My thoughts on "following the science"

Mau Mau Maid Service wrote:

You need to read more about social psychology. and evolutionary biology.

The polarization effect has benefited the far right

This insanity, including excess deaths, will continue as long as there is an electoral college and corporate-sponsored politicians.

Non-zero risk is a non sequitur given its proper context.

Evolution has favored a diversity of perspectives but at the core of evolutionary success is

a balance of individual and collective interests, all requiring open communication.

Fascist movements thrive by selling individual enrichment as collective good; the truth is the first casualty and with it goes the capability to discern and question.

The real threat?

Must be the starry-eyed dreamers looking at data.

The real threat to evolution is playing God and deciding whose diversity of stubbornness is the right kind and prematurely, quite possibly harmfully, enforcing it.

BTW, I edited your post. You're welcome.

The risk long term is unknown, but the short term can be a reasonable extrapolation when you look at the broad spectrum of people will all sorts of different ailments, ages etc and scientists who have a good grasp of the methodology. Of course it's not proof or certainty. But the reality is, that this is kind of impossible. A 5 year window for a virus is too large. It's mutated by then, so no longer relevant.

The tide analogy, doesn't really make sense. You're assuming there are rocks, we don't know this. So you have to then start introducing all sorts of other angles to it. You may as well just use the original thing we're talking about so it doesn't muddy the waters.

Having said that, I'm certainly not entirely comfortable with taking a vaccine. I don't enter the whole notion blindly, but there comes a point I know so many people who have had covid, and how bad they've been, even young relatives, that I know you're in for a tough ride for anyone old or obese etc.

So to me it's "relatively" simple. I'm fairly sure I would be still alive if I got covid, but all the evidence I've seen suggests that the dangers of covid to me (and others who I may pass it on to), are way higher than having a vaccine. There does come a point with how far we should go to impact quality of most peoples lives vs those who will suffer if they get covid, but that to me probably gets swayed by the number of hospitalisations. The more there are, the more restrictions I'm willing to take on board. However, I also feel like we're not adapting properly healthcare wise, and increasingly there may come a point where I just think **** it.

The risk long term is unknown, but the short term can be a reasonable extrapolation when you look at the broad spectrum of people will all sorts of different ailments, ages etc and scientists who have a good grasp of the methodology. Of course it's not proof or certainty. But the reality is, that this is kind of impossible. A 5 year window for a virus is too large. It's mutated by then, so no longer relevant.

The tide analogy, doesn't really make sense. You're assuming there are rocks, we don't know this. So you have to then start introducing all sorts of other angles to it. You may as well just use the original thing we're talking about so it doesn't muddy the waters.

Having said that, I'm certainly not entirely comfortable with taking a vaccine. I don't enter the whole notion blindly, but there comes a point I know so many people who have had covid, and how bad they've been, even young relatives, that I know you're in for a tough ride for anyone old or obese etc.

So to me it's "relatively" simple. I'm fairly sure I would be still alive if I got covid, but all the evidence I've seen suggests that the dangers of covid to me (and others who I may pass it on to), are way higher than having a vaccine.

I doubt you have actually seen such evidence.

Okay, I tried with the tide analogy. Sorry if it didn't make sense. Let me try another way.

The long-term risk of the vaccine is unknown. You cannot extrapolate short-term effects to long-term because some diseases can normally take years to develop. For example, we don't know the long-term effects of the vaccine on the immune system. Now, we have boosters to continue to stress the immune system. We simply don't know what the risks will be.

In fact, we don't even know the short-term effects!

Are doctors seeing more new cases of cardiac, respiratory, organ, and blood disorders? We don't know. We have no way of knowing. Could new cardiac problems be up 30%? 50%? 200%? What about miscarriages? WE DON'T KNOW! We're like mushrooms. We're just kept in the dark and fed the "safe and effective" mantra. Doctors reporting side effects have been suppressed, censored, and fired for speaking out. People have been banned from social media for posting their own adverse effects! THIS IS HORRIFIC!!!

Based on this, are you willing to put your life and future health on the line for an untrustworthy system and an experimental approach? I'm not going to fault you if you say yes. It's your life and your call. I'll hope that it works out for you.

Meanwhile, buy this book and read it. Please.

putting on a mask a couple times a day os nothing compared to even saving lives. moron.

are you saying we know more about the long term complications of the virus itself? in terms of long term risk i think youre prpbably better off betting on the vaccine than the virus

Everyone has a religion. With the Alt Left, it's the Church of Science. Well at least the science provided by liberal news sources

Finally you started caring about saving lives. Great job. Wearing your mask during the flu season(s) could have saved many more also. Oh well, good start

Thank you to everyone who responded. Lots of longer posts with thoughtful explanations. Yeah, some people seemed to misunderstand the gist of the original post, but this thread has pretty much stayed on track. I appreciate the time you took to respond. I'll respond in kind to a few ideas.

This same basic idea was expressed in a post that seemed to think I was making "zero-risk" my gold standard of behavior. I didn't mean to imply that at all. I DO think it makes sense to to evaluate things based on levels of risk. Further, this is exactly what societies around the world have been doing: suggesting and regulating and mandating based upon what someone, or some group, in our governments decides is acceptable risk.

However, at least in the US, we've been using a euphemism--the science--in a way that obscures the fact that these are subjective decisions made by fallible people. The use of "follow the science" removes the personal responsibility of the decision makers. "Don't blame at me. The science made me do it."

There were a couple of posts with similar ideas, suggesting that when we see someone urging us to "follow the science," what is meant is actually "follow the suggestions of a group of experts who know more about this than you do." First, I might be wrong, but I don't think that's the effect that invoking "follow the science" generally makes in the minds of most. I will stand by my original opinion that it implies an objective, monolithic, right answer. That said, I absolutely agree that we ought to be openly encouraging people to "consider the suggestions of a group of experts who know more about this than you do."

