To mask or not to mask....That is the question. Part II

[Hatin Since 87]

I identify as vaccinated

I’ve only seen 1 person in a mask there, everybody in town is vaccinated I guess.


I think most people are pretty much over the bull**** at this point. Everyone sees it for what it is, except a few ultra sheep that will blindly follow what they’re told no matter what. They can stay the **** home, I’m enjoying my time here.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Circle k hung a sign that says “masks requested unless vaccinated”.


Meh. Request denied.

I've seen some of those signs. Have my card in my wallet, but I've never been asked to produce it, so obviously the businesses are pretty much over it too. Hopefully more and more are beginning to catch on to this BS.

 

[JettaKnight]

And yet, that's at the very heart of the complaint with the Covid mRNA vaccine: it is claimed to be "untested gene therapy": the assertion that it changes the patient's genes/gene expression. (See also: the analogy about conflating mass shootings and school shootings.)

Fine it's not gene therapy, but what about the microchips?!

I don't enough, but this is entertaining.



Personally, I think a lot of this is a red herring; my guess is that folks eschewing the mRNA vax aren't lining up for the J&J either. Either get the vax or don't, but stop telling others it's untested gene therapy.

 

[Hatin Since 87]

I've seen some of those signs. Have my card in my wallet, but I've never been asked to produce it, so obviously the businesses are pretty much over it too. Hopefully more and more are beginning to catch on to this BS.

Ya, I always wondered how would they know who is and isn’t, unless they paid a person to stand at the door and check, which would turn away 90% of their customers. It’s all for show and feelz.


I pulled in one day and saw a car with “black lives matter” and “”acab” wrote on the windows. This is mooresville, so that’s kinda, “out of place”... walked in the store, saw some cow at the register with purple hair and knew that had to be the owner. Yup. Take her damn ho ho’s and go back to the city, she won’t like it here.

 

[JettaKnight]

My messages here usually are a form of a PSA.
I firmly believe that one does not need an advanced (or even university) degree to comprehend most of the topics rather well -- so long as one is willing to read, listen, and, most importantly, question the information they are being served.

I've got an MS engr and I don't fully comprehend... I guess I'm too dumb.

Degrees and experience help, but also provide a false sense of confidence in one's own acumen. This is otherwise known as a Dunning-Kruger effect.

I saw a sign:
"First rule of Dunning-Kruger club: You don't know you're part of Dunning-Kruger club."

I'll add:
"Second rule of Dunning-Kruger club: Accuse others of being part of Dunning-Kruger club."

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Take her damn ho ho’s and go back to the city, she won’t like it here.

So she had friends in her car too?

 

[Hatin Since 87]

So she had friends in her car too?

Imaginary, maybe.

 

[idkfa]

Don't trust anyone. You would agree that this is another way of saying "trust no one"? How far? All the way down? At some point you have to trust someone or you'll have to redo all the research that has led up to today's knowledge upon which these claims derived. Right?

Okay, so the top level claim here is, "mRNA 'vaccines'" are really gene therapy. I don't think either of us are experts. And a little internet "research" doesn't make us experts. So at some point we both have to trust someone with more knowledge than you or me. How do I decide that I trust the source? Because they disagree with the government? Because they side with me? Because I like the answer? Because I think this answer is true?

I think the only level at which either of us (I'm just assuming you're not a biologist because you don't talk like one ) can evaluate this is consistency and behavior, and all those things I mentioned elsewhere for what a non-expert can do to be reasonably assured to approximate reality.

To me, whether it's gene therapy or not is not a hill to die on. It doesn't matter if it is or isn't. What matters is if vaccines are as safe and as effective as claimed. And in my opinion, judging from what non-expert faculties I can bring to bear, it's still undecided on that. But I have no problem at all leaving the discussion about gene therapy to people who have a working knowledge of that discipline. It doesn't matter to what I care about.

As a matter of fact, I am a biologist (PhD, postdoc, PNAS papers, and all that good stuff). I don't talk like one because I am a firm believer in KISS, so I'd take it as a compliment.

All of these are good questions, let me take a stab.

How far?

It depends. Prior to this debacle, I would've just said: "PubMed" (or, more broadly, peer-reviewed scientific journals), because peer review used to be a robust selection process.
As PubMed is an aggregator of references from biomedical scientific literature, so that would be a go-to search engine for any particular topic.
Google would most frequently do a good job by referencing pertinent peer-reviewed articles (and effectively link to the original journal and/or PubMed).

Insofar as which articles are more trustworthy than others, usually, the Impact Factor (effectively, how much interest the journal generates) of a journal would be a good indicator.

COVID kinda changed a lot, and it's is hard to trust an abstract of an article without looking at the results.
Case in point, there was a paper on masks from 2015 (I don't have a link, but it is probably not necessary in this context). The study made a conclusion that masks do not work to prevent transmission of the flu virus.
Well, come 2020, and they added a disclaimer to the article, something along the lines of "yeah, our conclusions show masks don't work, but keep wearing one."

There were other papers that similarly communicated one outcome in the Results section (that masks don't work), and then in the Conclusion stated the opposite.

Then, of course, there's that HCQ bashing paper in Lancet that was written by a former (?) pornstar and a scifi writer. It was retracted, but the damage was done: HCQ EUA (effectively, access to the stockpile) was revoked (and never reinstated), and HCQ arms were stopped in the international trials.

Then there was a paper on COVID vaccines, that we should rethink the policy based on the adverse event reports. That one got retracted by the journal, and the retraction statement effectively states vaccine-related adverse event reports are not causally related to the vaccination, this paper has to be retracted.


This sorta neatly brings me to the next question:

At some point you have to trust someone or you'll have to redo all the research that has led up to today's knowledge upon which these claims derived. Right?

