Subject: Re: 5FE57B65-0046C2BB@uncensored.citadel.org
I do want to cite something that made me think a little. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford, pointed out in a recent thinkpiece that we are still basing public policy regarding the plague on what we thought we knew in early March, which was that the fatality rate was 3% and that it was non-selective about who it infected.
Subject: Re: 5FE63F4C-0046C407@uncensored.citadel.org
Not sure I can dial it back any more without just not adding my observations here. I'm actually pretty moderate. I wear masks, I supported the initial round of lockdowns and social isolation - I've consistently said I think the virus is real, and we should err on the side of caution.
When LoanShark is going about,
"Check the credibility of the right-wingers in this very room before bash my credibility in a borderline personal-attack sort of way.
Some of the arguments I'm seeing from people in this room are hypcritical and anti-science. The hypocrisy stems from this: you guys will bend over backwards to claim that vaccines that have been tested in 30,000 or 60,000 subjects are "untested" while simultaneously shilling for relatively unproven treatments that have been studied in, about the order of magnitude of 300 subjects. That, dear friends, is garbage."
I'm not disagreeing with him completely. I think that some of the concerns, especially on the Right, about the vaccine are beyond borderline conspiracy theory schizophrenia. No one on the right will seem to come out and say it plainly - but there is a lot of implication that Bill Gates is some sort of Bond level mastermind evil genius who plans on distributing some sort of mind-control doomsday plot to change our DNA.
I lean toward the Right, so I'm biased to not call out the opinions and beliefs on the Right that I think are a transparently bad look for us. The Left will take care of that without my assistance. I'm not attacking LoanShark, even though he keeps taking it that way. The points I *haven't* been arguing with him on - I actually probably think have merit.
I'm actually consciously avoiding most of the deeper conspiracy-theory tinged parts of this discussion and debate. Bill Gates did NOT have a patent on Covid-19 in 2015. Fauci claiming that Trump's administration would absolutely deal with a surprise global pandemic wasn't him letting slip that he had secret information about the plotting of the NWO against Trump. I get that our side tends to twist things that their side says just as much as their side twists things our side says. Trump never really suggested that we disinfect people with Clorox to fight Covid-19, either. I'm pretty much in the middle here.
I'm not slinging mud. But I do think it is a legitimate observation as a relative newcomer here to note, "You seem to shoot down the credibility of anything that offers a positive take on this situation, but seem to accept without question anything that has a negative take on it."
I do agree that we've been in a reactive mode since the pandemic first broke, and we're always operating currently on outdated understanding and a lack of information on the virus, and the best methods for dealing with it. I think we're overall doing the best we can - but that if it hadn't hit in such a divisive, bitter and partisan major election cycle - it would have been far less politicized and our response would have been better. I don't think that is exclusively the fault of the Left or the Right - I think both sides share fairly equal blame for trying to capitalize on the pandemic for their own political gain - and that the public suffered because of this.
Fri Dec 25 2020 14:45:43 ESTfrom IGnatius T Foobar Subject: Re: 5FE57B65-0046C2BB@uncensored.citadel.orgMaybe dial it back a bit PD. Your adherence to the paranoid side of the equation is about as strong as LS's adherence to the official-narrative side of the equation. No need for anyone to get hostile about it. Again, there's a place for mudslinging and it isn't this room.
I do want to cite something that made me think a little. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford, pointed out in a recent thinkpiece that we are still basing public policy regarding the plague on what we thought we knew in early March, which was that the fatality rate was 3% and that it was non-selective about who it infected.
2020-12-23 10:20 from ParanoidDelusions
So, Vitamin D and Zinc give you strong organisms, too?
Zinc Gluconate has been prescribed for many purposes, including mitigating hair loss. As it happens, it seems to improve your chances against the Chinesse virus.
Vitamin D is just nice to have because lots of office people is severely lacking it. They live like vampires and have no sun exposure.
2020-12-23 14:29 from IGnatius T FoobarAlso, take care with invermectine since it is toxic as heck, so
don't overdose on it.
Isn't that how all antibiotics work? By creating a level of
toxicity that kills the pathogen while only mildly impacting the
patient?
Yeah but last time I talked to somebody who knew what he was talking about, the dose at which invermectine is being "said" to affect the virus is the same dose that screws you up big time.
I think it was Invermectine what we were talking about though. This conversation was some time ago already.
I was... "dialing it down."
:/
Sat Dec 26 2020 07:00:38 EST from nonservator>just as much
Nah.
Both sides are not "just as bad".
*Res ipsa loquitor*.
Off to Rants.
Subject: Re: 5FE57B65-0046C2BB@uncensored.citadel.org
2020-12-25 14:36 from ParanoidDelusions
Subject: Re: 5FE57B65-0046C2BB@uncensored.citadel.org
You know, you can take this as an attempt to derail the conversation
into a personal attack on you...
Or, you can step outside yourself, and take a hard look at your
approach, and maybe improve it. It is hard to focus on if your points
are actually factual when your bias stands as such a giant
distraction to whatever point you're trying to make.
