Steerzing in a New Direction...

[Service Dog]

Hardly "an exception JUST FOR screwtape" when the CDC and many other sources talk about "contraindications" in many circumstances for many people

Nope. No contraindications are being recognized. No medical exemptions.

[HelpingHand]

The full interview has many other delightfully amusing bits.

Do you suppose her inside voice was calling her mouth out in real time, "What the fuck are you saying!?! Shut up!" Or does she not realize at all that this looks bad?

[Service Dog]

Biden: Accusing the Dems of saying 'defund the police' is like saying we drink children's blood.

Cori Bush: Defund the Police!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Do you suppose her inside voice was calling her mouth out in real time, "What the fuck are you saying!?! Shut up!" Or does she not realize at all that this looks bad?

It's pretty much this epoch's credo quia absurdum.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Biden: Accusing the Dems of saying 'defund the police' is like saying we drink pinch children's blood nipples.

FTFY

[Service Dog]

It's pretty much this epoch's credo quia absurdum.

A long time ago,
In a galaxy far, far away...

another epoch's Greedo qui est absurd. Um.

[Steersman]

...not to flog a dead horse or anything like that ... but you.... might try entertaining the "dangerous thought" that many members of many sexually reproducing species are, in fact, actually sexless.

I'd prefer you stop crusading at me. I'm already converted. .... It's not a debate if my side says 'Congratulations: you win!' After that-- you're just posting SPAM. ....

Save it for someone who doesn't agree with you.

So you agree with my "premise" and consequential conclusions that, for example, transwomen who cut their nuts off turn themselves into sexless eunuchs?

Good to know if that's actually the case, but it would help if you explicitly indicated that. Say by exclaiming, to all and sundry, "Hallelujah! I've seen the light! Praise Gawd! Praise Steersman!" ;)

I do seriously think you are the Singularity at the end of Judith Butler, gender studies, intersectional feminism. They are all obsolete. They opened Pandora's Box-- and after the cascade of half-lifes degraded-- you are the heat death of their universe. Thesis --> antithesis --> synthesis --> Steersman. End of the line.

"Pandora's Box", indeed; letting some rather malevolent genii out of their bottles. But, obsolete or not, there are some ongoing problems that are the result of that.

The butchering of dysphoric and autistic children for example:



Not to mention the corruption of much of biological science.

"crimestop" "thinking" and trying to sweep the problems under the carpet is not likely to resolve them.

(But I'm still gonna talk however I wanna talk in everyday conversation. You're only the Undisputed Intergender World Heavyweight Champion-- INSIDE the Large Hadron Gender Collider in Morris Minnesota. https://archive.is/QAlco )

:) Speaking of the benighted backwater of Morris, Minnesota and kudos that I've received from that quarter ...

Tweets_PZ_Myers_Accolades_1A.jpg

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But I can sympathize with the use of colloquial expressions and understandings of various words - the use of them for their connotations. But when push comes to shove, when a line has to be drawn in the sand, then we have to agree on primary denotations. Bit of a thorny problem, one I'm not sure how to address. But it clearly needs to be done.

[Service Dog]

So you agree with my "premise" and consequential conclusions that, for example, transwomen who cut their nuts off turn themselves into sexless eunuchs?

Sure, why not? As far as I can tell--- what you're doing is like-- looking at the Graphite in a pencil & calling it "crystalline Carbon". And further sorting the pencils by whether their graphine structures are hexagonal or rhombohedral. There's a place for such fine distinctions. But I mostly dwell in realms where there's infintessimal harm in calling it "lead". I'm well-aware it's not ₈₂Pb --Lead on the periodic table.

I think we need Gender Studies departments like a fish needs a bicycle-- but if we are to have such things, your classifications are better than the other leading contenders.

Or am I missing something? Does this end with you re-defining "children" so you can molest them? I sure fuckin' hope not.

"Hallelujah! I've seen the light! Praise Gawd! Praise Steersman!"

Amen and Steerswoman.

[Steersman]

George Orwell wrote about this method. He called it 'crimestop':

“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.”

That "faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought" is a rather cogent observation, and particularly ubiquitous these days. For instance, not to flog a dead horse or anything like that ..., but you, Matt, and screwtape - buddies, The Three Musketeers in the same boat at last ... ;) - might try entertaining the "dangerous thought" that many members of many sexually reproducing species are, in fact, actually sexless. A perfectly reasonable word, of some more or less venerable provenance, denoting a not inconceivable state of being "neither male nor female" ;)

I think you mean 3FJ, not Screwy...

Certainly 3FJ seems to be in the same boat with Matt and Service Dog in their "skepticism" about covid vaccinations. For which there may be some few justifications.

But I was referring to the "dangerous thought" that some third of us are sexless which Matt, Screwtape, and Service Dog all, more or less, seem to balk at even entertaining, much less accepting as a valid and useful premise to adjudicate various claims:

ReproductiveClasses2B.jpg

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That was a particularly useful and cogent quote of Orwell's that Service Dog posted earlier; seems to be a Wikipedia article on that:

Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.

