Trucking Companies And COVID Vaccine

Brett said:

So, four deaths and two dangerous reactions just from the tiny group of people I know, which isn't much. I don't know anyone who died from aspirin or had to be rushed to the hospital after taking it, do you?

I don't know anyone who's had any adverse reaction to aspirin or the vaccine personally. I'm in a group for people with a certain medical condition, and many people ask if the vaccine poses an increased risk to people with that condition. I've seen two or three people say they or someone they knew had an adverse reaction to it, although it wasn't always clear if the vaccine was actually the cause. Dozens of other people said they had no side effects at all, or only a slight immune response.

From a scientific standpoint, when looking at anecdotal evidence, there are other questions that need answering alongside that evidence to help understand what to make of it. How specifically did the vaccine cause those deaths, what was the causal relationship? What were the reactions? What were these people's medical histories? If the accounts are all true, is the sample size representative of the general population, or are there genetic and environmental factors in play that increased the occurence in that sample compared to the overall average?

There's a clear tendency for personal experience to sometimes create an intuition that exaggerates the universality of that experience. Someone who's been struck by lightning will tend to overestimate the odds of it happening to anyone, people who live in the desert will tend to overestimate the global average temperature, people from the north who are afraid of illegal immigrants tend to estimate that the southern border is several hundred miles closer to where they live than northerners who don't feel afraid.

It's why anecdotal evidence needs to come with a lot more information to help settle it within the overall picture. But I understand not trusting whether any of the scientific data isn't completely fabricated. Trust in institutions like the government is pretty low, in many ways deservedly.

Andrey said:

So in this sense your statement is incorrect - experience can offer everything, depending on what you need.

But I was talking specifically about it not being able to directly offer anything in being able to understand what a new virus does inside the human body, what the incidence is of which types of damage it causes to different "types" of bodies, and how to understand and calculate the risks and efficacy of treatments for it. Any of that requires an objective method to obtain that information.

There's a clear tendency for personal experience to sometimes create an intuition that exaggerates the universality of that experience

Fair enough. Information bias. Well, let me bring up a few points I'm making in the hope that people will let me know if I'm just imagining all this.

Do you believe I'm "creating an intuition that exaggerates the universality" of the censorship that's taking place? Am I only imagining that people on one side of this conversation are being banned from YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and the mainstream media?

Do you believe I'm "creating an intuition that exaggerates the universality" of the laws being broken to promote one side of this agenda? Am I only imagining that the people on one side of this debate are breaking the Nuremberg code, violating the Constitution, violating election laws, and vilifying the other side as "terrorists" and "criminals?"

Am I only imagining the fact that the people on one side of this debate will gain a tremendous amount of money and power if they get their way?

What circumstance would require a group of people on one side of a conversation to prevent any sort of open and honest debates?

One of the first things you must do in order to figure out what's going on is to separate what's known from what is not, and I'm going to start with censorship. I know for a fact that only one side of this debate is being censored on a mass scale.

I also know that only one side of this argument is attempting to criminalize the views of those on the other side.

I also know that only one side of this debate is literally changing the definitions of things like "vaccine" and "herd immunity" to fit their agenda. Guess which side that is?

Finally, only one side of this debate has gained an enormous amount of money and power, and they stand to gain even more if they get their way. It's the same people breaking laws, violating codes, censoring people, and vilifying those on the other side of the debate.

It sure seems like the people on one side of this debate are doing an awful lot of terrible things in order to get their way. They also have an awful lot to gain if they succeed. The other side simply wants the freedom to make their own choices and they're not violating any laws, codes, or human rights to do it.

Once again, I'd like to thank Midnight Fox (who I was responding to directly in this post) and all the others for their willingness to engage in this conversation in such an authentic way. This is exactly what our society needs. We need open and honest discussions.

The elephant in the room is this:

If you are on the left, you favor group think and collectivism. Everyone should be together and doing the same thing. You supported masks, shutdowns, and now the vax. It's about the group. Has nothing to do with science. You can lie to yourself and say it's about science or saving people. But really it's just ideology.

I'm probably way far left compared to the majority of this forum. That's just facts. However--your above statement is, in and of itself, collectivized. You have made an assumption that everyone who does not reside on the same side of the political spectrum as you-- sees the world in the above manner.

I've never supported shutdowns-- I have, however, acknowledged that back in 1918, it was effective with the Spanish Flu-- however, this is a different animal. Moreover, adults are perfectly capable of deciding if the risks are worth the perceived rewards... both on the business side of choosing to be open or not.. .and on the individual side of choosing to be out in public or not.

As to masks and the vax-- I support it in the sense that I support their existence-- however, I don't feel they should be mandated by the government. BUT-- if a business wishes to require them, that is their choice and in a free market-- people can vote with their dollars as to whether or not they agree with the policy. I worked throughout the pandemic as a delivery driver. I didn't mask up until it became a term of my continued employment. However-- that was my choice.. as I could have sat my ass at home, mask free, and drawn unemployment-- but I've always been of the mind that as long as I'm capable of taking care of myself, I don't need the government to do it for me. (I'm a social liberal, fiscal conservative)

In the interest of fairness--- a lot of how people on both sides of the political aisle feel when it comes to all this-- is a simple matter of ideology.

