The Art of Simulation in the Social Imagination...

 

 

If you were alive in the 60s, you are familiar with the television series called, Star Trek. If were were alive in the late 70s up until the present time, you are familiar with the movie and its sequels or parts.

For some people, this TV and film phenomenon has become a cult, a kind of following on the level of sacred. There was one episodes in the television series that was more than futuristic, it is or could be rationalized as prophetic given today's current global pandemic with its so-called 'data/results'. Instead of me telling you all about this episode, I simply have cut and paste it here from Wikipedia so that you can read it for yourself; I can verify that it follows the original written script.

The USS Enterprise travels to Eminiar VII in NGC 321, bringing Ambassador Robert Fox to establish diplomatic relations. Little is known about Eminiar VII, beyond the fact that they have been at war with a neighboring planet, Vendikar.

Nearing Eminiar VII, the Enterprise receives a message from the planet warning them not to approach, but Ambassador Fox orders Captain Kirk to proceed. Kirk, First Officer Spock, and additional security personnel beam down to the planet, where they are met by representatives Mea 3 and Anan 7. During a supposed attack by Vendikar, Anan 7 explains that the war is conducted as a computer simulation, and that the Enterprise has been "destroyed" in the attack. The two planets have a treaty, according to which they have to kill the "victims" of every simulated attack. The crew are thereby expected to report to Eminiar's disintegration chambers for execution, and Kirk's party is taken captive. Spock telepathically plants a suggestion in their jailer's mind, allowing them to escape.

Anan 7 uses a voice duplicator to imitate Kirk's voice and order the crew to transport down. Scotty, suspicious, has the ship's computer analyze the message and confirms it is fake. He orders shields raised. When the crew fails to transport down, Eminiar fires upon them, but the attack is deflected by the shields. Anan 7 then contacts the Enterprise, claiming the attack was due to a malfunction. Ambassador Fox, deciding to believe Anan, beams down and is taken to a disintegration chamber along with Mea 3, who was also "killed" in the war simulation. Spock and the security officers rescue them.

Kirk confronts Anan 7 but is overpowered by guards and taken to the Eminian council chamber. When Anan 7 opens a channel to the Enterprise, Kirk orders Scotty to execute General Order 24 before being cut off. Kirk explains that he just ordered the ship to destroy everything on the planet within two hours. Panic ensues, which Kirk takes advantage of to disarm the guards. After Spock arrives, Kirk destroys the war simulation computers. 

Anan 7 condemns Kirk's actions, arguing that it is unalterable nature to fight wars, so without the simulation they have no alternative but to fight a real war. Kirk instead believes that the only reason the war with Vendikar has gone on so long is because the simulation insulated both societies from the horrors of war and gave them little reason to end it. 

Now, you are probably wondering, or not, why this episode was related to you as the 'art of simulation' and how it applies to today. If you are wondering, take some time to read it again and then wonder why you did not see it in the first place. 

Sometimes what is happening right in front of you is hidden in plain sight. The art of simulation is to make you think its all real. When you look around today, what is real or really happening is being questioned. As it should be. 

Now, if you are getting my drift, ask yourself... is this a 'wargame' simulation with unreal causalities? It looks that way doesn't it? But... haven't we moved past that with the jab and aren't we out of the battle? Maybe, we have been set up for a coming real battle with real casualties which will be called out sooner or later.

cv one niner...Kirk Out!

Who is Responsible for Your Bad Choices in the Social Imagination?

 

Research has shown that the typical person makes about 2,000 decisions every waking hour. Yes, folks you read it right… every waking hour. And, thankfully, most decisions are minor and we make them instinctively or automatically — what to wear to work in the morning, whether to eat lunch now or in ten minutes, etc.

But many of the decisions we make throughout the day take real thought, and have serious consequences. Consistently making good decisions is arguably the most important habit we can develop; and especially in regards to eating right, exercising, education, and investments.

Our choices affect our health, our safety, our relationships, how we spend our time, and our overall well-being which includes our future well-being as in our down the road years from now social stability…social connections, money, housing and food not to mention investment in long term relationships.

