CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 13)
Discussion
Dr Malone speaks again regarding the Fauci and CDC announcements
https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
jameswills said:
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
I'm in the same position. It's a great shame that reasonable, qualified people with contra opinions (irrespective of whether they're right or wrong) have been forced to rely on fringe and nutter routes to express their views and shunned by MSM. It then taints their points by association.
APontus said:
I'm in the same position.
It's a great shame that reasonable, qualified people with contra opinions (irrespective of whether they're right or wrong) have been forced to rely on fringe and nutter routes to express their views and shunned by MSM. It then taints their points by association.
It’s incredible that things like this are not debated in the open, on a mainstream media channel and in front of parliament. The sad thing is, people like Dr Malone champion the vaccine and technology itself, but simply say that rolling it out to entire populations is just simply an extremely dangerous thing to do. That’s a worthwhile argument to listen to, and yet if that was on YouTube, it would be down in minutes. No one gets to see this, even on here that will be smacked around as “anti vaxx” within the hour.It's a great shame that reasonable, qualified people with contra opinions (irrespective of whether they're right or wrong) have been forced to rely on fringe and nutter routes to express their views and shunned by MSM. It then taints their points by association.
All that just makes me even more suspicious of everything. Really weird times, not known anything like it.
I take it this is nothing to worry about. A contract given for Covid certification to a company who do Heath passes and passports
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
jameswills said:
It’s incredible that things like this are not debated in the open, on a mainstream media channel and in front of parliament. The sad thing is, people like Dr Malone champion the vaccine and technology itself, but simply say that rolling it out to entire populations is just simply an extremely dangerous thing to do. That’s a worthwhile argument to listen to, and yet if that was on YouTube, it would be down in minutes. No one gets to see this, even on here that will be smacked around as “anti vaxx” within the hour.
All that just makes me even more suspicious of everything. Really weird times, not known anything like it.
And I feel the same - I have always looked at both sides of an argument/proposal and then come to an informed decision based on facts. If someone was unwilling or unable to provide me with the information that I asked for, then it didn’t help their case! All that just makes me even more suspicious of everything. Really weird times, not known anything like it.
Increasingly difficult to do this right now with the virus and vaccines which only leads me to think that something is not right
J210 said:
I take it this is nothing to worry about. A contract given for Covid certification to a company who do Heath passes and passports
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
"Contract suitable for SME: No"https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
"Supplier is SME: Yes"
Gotta love our awesome procurement.
J210 said:
I take it this is nothing to worry about. A contract given for Covid certification to a company who do Heath passes and passports
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
This is the companyhttps://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/...
https://www.entrust.com/
Looks like they provide the security aspect - hopefully they are providing the consultancy to the NHS and not running the system - don’t want a commercial company with its HQ in America potentially having access to health records do we………….
Boringvolvodriver said:
This is the company
https://www.entrust.com/
Looks like they provide the security aspect - hopefully they are providing the consultancy to the NHS and not running the system - don’t want a commercial company with its HQ in America potentially having access to health records do we………….
The contract is for Public Key Infrastructure - in other words the system which facilitates encrypting/decrypting of the data - they will not have access to the encryption keys actually used so in turn the data itself.https://www.entrust.com/
Looks like they provide the security aspect - hopefully they are providing the consultancy to the NHS and not running the system - don’t want a commercial company with its HQ in America potentially having access to health records do we………….
Winterway said:
Boringvolvodriver said:
This is the company
https://www.entrust.com/
Looks like they provide the security aspect - hopefully they are providing the consultancy to the NHS and not running the system - don’t want a commercial company with its HQ in America potentially having access to health records do we………….
The contract is for Public Key Infrastructure - in other words the system which facilitates encrypting/decrypting of the data - they will not have access to the encryption keys actually used so in turn the data itself.https://www.entrust.com/
Looks like they provide the security aspect - hopefully they are providing the consultancy to the NHS and not running the system - don’t want a commercial company with its HQ in America potentially having access to health records do we………….