The elephant in the room is this:

If you are on the left, you favor group think and collectivism. Everyone should be together and doing the same thing. You supported masks, shutdowns, and now the vax. It's about the group. Has nothing to do with science. You can lie to yourself and say it's about science or saving people. But really it's just ideology.

I'm probably way far left compared to the majority of this forum. That's just facts. However--your above statement is, in and of itself, collectivized. You have made an assumption that everyone who does not reside on the same side of the political spectrum as you-- sees the world in the above manner.

I've never supported shutdowns-- I have, however, acknowledged that back in 1918, it was effective with the Spanish Flu-- however, this is a different animal. Moreover, adults are perfectly capable of deciding if the risks are worth the perceived rewards... both on the business side of choosing to be open or not.. .and on the individual side of choosing to be out in public or not.

As to masks and the vax-- I support it in the sense that I support their existence-- however, I don't feel they should be mandated by the government. BUT-- if a business wishes to require them, that is their choice and in a free market-- people can vote with their dollars as to whether or not they agree with the policy. I worked throughout the pandemic as a delivery driver. I didn't mask up until it became a term of my continued employment. However-- that was my choice.. as I could have sat my ass at home, mask free, and drawn unemployment-- but I've always been of the mind that as long as I'm capable of taking care of myself, I don't need the government to do it for me. (I'm a social liberal, fiscal conservative)

In the interest of fairness--- a lot of how people on both sides of the political aisle feel when it comes to all this-- is a simple matter of ideology.

Of course there is always a spectrum, but when we talk about a group, were discussing the bulk of it. I know of singular conservatives that dont necessarily lean the same way as most do. The old adage: The exception proves the rule. In fact such a large percentage of the left feels very strongly that following the protocols dictated by the government that its completely fair to categorize the left as partial to government rule. Also, enough of the right and libertarians (whom are probably going nuts for me lumping them in a group) are opposed to government mandated restrictions and impositions on freedom and the constitution as to label them as anti government.

I’m barely 31 but I have never been completely dumbfounded by current events. Corona has caused people who were once rational thinkers to go absolute bonkers. They will now wear their cloth masks for the rest of their lives. And now you have the Taliban overseas flying American Blackhawk helicopters that we left for them with bodies hang off of them by rope like gremlin bells. Does anybody know what the hell is going on? Something is up. Nothing makes any sense.

Brett asked:

Do you believe I'm "creating an intuition that exaggerates the universality" of the censorship that's taking place?

I couldn't believe that about you because those subjects lie outside of science's domain. My turn of phrase only applies to what can be scientifically observed and determined.

To the extent our record-keeping can go, we can tally how many humans get struck by lightning and we can track how many humans are alive, so we can scientifically determine the statistical odds of being struck by lightning. The same goes for global average temperature and physical distance between locations.

I was showing with those examples some of the challenges of relying on anecdotal evidence, specifically when it comes to calculating the actual risks of adverse side effects of the vaccine. Anecdotal evidence needs to come with additional information to be accurately useful in calculating those risks.

The sociopolitical dimensions to this like government mandates and agendas and the law and social media policies require a different kind of approach to understanding than science can directly offer.

Davy's post did a great job of putting a spotlight on that; people form differing competing narratives of what's happening and what it means, interpretative narratives that attempt to be explanatory.

IMO the best things to look for when evaluating the validity of a narrative is either to which degree it relies on direct evidence to support its conclusions or how much predictive value it has in determining what comes next.

This whole conversation could have been stopped with if you want the vaccine get it if you don't want it do not. No guilt no blaming just as simple as that. It is a free country (or used to be), full of free thinkers (again used to be), that rationalized everything.

If all of you don't mind, I'd like to interject with the POV of someone that's not on either side of the aisle, but of someone that's been affected by debates just like this one nonetheless. Apologies if this is longwinded, but it's been a h** of a year and a half and this is as short as I can make it without losing context and, hopefully, the emotional impact.

My mother has cancer. A very curable kind of cancer, thankfully. She's been battling it since February of this year. Despite the cancer being curable, we got the news after three rounds of chemo that her cancer was growing through it and they needed to reevaluate her to find a better treatment, which is quite terrifying.

Enter Covid.

Back in July, the VA assigned her caregivers to help her out, as she was hospitalized for about two months and lost nearly all of her mobility, (she had a severe, life threatening bout of UTI/sepsis, which is the only reason we found out about the cancer). Three days out of every week they visited her. Two weeks in, she got a call saying one of her caregivers who had been unvaccinated and unmasked ( which was against the agencies policy), had the delta variant and that she should get tested. She tested positive. She was vaccinated. My father was not. My father, another Vet, has COPD. There was no way to separate them even if I could convince my dad to do so for his own safety, so needless to say, he got it as well.

