Vidiwell [any]

  • 11 Posts
  • 19 Comments
Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 28th, 2020

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  • Vidiwell [any]tochapotraphouseWhat was up with 9/11 conspiracies?
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    3 years ago

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods

    "hijacking planes to be shot down or given the appearance of being shot down" just some food for thought.

    vis a vis 9/11 and trying to understand the facts of the case, because I think its an important part of demystifying the world, understanding the fact that people in power(bush cheney rumsfeld et all) would kill thousands of their own citizens in order to stoke the fires of war. That one can come to incorrect conclusions about our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the modern american security state/industrial complex if they dont understand that salient facts about how we got there and this key event in the process.

    but I would also posit that a lot of liberals and folks still believe in some fundamental goodness in the world today, that neoliberal capitalism arcs towards justice, and find it impossible to reckon with the reality that the bad guys really do control the world, and do terrible things to keep their control. To understand that would be to drop the illusions, and maybe to have to do something about it all(revolution eh?), so they prefer to remain in their preformed opinions about it all.

    It is wild that people can know about operation condor, our involvement in drug smuggling in Vietman and Afghanistan, the gulf of Tonkin incident, getting Nazis out of Europe and into places of power around the globe post WWII, our wholesale support of genocides and their subtle coverups in nearly every armed conflict we've been in since WWII, etc etc and yet when they come around to JFK or 9/11 its just "his head did that" and "idk m8 maybe the planes missed the airport"





  • Vidiwell [any]
    hexagon
    tomainGetcha new covid variants here
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    3 years ago

    absolutely. thats really what keeps on hitting me. When will i feel good about going outside without a mask? the answer seems to get fuzzier and fuzzier. and the western world just keeps pushing people to "move on" it feels . BLEH


  • Vidiwell [any]
    hexagon
    tomainGetcha new covid variants here
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    3 years ago

    Certainly the titles are different, however the purpose of the two organizations is extremely similar, with goals of epidemiology and public health, so as a general terminology I feel the comparison can be used for some convenience. But fair nonetheless. Obviously many variants of the disease have been around for some time, but as we increasingly see people get resistant we can anticipate more and more of these strains that can slip away from immunity being developed, which is concerning. and as they chip away at what immunity was provided by B cells and via the vaccine(few percentage points here and there) it definitely seems possible as Jesse Bloom mentions in a linked thread that we could run out of this current vaccines efficacy before long. necessitating another intense round of vaccine development that as we've seen in the USA, despite stunning initial results, are being rolled out like a train wreck. And T cell immunity will be important but absent cleaner data about vaccine persistence and without seeing what new strains are cooking up in the dakota's im just concerned.

    get the vaccine, but damn covid is slippery.













  • Vidiwell [any]tomain*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    I hope that isn't the case. This is a good discussion either way though, thanks for starting it! The symposium I posted, if you have time, goes into a couple of the safety concerns from major vaccine trials. That being said, while I have limited(and tbh biased) faith in the NIH/CDC, I can acknowledge that other governmental systems will make foolhardy decisions for a potential one up in the game of electoral-ism, and I do not have faith in that. The talks I posted also go into that a bit as well, how politics has corroded integrity of science. Although science is corroded for lots of other reasons as well.


  • Vidiwell [any]tomain*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    Yeah, obviously I have huge issues with pharma profiting off of this immensely as they certainly will, but vaccines are still a huge public safety boon.



  • Vidiwell [any]tomain*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    I encourage everyone hear throwing around to do some research into the practices the trials are using to ensure the integrity of the vaccine. Anecdotal accounts of side effects notwithstanding, there seems to be a broad consensus that these will be safe,( https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/vaccines a large symposium that recently occurred discussing high level COVID 19 vaccine topics, worth a listen) with a major concern being that a large percentage of people seem utterly uninterested in receiving a vaccine, which places an enormous burden on other individuals who for health reasons can not get a vaccine. Get vaccinated libs, it fucking saves lives.


  • Vidiwell [any]tomain*Permanently Deleted*
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    4 years ago

    make connections and comrades and support them/benefit from their support. Find ways to support socialist, pro union, and other leftist groups. Grow food and work on mutual aid. Be a kind person. We are in this together. and we can make a better future!


  • "You keep saying things like down with the bourgeoisie, eat the rich, sodomise the land-owners, impale all people who have more than 25 reál in their pocket, literally murder all human beings regardless of their political beliefs -- that kind of stuff."


  • I think the overarching rationale behind a vaccine is that if a high enough percentage of the population get a vaccine(that presumably grants high levels of immunity, that may or may not be the case in COVID, more data needs to be seen), that the disease will no longer be able to spread since its potential host population is immune. This is all to protect individuals, who due to old age, compromised immune systems, or other malignancies are unable to get the vaccine,. Flu is an excellent example of this, young individuals are less likely to die from the flu and are also have stronger immune systems and can handle a vaccine, elderly individuals with weaker immune systems can not get the vaccine but are at greater risk, hence younger individuals should get the vaccine to prevent potential spread to older people. Its altruism on a larger scale.

    also keep in mind that 450 people did get Guillain-Barré syndrome with the 1976 vaccine campaign, but that was out of 45 MILLION People vaccinated. 1 case per 100,000 vaccinated individuals, and this vaccine is widely regarded as a debacle and outlier in terms of risk. Whether or not the Ford administrations panic over the new strain of flu was rationale(it probably wasnt) the risks we are talking about are minor compared to the death rates for flu or in particular COVID.

    this is not to say healthy skepticism for science is a bad thing, but perspective and altruism for the broader population are key.


  • I think the numbers are stable right now, based on the current projections from IHME, Hopkins, and 538's combined trackers. It seems numbers will continue to rise though without major changes in lockdown status/broad public opinion shifts.

    In the long term, I think its important to keep in mind that COVID is not going away anytime soon, or even after a vaccine. The best data we have is indicating that not everyone develops immunity to the disease, even after a vaccine, and the rates of people who seem willing to accept a vaccine are not as high as they need to be(especially among conservative populations) e.g. COVID will become a seasonal illness, a "cough that kills" that we just have to remain constantly vigilant of.

    happy to post links if anyone wants more data, I work in a center that is developing some of the vaccines so I try to stay looped in,