When you have to make an important decision, be on the lookout for a steady state of distractions that come from social media misinformation, corrupt politics and market turmoil.

And, be mindful of emotions that cling tend to like old sweatshirts or sneakers.  Whether they are learned over time or just picked up from a recent bad experience, you have to be mindful that frustration, excitement, anger, joy, etc., are all a fundamental part of the daily human experience and they impact our decisions making/choices dramatically.

And while these emotions may or may not have a meaningful role in our lives, you probably don’t need to see the research to know that emotions, especially during moments of peak anger and happiness, can hinder our ability to make good decisions/choices.

Deciding to speak or send an email while angry often compounds a tough situation, because the words don’t come out right. To counter this, pay attention to your emotional state and focus on the character strength of self-control.

Resist the temptation to respond to people or make decisions while you’re emotionally keyed up. Practice walking away from the computer or putting the phone down, and return to the task at hand when you’re able to think more clearly and calmly.

The decisions we make determine our reality. Because, we live in a social reality, in the social imagination. So, our decisions directly impact how we spend our time and what information we process (or ignore). Our decisions shape our relationships  and increasingly in today’s hyper-connected world, decisions contribute to our energy level and how efficient we are in the various aspects of our lives; especially financial.

[Most of the above was taken from this online site ~ https://hbr.org/2019/08/6-reasons-we-make-bad-decisions-and-what-to-do-about-them]

Did you know that there is an experience called situational poverty. Yes, that comes from making bad decisions but some people like to think it’s just a matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sociologist Herbert Gans wrote a piece decade ago about how the poor are coming and going. And, he was/is right. This can happen to you and it may or may not be directly correlated with a bad decision on your part but most often that is the case.

For instance, getting a divorce can really set you back. Or being made redundant at work as in ‘let go’ only because your company just merged with another and they just so happen to have their own people hand picked for your job.

Next, a sudden illness or an accident can ruin you financially; and, even if its not you that was suddenly struck down, it could happen to someone you love. It may or may not have been due to a bad decision on your part but maybe on theirs. Or maybe the bad decision or choice was made by a stranger... causing you physical harm or financial ruin... you just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, right?

So, who pays? Sure, you can do a ‘go fund me’ with the hopes of getting back what you lost or paying off a medical debt. Or maybe you want the government to take that burden on… and just in case you didn’t know it but that means taxes for you and me.

Sure, there are orgs out there to assist people. In fact, you could start an organization to assist people because you either want to virtual signal or because you went through a similar circumstance yourself and so feel inclined to help others. And, that can be a good thing but at the end of the day what does it teach others about making bad decisions. Is it like feeding the bears? Could be.

Shouldn’t people get an education that helps them to navigate the world so that they make good decisions? We’d like to think so… but, these days who pays attention to what is good for them, who reads the signs?

[Most of the above was taken from this online site ~ https://people.eou.edu/socprob/readings/week-1/social-problems-thinking-about-who-benefits/]

And, the best parts of the above were written by me ;-) just sayin 

Society Expects too Much from the Mask in the Social Imagination...

is the mask a bad fit for risk reduction...

Shane Neilson, MD, PhD candidate in English and cultural studies: 5/17/16

When I walk past my waiting room, I see people wearing surgical masks. This scene becomes surreal when my patients are watching pandemic disaster movies on the wall-mounted television screen, movies that feature frightened crowds who wear similar masks in the vain hope of protection. As my eyes move from mask-wearing patients to screaming on-screen characters and back, I wonder: What is happening here?

As represented by our cinema and other media, Western society especially expects too much of masks. In the public’s mind, the still-legitimate use of masks for source control has gone off-label; masks are thought to prevent infection. From here, another problem arises: because surgical masks are thought to protect against infection in the community setting, people wearing masks for legitimate purposes (those who have a cough in a hospital, say) form part of the larger misperception and act to reinforce it. 