I lost contact with them for three days, their landline went down in an unfortunately timed way, and I called both of their cell phones so much I literally listened as their batteries ran out. So I did the only thing I could do and called for a wellness check. The officers said they talked to my mother who said they were both fine but I didn't buy it, so the next day when I had the ability to do so I drove over there to check myself.

They have a dead bolt on their door so I couldn't get inside, and Dad wouldn't come to the door. Dad never does that. Ever. I wound up beating on the side of their trailer trying to get either of them to answer me when I finally heard my mom's weak voice. I asked her what was happening and where dad was and her answer was " I don't know!" Honestly I think those words will stick for me for a while because I could hear in her voice that she was suddenly worried too, like it hadn't occurred to her something bad was happening. So I made my way to the back side of their trailer and spent a solid minute slamming my fist into the side of the wall to get some sort of response out of my dad.

Finally his hand reached up and tapped the window. That image is definitely burnt into my brain. I won't lie, I don't have a very good relationship with my parents. But, to see these people absolutely helpless as they were in that moment, something I've never in my life seen before..., I don't really know how to describe the mixed bag of emotions I felt, still don't. Fear, disgust, anger, sickness. The amount of unadulterated anger I still feel.

This person walked into an elderly couples house (67-70) specifically to care for a CANCER PATIENT, with no regard for them. They were just a paycheck to her. You're suppose to trust nurses. They're suppose to protect you. To take care of you when you can't take care of yourself.

Had to call the fire department to get the door open, had to spend 20 minutes convincing my dad to go to the hospital, they both went eventually and were put on supplemental O2, both of them are too stubborn/pain in the a**es to die from this s*** and will survive Covid, after being hospitalized for about a month.

But remember my mother has cancer? Throughout this 2-3 month ordeal she was unable to receive chemo, for a cancer that's rapidly growing. I was on the phone with her a few days ago and she told me she's made her peace that she's not going to survive this, and unfortunately I had to agree with her. I've tried my damnedest to keep her positive but what can I say at this point? Cancer is cancer and she's got other comorbidities to her name that wasn't helping her get better and then to go months without treatment on top of it all...

The point of all of this, and I cannot stress this enough, is this is not an agenda. This is not some political BS used to force people to do things they don't want to do. These are PEOPLE, people that deserve to live, to have a fighting chance against a horrible disease that everyone hates.

My question to all of you is this, have any of you ever faced that kind of fear? Seen someone you love so sick they couldn't even crawl to the bathroom, not six feet away from them? Have you ever feared them dying?

We all live on this earth together, we share it. What h*** happened to people giving a s*** about other people? Why is this not a thing that we can all agree on? Why can we not raise each other up, protect each other, like one big family? Wouldn't that be nice?

If there is even a remote, slim chance that masks, or vaccines, or social distancing can help reduce the chance or stop other people from getting sick or sicker, I'm going to do it and whatever else I can to protect others because I'm a good person and I care about other people.

/end

*I apologize if the dates/months don't add up, like I said at the beginning of this post, it's been a long year and I honestly can't remember exact dates at this point

** Also completely off topic, thank you for the wonderful preparation test, it's incredibly in-depth and helpful

My former employer of 38 years has started mandating the vaccine for some groups of employees, but will eventually extend to all employees. I'm not anti-vax. I took vaccines and malaria tabs (which have side effects) to work overseas for 22 years. Those were traditional vaccines for Yellow Fever, Typhoid, Hepatitis A&B, and sometimes hemoglobin for Cholera. There was an effort by the company to mandate malaria tabs with blood tests as proof back in 2003 for overseas expats and family on assignment. There was a big pushback and the company backed down. The company wanted to avoid liability in the event of someone contracting falciparum malaria and dying, as had happened to a couple of contractors.

The FDA approval of the Pfizer / BioNTech mRNA vaccine on Aug 23 is misleading and is being propagandized to coerce people to get the Pfizer shots. Dr. Robert Malone (invented the original mRNA technology 32 years ago) explains what the FDA actually did. The FDA approved the BioNTech Comirnaty vaccine that is similar to the Pfizer vaccine, but has not yet been manufactured so is unavailable. The FDA also updated and extended the Pfizer vaccine Emergency Use Authorization to allow it to be given when there is a shortage of the Comirnaty vax. The Pfizer vaccine continues to have legal indemnity, but the Comirnaty vaccine will not. So which vaccine will be supplied? Where I live the Moderna is the available vaccine.

Dr Robert Malone explains the FDA Pfizer vaccine approval

The fully approved, licensed vaccine and the emergency use vaccine aren't similar, they are exactly the same, and they both still have the same liability protection, under a public health law the Trump administration invoked. "Both" vaccines (the only difference is a legal distinction) are in the federal government's Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.

or in the words of Dr. Malone,

Malone quickly conceded his statement on the Bannon show was wrong. “When one is doing rapid analysis on the fly, one does not always get everything right,”

“On this particular legal liability issue I did not hunt down the details myself, and relied on comments from a third party lawyer which were not fully correct.”