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This topic contains 156 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by  Unseen 2 years, 9 months ago.

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  • #42468

    TheEncogitationer
    Participant

    Unseen,

    The cognitive dissonance Jimmy Dore points out is funny, even if I may not agree with his other positions. Robert “The Fourth” Reich is the absolute worst of the crowd whom Dore calls “shitlibs!” 😁

    I’m not so sure Elon Musk buying shares in Twitter will make any difference in Twitter speech policies. After all, Elon Musk’s space fortune and electric car fortune comes from NASA and other U.S. Government contracts, so if the U.S. Government pulled purse strings for Musk, Twitter’s speech policies would follow in line with whatever the U.S. Government wants.

    Millionaires and Billionaires come and go in the ebb-and-flow of the marketplace, with changing consumer demands and new discoveries in research and new innovations in technology, but Government control with it’s ultimate monopoly on physical force is the main danger to freedom of speech, expression, and association, as well as all other Individual Rights.

    Getting Government down to it’s limited legitimate role of protecting Individual Rights in the Cyberspace world is the main concern in extending The Enlightenment to the future.

    #42470

    Unseen
    Participant

    Anyone know whether natural immunity plus vaccine is better than either standing alone?

    I think I smell a post hoc defense coming on. LOL

    #42471

    Unseen
    Participant

    Anyone know whether natural immunity plus vaccine is better than either standing alone?

    I know at first dose (and I believe second as well) hybrid immunity was observed to be stronger. In terms of risk-benefit, it would seem counter-intuitive that it’s better than vaccination alone, though I suppose nature does have a fondness for making asses out of everyone.

    It’s a matter of quality, not quantity. That’s the gist of a new Israeli study that shows that unvaccinated people with a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection create antibodies that are more effective in the long run compared with others who were vaccinated but never infected.

    “While the quantity of antibodies decreases with time in both COVID-19 recovered patients and vaccinated individuals, the quality of antibodies performance increases following infection but not after vaccination,” lead author Carmit Cohen, PhD, told Medscape Medical News. (source)

    #42472

    Unseen
    Participant

    The US has lost many anti-vax morons to Covid. The power of jesus didn’t work. So many health care workers reported how they begged for the vaccine on their deathbeds. I have a former co-worker who will never walk again. His feared “big pharma” was out to get him, LOL. Shoulda got the shot. I’m sure a lung transplant doesn’t involve big pharma now does it?

    There are no antivaxxers here. Certainly not me. We’re talking about Pfizer withholding useful and even crucial facts from the CDC, one example being the superiority of natural immunity as well as its much higher persistance versus vaccination. The never told the CDC that for about a week after vaccination, the vaccination damaged the subjects immune system, making them more vulnerable in ways other than Covid.

    The CDC spread misinformation because Pfizer curated the facts they revealed to it. Mistrust of the CDC and FDA can be laid right at Pfizer’s doorstep.

    By the way, do you remember that in the beginning of the vaccinations, we were told that the vaccination would prevent infection by Covid and make people unable to spread the disease? Both turned out to be false. You CAN get reinfected possibly multiple times and, if reinfected, you can become a carrier, even an asymptomatic carrier.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Unseen.
    #42474

    Unseen
    Participant

    @Reg

    If Musk has any talent, it’s that of outsmarting his opponents. He’s also a free speech “absolutist.”

    Elon Musk says Starlink was told to block Russian news sources but it will not do so unless forced ‘at gunpoint’

    #42480

    Unseen
    Participant

    @davis

    This comedian/commentator is for you, because he uses ONLY direct citations from reputable sources.

    Can we trust the experts (evidence-based medicine)?

    Why would the CDC ignores its own experts?

    #42481

    jakelafort
    Participant

    It depends on who is telling the lies…

    #42482

    @_Robert_ – I had not looked at that anti-vaxxer site for a while so I did today. What I noticed (apart from the sad stupidity) was that the age of those getting Darwin awards has really dropped. That are now many more younger people dying. Denial is not just a river in Africa!

    #42483

    Unseen
    Participant

    It depends on who is telling the lies


    Like those liars over at the British Medical Journal? (Reference to Russell Brand’s This Is Impossible To Ignore viddy)

    #42484

    Davis
    Moderator

    I’ll remember next time Unseen you ask for evidence or sources, I will post some youtube video made by some guy talking about stuff. Of course I didn’t watch the video…why would I waste my precious time hearing some guy blab his opinions about shit when the very opening 30 seconds has all the markings of sensationalism, half-put together hodgepodge and even conspiracy.

    • This reply was modified 2 years, 10 months ago by  Davis.
    #42487

    Unseen
    Participant

    Absolute free speech is a total fantasy. It is impossible and virtually nobody would support it when you realise how many laws that actually curb free speech exist which are utterly uncontroversial. If you are against libel, copyright infringement, causing a panic or speech that incites a crime but are against laws which curb the most vile of hate speech which unambiguously interferes with some groups: equality, safety, opportunity and dignity
then you aren’t a free speech crusader as you claim
you are simply selective of free speech in which protecting someone’s reputation or intellectual property is essential but the basic quality of life of the most marginalised and vulnerable is “meh”.

