More people have survived gunshot wounds to the head than survived rabies without a vaccine, but I wouldn't recommend you roll the dice on either.
AMERICA F YEA
The question wasn't meant to be mean or derogatory in any way. I was just curious to know how big his world view is when it came to the topic he commented on.Holy wow. Weren’t you the Marine Mechanic hoping to get into aviation a few years ago? And weren’t you the guy who came to this website for help and advice? And you ask the guy who CREATED this site specifically and solely to help guys like you out that?
You do know what I do for a living, yes? Or what I did, often, pre-COVID? Is this a trick question?
”Dr. Laura, I’ll take the answer on the air”
Man I don't talk Virus *anywhere*, but I'm going to dip my toe in the nasty, brackish water here, just for the lulz.
I think the main problem (and this problem isn't by any stretch confined to Covid) is that everyone is deliriously anxious to treat it all as though it's simple. It isn't. I mean, it kinda is insofar as the question of whether getting the vaccine is safe, effective, and (imho) nearly a moral duty to your fellow man is settled (all of those are a yes). But it's not in terms of the information and belief systems of all the billions of humans involved in the question.
Sure, yeah, there are the Deplorables who are just proudly pig-ignorant and who view this ignorance as some sort of perverse badge of pride. But I think all of the people "we" all tend to (sickeningly) look down on as a matter of course are a lot more diverse than that. This calculus is changing, and the "stupid rednecks should die" attitude "we" have adopted is in large part the reason for it.
That is to say that every time one of the "us"es throws up their well-manicured, un-callused hands at the rank stupidity of the bovine fools who believe everything some dickhead on OANN told them, a kitten dies. More importantly, another basically decent, well-intentioned, but radically uniformed citizen WHO VOTES goes from "vaccine-hesitant" to "absolute loon". It does manifestly zero good to scream at the proles (or the heavens, for that matter). If you want to do any actual good, convince someone. Talk to them. Acknowledge their concerns. Explain how vaccination works to them. If you don't know, learn how vaccination works, then explain how vaccination works to them.
The flip side of the coin of all of these reprehensible, mouth-breathing morons being disease vectors who can oh-so-unfairly infect "us" is that "we" can also infect "them". With ideas, with logic, with knowledge, with learning. They aren't the Enemy, they're an Ally waiting to be liberated. We're all in this together, like it or not. Let's act like it. This virus (and the ones inevitably to follow) have no politics, and they don't care who was Right First.
I think that’s well intentioned, and hopefully you’re gaining traction with it.
I have two relatives that had polio and struggle with the consequences. They are Covid vaccine skeptics.Very little. I think I maybe convinced two people to examine their idiotic prejudices after trying gently with perhaps fifty, and I've no idea whether they got uh Red Pilled or whatever (?). But here's the thing: There are no points awarded for being Right in this game. You or I will die just as fast as anyone else (statistically, maybe you or I have a particular genetic resistance, but you get the idea) when the next, radically more virulent virus comes along. Again, this isn't a moral question, it's purely practical. Viruses do not have a conception of "should" and if they could laugh they'd laugh at Virtue. The ONLY practical thing which can be done (beyond the Herculean efforts of our Scientists) is attempting to break the waves of ignorance.
Consider: If you, and I, and everyone else convinced *one* person who was previously vaccine-hesitant early on, this thing might never have become endemic.
As ever, being on the "right side of History" (or whatever) isn't easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
I am perfectly okay with only returning to Eastern Kentucky for funerals.
Except those guys (the metaphorical those guys) probably didn't spend 2020 licking strangers and are probably vaccinated now.Tyson, Bohr, Feynman, or Einstein.
Sure. The intended point was that the virus doesn't care about anyone's virtues. Deputy Doofy is just as deliciously fertile a ground in which to grow and mutate as any Nobel Laureate. This seems to stick in a lot of people's craws, as they (I think correctly, btw) care about and order people based upon an evaluation of their virtues or their value to society. Viruses don't evaluate Virtue, and it seems like a lot of people are having a lot of trouble grasping that.Except those guys (the metaphorical those guys) probably didn't spend 2020 licking strangers and are probably vaccinated now.
Sure. The intended point was that the virus doesn't care about anyone's virtues. Deputy Doofy is just as deliciously fertile a ground in which to grow and mutate as any Nobel Laureate. This seems to stick in a lot of people's craws, as they (I think correctly, btw) care about and order people based upon an evaluation of their virtues or their value to society. Viruses don't evaluate Virtue, and it seems like a lot of people are having a lot of trouble grasping that.
Yeah, and in my darkest moments I feel exactly the same way. There's nothing wrong with that. They're increasing your probability of an early demise. But the perverse thing about contagions is, again, that they they have a null relationship to virtue. Neither positive nor negative. I keep repeating this, but I think it bears repetition because while on one level it's obvious, it's also diametrically opposed to our eh what would you say "automatic method of thought"? All of the stuff we spend way too much time worrying about regarding our fellow humans doesn't even exist in the evolutionary soup. Consciousness is, I fear, very likely to be an evolutionary dead-end. Just another mistake which will be rectified in the fullness of time. But whether I'm right about that or not, it seems obvious to me that the evolutionary pressure is coming down extremely hard on sentience, and we aren't doing a very good job at fighting back, at the moment.They can get •ed.
Well said. Beers on me when I end up your way.Oh for sure Boris. I think the answer is to stop trying to control others......that is the root of maybe all our societal problems. I guess that was my unspelled point. Stop trying to legislate me into going to church (that's a stretch, but I know it is the end goal, if not the handmaid's tale), and I can stop bothering people about getting a vaccine (I don't actually bother anyone) that might save their life. No skin off my back.
Sure. The intended point was that the virus doesn't care about anyone's virtues. Deputy Doofy is just as deliciously fertile a ground in which to grow and mutate as any Nobel Laureate. This seems to stick in a lot of people's craws, as they (I think correctly, btw) care about and order people based upon an evaluation of their virtues or their value to society. Viruses don't evaluate Virtue, and it seems like a lot of people are having a lot of trouble grasping that.