Still it does rather look like the Government are pressing ahead with some sort of system
Andy888 said:
Carl_Manchester said:
Andy888 said:
grumbledoak said:
Andy888 said:
Still trying to quantify how much better off I would be if I was vaccinated.
...
So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?
That doesn't seem unlikely. The absolute risk reductions are quite small because the absolute risks are not that great, e.g....
So am I right in thinking that the vaccination means a reduction in the likelihood of hospitalisation by a mere 0.26% for the under 50s ?
"Pfizer/BioNTech - relative risk reduction, 95.1%; absolute risk reduction, 0.7%"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC79965...
Unfortunately this is what happens when the anti-science crew keep steam-rolling the thread with nonsense, the good stuff gets lost.
Darwinism is in action here, by all means, if you are a bloke on PH, powerfully built and want to win the NHS hospital pass lottery, don't take the vaccine, there will be a suitably grumpy po-faced NHS doctor in blue overalls waiting to judge your I.Q levels after being admitted and you can have a right moan about your NHS experiences right here on the PH forum as people like myself laugh at you for being dumb as rocks.
Seriously though, I won't judge anyone if you don't take the vaccine, its freedom of choice but you should take it and I recommend you do take it.
Boringvolvodriver said:
And I feel the same - I have always looked at both sides of an argument/proposal and then come to an informed decision based on facts.
Forgive me, but how do you know what the "facts" are - this thread and many other discussions online are filled with people using long words they read on the internet to try and divine signs from partial data of unknown origin that support whatever theory they've decided is right.There is an industry around false information. Not just for the virus, but just about any piece of health or financial information. Anything that can be used to influence your behaviour can and will be "weaponised" by people who want to sell you stuff or take your money, or just irritate the government.
For the virus there is no "both sides". There is the incomplete (but growing) scientific evidence, and there is mumbo-jumbo and guesswork.
There's an interesting piece of work doing the rounds looking at where people get their information from, and it turns out just a handful of people produce over half of the virus (mis)information online. ( https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.files... ) - the people involved have, between their many fake accounts, nearly sixty million followers and generate hundreds of thousands of articles, papers and posts giving "facts" about the virus. This stuff is endemic, and constantly evolving.
There are huge motivations for these groups to push alternative theories about the virus, vaccines, "cures" and the government's response. Not only are they massively incentivised to lie about these things, they are in an "arms race" to make those lies as believable and subtle as possible. Sure, the easy stuff about 5G nanobots from Bill Gates is good for a laugh, but then little bits of misinformation about clotting rates, or signs of vaccine resistance are put out there and how do you know if they're "true"?
Sadly it's not as if you can look at the qualifications of the people involved - particularly in America, the health industry is worth billions, and Doctors are more than happy to use their qualifications to endorse messages that ultimately line their pockets.
This isn't meant as an attack on you specifically, but we're now on volume 13 of a thread filled with people quoting "reliable sources" and divining the tea-leaves of home-made graphs and second-hand statistics. For most of us it is very hard to step away from an understanding that we're emotionally invested in, so having decided that a theory is valid, we resist attacks and talk about "having an open mind" or "following the science", or "looking at both sides". The harsh reality is that we don't want to look foolish or be challenged, so we look for sources to validate our theories, regardless of how sound they are.
Of course, the same people who spread misinformation will use the same logic against "the government" - how do they know what's true, how do we know they're not lying/incompetent? The thing is, we're watching the global response of hundreds of governments, thousands of hospitals and research organisations, and there is a vast amount of common ground that we can be pretty sure of. Sure, be wary of "early signs" or groups that report success from unusual choices - a lot of the experimentation at the edges will take months, if not years to be validated, and should be regarded with scepticism, but that core common ground is really pretty hard to question these days.
jameswills said:
Dr Malone speaks again regarding the Fauci and CDC announcements
https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
Absolute doomsday scenario. I hope he's wrong. Successfully solving the issue of ADE was supposed to be the main consideration/obstacle to overcome for the new mRNA covid vaccines. Like Malone says every single previous effort was blighted by it. If it turns out they weren't successful after all then we're in for a world of pain whether you're vaccinated or not.https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
Tuna - I don’t disagree with what you say in terms of facts and that is the big issue for me right now.