Even this proper use of surgical masks is incorporated into a larger improper use in the era of pandemic fear, especially in Asia, where such fear is high. The widespread misconception about the use of surgical masks that wearing a mask protects against the transmission of virus — is a problem of the kind theorized by German sociologist Ulrich Beck.

The surgical mask communicates risk. For most, risk is perceived as the potential loss of something of value, but there is another side to risk, memorably formulated by Beck in his Risk Society. Beck states that risk society is “a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself.” For Beck, risk occurs not only in the form of threat and possible loss, but also in society’s organized management and response to these risks, which create a forwarding of present risk into the future. 

Furthermore, Beck writes of the “symptoms and symbols of risks” that combine in populations to create a “cosmetics of risk.” He suggests that people living in the present moment conceive of risk in terms of the physical tools used to mitigate risk while still “maintaining the source of the filth.” Beck critiques the cosmetics of risk as measures that are not preventive but rather act as a “symbolic industry and policy of eliminating the increase in risks.” I propose that the surgical mask is a symbol that protects from the perception of risk by offering nonprotection to the public while causing behaviors that project risk into the future.

Histories of the surgical mask offer some clues about our contemporary risk profile, a profile that is, according to the nature of risk, future-oriented. The birth of the mask came from the realization that surgical wounds need protection from the droplets released in the breath of surgeons. The technology was applied outside the operating room in an effort to control the spread of infectious epidemics. In the 1919 influenza pandemic, masks were available and were dispensed to populations, but they had no impact on the epidemic curve. At the time, it was unknown that the influenza organism is nanoscopic and can theoretically penetrate the surgical mask barrier. 

As recently as 2010, the US National Academy of Sciences declared that, in the community setting, “face masks are NOT designed or certified to protect the wearer from exposure to respiratory hazards.” A number of studies have shown the inefficacy of the surgical mask in household settings to prevent transmission of the influenza virus, but Smith and colleagues, in a recently published meta-analysis, concluded that the surgical mask was non-inferior to the N95 mask in terms of influenza transmission rates among health care workers. So … health care workers should wear masks to prevent transmission for reasons other than source control, but the public shouldn’t? This conflict creates an optics problem. 

When risk is perceived, readiness and protection for all those at risk becomes a goal, which thereby creates a constant state of preparedness in the universally vulnerable. Remember the sinister-looking beaked plague mask from the Middle Ages that instilled fear in onlookers? Wearing a mask reinforces fear. The cosmesis provided by the mask creates more risk of an effective kind.

An effective problem occurs in the present through anticipation of an unknowable, but somehow threatening, future. Beck suggests that the cosmetic symbols are themselves manifestations of risk that bear their own risks. The same mask donned in the present for the common cold at a local clinic forms part of the cosmetic framework of future pandemic risk management. The future pandemic is perceived in the present, but its materiality is not just in our minds, it is literally substantiated by the mask. Thus we have the means for a self-perpetuating system: the mask symbolically protects against infection just as it represents fear of that infection.

This fear surfaces in public policy. In an annex to the Canadian pandemic influenza preparedness plan covering public health measures, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) does not recommend the use of masks by well individuals in pandemic situations, acknowledging that the mask has not been shown to be effective in such circumstances. However, this stance is complicated by the PHAC’s supporting reasons, which relate to problems of supply, cost, distribution and feasibility: panic might occur if the availability of masks were limited; public purchase of masks might limit the availability of masks in health care settings where they are required; and not all members of the public can afford to purchase masks — if masks are recommended by public health authorities, there could be an expectation that they will be publicly funded and made available by public health programs.

The dimension of supply constitutes tacit acknowledgement that people expect masks to be available in pandemic situations. And they do, if the evidence of popular cinema can be believed. Western society has already emerged into a present reality in which citizens are conditioned to want masks on the basis of media representations of pandemics. The same annex on public health measures refers to the “false sense of security” that a mask can psychologically provide, but the converse is the real risk posed to a government unable to mollify its population.