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

Rather ubiquitous these days, and more or less common on virtually all sides. Many here have probably run across "Scott Alexander" - previously of Slate Star Codex, now at Astral Codex Ten - who had, I think, a particularly cogent summary of the problems "we" face:

Facebook_Alexander_SlateStarCodex_SpectacularlyBroken_Sctn1C.jpg

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https://astralcodexten.substack.com/about?sort=about

"How people evaluate the arguments for their beliefs" - when they even think about them instead of accepting them as gospel truth - is the crux of the problem. What passes for "thought" is some people's "minds" is a travesty of the concept; nearly fell out of my chair when I ran across a response to a tweet from Colin Wright:




"insane conspiracy theory", indeed.



That's quite a leap of "logic" from being concerned about turning kids into sexless eunuchs to evidence of "white nationalist replacement theory with extra steps", about "fewer white children being born."

"spectacularly broken in a way that may doom us all" - amen to that.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

But I was referring to the "dangerous thought" that some third of us are sexless which Matt, Screwtape, and Service Dog all, more or less, seem to balk at even entertaining, much less accepting as a valid and useful premise to adjudicate various claims:

That's right, we do. So shut the fuck up already about it.

[Steersman]

...
Hardly "an exception JUST FOR screwtape" when the CDC and many other sources talk about "contraindications" in many circumstances for many people

Nope. No contraindications are being recognized. No medical exemptions.

imgur.com/rTriIii.png

Don't think your imgur link works.

But that's de Blasio, not the CDC:

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/i ... t/moderna/

Maybe you have your thumb on the scales?

[Steersman]

So you agree with my "premise" and consequential conclusions that, for example, transwomen who cut their nuts off turn themselves into sexless eunuchs?

Sure, why not?

:clap: Now, maybe you can work on Matt and Screwtape? ;)

As far as I can tell--- what you're doing is like-- looking at the Graphite in a pencil & calling it "crystalline Carbon". .... There's a place for such fine distinctions. But I mostly dwell in realms where there's infintessimal harm in calling it "lead". ....

I'll more or less concede that it is something of a "fine distinction", but it's not entirely just "academic". There are some "real-world" nitty-grity, grim meat-hook realities to it; some very sticky wickets there indeed.

But, for instance, it was the crux of the recent case with Maya Forstater in the UK in which she had, rather dogmatically, insisted that "sex is immutable", pretty much a mantra of the GC crowd, almost as bad as the TRA's "trans women are women":

GoogleDrive_MayaForstater_Judgement_Pt83_1C.jpg

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Can't very well say sex is immutable if one can't even say what makes it so. As bad as the transwomen nutcases claiming to be females - some ethereal je ne sais quoi essence that grants membership in both cases.

But while I'm generally happy that she won her case, more than a few people other than just myself have, as I've said, been unhappy that the judgement in her favour turned on a question of belief and not fact:

Tweets_JamesWatt_Y210612A_Forstater_Belief_1A.jpg

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A response to my tweet which is no longer available as I'm currently suspended:




Though some evidence that Twitter is starting to read the writing on the wall and restoring a few accounts which had the shocking temerity to insist that transwomen were or are males. Speaking of nitty-gritty consequences ...

But is it a "matter of belief" that the correct side of the road to drive on (in the UK) is the left-hand side? Is it a matter of belief to say that teenagers are those between the ages of 13 and 19 inclusive?

Same thing with woman as "adult human female". Though most women and their fellow-travelers and hand-maidens become "nonplussed", at best, when one suggests they lose their membership cards in the categories "woman" and "female" once they hit menopause. Putting what feels good ahead of what's true, indeed.

I think we need Gender Studies departments like a fish needs a bicycle-- but if we are to have such things, your classifications are better than the other leading contenders.

Progress! :) But that is, in fact, the crux of the matter: while the names for categories are, in fact, "socially constructed", some classifications and categories hang together rather better than others: for example, the ancient elements earth, air, fire and water being somewhat less useful than the 100-odd we currently agree on.

Or am I missing something? Does this end with you re-defining "children" so you can molest them? I sure fuckin' hope not.

Why the fuck would you think that? Where have I ever suggested, say, lowering the age of consent? Which is, as far as I know and with some justification, set at 18 - at least outside of various Muslim and Christian backwaters.

That kids don't technically acquire a sex until puberty has no impact on or relevance to those laws.

"Hallelujah! I've seen the light! Praise Gawd! Praise Steersman!"

Amen and Steerswoman.

:) So few on the distaff side of the crowd. Though I like to think of Eleanor Roosevelt as an honorary member, "self-governing" being part and parcel of steersmanship:

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[Steersman]

But I was referring to the "dangerous thought" that some third of us are sexless which Matt, Screwtape, and Service Dog all, more or less, seem to balk at even entertaining, much less accepting as a valid and useful premise to adjudicate various claims:

That's right, we do. So shut the fuck up already about it.