In terms of making decisions based on facts, I was referring to my previous working life when I was presented with information and I had to work out if what they were telling me as fact, was indeed a fact or just information they thought I wanted to hear.
It has almost got to the stage that I don’t know what or who to believe anymore and I take claims from both sides with a large dose of “ well they would say that wouldn’t they”
I am not qualified in the science to understand it all which is why I sit on the fence about what the hell is going on. However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.
In terms of making decisions based on facts, I was referring to my previous working life when I was presented with information and I had to work out if what they were telling me as fact, was indeed a fact or just information they thought I wanted to hear.
It has almost got to the stage that I don’t know what or who to believe anymore and I take claims from both sides with a large dose of “ well they would say that wouldn’t they”
I am not qualified in the science to understand it all which is why I sit on the fence about what the hell is going on. However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.
jameswills said:
Dr Malone speaks again regarding the Fauci and CDC announcements
https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
So as I understand it he is claiming that as vaccine protection from Pfizer wanes the vaccine itself is facilitating infection not preventing it. https://rumble.com/vkfz1v-the-vaccine-causes-the-v...
He has concerns that we are starting to see the signs of ADE which is what he was afraid might happen with this vaccine and the way it was being rolled out en masse. If anyone has not seen the 90 minute video with him in June, also worth a watch.
Don’t shoot the messenger, I’m keeping an open mind on everything, nothing is off the table, nothing smells right at all to me. I think things like this should be considered and debated at least.
I would agree you cannot simply dismiss it because of the platform as a claim like that on Youtube would be shut down very quickly.
Whether this is "doomsday" is another matter. Infection is meaningless on its own, what matters is hospitalisation and death. If this becomes endemic we will all be infected many times over during the course of our lives.
Edited by JagLover on Thursday 29th July 10:28
Tuna said:
Forgive me, but how do you know what the "facts" are - this thread and many other discussions online are filled with people using long words they read on the internet to try and divine signs from partial data of unknown origin that support whatever theory they've decided is right.
There is an industry around false information. Not just for the virus, but just about any piece of health or financial information. Anything that can be used to influence your behaviour can and will be "weaponised" by people who want to sell you stuff or take your money, or just irritate the government.
For the virus there is no "both sides". There is the incomplete (but growing) scientific evidence, and there is mumbo-jumbo and guesswork.
There's an interesting piece of work doing the rounds looking at where people get their information from, and it turns out just a handful of people produce over half of the virus (mis)information online. ( https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.files... ) - the people involved have, between their many fake accounts, nearly sixty million followers and generate hundreds of thousands of articles, papers and posts giving "facts" about the virus. This stuff is endemic, and constantly evolving.
There are huge motivations for these groups to push alternative theories about the virus, vaccines, "cures" and the government's response. Not only are they massively incentivised to lie about these things, they are in an "arms race" to make those lies as believable and subtle as possible. Sure, the easy stuff about 5G nanobots from Bill Gates is good for a laugh, but then little bits of misinformation about clotting rates, or signs of vaccine resistance are put out there and how do you know if they're "true"?
Sadly it's not as if you can look at the qualifications of the people involved - particularly in America, the health industry is worth billions, and Doctors are more than happy to use their qualifications to endorse messages that ultimately line their pockets.
This isn't meant as an attack on you specifically, but we're now on volume 13 of a thread filled with people quoting "reliable sources" and divining the tea-leaves of home-made graphs and second-hand statistics. For most of us it is very hard to step away from an understanding that we're emotionally invested in, so having decided that a theory is valid, we resist attacks and talk about "having an open mind" or "following the science", or "looking at both sides". The harsh reality is that we don't want to look foolish or be challenged, so we look for sources to validate our theories, regardless of how sound they are.
