Merv's Politically Incorrect Audio Blog

I'm not interested in this.

Just stating that calling out someone's qualifications while not being qualified yourself is nonsense.

 

Generalizing the discussion: I like FLICC

https://skepticalscience.com/history-FLICC-5-techniques-science-denial.html

Needs an E for 'Echo chamber' in there somewhere too IMO.

 

I think one thing we can all agree on though is that BIRDS AREN'T REAL.

 

I had to search for an explanation this term, and was very glad to have done so.

people who troll online by pretending to ask sincere questions, but just keep feigning ignorance and repeating 'polite' follow ups until someone gets fed up. That way, they can cast their opponents as attacking them and being unreasonable. ... It's called 'sealioning', and the term is based on this lovely comic

Thanks @Beefy

 

Sealionning and the gish gallop are two techniques that are incredibly difficult to counter. Both mentally exhausting, especially when you know there is zero chance the other person will change their mind, even if you answer their challenges perfectly. Most days I'm about 50:50 on giving up versus being sucked in...

 

Take the derision out of your tone and maybe your counterpoints will have merit. Maybe that's why you have problems being convincing with your "perfect" answers. At any rate, I have not seen enough to convince me I should try another approach.

From the beginning, with Trump's promise of a miracle vaccine in a short period, when vaccines had been continually developed over several years at minimum was enough to set me thinking. And as time went by more information became apparent, like the standard epidemiological practice of not introducing a vaccine in an area where the infection was widespread. The resistance to treatment with safe off label drugs, one of which, HCQ had been touted by Fauci himself in a study still on the NIH website, after the previous Sars virus, as very safe and promising but suddenly became unsafe and effectively blocked by by big pharm. Add my awareness that big pharm and the FDA were one and the same since the FDA's inception, I was skeptical of all of it from the beginning. Too many flags were raised. And it has just gotten worse since then.

Yep you have an uphill battle in convincing me to change my ways. I would be happy to be wrong, the easy simple solution would be much easier if only it could be believed.

 

In online discussions, there are always going to be a few audiences.

For sealioning, there's a pretence of openness to information and changing position by the other side. There's no point spending your time on that audience.

There's also a more neutral audience who might actually be searching for information or undecided. Calling out the sealioning tactic can be just as valuable as addressing the individual claims, for the neutral audience, and hopefully is less exhausting.

 

The fact is, it's a not a matter of believing: you can see how the COVID cases and mortality rate dropped in all countries that vaccinated the large majority of their citizens, and how many more unvaccinated people are hospitalised or in ICU in comparison to those who are vaccinated.

 

You've just clearly signaled with your vague skepticism and fall-back to conpriacy theory thinking that Beefy is in fact 100% right and no amount of evidence could possibly convince you of anything, so how is it worth anyone's time to supply you with readily available information that you've already pre-rejected?

 

Not in Israel. The vast majority of hosptalized covid infected are the vaccinated and they are dying. They were vaccinated against the original infection and the nature of that vaccine means they will always be infected against that one strain only.

Mutations have been created since the original infection. It's the nature of a virus and happens with every virus.
Most are weak and fail, some are stronger and survive and thrive. They are constantly evolving and this vaccine is so selective that it will not protect you. Natural immunity will.

 

That's just pretzel logic. Any evidence would just have to be substantial, not just a parroting of msm.

 

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/these-unvaccinated-10-fuel-israel-s-covid-crisis-1.10251639

 

In other words you'll immediately dismiss anything that disagrees with you as "parroting of msm"

 

I think Israel's overall vaccination rate is around 90% of all adults, and I think around 60% of the hospitalizations are vaccinated. So 40% of the hospitalizations are unvaccinated. So let's just say there's 600 people vaccinated hospitalizations and 400 people unvaccinated hospitalizations, then even in a population of around 1 million (Israel is 9 million or so but just making the math simpler), it would be 600 people out of 900,000 vaccinated hospitalized vs 400 people out of 100,000 unvaccinated hospitalized right?

Anybody feel free to correct me on wrong statistics or if anything I said was wrong.

Edit: HHS popped up with some more accurate stats. I was just spitballing some numbers from what I remembered a month or two ago.

 

Also, hospitalized vaccinated die at lower rates than hospitalized unvaccinated.

Anyway, those of us who are vaxxed also get the benefit of 5G. Although the uncontrollable urge to donate all our life savings to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is a bummer.

 

A bit more comprehensive study of Israel with charts!
https://swprs.org/israel-highest-infection-rate-in-the-world/

 

SWPRS = Swiss Policy Research. No transparency wrt associated individuals, no one wants their name to be attached to this. They've been found to cite anti-Semitic sources in their reporting on the Israel Lobby and have also been found to help spread Soviet propaganda. Good job, comrade.

They're also claiming that QAnon was an FBI initiative, which is unsurprising.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/swiss-policy-research/?amp

They have also claimed that COVID-19 is no more severe than regular influenza, which has been discredited. The original post was deleted:
https://archive.md/20200821224128/https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-covid-19-isnt-the-flu

 

Zombie Argument is another to add to Echo Chamber and FLICC. A few pages ago from this very thread:

As for current vaccines not protecting against variants: the latest data compiled by Public Health England continue to indicate the vaccines are >90% effective in preventing hospitalization and death from the Delta variant (see Table 1, p. 7):

https://assets.publishing.service.g...992/Vaccine_surveillance_report_-_week_38.pdf

And pretty much everywhere else, because Delta is now the most widespread variant in most countries. Go to

https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations

And compare 'people fully vaccinated' against 'confirmed cases', noting what happens to the "4th wave" (after June) in countries with the highest vaccination rates (eg Portugal, Iceland, Spain, Denmark, Ireland, Chile, Italy, Norway, others in Europe). And btw, although they started early, Israel's vaccination total isn't very high.

 

So do let's stop. It's like arguing with Amir. Also, I notice that bilboda made no reply to Beefy's simple statement of professional qualification. But never mind. Whatever.

 

Oh, I could have but he has already expressed disinterest and his answer might be interesting. how does he explain his not accepting the information. What does he know that I don't know. How can he see thru this? The qualifications have the promise of an educated response and that would be most useful. Right now, it sits at I am qualified and that is all bullshit. It just does not teach anything nor add anything other than opinion to the discussion.