:) May need to put me on "ignore" ... ;)

But you may wish to read Service Dog's recent comments and have a chat with him as he seems to have abandoned, or is at least "distancing" himself from, the position you and Screwtape are rather desperately trying to hang onto.

You may recollect, "If you're not part of the solution ..."

[Matt Cavanaugh]

The Chinese Communist Party propaganda ministry. a.k.a., US mainstream media.

[Lsuoma]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Naturally-acquired antibodies more potent, long-lasting, than the vax:

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210 ... -ones.aspx

[Matt Cavanaugh]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

He's a real oarator.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Everybody just lighten the fuck up and enjoy the latest from the official Pit comedian:

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

Naturally-acquired antibodies more potent, long-lasting, than the vax:

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210 ... -ones.aspx

Not quite. The study shows that previously infected individuals show a qualitatively better response to the vaccine than the uninfected.

[John D]

you can't outsteer a steerzo!

he's a real oarator.

His work is inspired by a long oaral tradition.

[John D]

Everybody just lighten the fuck up and enjoy the latest from the official Pit comedian:

Cute bit. but.... when did this guy become "official"? Did we vote? Did I miss the news? Youall have me on block.... don't you...

[Service Dog]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

He's a real oarator.

It's all Greek to me.

κυβερνήτης

[John D]

The butchering of dysphoric and autistic children for example:

From what I have read and in my personal experience there are many trans people who are autistic. I think about half of my daughter's trans friends are obviously on the spectrum. I could tell just by talking to them. Makes sense I guess. They already might feel they are very "different" due to the autism and they might think changing gender will make them feel like they fit in. I think though, that autistics who are trans pursue this path because it gives them something to perform. It occupies their time and effort.... it gives them a goal... they like the attention... they like thinking they are being abused so their performance is brave.

[Service Dog]

Sam Harris vs. Bret Weinstein, according to Bret & Wifey. And me.

Sam: 1st criteria: Either people recognize how deadly and serious this virus is, or they're 'deniers' who don't.

Bret: ok.

Sam: 2nd criteria: The vax-es are the one true tool we've got to fight the virus. Anybody who denies that is one of those virus-deniers who doesn't take the virus seriously.

Bret & Wifey: that's a logical fallacy. We passed your 1st criteria. Failing your 2nd criteria doesn't retroactively make us fail the 1st one.

Sam: Look at these statistics on who got vax'd. 90%* of Democrats got vaxed. 13%* of Republicans got vaxed. Anyone who didn't get vax'd is a Republican. You are Republicans.

Me: of course Sam Harris would go-there

Bret: Those stats only look at D's & R's. That's not the whole universe of people. Those stats don't-even add-up to the overall rate of vaccination, so there must be another group not counted.

Me: I listened to 17* minutes of Bret & Wifey blathering about nothing-- to get to this part-- and after 4* minutes of this rebuttal (and zero minutes of listening to Sam Harris's original podcast)-- I can already tell they're only attacking each other's motives & mentality & rhetorical errors... no substance regarding what's actually true about the virus and the treatments.

*all numbers above are approximations of the actual numbers. close enough.

[Service Dog]

Sam Harris is the Atheist Variant of this:

I took a YouGov survey on vax passports, etc. YG shows a running total of responses as you go. YG respondents skew heavily affluent metro. Most were strongly against cash or other incentives for getting the vax, but hugely in favor of special privileges for the already vaccinated, along with severe social punishments for the holdouts.

For some time now, the bi-coastal, metro, 'creative class' elite have considered themselves morally and intellectually superior -- and thus more deserving -- than the bitter clinger, flyover lumpenproles with their antiquated ideas of individual freedom and personal responsibility. The Forever Pandemic provided the opportunity to establish both the collectivist conformity and the caste system they'd always dreamed of.

[Brive1987]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

One engages with care.

[MarcusAu]

Cute bit. but.... when did this guy become "official"? Did we vote? Did I miss the news? Youall have me on block.... don't you...

Yes.

The news went viral some time ago.

Results were masked for some regular participants.

[Service Dog]

Wait... there's a Delta PLUS variant? :dance:

That's what Joy Reid just told me:

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/08 ... ing-homes/

less than a minute of searching... i see D+ was 'a thing' back in June, and is considered insignificant now. So of course she's talking about it now.

[Lsuoma]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

One engages with care.

Rubbish! That's a victory backflip...

[Service Dog]

I attempted to post a certain post-- a half dozen times... yesterday & today. I'm taken to an Internal Server Error dead end, every time.