The PHAC has warned that “Just as we do not know when the next pandemic will strike, we cannot predict how severe it will be.” The pandemic preparedness plan operates in the present, however, with much evidence of the Canadian government’s ongoing preparation, including the release of an updated version of the pandemic influenza preparedness plan in December 2015. Such a future-oriented plan mines anxiety in the present.

We act out our collective anxiety about pandemics by wearing masks even when there isn’t a pandemic, but wearing masks reinforces the idea of a possible future of pandemic. The problem of affect in political terms is a contagious one: fear spreads among the public, leading to intensification of risk management — the classic example being 9/11 and the war on terrorism. Fear of infective risk spreading communicably becomes an ironic pun. Pandemics occurred in 1918, 1957, 1968, 2003 and 2009. Thus, the conversation changes from if the next pandemic will occur to when the next pandemic will occur. Because we are currently “between pandemics,” our existence is book-ended by the realized threats of the past and the reasonable threats of the future — to our detriment, with this detriment masked by the surgical mask itself.

 

 

ONLINE SOURCE ~  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4868614/?fbclid=IwAR3gSctpwk_R6WxruHNF0fTAH8K5QeBgwjDkqYmkVANmbtYeSfu4pENJbH4

Means for Mind Control in the Social Imagination...

I have blogged many times about mind control either as mass media manipulation such as propaganda, mass hypnosis, herd mentality and the art of persuasion to name a few. None of these strategies are new. 

Military architects and social justice movement leaders not excluding marketers have used them for years. Let's take look at six means of mind control referred to as conditioning. These 6 points are being shared from a renown social observer org.- see link below...

1. Keep the person unaware of what is going on how she or he is being changed a step at a time. Potential new members are led, step by step, through a behavioral-change program without being aware of the final agenda or full content of the group.

2. Control the person’s social and/or physical environment; especially control the person’s time.

3. Systematically create a sense of powerlessness in the person.

4. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments and experiences in such a way as to inhibit behavior that reflects the person’s former social identity.

5. Manipulate a system of rewards, punishments, and experiences in order to promote learning the group’s ideology or belief system and group-approved behaviors. Good behavior, demonstrating an understanding and acceptance of the group’s beliefs, and compliance are rewarded, while questioning, expressing doubts or criticizing are met with disapproval, redress and possible rejection. If one expresses a question, they are made to feel that there is something inherently wrong with them to be questioning. 

The point is, this kind of ideological conditioning is happening everywhere, every day, on the job, among friends, even among families. The pressure to conform is intense, because nothing is more threatening to devoted cultists, or members of totalitarian ideological movements, than those who challenge their fundamental beliefs, confront them with facts, or otherwise demonstrate that their “reality” isn’t reality at all, but, rather, a delusional, paranoid fiction.

The key difference between how this works in cults and totalitarian ideological movements is that, usually, a cult is a subcultural group, and thus non-cult-members have the power of the ideology of the dominant society to draw on when resisting the mind-control tactics of the cult, and attempting to deprogram its members … whereas, in our case, this balance of power is inverted. 

Totalitarian ideological movements have the power of governments, the media, the police, the culture industry, academia, and the compliant masses on their side. And, thus, they do not need to persuade anyone. They have the power to dictate “reality.” Only cults operating in total isolation, like Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Guyana, enjoy this level of control over their members.

This pressure to conform, this ideological conditioning, must be fiercely resisted, regardless of the consequences, both publicly and in our private lives, or the “New Normal” will certainly become our new reality which brings us to number six…

6. Put forth a closed system of logic and an authoritarian structure that permits no feedback and refuses to be modified except by leadership approval or executive order. The group has a top-down, pyramid structure. The leaders must have verbal ways of never losing.

 

 

 

*Online source ~  https://consentfactory.org

The Consent Factory, Inc. remains fanatically committed to the establishment and maintenance of global neoliberalism (i.e., laissez faire capitalism), and thus opposes all forms of despotism that prevent our clients from forcing into debt, aggressively privatizing, and then ruthlessly exploiting whatever markets they (i.e., these murderous despots) control. In other words, we don’t care how you oppress your own people at home, as long as you’re playing ball with our clients globally.