The only thing that is hard to corrupt is data. The downside is, it is kinda hard to understand sometimes. Some journals are better than others, some scientists are better at writing than others.
I guess this is one of the reasons preprints (i.e. publication of the manuscript draft before peer review) became so popular. If peer review is at best very slow, and at worst corrupt, who cares? Just publish the data and let people use it.

But then, as mentioned above, the journals can step in and retract a paper for a reason that is completely unrelated to the validity of the core dataset.

So ultimately, the truth is at the intersection of different pieces data from multiple pertinent research papers on the matter.


Finally, if you cannot interpret the data independently,

How do I decide that I trust the source?

I guess you can trust your own understanding of the thought process of the person who is laying out the argument.
Is it transparent? Does it make sense? What is missing in your worldview that you need to independently research to come back to it?
E.g., take Dr. Fauci vs. Dr. Peter McCullough.
One saw a patient decades ago, another is a practicing world-renowned cardiologist.
One affirmatively tells you what to do, the other explains what was done, why it was done, and why it was right or wrong -- and does it in very simple terms. And so on.
Yeah, that's relying on authority in a way, if you will, but at least you're not relying on the authority per se, and rather your understanding of how compelling the arguments laid out by that authority are.

 

[actaeon277]

Why are you guys replying to Raider?
You know he just crop dusts a thread, then walks away, loving the sound of people behind him exclaiming at his flatulence.

 

[idkfa]

I've got an MS engr and I don't fully comprehend... I guess I'm too dumb.

It doesn't mean that you can't. Everyone's got only that much time on their hands though.

I saw a sign:
"First rule of Dunning-Kruger club: You don't know you're part of Dunning-Kruger club."

I'll add:
"Second rule of Dunning-Kruger club: Accuse others of being part of Dunning-Kruger club."

Yeah, I suppose. It's completely pointless to assert that because the other side will do the same. Whatever.

 

[idkfa]

Why are you guys replying to Raider?
You know he just crop dusts a thread, then walks away, loving the sound of people behind him exclaiming at his flatulence.

Who's Raider?

 

[DoggyDaddy]

Who's Raider?

raider600. Scroll back. Rabid anti-Trumper that drops bombs in threads and moves on.

 

[idkfa]

Would not the goal of gene therapy be to insert regulatory material into particular chromosomes and make the change heritable in successive generations of the cell line - basically one and done? All of the gene therapy I'm aware of is targeted at inserting a good copy of a gene where the subject has a corrupt or ineffective one - which is why it is predominantly used against genetic diseases that involve one or few aberrant bits in the subject's genome

Well, maybe, as an aspirational goal?

But my argument is that no, it is not how it works presently.

Currently, there aren't any gene therapies on the market that produce heritable "one and done" changes.

Here's a review of all of them as of 2020 (there were 2 more ex vivo cell therapies and one nucleotide therapy approved in 2021). Of those, only two are in vivo gene therapies (Luxturna and Zolgensma), both are based on a gene delivery using a modified virus (recombinant adeno-associated virus, rAAV).
Neither therapy is heritable, as, unlike the wild-type virus, rAAV does not integrate into the chromosome. While rare integration events do occur, it predominantly stays as an episome (essentially, independent functional DNA).

... studies showed a clear demonstration that rAAV persistence in vivo was mediated by episomal persistence rather than integration, confirming a phenomenon that had been observed by the Flotte lab (74) two years prior. This episomal nature of rAAV persistence turned out to have major implications for the utility of rAAV, specifically that long-term persistence of rAAV was observed only in nondividing cells.

Moreover, a moratorium on heritable genome editing was proposed in 2019.

 

[chipbennett]

Fine it's not gene therapy, but what about the microchips?!

I don't enough, but this is entertaining.



Personally, I think a lot of this is a red herring; my guess is that folks eschewing the mRNA vax aren't lining up for the J&J either. Either get the vax or don't, but stop telling others it's untested gene therapy.

I was told I would be able to receive FM radio signals.

 

[Hatin Since 87]

I was told I would be able to receive FM radio signals.

Just more lies you believed

 

[chipbennett]

Just more lies you believed

I guess they got me there!

 

[actaeon277]

 

[Hatin Since 87]

View attachment 152200

Actually, probably should, since most serious symptoms of Covid are in obese individuals.

“Welcome to McDonald’s... I need to see your vaccination card... oh, you’re vaccinated, then you’re obviously worried about Covid and therefor shouldn’t eat like a ****ing slob, I can’t serve you”

 

[idkfa]

I feel it apropos to point out that credentialism, of which you seem to approve, is the sine qua non of appeal to authority

No, as a matter of fact, I oppose it, as I stated at the top of my post here.
I was actually responding to another user using the fact that his clients work with gene therapy as the sole piece of evidence.
I think that is the definition of appeal to authority.
Regardless, I was actually willing to accept his relevant credentials as evidence, but he does not have any.

 

[chipbennett]

No, as a matter of fact, I oppose it, as I stated at the top of my post here.

...which explains why you started out asking what my PhD was in? Nice try.

I was actually responding to another user using the fact that his clients work with gene therapy as the sole piece of evidence.

"...sole piece of evidence." You keep saying that. I do not think it means what you think it means. I have provided plenty of evidence. You just keep ignoring it, by reiterating your demand for credentials.

I think that is the definition of appeal to authority.

No. Demanding a PhD is appeal to authority. Continually demanding credentials is appeal to authority.

Regardless, I was actually willing to accept his relevant credentials as evidence, but he does not have any.

Me refusing to indulge your appeal to authority does not mean that I have no credentials. And I don't give a rat's ass what you consider to be relevant credentials.