[Steersman]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

:) At least if they don't keep their sticks on the ice - as the inimitable Red Green used to say:

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

And keeping an eye on the goal helps too. Which, in this particular "game", is the question of just what we should agree that the word "woman" refers to and denotes. We simply can't have workable policies if we can't even agree on our definitions, on our terms of reference:

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But either it's just an entirely subjective feeling - by which Bergdorf, Zinnia Jones, Bruce Jenner, and their ilk have as much claim to that exalted estate as do (or did) our mothers - or there's a quite specific and entirely objective criteria for category membership which is conventionally and biologically stipulated as being a female - which is a rather transitory state indeed.

Rather remarkable the degree to which so many balk at taking that hurdle, at taking that bull - or steer as the case may be ... - by the horns. Interestingly, Helen Joyce - author of recently published Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality ("THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER") - more or less and quite commendably endorsed that idea of objective criteria and a categorization that "holds across ALL of biology":

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Though she, among too many people - feminists in particular, still seems to object to the argument that "produces ova" is a "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as both female and woman. Although there seems to be some evidence in her book that she's at least starting to entertain that idea, that "woman" isn't an identity but just "merely" a label for a biological capability:

[Steersman]

You can't outSteer a Steerzo!

He's a real oarator.

It's all Greek to me.

κυβερνήτης
//i.imgur.com/8xsK5Qu.jpg

Bingo! :clap: :handgestures-salute: Someone is paying attention ... ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics#Etymology

Fascinating field of study, though one I've barely touched the surface of. I've never been able to get ahold of this Kalmus article - still paywalled or not very popular - but the Science Direct one is an interesting overview and popularization:

In 1950, Hans Kalmus explicitly developed this idea in an article entitled “A Cybernetical Aspect of Genetics,” in which he described the gene as a “message” of a “chemical nature” (Kalmus, 1950).

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 7413004534

[Fegg]

Though she, among too many people - feminists in particular, still seems to object to the argument that "produces ova" is a "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as both female and woman.

The idea that a woman temporarily ceases to be a woman for the duration of her pregnancy is a hard to sell to someone who has or had the ability to become pregnant.

If you wish any of those masses of conflicting impulses to agree with you, I think you may have to adjust your definition somewhat.

[Service Dog]

I encountered the term-- used in reference to a mere human hand steering a huge ship-- as a metaphor for an individual's power to exert influence on an entire society-- via that School Sucks Project podcast, which I cited previously.

https://schoolsucksproject.com/?s=cybernetics

Your previous reply is correct: podcasts often contain a poor signal to noise ratio. Which does apply to School Sucks. It's usually quite meandering. And it covers all sorts of topics-- from movie reviews to federal funding of public schools. But when School Sucks does strike gold-- it's a rich vein.

I think you'd like School Sucks' looks at the Trivium method of learning.

https://schoolsucksproject.com/?s=trivium

[Steersman]

The butchering of dysphoric and autistic children for example:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqm36seHkyc

From what I have read and in my personal experience there are many trans people who are autistic. I think about half of my daughter's trans friends are obviously on the spectrum. ....

Seems to be many anecdotes along that line; something of a consensus view.

.... I think though, that autistics who are trans pursue this path because it gives them something to perform. It occupies their time and effort.... it gives them a goal... they like the attention... they like thinking they are being abused so their performance is brave.

Such a bizarre phenomenon in many ways. If it affected only a small number of people then one might say, "Want to turn yourself into sexless eunuchs? Go big, fill yer boots". Particularly as one might argue that they shouldn't be in the gene pool in the first place.

But that seems rather cavalier, particularly as many if not most kids will outgrow that phase. And there's no shortage of grief - both to kids and their parents - that tends to weigh against that policy; interesting though rather horrific Dutch documentary thereon:



Hard not to see much of the transgender clusterfuck as a medical scandal on par with the Tuskegee syphilis study. And, not to put too fine a point on it, one that is, in large part, due to a general reluctance to define precisely what we mean by "male" and "female" in the first place.

But also an interesting phenomenon that speaks to how we all develop our senses of self - and how that process can go off the rails. Periodically wonder if at least part of it isn't a case of imprinting, of boys - in the case of transwomen - imprinting on their mothers. Or trying to compete with them for the affections of their fathers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprinting_(psychology)

Fascinating but rather profoundly problematic with a great many quite serious ramifications across all of society:

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[Steersman]

Though she, among too many people - feminists in particular, still seems to object to the argument that "produces ova" is a "necessary and sufficient condition" to qualify as both female and woman.

The idea that a woman temporarily ceases to be a woman for the duration of her pregnancy is a hard to sell to someone who has or had the ability to become pregnant

You might take a look at a Grammarly article on the concept of "present tense indefinite":

We use the simple present tense when an action is happening right now, or when it happens regularly (or unceasingly, which is why it’s sometimes called present indefinite).

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/simple-present/

While a 9 month hiatus might be seen as a bit of a stretch of the term "regularly", if an XXer has functional ovaries that work on a more less regular basis then she gets her membership card endorsed. But prepubescent girls and menopausees? And prepubescent boys and transwomen who cut their nuts off? No tickee, no washee.

