CV and mad panic behaviour

[Mav]

Since you brought it up, where was the left-wing in shouting this down at the time? Plenty have walked back on their statements post that time but there were not many front and centre when it was going on.

Disagree. Biden disowned it point-blank. And most just treated it as hyperbolic while explaining that they wanted more funding for crime prevention. By comparison, Republicans regularly refused to comment on the regular outrages committed by leader of the GOP, Trump, and his merryband of QAnon insurrectionists,

My problem with the slogan was that it didn’t even mean what it seemed to say. No one was seriously suggesting there would be no police, and the left needn’t take responsibility for anarchists who did. All it did was to give right wingers the chance to engage in their favourite sport: saying the left wingers would rape your kids and kill you where you stand.

[capcom]

It isn't.  But think what you like.  I don't care [member=64]PaulP[/member]

[Thryleon]

Literally no one identifies as an anti-vaxxer.

I flicked between radio stations on the night before the Victorian lockdown searching for news about the outbreak. I had the misfortune to land on 3AW in time to hear a talkback caller blaming vaccines for all the deaths in the UK and claiming the “inventor” of the RNA vaccines had said they were unsafe to use prior to 3 or 4 years of clinical trials. The host shut him down, saying something to the effect of, ”Surely you’re not arguing against vaccines - they’re the only way out of this pandemic”. There was a pregnant pause and then the caller said, “I’m not an anti-vaxxer - I’m pro-choice!”

Anti-vaxxers have learnt from the right-wing playbook. Never admit what you’re against: always say you’re pro something that sounds nice. Don’t say you’re against Blacks voting - say you’re in favour of measures to stop electoral fraud. Don’t say you’re against restricting gun sales to dangerous people - say you’re in favour of gun rights or the 2nd Amendment.

Unfortunately, left-wingers tend to like being controversial and provocative. For example, whoever invented the slogan “Defund the Police!” should be shot. Few if any people were proposing this. Instead the proposal was to increase the amount spent on crime prevention, for instance by addressing mental illness rather than police with little experience in that area shooting people in the grips of psychosis. But you’d have to think the slogan took off because they wanted to piss off the police.

Thats one way to silence all opposing thought by discrediting the person before they have spoken.

If people don't want a vaccine their entitled to not get one.
At worst its natural selection at work, at best it will prove the vaccine effectiveness vs not getting one.

IMHO, this is a failing of left wingers.  They paint everyone as wrong and them as right.

The Greeks had the right idea.  An enlightened mind will entertain an idea without accepting it and opposition thought should always be encouraged to validate your thoughts.  After all, an idea is only proven correct or incorrect if challenged.  Anything else is propaganda.

[DJC]

Thats one way to silence all opposing thought by discrediting the person before they have spoken.

If people don't want a vaccine their entitled to not get one.
At worst its natural selection at work, at best it will prove the vaccine effectiveness vs not getting one.
Possibly Thry, but they should pay a penalty for not doing their part for the common good; no welfare payments, no air travel, no attending public gatherings, sporting events, live music, etc.

IMHO, this is a failing of left wingers.  They paint everyone as wrong and them as right.
Isn't that what fundamentalists of most persuasions do?  It's a failing to single out any group, faction, society or population for perceived faults.

The Greeks had the right idea.  An enlightened mind will entertain an idea without accepting it and opposition thought should always be encouraged to validate your thoughts.  After all, an idea is only proven correct or incorrect if challenged.  Anything else is propaganda.
It's all well and good to encourage free-thinking, but we're not talking about ideas.  It's scientific method vs conjecture.

[Mav]

So right wingers don’t paint everyone else as wrong  :-*  :-*

Here’s a tip: don’t watch FoxNews or SkyNews or listen to Alan Jones and his ilk.

The problem with your ode to libertarianism is that anti-vaxxers are pushing propaganda and misinformation rather than trying to contribute to debate. And vaccine refusal risks the health of the rest of the population. By all means, if someone wants to smoke cigarettes, let them. But if they want to smoke in restaurants or the like then there are clashing individual freedoms, the right to smoke vs. the right to avoid 2nd-hand smoke.