Of course, the same people who spread misinformation will use the same logic against "the government" - how do they know what's true, how do we know they're not lying/incompetent? The thing is, we're watching the global response of hundreds of governments, thousands of hospitals and research organisations, and there is a vast amount of common ground that we can be pretty sure of. Sure, be wary of "early signs" or groups that report success from unusual choices - a lot of the experimentation at the edges will take months, if not years to be validated, and should be regarded with scepticism, but that core common ground is really pretty hard to question these days.
Firstly, you lump together people who have an agenda to promote fear of vaccination, and those who're open minded and want to become more knowledgeable. There is an industry around false information. Not just for the virus, but just about any piece of health or financial information. Anything that can be used to influence your behaviour can and will be "weaponised" by people who want to sell you stuff or take your money, or just irritate the government.
For the virus there is no "both sides". There is the incomplete (but growing) scientific evidence, and there is mumbo-jumbo and guesswork.
There's an interesting piece of work doing the rounds looking at where people get their information from, and it turns out just a handful of people produce over half of the virus (mis)information online. ( https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.files... ) - the people involved have, between their many fake accounts, nearly sixty million followers and generate hundreds of thousands of articles, papers and posts giving "facts" about the virus. This stuff is endemic, and constantly evolving.
There are huge motivations for these groups to push alternative theories about the virus, vaccines, "cures" and the government's response. Not only are they massively incentivised to lie about these things, they are in an "arms race" to make those lies as believable and subtle as possible. Sure, the easy stuff about 5G nanobots from Bill Gates is good for a laugh, but then little bits of misinformation about clotting rates, or signs of vaccine resistance are put out there and how do you know if they're "true"?
Sadly it's not as if you can look at the qualifications of the people involved - particularly in America, the health industry is worth billions, and Doctors are more than happy to use their qualifications to endorse messages that ultimately line their pockets.
This isn't meant as an attack on you specifically, but we're now on volume 13 of a thread filled with people quoting "reliable sources" and divining the tea-leaves of home-made graphs and second-hand statistics. For most of us it is very hard to step away from an understanding that we're emotionally invested in, so having decided that a theory is valid, we resist attacks and talk about "having an open mind" or "following the science", or "looking at both sides". The harsh reality is that we don't want to look foolish or be challenged, so we look for sources to validate our theories, regardless of how sound they are.
Of course, the same people who spread misinformation will use the same logic against "the government" - how do they know what's true, how do we know they're not lying/incompetent? The thing is, we're watching the global response of hundreds of governments, thousands of hospitals and research organisations, and there is a vast amount of common ground that we can be pretty sure of. Sure, be wary of "early signs" or groups that report success from unusual choices - a lot of the experimentation at the edges will take months, if not years to be validated, and should be regarded with scepticism, but that core common ground is really pretty hard to question these days.
Secondly, your position appears to be that the public are not qualified to seek out information for themselves on complex subjects in which they're unqualified. This logically means on principle we should only trust 'official' sources of information on complex topics. Is this your position? If so, where is the dividing line between a trustworthy official source and an unreliable nutjob one? If this isn't your position, what is it?
Boringvolvodriver said:
Tuna - I don’t disagree with what you say in terms of facts and that is the big issue for me right now.
In terms of making decisions based on facts, I was referring to my previous working life when I was presented with information and I had to work out if what they were telling me as fact, was indeed a fact or just information they thought I wanted to hear.
It has almost got to the stage that I don’t know what or who to believe anymore and I take claims from both sides with a large dose of “ well they would say that wouldn’t they”
I am not qualified in the science to understand it all which is why I sit on the fence about what the hell is going on. However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.
Anyone who has ever read my posts, will hopefully know that I'm fairly neutral on the issue; I believe SARS CoV-2, and the disease that it can create, Covid-19, is a real issue, and for a lot of people, a very serious one, deadly for some.In terms of making decisions based on facts, I was referring to my previous working life when I was presented with information and I had to work out if what they were telling me as fact, was indeed a fact or just information they thought I wanted to hear.