Nothing personal but you're kinda digging yourself deeper here.
You attack my bias because you're unable to attack the facts. That's called "ad hominem."
Listen, here's the thing: you have something to contribute. You're polite--most of the time (you did stoop to name calling, but I take it as
an isolated incident.) You're capable of actively listening, at times. And it's not even that I don't enjoy these conversations.
But over the past several weeks of back-and-forth with you, I have noticed a very glaring pattern: let's say about 49% of what you're saying is personal anecdote. Another 49% is ad hominem--and the ad hominem is not an isolated incident, it's actually central to your whole thesis (and I'll explain what I mean by that in a minute.) Like I said, you're mostly polite. Ad hominem doesn't need to be impolite in order to be ad hominem: it just needs to be a fallacious focus on the human aspects of the discussion, or attacks on somebody's perceived bias or credibility, at the expense of the actual facts.
The typical pattern with you is this: somebody you disagree with posts an article. You respond with either "only liberals believe that", or name-calling rants about nazis, or with some sort of attack on perceived credibility or bias.
You have every right to discuss your personal perspective and bias. But everyone has certain perspective and inherent bias, so that doesn't make them valid as a point of attack, necessarily.
You've actually been extremely honest about your own personal perspective bias, and that's a point in your favor. But it's still bias.
And you're still kinda being a dick. If you don't like the links I post, it's easy for you to just scroll on by.
Subject: Re: 5FE63F4C-0046C407@uncensored.citadel.org
I'm not slinging mud. But I do think it is a legitimate observation
as a relative newcomer here to note, "You seem to shoot down the
credibility of anything that offers a positive take on this
situation, but seem to accept without question anything that has a
negative take on it."
Thanks for a pretty constructive post. I'm just going to quote this one part of it. The rest I think is constructive.
(a) You're pretty goddamn biased.
(b) If you read back weeks and weeks in this room, I was actually pretty explicit about what you're getting at here. There are two things going on. One, an organized disinformation campaign that I object to. Two, a tendency on the right to underestimate/minimize/ignore the risks, even to the point of trafficking in disinformation.
Your bias? You think in terms of "only liberals believe that." And there's a legitimate tendency to point out the uncertainties in predictive forecasting (predictions are hard, especially when they're about the future) but that's also a form of bias.
I could go on. You're biased. Everyone's biased. Deal with it. It's simply not productive to attack people about it--except when it escalates to bad faith.
Yeah but last time I talked to somebody who knew what he was talking
about, the dose at which invermectine is being "said" to affect the
virus is the same dose that screws you up big time.
That's an in vivo vs in vitro problem. The IC50 was measured in vitro, but it corresponds to a crazy dose in vivo...
In vivo there are a lot of other things going on. The immune system is helping with the fight. Then you think about delivery systems (IV? tablet? topical? buccal? nasal spray?)
A lot of the studies that I found were positive. [1; Some even found overwhelming statistical significance. But still... there are some things that don't add up.
When you find statistical significance, you only know one thing: something happened that cannot be explained by randomness. So then what is the actual explanation?
Subject: Re: 5FE57B65-0046C2BB@uncensored.citadel.org
So, in addition to having a bias: I lean right...
I'm also kinda a dick. I have this little saying I've come up with - if you show up in a room, and everyone in the room agrees you are an asshole, you may just be in a room full of assholes.
If EVERY room you show up in, every person in that room comes to agree that you're an asshole - they're probably not the assholes.
That is a personal observation - but I bet it applies to more members of the BBS than just I. That might be the FIRST actual ad hominem I've actually used in this conversation. It is subtle, witty, and polite as well.
I think we've beaten the horse of what your perception of me is, and what my perception of you is. It is also entirely possible that we're BOTH right about the other. I am certain neither of us has changed the mind of the other - and it seems pointless to go on.
That is about as far back as my dial goes.
Nothing personal but you're kinda digging yourself deeper here.
You have every right to discuss your personal perspective and bias. But everyone has certain perspective and inherent bias, so that doesn't make them valid as a point of attack, necessarily.
You've actually been extremely honest about your own personal perspective bias, and that's a point in your favor. But it's still bias.
And you're still kinda being a dick. If you don't like the links I post, it's easy for you to just scroll on by.
Study link: Ultrasensitive high-resolution profiling of early seroconversion in patients with COVID-19
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-020-00611-x
My attention is drawn to Fig. 2. Briefly, natural infection leads to 10x more antibody to N protein than to S protein.
anti-N is never neutralizing because the N protein is encapsulated inside the envelope protein. How much time and effort does your body spend/waste on developing those?
So, immune profile in response to vaccination, particularly from Moderna and Pfizer products, is going to be very different than natural infection. Does different mean better or worse?
Some COVID-19 Patients Lack Key Structures for Antibody Creation
https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/some-covid-19-patients-lack-key-structures-for-antibody-creation-67868
Article raises some questions about immune memory formation, particularly in natural infection.