But this "debate" is rather intriguing and quite fascinating for many reasons, not least for drawing attention to a rather ubiquitous, though rather problematic, confusion over the nature of categories. You in particular might like my several kicks at that kitty, the most recent being an open letter to Colin Wright - which he deigned not to respond to - on some elaborations and variations:



https://letter.wiki/conversation/876

But, somewhat more generally, do we temporarily pass into and pass out of, say, the category of "hungry"? Do we pass into and then out of the category "teenager"? Many men for the category "bachelor"?

The problem is, in large part, that many people insist on turning categories - abstractions, perceptions of shared traits - into real things: the "sin", the logical fallacy of reification:

Oxford_Definitions_Category3B.jpg

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If we can pay the membership dues then we can wear the colours; if we don't then we can't. Such a fundamental principle, intrinsic to the whole project of science if not civilization itself:

Wikipedia_ExtensionalAndIntensionalDefinitions1A.jpg

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If you wish any of those masses of conflicting impulses to agree with you, I think you may have to adjust your definition somewhat.

Pandering to women's vanity or to transwomen's envy helps no one. As Sagan emphasized, what characterizes so much of our common discourse these days is putting what feels good - not "offending" people :roll: - over and above what is "true":

DemonHauntedWorld_Sagan_FeelsGood_1A.jpg

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[Service Dog]

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-con ... -jan-6.jpg


SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Missouri locksmith has been charged in the January 6th Capitol Riot Wednesday, August 4th.

Isaac Samuel Yoder, owner of Nevada, Mo. business, “Yoder Lock and Key,” was featured in several photographs inside the Capitol building wearing a George Washington costume.

Arkansas legislature starts special session to talk mask mandate ban changes, unemployment benefits
According to federal officials, Yoder was identified through a tip to the FBI National Threat Operations Center that stated, “I was made aware that an individual that works at Yoder locksmith in Nevada Missouri was involved in the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6th. I am unsure of the gentleman’s first name but know the day of the event he was inside the Capitol and was dressed as George Washington.”

Agents then compared his driver’s license photo to the photo of the costume-clad man in the Capitol on January 6th.

The pictures matched, and Yoder was contacted by FBI agents to conduct an interview.

City leaders seek input on whether to change or keep the Springfield flag with new survey
Yoder agreed to an interview with FBI agents at the Joplin Resident Agency in Joplin, Mo.

During the interview, Yoder explained that he had entered the Capitol building through a west-facing door after seeing broken glass and barricades.

He said the situation seemed to be “somewhat under control” by the time he entered the building and that many people were standing around taking pictures and videos.

Yoder said that he exited the same way he entered.

He brought the costume and his phone to the interview, and agents were able to determine that it was the same one worn during the riot.

Yoder has been charged with knowingly entering a restricted building and attempting to disrupt Government business with disorderly conduct or parading, demonstrating, or picketing inside a Capitol building.

Yoder was arrested on August 4th in Springfield.

[Steersman]

Naturally-acquired antibodies more potent, long-lasting, than the vax:

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20210 ... -ones.aspx

Not quite. The study shows that previously infected individuals show a qualitatively better response to the vaccine than the uninfected.

A rather hard to read article at Medical Net. And the abstract of the original article wasn't much better:

Antibody Evolution after SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 9.454333v1

[Steersman]

I encountered the term-- used in reference to a mere human hand steering a huge ship-- as a metaphor for an individual's power to exert influence on an entire society-- via that School Sucks Project podcast, which I cited previously.

https://schoolsucksproject.com/?s=cybernetics

Bookmarked. I see it references the The Human Use of Human Beings which more or less started the ball rolling; "one of the fundamental documents of our time". Book in PDF:

http://asounder.org/resources/weiner_humanuse.pdf

Bit technical in places but somewhat more philosophical than technical; a popularization.

Your previous reply is correct: podcasts often contain a poor signal to noise ratio. Which does apply to School Sucks. It's usually quite meandering. And it covers all sorts of topics-- from movie reviews to federal funding of public schools. But when School Sucks does strike gold-- it's a rich vein.

I think you'd like School Sucks' looks at the Trivium method of learning.

https://schoolsucksproject.com/?s=trivium

Bookmarked. I'd run across the word "trivium" recently though don't know where; a fairly durable concept, one going back some 1200 years at least. An interesting article on it, one of Wikipedia's 6 million-odd, that doesn't seem to be too biased or with too many errors ... ;)

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

America has its warts and systemic flaws, hopefully none that are really fatal, but one of its better features seems to be that if there's a market for something then someone will develop it. Part of that is boosterism and hucksterism and grifters - Trump University - but a better part of it seems to be groups like the SchoolSucksProject.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Cute bit. but.... when did this guy become "official"? Did we vote? Did I miss the news? Youall have me on block.... don't you...

It was the most free and fair vote ever. Why are you undermining trust in our official comedian elections?