What is Communism in the Social Imagination...?

Communism, political and economic doctrine that aims to replace private property and a profit-based economy with public ownership and communal control of at least the major means of production (e.g., mines, mills, and factories) and the natural resources of a society.

The primary point of difference between capitalism and communism is regarding the ownership of 'means of production' or resources in general. Communism shuns private/individual ownership of land or any vital resources. ... On the other hand, capitalism believes in private ownership of land and means of production.

Today, you can hear people touting communism. Why? Because, they don't really know what it is or what it means. They have been led to believe that its a fair and just system where everyone gets along and where everyone gets what they want when they want it. But, even if that last part was more like... gets what they want when they deserve it according to their work for the State, the promoters of this ideology would naively think that's fair and just. What such people don't recognize is that man is a fallen creature and his fallen nature is not to work for anyone but him/herself. 

As for the good of society, well, they like to make it look like they are working for the good of society but they are working for themselves so that the State will continue to raise them up... not the peon, the one that really should benefit. And even if they had a government job pushing papers that say you will get what you want ... they do it so that they get what they want first which is power to control your life. You've seen how the communist loves to virtue signal, haven't you?

Effectively, in communist theory and practice, the welfare of society is above individual welfare. It sounds good but if you don't appear to be useful or good for society at large, THE STATE, then you must be the problem and you must be corrected if possible. That means, the government runs your life. They make decisions for you and everyone else. The STATE must be sovereign in this or else. That is the communist idea of fairness ...yes, really.

Communism is an ideology that thinks man has created the right system (communism) for everyone and it should be the ultimate goal for humankind. Most people have no or little knowledge of this truth. Thus, they often confuse it with the softer or gentler ism... socialism. But what is socialism? Its a kind of blend of capitalism and communism. There is more government control over people's lives but not total control as it must be with communism.  

In the communist system, the government is responsible for all decisions; whereas, the system of capitalism leaves the decisions and regulation more or less to the private sector. The main goal of communism is an equal outcome for the whole society; that means you get a pair of shoes on the same day everyone else does. The main objective of capitalist is to offer equal opportunities. And, out of that comes more opportunities to get a pair of shoes any day of the week. 

Historically, most of the communist systems have been led by a one- party state with the function as a supervisory economic body that controls most aspects of people’s lives. This fact is probably one reason too, that capitalism had a more long term success. Capitalism works with and for democracy. Yes, really! Because, people have a vested interest in the place where they are/find themselves living and working. 

In that place, people naturally want to have a say in what happens to their life, their children's lives and to their vested interest - property i.e. So, they get involved in their community... its called grass roots democracy. It is driven by free elections that lead to the restriction of government’s actual power over the individual and their power to interfer in private lives. 

Out of this lack of government control/restrictions comes more freedom as in civil liberties... a kind of reward for having a vested interest in the place where you are and live. The very idea of being a free individual, able to make decisions for yourself is a basic human need.

Because of that need, you are encouraged to participate in self-governance (as is everyone else around you) and you do so recognizing your civil liberties that allow you and everyone else to freely conduct commerce and engage in conservation freely in order to protect your interests; and since everyone is able to have vested interests in the place where they are, no matter how big or small, there is a greater tendency to flourish, to be positive and prosperous. 

In case you didn't know, the freedom of speech sits right beside the right for security which is probably the most prominent human basic need. If you didn't have free speech, you could never make a case to protect your life let alone your vested interests.

Because of these valuable basic human needs, the advantages of capitalism has led to worldwide success. The consumer’s choice is free and individual. This freedom of choice led to an increasing competition, which further led to better quality of life and enhanced services. 

Ah... but for you communist dolts... you will end up eating each other... just look at the history of communist societies. They devour each other because there isn't anything else to look forward to...

Pulling the Wool over your Eyes in the Social Imagination...

 

Health does not come by injection...so why pull the wool? 

This commentary comes from a 'fellow social media blogger', Christian Elliot. Now, I don't know him personally but from one blogger to another what he writes about is close to my imagination. So, here's a share... from one to another interested in truth.