It has almost got to the stage that I don’t know what or who to believe anymore and I take claims from both sides with a large dose of “ well they would say that wouldn’t they”
I am not qualified in the science to understand it all which is why I sit on the fence about what the hell is going on. However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.
Broadly, I am:
I'm pro targeted restrictive measures where needed, but anti "lockdown" as it has variously been implemented.
I'm pro vaccine, but very much pro choice.
I'm anti mask mandates, but pro choice.
This, however -
Boringvolvodriver said:
However, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense to me about why governments across the world are acting like they are doing.
Is a position I've found myself in, quite frequently. The vast majority of the time, I can see the logic processes and rationale behind most of the decisions that have been made, even if I strongly disagree with them.However, there are also more than a few aspects that really have me at a loss, and lead me to wonder what else is driving such decisions and ideas.
Edited by TheJimi on Thursday 29th July 10:49
Carl_Manchester said:
39% effective at preventing *infection* from Delta not preventing serious illness or death i.e. going to a hospital.
Darwinism is in action here, by all means, if you are a bloke on PH, powerfully built and want to win the NHS hospital pass lottery, don't take the vaccine, there will be a suitably grumpy po-faced NHS doctor in blue overalls waiting to judge your I.Q levels after being admitted and you can have a right moan about your NHS experiences right here on the PH forum as people like myself laugh at you for being dumb as rocks.
Seriously though, I won't judge anyone if you don't take the vaccine, its freedom of choice but you should take it and I recommend you do take it.
You seriously reckon that anyone that isn't powerfully built will have very serious consequences if they contract covid? 67,000,000 people in this country and even at it worst peak 66,962,000 never got anywhere near a hospital, are there that many powerfully build people in the UK.Darwinism is in action here, by all means, if you are a bloke on PH, powerfully built and want to win the NHS hospital pass lottery, don't take the vaccine, there will be a suitably grumpy po-faced NHS doctor in blue overalls waiting to judge your I.Q levels after being admitted and you can have a right moan about your NHS experiences right here on the PH forum as people like myself laugh at you for being dumb as rocks.
Seriously though, I won't judge anyone if you don't take the vaccine, its freedom of choice but you should take it and I recommend you do take it.
Edited by scottyp123 on Thursday 29th July 10:41
Tuna said:
Forgive me, but how do you know what the "facts" are - this thread and many other discussions online are filled with people using long words they read on the internet to try and divine signs from partial data of unknown origin that support whatever theory they've decided is right.
There is an industry around false information. Not just for the virus, but just about any piece of health or financial information. Anything that can be used to influence your behaviour can and will be "weaponised" by people who want to sell you stuff or take your money, or just irritate the government.
For the virus there is no "both sides". There is the incomplete (but growing) scientific evidence, and there is mumbo-jumbo and guesswork.
There's an interesting piece of work doing the rounds looking at where people get their information from, and it turns out just a handful of people produce over half of the virus (mis)information online. ( https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.files... ) - the people involved have, between their many fake accounts, nearly sixty million followers and generate hundreds of thousands of articles, papers and posts giving "facts" about the virus. This stuff is endemic, and constantly evolving.
There are huge motivations for these groups to push alternative theories about the virus, vaccines, "cures" and the government's response. Not only are they massively incentivised to lie about these things, they are in an "arms race" to make those lies as believable and subtle as possible. Sure, the easy stuff about 5G nanobots from Bill Gates is good for a laugh, but then little bits of misinformation about clotting rates, or signs of vaccine resistance are put out there and how do you know if they're "true"?
Sadly it's not as if you can look at the qualifications of the people involved - particularly in America, the health industry is worth billions, and Doctors are more than happy to use their qualifications to endorse messages that ultimately line their pockets.