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Cholesterol drug dramatically reduces covid infection and symptoms:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 60490/full

Declared 'dangerous misinformation' in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ....

[Steersman]

Cholesterol drug dramatically reduces covid infection and symptoms:

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 60490/full

Declared 'dangerous misinformation' in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ....

dangerous misinformation ... ;)

Interesting article though it should be noted that it was submitted in January 2021. Hence the 1.9 million dead figure.

But seems a reasonable argument, though the paper is based on "cell assays" which is probably rather different from tests in human patients:

In both settings at drug concentrations, which are clinically achievable, fenofibrate and fenofibric acid reduced viral infection by up to 70%. Together with its extensive history of clinical use and its relatively good safety profile, this study identifies fenofibrate as a potential therapeutic agent requiring an urgent clinical evaluation to treat SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Though it might be emphasized that it's projected as a "potential therapeutic agent", not as a replacement for vaccination. Which they acknowledge the utility of except where contraindicated:

While the clinical data are very promising, the vaccines are not recommended or suitable in all patient groups, e.g., children, those with hyperimmune disorders, and those using immunosuppressants (Meo et al., 2021), and with the global spread of viral variants of concern, e.g., Alpha-B.1.1.7, Beta-B.1.351, Gamma-P.1, and Delta-B.1.617.2, it is presently unclear whether the current vaccines will offer sufficient protection to emerging strains (Meo et al., 2021). While in a few countries vaccination programs are progressing at speed, vaccine uptake rates are variable and for most low middle-income countries, significant proportions of the population are unlikely to be vaccinated until 2022. Furthermore, while vaccination has been shown to reduce infection rates and severity of disease, we are as yet unsure of the strength and duration of the response.

In any case, while they're suggesting fenofibrate is a potential "therapeutic agent", it's not without a few downsides of its own:

Common side effects include liver problems, breathing problems, abdominal pain, muscle problems, and nausea.[2] Serious side effects may include toxic epidermal necrolysis, rhabdomyolysis, gallstones, and pancreatitis.[2] Use in pregnancy and breastfeeding is not recommended.

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

At least if you can put any faith at all in what you read in Wikipedia ... ;)

[Service Dog]

.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups, by revealing to the placebo group which-group they were in/ and giving the placebo-group the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol after they were indemnified by the emergency use authorization.

Dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues.
Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against.

Pfizer and Moderna intentionally dissolved the placebo groups.

Pfizer and Moderna dissolved the placebo groups on purpose.

According to NPR, the doctors lost the control group in the Johnson County Clinical Trial (Lenexa, Kansas) on purpose:

NPR: “Dr. Carlos Fierro, who runs the study there, says every participant was called back after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine.

“During that visit we discussed the options, which included staying in the study without the vaccine,” he says, “and amazingly there were people — a couple of people — who chose that.”

He suspects those individuals got spooked by rumors about the vaccine. But everybody else who had the placebo shot went ahead and got the actual vaccine. So now Fierro has essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study. “It’s a loss from a scientific standpoint, but given the circumstances I think it’s the right thing to do,” he says.

People signing up for these studies were not promised special treatment, but once the FDA authorized the vaccines, their developers decided to offer the shots."


NPR: "Dr. Steven Goodman, a clinical trials specialist at Stanford University, says losing those control groups makes it more difficult to answer some important questions about COVID-19 vaccines.
"We don't know how long protections lasts," he says. "We don't know efficacy against variants — for which we definitely need a good control arm — and we also don't know if there are any differences in any of these parameters by age or race or infirmity."

NPR: "Clinical trials that include a placebo group are the surest and most definitive ways to gather information about vaccine effectiveness.
"I think over time we'll get that data," Fierro says, even without a placebo group."

Final FDA authorization and approval for the vaccines is based on the outcome of trials.

Final FDA authorization and approval for the vaccines can no longer be based on the outcome of these trials.

There’s no one left within the control group, to give an adequate comparison of outcomes for vaccinated vs. un-vaccinated.

Researchers and doctors, under the payroll of the pharmaceutical companies that have a vested financial interest in the vaccine outcome, lost the control group on purpose.

Pfizer and Moderna lost their control groups on purpose-- abandoning their own protocols and the double-blind clinical trial standard-- For The Greater Good of vaccinating the control group; which denied the entire world The Greater Good of the scientific data-- which was lost when the clinical trial protocol was abandoned.

The participants in the Pfizer and Moderna studies were volunteers, who volunteered for The Greater Good of collecting scientific data-- to benefit the entire world.

The participants who volunteered consented to remain in the control group. Now that their heroic, consensual, volunteer sacrifice has been wasted, NPR reports, the TUSKEEGEE/MENGELE option is indicated:

"...because the best evidence comes from a controlled study, Goodman is thinking about how those could be conducted ethically.... Another option is to conduct studies in other parts of the world, where vaccines simply aren't available. But that raises ethical issues, as well: Why not provide those countries vaccine, rather than recruiting them for a study?

