No, you've not given the incidence rate there. — Isaac

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

No. Someone winning the NBA and Lebron James winning the NBA are two different events, statistically. — Isaac

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Winning the NBA is an event. An event which numerous people have achieved. Ask Lebron’s teammates. Flipping a coin is also an event — an event for which there can be different odds, depending on the bet.

Just a mere 'note' that my odds are actually zero because of a known variable? — Isaac

Yeah— a relevant one, I’d say.

I count five on the first two pages, the rest seem to repeat that broad set. There's only a few thousand results in total, maybe less than fifty key papers, when do they start getting into the first million known variables? — Isaac

So you’re arguing you can exhaust the known variables, and when you do — that’s risk analysis. Got it.

You’re wrong.

And yet vociferous disagreement nonetheless, against a position for which you have no idea what the argument is. — Isaac

Yes, disagreement about a string of absurd, vague, generally meaningless statements.

Normal for someone who’s happy to be “misunderstood” — since there’s no argument there to being with. If there were, it would have been stated by now. But keep playing this stupid game if you want to.

Let's just take the statistical disagreement about what constitutes risk. — Isaac

There is no disagreement. It’s a fact. If you “disagree” with mathematics, that’s delusion. I can’t help that.

You're very sure of your position, you don't cite any external sources so where does your knowledge on the matter come from? — Isaac

Yes, I’m very sure about math and truism. Like the statement that 150/10 million is a low risk of having a stroke.

And I did cite that study. I also quoted the article you cited and didn’t read.

I've honestly never come across someone so completely self-assured as you. It's been an eye-opener reading your responses, but I think when we reach "I'm right", "I'm right", "I'm right", "I'm right", "I'm right", I've definitely milked that particular cow dry.

I'd say thanks, but I'm actually left feeling quite disturbed in the end and find myself in no mood for good terms. I wanted to get some first hand experience of how social media affected people's belief resilience, but it turns out I don't have the stomach for it.

I'm actually left feeling quite disturbed in the end and find myself in no mood for good terms. — Isaac

Maybe a little prudence would have been in order, like not spreading artificial doubt and confusion in the midst of a crisis. That could be a useful lesson for the next end of the world.

:up: :100:

To avoid being fired for failure to get vaccinated, people claim religious exemptions. Lawyers will have to go through the exemptions and rule on them. — frank

What are you saying? That, for example, people with transplanted organs (and who are on lifelong immunosuppresant therapy) should rightfully be categorized as having "failed to get vaccinated"?

I see your point. However, China has been an evil dictatorship from the day the Maoists seized power in 1949.

So, I would say that China (i.e. the political system, not the Chinese people) is evil quite independently of the West. — Apollodorus

Oh, and the West is heaven on earth, right.

If you look at the history of corporal punishment in Asian countries (not just China), for the past several hundred years, Westerners are fairly tame in comparison. Whatever ills Marxism etc. might have brought upon China, there was a fertile ground for them already there. If anything, it seems the Marxism etc. actually toned down the Asian propensity for, let's call that nicely, "ultimate competitivenes". No, I don't blame Marxism or Communism, the Asians can do all kinds of horrible things all on their own, without needing any tips from the outside, and they have done so for millennia.

And precisely because the West bears a large share of culpability, it also has the responsibility to do something about it. Economic sanctions, for example, would definitely be a step in the right direction.

So why not just, you know, stop importing low quality products from China?
I am quite sure the Chinese are perfectly able to live on their own, independent of exporting goods into the West. The Westerners can't say that about themselves.

If the Westerners are unable to control their own greed, their own lowly impulses, how on earth are they going to control the greed of others??

Oh, and the West is heaven on earth, right. — baker

I never said it was.

So why not just, you know, stop importing low quality products from China? — baker

That's exactly what I'm saying. This would be part of the "economic measures" I am talking about.

If the Westerners are unable to control their own greed, their own lowly impulses, how on earth are they going to control the greed of others?? — baker

The world doesn't always work on Buddhist principles. If the West controlled Hitler and Stalin, why not Xi?

The world doesn't always work on Buddhist principles. — Apollodorus

But sometimes it does? That's news to me.

I think China knows exactly what it is doing. — Apollodorus

Absolutely.

If the West controlled Hitler and Stalin, why not Xi?

Are you sure about the former, given the rise of rightwing politics?

As for Xi, the situation isn't the same, because the West apparently wants to benefit from China, wants to continue importing from it (there came a point from which on Westerners didn't want to do business with Hitler anymore).

The West trying to control China is like a drug addict trying to control his drug dealer, while continuing to obtain drugs from him. A desperate thing that a drug addict will attempt to do, but an endeavor that always ends with the drug addict losing out.