This isn't meant as an attack on you specifically, but we're now on volume 13 of a thread filled with people quoting "reliable sources" and divining the tea-leaves of home-made graphs and second-hand statistics. For most of us it is very hard to step away from an understanding that we're emotionally invested in, so having decided that a theory is valid, we resist attacks and talk about "having an open mind" or "following the science", or "looking at both sides". The harsh reality is that we don't want to look foolish or be challenged, so we look for sources to validate our theories, regardless of how sound they are.
Of course, the same people who spread misinformation will use the same logic against "the government" - how do they know what's true, how do we know they're not lying/incompetent? The thing is, we're watching the global response of hundreds of governments, thousands of hospitals and research organisations, and there is a vast amount of common ground that we can be pretty sure of. Sure, be wary of "early signs" or groups that report success from unusual choices - a lot of the experimentation at the edges will take months, if not years to be validated, and should be regarded with scepticism, but that core common ground is really pretty hard to question these days.
Well the government have only themselves to blame for that. Their own insistence on fearmongering, misrepresentation and outright lying in some respects about their so called 'facts' has repeatedly meant that effective public health messaging has been far more difficult than it should have been even given the circumstances. Serves them bloody well right.There is an industry around false information. Not just for the virus, but just about any piece of health or financial information. Anything that can be used to influence your behaviour can and will be "weaponised" by people who want to sell you stuff or take your money, or just irritate the government.
For the virus there is no "both sides". There is the incomplete (but growing) scientific evidence, and there is mumbo-jumbo and guesswork.
There's an interesting piece of work doing the rounds looking at where people get their information from, and it turns out just a handful of people produce over half of the virus (mis)information online. ( https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.files... ) - the people involved have, between their many fake accounts, nearly sixty million followers and generate hundreds of thousands of articles, papers and posts giving "facts" about the virus. This stuff is endemic, and constantly evolving.
There are huge motivations for these groups to push alternative theories about the virus, vaccines, "cures" and the government's response. Not only are they massively incentivised to lie about these things, they are in an "arms race" to make those lies as believable and subtle as possible. Sure, the easy stuff about 5G nanobots from Bill Gates is good for a laugh, but then little bits of misinformation about clotting rates, or signs of vaccine resistance are put out there and how do you know if they're "true"?
Sadly it's not as if you can look at the qualifications of the people involved - particularly in America, the health industry is worth billions, and Doctors are more than happy to use their qualifications to endorse messages that ultimately line their pockets.
This isn't meant as an attack on you specifically, but we're now on volume 13 of a thread filled with people quoting "reliable sources" and divining the tea-leaves of home-made graphs and second-hand statistics. For most of us it is very hard to step away from an understanding that we're emotionally invested in, so having decided that a theory is valid, we resist attacks and talk about "having an open mind" or "following the science", or "looking at both sides". The harsh reality is that we don't want to look foolish or be challenged, so we look for sources to validate our theories, regardless of how sound they are.
Of course, the same people who spread misinformation will use the same logic against "the government" - how do they know what's true, how do we know they're not lying/incompetent? The thing is, we're watching the global response of hundreds of governments, thousands of hospitals and research organisations, and there is a vast amount of common ground that we can be pretty sure of. Sure, be wary of "early signs" or groups that report success from unusual choices - a lot of the experimentation at the edges will take months, if not years to be validated, and should be regarded with scepticism, but that core common ground is really pretty hard to question these days.
APontus said:
Firstly, you lump together people who have an agenda to promote fear of vaccination, and those who're open minded and want to become more knowledgeable.
Yes I do, because the first group absolutely targets the second - from search engine optimisation, all the way through to producing papers and "educational resources" aimed at people trying to increase their knowledge.APontus said:
Secondly, your position appears to be that the public are not qualified to seek out information for themselves on complex subjects in which they're unqualified. This logically means on principle we should only trust 'official' sources of information on complex topics. Is this your position? If so, where is the dividing line between a trustworthy official source and an unreliable nutjob one? If this isn't your position, what is it?