You argued a while back that we should let Covid rip after those that wanted a vaccine had been vaccinated. Underpinning your argument was the idea that the vaccinated would then be safe. But we’ve all been debating the significance of breakthrough infections for the last few days: they do occur, so the unvaccinated do endanger the vaccinated. And the more the unvaccinated are infected, the greater the risk that there’ll be mutations that beat the vaccine.

Just get the damn jab.

[Thryleon]

[member=324]DJC[/member]
1.  They are paying a penalty.  They are effectively gambling with their health.  The vaccine doesnt stop spreading, therefore, getting vaccinated will likely not change how this thing moves.

2.  True enough, but only the left seem to use this tool.  It attacks the person not the idea.  A clock is still right twice a day even if it is broken.

3. Scientific method is fine, but even scientists agree that there is more than one way to do science and it would be unscientific not to question the science.  Food for thought there, our early modelling of covid made an assumption each positive case ends up with an ICU admission.  Our understanding of this has already changed.  We also have discovered asymptomatic spreading.  Our testing for that has and has not changed.  Symptoms still seem to be the dictation of when someone gets tested (unless near a confirmed positive case) when we should be prophylactic testing everyone in the more at risk settings.

Anyway, here is a quote:

The practices of science

But it’s not time to forget everything we thought we knew about how scientists work, says Heidi Schweingruber. She should know. She’s the deputy director of the Board on Science Education at the National Research Council, in Washington, D.C.

In the future, she says, students and teachers will be encouraged to think not about the scientific method, but instead about “practices of science” — or the many ways in which scientists look for answers.

Schweingruber and her colleagues recently developed a new set of national guidelines that highlight the practices central to how students should learn science.

“In the past, students have largely been taught there’s one way to do science,” she says. “It’s been reduced to ‘Here are the five steps, and this is how every scientist does it.’“

But that one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t reflect how scientists in different fields actually “do” science, she says.

[Thryleon]

So right wingers don’t paint everyone else as wrong  :-*  :-*

Here’s a tip: don’t watch FoxNews or SkyNews or listen to Alan Jones and his ilk.

The problem with your ode to libertarianism is that anti-vaxxers are pushing propaganda and misinformation rather than trying to contribute to debate. And vaccine refusal risks the health of the rest of the population. By all means, if someone wants to smoke cigarettes, let them. But if they want to smoke in restaurants or the like then there are clashing individual freedoms, the right to smoke vs. the right to avoid 2nd-hand smoke.

You argued a while back that we should let Covid rip after those that wanted a vaccine had been vaccinated. Underpinning your argument was the idea that the vaccinated would then be safe. But we’ve all been debating the significance of breakthrough infections for the last few days: they do occur, so the unvaccinated do endanger the vaccinated. And the more the unvaccinated are infected, the greater the risk that there’ll be mutations that beat the vaccine.

Just get the damn jab.

We are still going to have to let this thing rip, with or without vaccination, seems to only change whom is protected to what level.

Vaccination against COVID is dangerous for some people.  That's no reason to not do it.  You are effectively applying the same argument in reverse.

Therefore our arguments are more on the same page, than not, just applied differently.  Ergo, we are both arguing against ourselves because neither can assert a position of correct, because what is right changes depending on your perspective.


I am not absolving right wingers, but you start with the position of attacking them to discredit them because they are right wingers.  Right wing ideals do have valid arguments, irrespective of if you agree with them.

[Mav]

As you noted, our arguments aren’t diametrically opposed and that was true of our earlier discussion. I have no problems with such discussions. But you’d have to admit the right wingers in the US aren’t engaged in good faith arguments. For instance, all the FoxNews hosts are vaccinated and the channel has Covid protocols. Murdoch cancelled his 80th birthday party for fear of catching Covid. And yet their hosts bash the vaccine relentlessly, disputing its efficacy and alleging various conspiracies about it. Even though Trump could have claimed credit for the vaccine program, Republicans and other right wingers are increasingly spurning the vaccine and right wingers are ecstatic about that. It seems that “owning the libs” is all that matters and they’re willing to die for that privilege.

[Mav]

And now there’s another Greek letter to worry about ... Lambda. And I’m not talking eigenvalues in linear algebra.