The only industry in the world that bears no liability for injuries or deaths resulting from their products, are vaccine makers.

First established in 1986 with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, and reinforced by the PREP Act, vaccine makers cannot be sued, even if they are shown to be negligent.The covid-vaccine makers are allowed to create a one-size-fits-all product, with no testing on sub-populations (i.e. people with specific health conditions), and yet they are unwilling to accept any responsibility for any adverse events or deaths their products cause.

If a company is not willing to stand behind their product as safe, especially one they rushed to market and skipped animal trials on, I am not willing to take a chance on their product. No liability. No trust.

The checkered past of a few vaccine companies. The four major companies who are making these covid vaccines are/have either:

1. Never brought a vaccine to market before covid (Moderna and Johnson & Johnson).
2. Are serial felons (Pfizer, and Astra Zeneca).
3. Are both (Johnson & Johnson).

Moderna had been trying to "Modernize our RNA" (thus the company name)--for years, but had never successfully brought ANY product to market--how nice for them to get a major cash infusion from the government to keep trying.

In fact, all major vaccine makers (save Moderna) have paid out tens of billions of dollars in damages for other products they brought to market when they knew those products would cause injuries and death--see Vioxx, Bextra, Celebrex, Thalidomide, and Opioids as a few examples.

If drug companies willfully choose to put harmful products in the market, when they can be sued, why would we trust any product where they have NO liability?

In case it hasn't sunk in, let me reiterate...3 of the 4 covid vaccine makers have been sued for products they brought to market even though they knew injuries and deaths would result.

Given the free pass from liability, and the checkered past of these companies, why would we assume that all their vaccines are safe and made completely above board?

There have been many attempts to make viral vaccines in the past that ended in utter failure, which is why we did not have a coronavirus vaccine in 2020.

In the 1960's, scientists attempted to make an RSV (Respiratory Syncytial Virus) vaccine for infants.  that study, they skipped animal trials because they weren't necessary back then. In the end, the vaccinated infants got much sicker than the unvaccinated infants when exposed to the virus in nature, with 80% of the vaccinated infants requiring hospitalization and two of them died.

After 2000, scientists made many attempts to create coronavirus vaccines. For the past 20 years, all ended in failure because the animals in the clinical trials got very sick and many died, just like the children in the 1960's.

The typical pattern in such studies found that children and animals produced beautiful antibody responses after being vaccinated. However, the problem came when the children and animals were exposed to the wild version of the virus.

When that happened, an unexplained phenomenon called Antibody Dependent Enhancement (ADE) also known as Vaccine Enhanced Disease (VED) occurred where the immune system produced a "cytokine storm" (i.e. overwhelmingly attacked the body), and the children/animals died.

Here's the lingering issue...The vaccine makers have no data to suggest their rushed vaccines have overcome that problem. In other words, never before has any attempt to make a coronavirus vaccine been successful, nor has the gene-therapy technology that is mRNA "vaccines" been safely brought to market, but hey, since they had billions of dollars in government funding, I'm sure they figured that out.

When vaccine makers submitted their papers to the FDA for the Emergency Use Authorization (Note: An EUA is not the same as a full FDA approval), among the many "Data Gaps" they reported was that they have nothing in their trials to suggest they overcame that pesky problem of Vaccine Enhanced Disease.

They simply don't know--i.e. they have no idea if the vaccines they've made will also produce the same cytokine storm (and deaths) as previous attempts at such products.

In case you think I'm making this up, or want to see the actual documents sent to the FDA by Pfizer and Moderna for their Emergency Use Authorization, you can check out this, or this respectively. The data gaps can be found starting with page 46 and 48 respectively.

For now let's turn our eyes to the raw data the vaccine makers used to submit for emergency use authorization.

Would you like to see the raw data that produced the "90% and 95% effective" claims touted in the news? Me too...But they won't let us see that data. There were “3,410 total cases of suspected, but unconfirmed covid-19 in the overall study population, 1,594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1,816 in the placebo group.”