My position is largely to improve people's understanding of what constitutes a "reliable source" on complex topics. On the whole, government sources *are* better than independent ones when taken in aggregate, and lone groups who show results that no-one else has (yet) demonstrated are not reliable. That's not to say governments are infallible, but the longer a lone voice remains a lone voice, the less I'd be inclined to trust it.There are clear examples where governments, health departments and universities have got things wrong - most often when decisions are being made before we can collect "full" information. There are also cases where lone voices have "called it right" - but (stopped watch cliché) that doesn't make them authoritative, just lucky. If I responded to every single government announcement with "That's wrong", I'd have a reasonable chance of "calling it right" on a regular basis.
The point here is that (particularly in medicine) research is by it's very nature slow, and corroboration slower still. At the epidemiological level, we can only look back and identify peaks and trends with certainty only after a certain amount of time has passed. So anyone who is making predictions based on today's data is (to some extent) making it up, and if you want reliable data, look to last year, not last week. At that point, you can consider consensus and peer reviewed research. These are all signifiers of reliable sources of information, and people who avoid them are putting up red flags as to whether their theories are trustworthy.
Just caught up with the thread after my 10 days of enforced isolation looking after my (not even) 2 year old who was a 'close contact' of a positive case.
There has been some fairly wild (and amusing) posts about, so that has been entertaining! I think a few of the originators may have been blocked/reported though as they have not been posting for a couple of days!
My experience over the last week and a bit has been rather enlightening for me. For a start, no one seems to care whether you wear a mask or not! (yay!) as going round the city centre up here and in to various shops, restaurants and such I was never asked to produce one (including the bank where there were signs saying 'we still require' etc. etc.) - breath of fresh of air (quite literally!)
Then we come on to the vaccine passport... Oh christ!
how some people have no problem with it and dismiss anyone's objection to it out of hand I find largely mind blowing. It is a massive government overreach in to our personal freedoms the likes of which has not been seen in peacetime. Luckily, I don't think pubs and restaurants will be able to adequately enforce it, just as they never did (and still don't) for track and trace. My concern is that I won't be able to go to the Rugby again. There are talks already of it being required for football games and any/all sporting events.
One thing I think we can possibly all agree on is that this whole thing has produced one of the most hateful phrases ever in 'the science'. Can we all just appreciate the fact that science takes a rather long time to become concrete and is almost constantly being challenged with new research and theories/hypotheses. So much of what was believed to be true at the beginning of this has proven to be hyperbolic and/or plain untrue, but was treated as 'the science' at the time. Lets not forget that one upon a time, it was regarded as 'the science' that the sun revolved around the Earth....
There has been some fairly wild (and amusing) posts about, so that has been entertaining! I think a few of the originators may have been blocked/reported though as they have not been posting for a couple of days!
My experience over the last week and a bit has been rather enlightening for me. For a start, no one seems to care whether you wear a mask or not! (yay!) as going round the city centre up here and in to various shops, restaurants and such I was never asked to produce one (including the bank where there were signs saying 'we still require' etc. etc.) - breath of fresh of air (quite literally!)
Then we come on to the vaccine passport... Oh christ!
how some people have no problem with it and dismiss anyone's objection to it out of hand I find largely mind blowing. It is a massive government overreach in to our personal freedoms the likes of which has not been seen in peacetime. Luckily, I don't think pubs and restaurants will be able to adequately enforce it, just as they never did (and still don't) for track and trace. My concern is that I won't be able to go to the Rugby again. There are talks already of it being required for football games and any/all sporting events.
One thing I think we can possibly all agree on is that this whole thing has produced one of the most hateful phrases ever in 'the science'. Can we all just appreciate the fact that science takes a rather long time to become concrete and is almost constantly being challenged with new research and theories/hypotheses. So much of what was believed to be true at the beginning of this has proven to be hyperbolic and/or plain untrue, but was treated as 'the science' at the time. Lets not forget that one upon a time, it was regarded as 'the science' that the sun revolved around the Earth....
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