taken out by the immune system)

This is now making the rounds again, being propagated and re-posted who knows where:

Nearly 50k Medicare patients died soon after getting COVID shot: whistleblower (Sep 28, 2021)

It's been investigated before ...

• Conspiracy theory claims Biden covered up 45,000 vaccine deaths (Jul 21, 2021)
• “45,000 confirmed dead from the COVID-19 shots within three days… and they’ve covered it up.” (Jul 22, 2021)
• Did 45K People Die Within 3 Days of Getting COVID Vaccine? (Jul 22, 2021)
• Fact check: There is no evidence 45,000 people died from vaccine-related complications (Sep 10, 2021)

... and, by the way, a record like this might warrant some caution: mediabiasfactcheck, adfontesmedia, wikipedia

The accusations are dead serious, but making them is cheap, especially with no independent verification and corroboration.
But, such likes matter little once the story (or just the headline) has made a sufficient number of readers afraid fearful anxious, or confirmed the biases of entrenched/incorrigible readers (who may dismiss investigators with a casual handwave and some yelling).
And so you have it, damage done, history ignored, lingering suspicions added to would-be deniers (and gullible fence-sitters), mission accomplished.

Joe Mercola: An antivaccine quack tycoon pivots effortlessly to profit from spreading COVID-19 misinformation (Jul 26, 2021)

I've come across a couple or so apparent outlier reports. Here's one:

Covid-19 in Wales: A third of positive cases are unvaccinated (Sep 24, 2021)

Opinion piece from The Miami Herald:

Goodbye, and good riddance (Leonard Pitts Jr; Sep 26, 2021)

I am saying that we are inescapably social and interdependent - we have to trust or die alone. Therefore we have to have a moral commitment to the truth, or die alone. I am saying that if we continue to valorise "rational self-interest" we will all die alone. — unenlightened

(y) That's also why starting out with or campaigning distrust and Us-versus-Them narratives can be degenerative. It's in the toolbox of divide-and-conquerors.

"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it gives the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus — Tzeentch

I guess democracies better choose their tyrants carefully, eh? :) Unless ... (more or less by definition) leaders are tyrants ...?

, here doctors on the news reported the rare exemption request. News also reported fake vaccination certificates in the wild; they're not formalized hereabouts, but may now be I guess. What might a valid exemption be anyway? In what circumstances (e.g. for a nursing home caretaker)?

, right, when rational means deductive. How much trust is deductive, though? I'm thinking trust is generally more weighted (subject to some contextual justification, pros and cons, etc).

, you're not free to interact with others however you see fit.

^{(If you want to go on a killing spree, then please leave others out of it. If you want to drive drunk, then please stick to your backyard. ...)}

While discussing SARS-CoV-2/pandemic, ...

people first need to be in the clear about "the big existential issues" and have a definitive answer to the meaning of life question. — baker

... kind of reminded me of ...

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. — Sagan

:)

(nothing further to see here, move along)