You're very sure of your position, you don't cite any external sources so where does your knowledge on the matter come from? — Isaac

Isn't confidence grand! :fire:

What are you saying? That, for example, people with transplanted organs (and who are on lifelong immunosuppresant therapy) should rightfully be categorized as having "failed to get vaccinated"? — baker

A doctor's note is sufficient for exemption. Religious exemptions don't require any evidence. That's why it's become the strategy of choice.

Are you sure about the former, given the rise of rightwing politics? — baker

I think places like China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey are definitely far-right.

The picture in the West is a bit more complex. BLM, Extinction Rebellion, Environmentalism, and many other movements that are on the rise here are not far-right. I think what is really happening is that Western society is undergoing a process of fragmentation, cultural and economic decline, and rising politization and polarization, probably exacerbated by the pandemic.

The West trying to control China is like a drug addict trying to control his drug dealer — baker

This isn't entirely true. The West could start buying goods from Japan, Russia, India, Latin America, Africa, Turkey, and other places. Some industries may take time to relocate but it can be done if there is a political will to do so. In fact, with China becoming more and more oppressive at home and militaristic and expansionist abroad, I think this is what is going to happen in the near future.

By the way, you seem to look a bit worried of late. Are you OK? :smile:

A doctor's note is sufficient for exemption. Religious exemptions don't require any evidence. That's why it's become the strategy of choice. — frank

Religion is great strategy. I have also heard of unvaccinated people who identify as a person who is vaccinated. Where will it end?

I have also heard of unvaccinated people who identify as a person who is vaccinated — Merkwurdichliebe

They would have to provide proof to avoid being fired.

If the government declares something to be mandatory tout court it doesn't follow that they will be legally responsible to pay compensation in the unlikely event that something goes wrong. — Janus

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

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

That's nice to see then, apparently pressure from the public helped a bit.

Still, the EU country I live has no compensation for damage due to covid vaccines.

I have also heard of unvaccinated people who identify as a person who is vaccinated — Merkwurdichliebe


They would have to provide proof to avoid being fired. — frank

He is being jokingly cynical; taking a shot at those who, for example, identify as another gender, or as aboriginal although they are only one sixteenth or whatever. No one ever asks such people to prove it, because to do so is seen as racist.

Oh, and the West is heaven on earth, right. — baker

Compared to the Maoists, yes.

List the famines that have happened because of "the West's" capitalist policies...compared to the 15 to 55 million dead in the famines caused by the "The Great Leap Forward" or the 1 to 20 million killed by the "Cultural Revolution". Capitalism may suck, but socialism kills. A lot of people.

Marxist Leninism and Maoism have killed far more millions than you could sum up in the wars the US and it's allies have fought. And still, I truly like that there exists a South Korea than there is a "North Korea" allover the Korean Peninsula, which has seen widespread famines during our lifetime. Yet, if it wasn't for the US, nobody would have cared about the Koreans. Americans did.

I met a guy in ICU, sick with covid, and he offered his speculations about what kind of illness he had. I realized he didn't understand he had covid, so I explained it to him.

He said, "But coronavirus is just the common cold, isn't it?". I explained further, and he said "I've just heard so many different things."

So of course I went out and made fun of him. Later a nurse told me she had spent more time with him, explaining it, and he was starting to understand.

So he just really didn't understand. There was nothing political about it. There's just a community that's soaked in misinformation.

Great news!

World Health Organization approves malaria vaccine
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/10/new-malaria-vaccine-explained-by-the-who

In 2019, 386,000 Africans died from malaria, of which 274,000 were children under five, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In the past 18 months, there have been 212,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths.

Now the WHO has approved a malaria vaccine for children for the first time, after a successful pilot scheme in three African countries: Ghana, Kenya and Malawi.

RTS,S - or Mosquirix - is a vaccine developed by British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline, which acts against P. falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally, and the most prevalent in Africa.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it a "historic moment" and a "breakthrough for science, child health and malaria control".

“Using this vaccine on top of existing tools to prevent malaria could save tens of thousands of young lives each year,” he added.

Great news! — Olivier5

Yes,

in November GlaxoSmithKline pled guilty to knowingly distributing adulterated medication after a whistleblower, Cheryl Eckard, a company insider, tipped off federal investigators.

The extent of GlaxoSmithKline’s bad medicine is astonishing: after Eckard became the lead of a quality assurance team she made some horrific discoveries at a Puerto Rico plant manufacturing drugs for the U.S. For example, all the systems were broken, the equipment was broken, and the manufacturing processes were broken in the Cidra, Puerto Rico plant. Specifically, water tainted with bacteria was used to make tablets, failures on production lines made some drugs too strong and others not strong enough, and employees were contaminating the product by sticking their arms inside of tanks containing Bactroban, an anti-bacterial ointment. But the worst discovery was that employees were packaging the wrong drugs inside of the wrong bottles, and even mixing various drugs together in the same packages.