    Of course speech has reasonable limits, especially when it comes to criticizing someone for being old.

    However, don’t you agree it’s essential to know who is curbing the dissemination of ideas and why? And shouldn’t they be 100%  sure of the reasons they trot out to justify quashing the free flow of ideas?

    For example, much of the silencing of those expressing skepticism about the effectiveness of masks and the degree of protection offered by the vaccine has turned out to be based on false or at least overblown data. The vaccines do offer protection from a full-blown, potentially fatal infection, but they do not prevent reinfection. Nor do they prevent someone who’s reinfected from being a carrier or even an asymptomatic carrier. As for masks, the CDC now admits that the best mask protection comes from wearing an N95 or NK95 mask, but only if you get the right type of mask, making sure it isn’t a counterfeit, and wear it absolutely properly. And I think we know how often that’s going to happen.

    While there were wackos who were pulling their skeptical arguments out of their ass, others were basing their skepticism on research and evidence garnered in the UK, Israel, S. Africa, and elsewhere where they also have medical establishments of some repute who were, perhaps, in some regards ahead of our own experts.

    So the question is, should we be in control of our medical lives, or should the CDC? People have lost their jobs or even their careers over expressing their views and acting on matters that they actually got right regarding vaccines and masks?

    Now, I don’t want people to be so free that they run around giving others HIV or gonorrhea, but what about simply  expressing a view contrary to the CDC? At what point does that justify a suspension of free speech? Members of NAMBLA and the American Nazis are free to expound on their beliefs, but we can justify silencing someone over the unwritten crime of disagreeing with the CDC and acting in accordance?

    If someone has had Covid and natural immunity is both stronger and longer lasting, should we force them to get the first jab and second jabs and then what seems like a potentially unlimited series of boosters and silence them for expressing their skepticism?

    Is disagreeing with the CDC somehow akin to yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater? I don’t think so.

    #42488

    Unseen
    Participant

    I’ll remember next time Unseen you ask for evidence or sources, I will post some youtube video made by some guy talking about stuff. Of course I didn’t watch the video
why would I waste my precious time hearing some guy blab his opinions about shit when the very opening 30 seconds has all the markings of sensationalism, half-put together hodgepodge and even conspiracy.

    Well, actually, that paragraph proves you didn’t watch it. He only uses reputable sources and while, yes, he introduces the occasional zinger, his arguments are coherent, logical, and understandable to anyone with a fifth grade education. There are experts, who are often poor at explaining, and then there are talented explainers, which Russell Brand happens to be.

    I have a helpful suggestion: Watch the video, write down his sources, and then come back and tell us how he misunderstood or distorted them. At least then we’d have something we could dialog about.

    #42489


    Participant

    I’ll remember next time Unseen you ask for evidence or sources, I will post some youtube video made by some guy talking about stuff. Of course I didn’t watch the video
why would I waste my precious time hearing some guy blab his opinions about shit when the very opening 30 seconds has all the markings of sensationalism, half-put together hodgepodge and even conspiracy.

    I watched through. Most of the content isn’t controversial to my mind. My problem with criticism of ‘Big Pharma’ is that rational criticism became the awkward ally of anti-science mindsets that can be harmful. When you get people who are talking shit about SSRIs being poison for your mind, or vaccines causing autism, or how cancer can be better treated with lemon water, then term ‘Big Pharma’ can make your teeth itch. But when they doggedly pursue any information discrediting the pharmaceutical industry, then yeah, some of it’s going to be valid because there are many problems with the way business is done. And the way business is done bleeds into the supporting science and regulatory protocols. It’s that latter part he’s talking about in the video, just with a chip on his shoulder about it (possibly feigned for comedic effect).

    #42490

    jakelafort
    Participant

    Here is an idea.

    It is time to introduce AI into the arena of free speech. In terms of hate speech allow the algorithms to determine the probable impact of hate speech. We program the AI to determine what level of probable harm is acceptable and what level is unacceptable. The AI acts as an arbiter of prior restraint utilizing its intelligence and our parameters.

    If AI determines that speech in question if broadcast will result in 27 people in a marginalized group being harassed/beaten and 2 murdered that may more than outweigh the value of giving some asshole speech.

    In matters of political disinformation the same analysis applies. Unless you invest as much time as Pope and especially early on it is difficult to assess the validity of representations coming from all sources. Therefore AI which has already demonstrated superior diagnostic capability in medical testing can in a heartbeat evaluate all data and make a determination. At some level of probability and some level of harm we again allow prior restraint or we permit publication that must include the analysis of the AI.

    If this sort of imposition makes you think at some point we will simply cede power to AI-that all of our politicians will be replaced by AI i am okay with that. How we as a species could be bigger FUCK UPS is an open question. We are learning and adapting not at all and on a collision course with our extinction. So shake some shit up.

    #42491


    Participant

    I wonder if just setting the AI to target response patterns would be enough to eliminate a fair degree of populism, misinformation, doomscrolling, and content that likely promotes dysfunction. It’s not an idea I’d advocate. It’s all for nothing if we can’t address ourselves and the breakdowns in how we process and communicate information. If we could address that, we wouldn’t have need to filter much of anything. But I am curious what the outcome would be.

     

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