So, in the past 3 weeks I've been exposed to Covid-19, for relatively length times, indoors, without masks, by 3 different people.
The last time I had a bad flu was after Thanksgiving, 2019. It was a weird sickness - I was tired... dog tired, I slept a bunch. I had an unproductive cough. I used Nyquil to allow me to breath at night - the first time I've used Nyquil, or any kind of medicine with an antihistamine decongestant since then, actually. I lived on tylenol. I ran a fever. I had no nausea, no aches. I do not recall if my taste or sense of smell diminished - I mean, that is a common side effect of any flu or cold, really.
But it would be *way* early for the initial timeline. But I am on the West Coast - and lots of people have similar stories. My wife, who travels back and forth to L.A. for work, heavily at that time, once a week - came down sick shortly after me - also a kick ass flu. Our daughter never got whatever it was we had. My neighbor said that a cluster went around the neighborhood of strange illness - and that the neighbor across the street, their son got Covid, shortly after that new year... and got hit pretty hard with it. Like, the following February or March, 2020 - what would be considered an "early first wave" infection.
My father-in-law is 72 and has diabetes. His wife is a bit younger than he is, and it sounds like it was worse on her than on him. They both got early diagnosis and got on aggressive treatments. Neither one of them found it terrible. My boss, who I sit in a small office with for 6 hours a day 5 days a week, also is describing it as less than a flu.
I'm not sure what to make of this. It is all anecdotal, I get it.
Yeah. Sure. For many people it is mild.
My girlfriend is feeling better now. She had coldlike symptoms (cough, scratchy throat) for a couple weeks and some loss of smell/taste -- not as bad as our friend who *compltely* lost her sense of smell, just a mild impairment that she is hoping will come back because things don't taste quite the way they used to.
So I was pretty extensively exposed to her a couple weeks ago, obviously (we live together) and I didn't have anything that I could definitely say were symptoms. Maybe I've got some immunity from when I was infected last March. I sure hope so; I was in the significant minority of people who lose antibodies quickly during convalescence. (See above article; there is some speculation that such people may be taking an alternate path to create less-specific antibodies.)
Also seems like it can be hard to transmit, in individual cases; I don't know of anyone at the office who definitely caught it from me in March, and my girlfriend also seemed unaffected at the time, which is somewhat surprising considering how much time she was exposed to me.
I guess the key word here is heterogeneity: both in terms of severity of the symptoms, and who is responsible for most transmission events. It a significant minority of ppl who have the worst symptoms, and a significant minority of people who cause the most transmission.
My girlfriend just got her first dost of the Pfizer vaccine today. No side-effects so far.
My dad, on the other hand... he's 71 AND overweight AND has cardiovascular disease (had a heart attack something like 7 years ago.)
From the studies I read:
* risk scales exponentially with age, and being in the 70-74 age bracket, by itself, would put his death risk well north of 1%
(I was having trouble reading the log-scaled graph, so let's say 2.5-5% with some big error bars)
* having CVD, by itself, puts his risk of death above 10%
* overweight if not obese - also a factor.
I haven't found any modelling yet, but it's entirely plausible that his risk could be in the 20-50% range, and we know it's not less than 10%. These are not acceptable odds so they're staying home.
My high school classmade who is a nurse, and had covid this summer, did had some vaccine side-effects last week. For a day or so it made her feel a bit like she had covid again. I think I know what she means, because she and I had similar fatigue/depression responses to our primary infection. Some of that is inflammatory, I believe. So this stuff is to be expected in some people on vaccination.
Based on what I think were post-covid inflammatory responses that I had from virus itself, I would not be surprised to experience a day or so of acute depression (or just cognitive weirdness and moodiness) if and when I eventually take the jab.
A friend of the family nurse received the first of the two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, she said her worst reaction was a very sore arm.
Pretty sure we had it in early February. I was in/out of doctors and hospitals several times over a 2 week period ( kidney stone, worst yet ). Soon after i had the strangest flu i have ever had. lasted right at 2 weeks. Wife also caught it, but with different symptoms. but also 'really odd' ones.
Might be coincidence, might not be. Not been tested for antibodies as my doctor denies its possible so wont write up a script " there is no way you had it then ".
My niece and her family had a severe flu in April. It lasted a long time and the family was exhausted.
I fixed that for you.
Mon Jan 04 2021 19:44:18 EST from LoanShark
Yeah. Sure. For many most people it is mild.
My aunt and her husband tested positive... they're probably in their late 60s or 70s. Who knows what underlying conditions.
And I'm not even supposed to say anything to most of the *other* aunts/uncles on that side of the family, because there's a few people who think it's all a hoax, and there's some bad blood. The disinformation machine is tearing the family apart.
Nobody rational should accept the claim that it is a hoax at this point, nor really - should they ever have.
Wed Jan 06 2021 18:03:25 EST from LoanShark
And I'm not even supposed to say anything to most of the *other* aunts/uncles on that side of the family, because there's a few people who think it's all a hoax, and there's some bad blood. The disinformation machine is tearing the family apart.