Federal investigators say that between 2001 and 2007, GlaxoSmithKline failed to disclose safety data from certain studies of Avandia to the Food and Drug Administration. This is, ethically, perhaps the most serious of the charges. Glaxo's handling of the Avandia matter was fraught with bad disclosure bordering on deceit. During that time period, Avandia became the best-selling diabetes drug in the world. Now it not only bears warnings that it might cause heart attacks, its use has been so restricted that the drug has nearly vanished off Glaxo's ledgers. To the extent that Glaxo kept Avandia's heart risk from being recognized, that means that patients were exposed to added risks.

Glaxo is ... pleading to misdemeanor criminal charges that it sold two antidepressants for purposes for which they were not approved. This includes selling Paxil, once of of Glaxo's top-selling drugs and a member of the same class of medicines as Prozac and Zoloft, to children and adolescents, a group that the drug was never approved to treat. Since 2004, all of these antidepressants have carried a warning that they can increase the risk of suicide in adolescents.

A Chinese court ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $492 million in 2014. The fine resolved charges of bribing doctors in China to use GSK products. It was the biggest penalty ever imposed by a Chinese court.

The court sentenced Briton Mark Reilly to four years in prison. He was the company’s British executive for China.

But this is probably a different GlaxoSmithKline so great news!

In other news Lockheed Martin have come up with a brilliant strategy for dealing with some of the world's most troubled war zones, and McDonalds have been consulted about a promising line of products to alleviate famine, so finger's crossed on those too!

They've cheated before therefore they can't produce a useful vaccine. Understood.

Now that I think of it, my wife cheated on me once. Gonna throw her under the bus right now!

They've cheated once therefore they can't produce a useful vaccine. Understood. — Olivier5

Did I say the vaccine wouldn't be useful? That we're relying on a criminal profiteer for the health of a continent's children is not 'Great News' it's a fucking lamentable tragedy.

I can agree with that. Capitalism mechanically leads to an unhealthy concentration of power. I still welcome the attention paid at long last to malaria. It's a poor man's disease and has attracted very little research.

I still welcome the attention paid at long last to malaria. — Olivier5

The point is that 'attention' paid to it by a bunch of criminal profiteers is not really 'welcome' so much as begrudgingly accepted as the least worst option currently available. Without a shadow of a doubt it will have ruled out any less profitable option, regardless of the benefit to the population concerned. With research funding streams as they currently are we'll likely never know what we need to know about this horrific disease because the options explored for it's eradication and management are pre-filtered to only those which can turn a profit. Even if this were the best option, supply will be restricted and potentially contaminated/altered because of the choice of supplier.

All of which will never change so long as people continue to support the blackmail of "don't criticise the pharmaceuticals, people might stop taking medicines!".

All of which will never change so long as people continue to support the blackmail of "don't criticise the pharmaceuticals, people might stop taking medicines!". — Isaac

Never heard that line. There's no taboo that i know of on criticizing big pharma.

There's no taboo that i know of on criticizing big pharma. — Olivier5

The whole body of pro-vaccine responses on this thread (and the other) has been predicated entirely on that premise. You've said almost exactly that yourself only a few posts ago, about...

not spreading artificial doubt and confusion in the midst of a crisis. — Olivier5

Or did you think the COVID vaccines have been developed and tested by some system other than the one there's apparently no taboo against criticising?

Artificial doubt, manufactured doubt, is a problem. Well grounded doubt is not. If there is doubt about the seriousness or the origin of the doubt, maybe not spread it. Take into consideration the risk you are taking of spreading unfounded doubt.

Another point is, you think the stuff you get in your feed and you spread here comes from nowhere? You think nobody profit from it? Think again. Profiteers are everywhere, including I suspect on 'your side'.

Artificial doubt, manufactured doubt, is a problem. Well grounded doubt is not. — Olivier5

Right. So when you said...

I can agree with that. Capitalism mechanically leads to an unhealthy concentration of power. — Olivier5

...you meant "everything is fine and any doubt about that is artificial and manufactured"? Or you were perhaps referring only to the whole capitalist enterprise apart from the bit that made the COVID vaccine because that's perfectly flawless for some reason you've yet to divulge?

you think the stuff you get in your feed and you spread here comes from nowhere? You think nobody profit from it? Think again. — Olivier5

This kind of smearing of your interlocutors is beneath contempt. What part of my posting history, fully sourced from reputable medical journals and peer reviewed papers gives you the slightest justification for the suggestion that I get my information from some 'feed'.

Honestly if you can't even bring yourself to treat the people you speak to with the bare minimum of respect you can fuck off.

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?