"But the fact is we do have an unfair world and there are inequities in global health and financing," Goodman says. So, offering people a chance to participate in a study could be ethical. "The countries themselves may demand it," he says, as they work to understand the risks that virus variants pose to their populations."


Dissolving the control group was a good idea, because surely we wouldn't need to track that control group to compare how they fare against variants, relative to the vaccinated group. Ah, but that's a 'worst case scenario'. Maybe we'll just get lucky and no variants will emerge, reports NPR:

"The appearance of virus variants "may really scramble things up because there may be certain variants where the efficacy of all vaccines might be so low that we're basically back to zero," Goodman says. "We might have to go back to placebo-controlled trials. It's hard to know."

That's the worse-case scenario. The vaccines currently in use in the United States seem to work well against the variant first seen in the United Kingdom and appear to offer at least partial protection from the variant identified first in South Africa, but more evasive new variants could emerge in the months and years to come.

Fierro sees another possibility. Perhaps in a year or two the existing vaccines will have proven so effective that COVID-19 becomes not much more than a nuisance. Under those circumstances, the risk of participating in a study that has a placebo option would be low enough to be acceptable"

Sure. Why not. Either the virus is so dangerous that we don't need to take the chance of conducting blind clinical trials-- or the virus is so harmless-- hey let's bother to conduct blind clinical trials.

https://archive.is/8RRfi

[Really?]

.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups, by revealing to the placebo group which-group they were in/ and giving the placebo-group the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol after they were indemnified by the emergency use authorization.

Dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues.
Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against.

Pfizer and Moderna intentionally dissolved the placebo groups.

SNIP

Outrageous. Things like this are why I don't trust a single scientist or politician. They're all evil, especially the politicians. No one actually gives a single shit about science.

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-con ... -jan-6.jpg


SPRINGFIELD, Mo. – A Missouri locksmith has been charged in the January 6th Capitol Riot Wednesday, August 4th.

Isaac Samuel Yoder, owner of Nevada, Mo. business, “Yoder Lock and Key,” was featured in several photographs inside the Capitol building wearing a George Washington costume.

► Show Spoiler

Arkansas legislature starts special session to talk mask mandate ban changes, unemployment benefits
According to federal officials, Yoder was identified through a tip to the FBI National Threat Operations Center that stated, “I was made aware that an individual that works at Yoder locksmith in Nevada Missouri was involved in the storming of the Capitol on Jan 6th. I am unsure of the gentleman’s first name but know the day of the event he was inside the Capitol and was dressed as George Washington.”

Agents then compared his driver’s license photo to the photo of the costume-clad man in the Capitol on January 6th.

The pictures matched, and Yoder was contacted by FBI agents to conduct an interview.

City leaders seek input on whether to change or keep the Springfield flag with new survey
Yoder agreed to an interview with FBI agents at the Joplin Resident Agency in Joplin, Mo.

During the interview, Yoder explained that he had entered the Capitol building through a west-facing door after seeing broken glass and barricades.

He said the situation seemed to be “somewhat under control” by the time he entered the building and that many people were standing around taking pictures and videos.

Yoder said that he exited the same way he entered.

He brought the costume and his phone to the interview, and agents were able to determine that it was the same one worn during the riot.

Yoder has been charged with knowingly entering a restricted building and attempting to disrupt Government business with disorderly conduct or parading, demonstrating, or picketing inside a Capitol building.

Yoder was arrested on August 4th in Springfield.

Good thing Guantanamo is still open for business otherwise there'd be nowhere to put these ruthless and unconscionable insurrectionists. Obviously they'd need to take precautions to protect the other inmates.

Have to say I'm quite thankful to be a retarded wingnut conspiracy theorist right now because the alternative isn't very appealing. I'm not the smartest squirrel in the tree and yet I somehow managed to avoid letting my distaste for Orange sucker me into blindly believing lie after lie and still going back for more.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

My County health officials: enforce mask mandates with coercion, peer pressure, denial of services, and maybe a bullet to the head -- well not that one just yet ha ha.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Sam Harris vs. Bret Weinstein, according to Bret & Wifey. And me.

Sam: 1st criteria: Either people recognize how deadly and serious this virus is, or they're 'deniers' who don't.

Bret: ok.

Sam: 2nd criteria: The vax-es are the one true tool we've got to fight the virus. Anybody who denies that is one of those virus-deniers who doesn't take the virus seriously.

Bret & Wifey: that's a logical fallacy. We passed your 1st criteria. Failing your 2nd criteria doesn't retroactively make us fail the 1st one.

Sam: Look at these statistics on who got vax'd. 90%* of Democrats got vaxed. 13%* of Republicans got vaxed. Anyone who didn't get vax'd is a Republican. You are Republicans.

Me: of course Sam Harris would go-there

Bret: Those stats only look at D's & R's. That's not the whole universe of people. Those stats don't-even add-up to the overall rate of vaccination, so there must be another group not counted.