Did they fail to do science in their scientific study by not verifying a major variable?Could they not test those "suspected but unconfirmed" cases to find out if they had covid? Apparently not.Why not test all 3,410 participants for the sake of accuracy? Can we only guess they didn't test because it would mess up their "90-95% effective" claims?

Where's the FDA? Would it not be prudent for the FDA, to expect (demand) that the vaccine makers test people who have "covid-like symptoms," and release their raw data so outside, third-parties could examine how the manufacturers justified the numbers?

Why did the FDA not require that? Isn't that the entire purpose of the FDA anyway? Good question. Obviously, with products that have only been on the market a few months, we have no long-term safety data. In other words, we have no idea what this product will do in the body months or years from now--for ANY population.

Given all the risks above (risks that ALL pharmaceutical products have), would it not be prudent to wait to see if the worst-case scenarios have indeed been avoided? Would it not make sense to want to fill those pesky "data gaps" before we try to give this to every man, woman, and child on the planet?

Moreover, those who are planning to take or have taken the vaccine don't know is that because these products are still in clinical trials, anyone who gets the shot is now part of the clinical trial. They are part of the experiment.

Those (like me) who do not take it, are part of the control group.Time will tell how this experiment works out. But, you may be asking, if the vaccines are causing harm, wouldn't we be seeing that all over the news? Surely, the FDA would step in and pause the distribution?

 Aren't these vaccines supposed to be what we've been waiting for to "go back to normal"?  Why do you think we're getting all these conflicting messages about needing to practice social distancing and wear masks AFTER we get a vaccine?

The reason is because these vaccines were never designed to stop transmission OR infection.If you don't believe me, I refer you again to the papers submitted to the FDA I linked to above. The primary endpoint (what the vaccines are meant to accomplish) is to lower your symptoms. Sounds like just about every other drug on the market right? That's it...lowering your symptoms is the big payoff we've been waiting for.

Does that seem completely pointless to anyone but me?

1. It can't stop us from spreading the virus.
2. It can't stop the virus from infecting us once we have it.
3. To get the vaccine is to accept all the risk of these experimental products and the best it might do is lower symptoms?

If we're worried about asymptomatic spreaders, would the vaccine not make it more likely that we are creating asymptomatic spread? If it indeed reduces symptoms, anyone who gets it might not even know they are sick and thus they are more likely to spread the virus, right?

 For what it's worth, I've heard many people say the side effects of the vaccine (especially the second dose) are worse than catching covid. Guess what? You get vaccinated and you still catch covid.

According to the CDC's own numbers, covid has a 99.74% survival rate. Why would I take a risk on a product, that doesn't stop infection or transmission, to help me overcome a cold that has a .26% chance of killing me--actually in my age range is has about a .1% chance of killing me (and .01% chance of killing my kids), but let's not split hairs here...

What has happened to the scientific method of always challenging our assumptions? What happened to lively debate in this country, or at least in Western society? Why did anyone who disagrees with the WHO, or the CDC get censored so heavily?

Is the science of public health a religion now, or is science supposed to be about debate? If someone says "the science is settled" that's how I know I'm dealing with someone who is closed minded.

 By definition science (especially biological science) is never settled. If it was, it would be dogma, not science. If lockdowns work, I want to do my part and stay home. If masks work, I want to wear them.

 If social distancing is effective, I want to comply. But, if there is evidence they don't (masks for example), I want to hear that evidence too. If highly-credentialed scientists have different opinions, I want to know what they think. Don't you?

I want a chance to hear their arguments and make up my own mind. I don't think I'm the smartest person in the world, but I think I can think. I for one think there's a lot more that we have in common than what separates us.

We all want to live in a world of freedom. We all want to do our part to help others and to live well. We all want the right to express our opinions without fearing we'll be censored or viciously attacked. We all deserve to have the access to the facts so we can make informed decisions.

 

By Christian Elliot ~

https://www.deconstructingconventional.com/post/18-reason-i-won-t-be-getting-a-covid-vaccine?