[Thryleon]

As you noted, our arguments aren’t diametrically opposed and that was true of our earlier discussion. I have no problems with such discussions. But you’d have to admit the right wingers in the US aren’t engaged in good faith arguments. For instance, all the FoxNews hosts are vaccinated and the channel has Covid protocols. Murdoch cancelled his 80th birthday party for fear of catching Covid. And yet their hosts bash the vaccine relentlessly, disputing its efficacy and alleging various conspiracies about it. Even though Trump could have claimed credit for the vaccine program, Republicans and other right wingers are increasingly spurning the vaccine and right wingers are ecstatic about that. It seems that “owning the libs” is all that matters and they’re willing to die for that privilege.

I cant really comment on the states.  I see them as the current version of lets say the Roman Empire.  They are a waning empire, and I see evidence of the sphere of influence shifting over to China, and I haven't personally dismissed that this pandemic was launched by the States, in a false flag effort to point the finger at China for releasing said virus (if it is indeed man made).  Before anyone shouts this down, I am training in cyber security and this theory is in line with geopolitics and who is the bigger players in that space, and how they act.  USA uses attack as a form of defense, and that makes sense when you consider that most cyber technology was developed there giving them an edge.

With the news (this also applies to sports news), I came up with a simple formula a long time ago.  Propaganda.  Own the media, own the worlds opinion.  This is also a hall mark of the French Revolution which powers the people machine for an outcome.  You can topple governments with propaganda alone, because people will do it for you.

I do believe people should be encouraged to free think.  Pushing an opinion one way or another is IMHO, not encouraging people to use the brain power they possess and simply reduces everyone to a lemming.  That is a problem for me. 

I have taken the vaccine.  I made my choice, based on my factors, but fundamentally, the COVID risk is largely one I have been told about.  Numbers on the news statistics, and no real first hand knowledge of whether or not people have COVID, something and COVID etc.  I have heard people coughing and it sounds rough, but at the same time, its no worse than any other nasty cough I have heard someone have.  I have generally had to place my faith that this is all legitimate, real, and that the numbers are not a complete fabrication, in spite of what I have witnessed first hand, and the clear juxtaposition it shows me regarding the threat both perceived and qualified with data that could very well be painted with a certain light.  It is not helpful that I know first hand information of anyone who has become COVID positive but not seriously sick, and I don't necessarily want to find out that way either which makes things difficult from a belief perspective.  Before anyone refutes this, its a bit like knowing someone died.  There is a state of denial we go into where we cant really believe it, which is why I personally believe that mourning periods run for 40 days.  It is about coming to terms with it all, and skipping through the stages of grief, but this is also personal and different people get there on their own steam.

I got vaccinated, but I did so, for reasons that I came to the conclusion of my own volition using free thinking, and arrived at that conclusion.  I think that on a fundamental level, this should be encouraged, and any enforcement of vaccination serves only to make people not want it.  If you ever want to see that psychology at work force anyone to do something they arent sure about, and you quickly meet a more stubborn response and push back.  You want to see a population of anti vaxxer, from what I can see the quickest way to arrive there is force vaccination. 


The opposing ideals are very loud in my personal circles.  They range from a variety of sources both in the health care industry, and from non health care industries.  No one ever believes they are wrong, and arguing with them, is akin to having teeth pulled, because the counter arguments are dismissed before they are even heard.  Thing is they dont spout pseudo science.  I see them sharing videos such as how ethanol oxide is a carcinogen and is used to sterilise the swabs that people take when tested, and how this could contribute to a variety of cancers along the way.  I recognise this is imperfect, hence why I seem to sit on the fence a bit.  We simply ignore one risk for another, and all it takes is for someone to miss one risk (human error which is more likely to kill us than anything else from what I have witnessed) and we end up doing more harm than good, because we are focussed on one outcome.  The saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Look, on a carlton forum its generally what I call a conversational think tank.  A place for people to raise some questions, not be dismissed as a subset of general society.  Its anonymous and people like myself come here to test theories that are much harder to discuss in the real world where the consequences are a bit more permanent (particularly when it comes to asking about Covid).

Oh and before we get to Lambda, we will go from Delta to Epsilon, Zeta, Theta, Iota, Kappa (its an alphabet I know explicitly, so will be interesting if we ever get to Omega).