Using "the science" instead of "the suggestions of a group of scientists" obscures the fact that the suggestions, regulations, and mandates are coming from people--albeit experts--and are not objective facts. Someone who takes issue "the science" is easily portrayed as dim-witted and is quickly marginalized. Someone who disagrees with the suggestion of a scientist regarding an acceptable level of risk cannot be so easily pushed aside. This is the core idea of my original post.

OK, maybe. My point was meant to be that "follow the science" suggests a clear right/wrong, effective/ineffective, binary, objective dividing line when it comes to risk that ought to dictate our behavior. Pointing out that it is more about statistics was meant to highlight the fact that there are greater and lesser degrees of risk and that "the science" only shows us what those are, but does not tell us anything about how we must, necessarily, behave.

Thanks again for the thoughtful responses. They've helped me to realize where I might have expressed myself better. It's a good thread. Maybe don't delete this?

Well said. Open minded. We all need more of this.

so super safe wrote:

hunter wheres the coke wrote:

If wearing a mask is sacrificing your happiness, that's your problem. I don't go against societal norms and safety precautions and then claim that they were making me unhappy and therefore it's justified. Sorry officer, I'm just not happy unless I can drive 100 down this freeway.

I don’t think there’s exactly an overwhelming amount of science to show that I, a 3x vaccinated person, put you, a 3x vaccinated person, during a fleeting interaction in a grocery store, at a substantial degree of risk of serious injury or death by not wearing a mask.

Well you aren’t an expert nor are you anywhere close to an expert which makes you completely unqualified to make this judgement. The people who make the speed limits are experts on traffic safety and risk mitigation. We don’t just let any moron set the speed limit 30 mph slower or faster. We trust the experts.

It’s also not about everyone you interact with, but also the people they interact with. I don’t know if you were aware of this but if you give covid to someone, they can then give it to someone else who might be even more at risk. Disease spreads, imagine that.

You are not tough enough. You can’t sacrifice a sweaty face and slight discomfort to protect others. It’s sad that a large portion of Americans can’t handle 5 square inches of cloth covering their face. If that’s all it takes to bring us down, then we aren’t a very strong nation at all. Just a bunch of weak selfish morons.

this may be true and it is more of a norm in other countries to use masks at least when youre ill, thus showing feasibility but two wrongs dont make a right and at the same time there are differences between covid and flu such as in terms of volume. flu season for instance has never had hospitals running at the limit of capacity.

" the mean scie tists bully me waahh" what a load of cope with very little in terms of practical consequence for whether people should wear masks

fisky wrote:

Are doctors seeing more new cases of cardiac, respiratory, organ, and blood disorders? We don't know. We have no way of knowing. Could new cardiac problems be up 30%? 50%? 200%? What about miscarriages? WE DON'T KNOW! We're like mushrooms. We're just kept in the dark and fed the "safe and effective" mantra. Doctors reporting side effects have been suppressed, censored, and fired for speaking out. People have been banned from social media for posting their own adverse effects! THIS IS HORRIFIC!!!

+1

Antivaxxers and antimaskers are precious little princesses who think freedom means doing whatever the hell they want, everyone else be damned

Monkeys Skyping wrote:

fisky wrote:

Are doctors seeing more new cases of cardiac, respiratory, organ, and blood disorders? We don't know. We have no way of knowing. Could new cardiac problems be up 30%? 50%? 200%? What about miscarriages? WE DON'T KNOW! We're like mushrooms. We're just kept in the dark and fed the "safe and effective" mantra. Doctors reporting side effects have been suppressed, censored, and fired for speaking out. People have been banned from social media for posting their own adverse effects! THIS IS HORRIFIC!!!

https://southstcafe.neocities.org/us2020DeathsByCause.pnghttps://southstcafe.neocities.org/us2021DeathsByCause.png

Compelling. Great data visualization

Anyone that's still being duped by the official narrative is either benefitting directly from covid hysteria in some form or an absolutely brainwashed, indoctrinated sheep.

maybe delete this? wrote:

The risk of getting Covid if you are unvaccinated is non-zero.

The risk of getting Covid if you are vaccinated is non-zero.

The risk of a complication from getting a vaccine is non-zero.

These three statements are all scientific facts.

Science can also tell us which of these non-zero risk is greater or lesser than any of the others. For example, the scientific evidence shows us that there is a lower risk of death from Covid if you are fully vaccinated. Lower. But not zero.

Whenever the risk is non-zero, one must make a judgment about the level of risk that is acceptable.

.

Every single thing in life is a non-zero risk. Going to sleep at night has a non-zero risk of death.

The debate is more about irrational fear. There are people that are deathly afraid of flying, but regularly drive a car.

The truth is the average person is easily manipulated and this has become a political issue for whatever reason. This has lead to misinformation campaigns which regularly show up on this board by the usual posters with Aspergers.

You say, “I might be wrong, but I will stand by my original opinion.”

Your original opinion is still wrong.

You state that people should certainly “consider the suggestions of experts who know more about this than this than you do.”

We people who follow the science are doing exactly what we say we are doing. We are following, not “considering”, the recommendations, not “ suggestions,” of scientists, not “experts who know more than you do,” (and certainly not right wing politicians.) And we do not suggest science is a “single monolithic binary, right answer” but rather we understand science to be what it is: the consensus of the Scientific community.

And that consensus is to get vaccinated, wear masks, and social distance, not do our own individual “evaluation of acceptable levels of risk.”