Me: I listened to 17* minutes of Bret & Wifey blathering about nothing-- to get to this part-- and after 4* minutes of this rebuttal (and zero minutes of listening to Sam Harris's original podcast)-- I can already tell they're only attacking each other's motives & mentality & rhetorical errors... no substance regarding what's actually true about the virus and the treatments.

*all numbers above are approximations of the actual numbers. close enough.

I see Sam Harris picked up some rhetorical tricks from his encounter with Ben Affleck.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

A rather hard to read article at Medical Net.

I could see if there's a translation into machine code for ya.

[screwtape]

.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups, by revealing to the placebo group which-group they were in/ and giving the placebo-group the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol after they were indemnified by the emergency use authorization.

Dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues.
Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against.

Pfizer and Moderna intentionally dissolved the placebo groups.

SNIP

Outrageous. Things like this are why I don't trust a single scientist or politician. They're all evil, especially the politicians. No one actually gives a single shit about science.

It's far from unusual to realise from early results that continuing a trial is actually unethical, and the information that the emergency approval was based on was that early analysis that showed the placebo group getting infected at ~10x the rate of the vaccinated group. To continue in those circumstances would have caused preventable deaths in the placebo group, and when that word gets out see how easy it is to get volunteers for future trials. The purist approach you advocate would be like trialing a new cancer treatment against a placebo group who get no treatment, and that tends not to fly with ethics review boards, even if you're using mice as subjects. The aim these days is to make anyone volunteering for a trial to be, at the least, no worse off than if they hadn't volunteered. So the placebo mice get the best existing treatment and are compared to those getting the new treatment. We stop trials all the time when it is clear that harm is being done by the test treatment. At some threshold, it makes equal sense to stop them when it is abundantly clear that witholding the new treatment is doing harm. Evidently we have to pick a threshold where we can be sure we are not just seeing a small but random variation favouring the new treatment, and none of this prevents other aspects of the trial continuing, like following up for side-effects.

[John D]

I am not usually a fan of Sam Harris. I know him well and have read his books. He doesn't really understand many topics, so his political commentary is useless. He suffers TDS in a big way. But... he and his guest kick Weinsteins ass in this podcast. IMHO. I have listened to most of Bret's podcasts, so I am not speaking from ignorance here. In the last few months I have found that I am more distracted by Bret than educated by him.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/256-contagion-bad-ideas/

[John D]

.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups, by revealing to the placebo group which-group they were in/ and giving the placebo-group the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol after they were indemnified by the emergency use authorization.

Dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues.
Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against.

Pfizer and Moderna intentionally dissolved the placebo groups.

SNIP

Outrageous. Things like this are why I don't trust a single scientist or politician. They're all evil, especially the politicians. No one actually gives a single shit about science.

It's far from unusual to realise from early results that continuing a trial is actually unethical, and the information that the emergency approval was based on was that early analysis that showed the placebo group getting infected at ~10x the rate of the vaccinated group. To continue in those circumstances would have caused preventable deaths in the placebo group, and when that word gets out see how easy it is to get volunteers for future trials. The purist approach you advocate would be like trialing a new cancer treatment against a placebo group who get no treatment, and that tends not to fly with ethics review boards, even if you're using mice as subjects. The aim these days is to make anyone volunteering for a trial to be, at the least, no worse off than if they hadn't volunteered. So the placebo mice get the best existing treatment and are compared to those getting the new treatment. We stop trials all the time when it is clear that harm is being done by the test treatment. At some threshold, it makes equal sense to stop them when it is abundantly clear that witholding the new treatment is doing harm. Evidently we have to pick a threshold where we can be sure we are not just seeing a small but random variation favouring the new treatment, and none of this prevents other aspects of the trial continuing, like following up for side-effects.

I agree with Screw in this case. The vaccine had an obvious and high effectiveness early on. I would be inhumane to deny vaccines to the placebo group. The problem is that this change in the placebo group doesn't give much help in looking at side effects. Still... I think they made the right choice in this case.

[Matt Cavanaugh]

Apparently, one of the side effects of NOT getting the vaccine will be a .38 to the brain from the shaky hand of some creepy old pediatrician.

[Service Dog]

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups.

NPR reports that Pfizer and Moderna spoiled their clinical trial control groups, by revealing to the placebo group which-group they were in/ and giving the placebo-group the vaccine.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol.

Pfizer and Moderna broke protocol after they were indemnified by the emergency use authorization.

Dissolving the placebo group violates the scientific purpose to test whether the vaccine has any efficacy; any actual benefit and/or safety issues.
Without a control group there is nothing to compare the vaccinated group against.

Pfizer and Moderna intentionally dissolved the placebo groups.

SNIP

► Show Spoiler

Pfizer and Moderna dissolved the placebo groups on purpose.

According to NPR, the doctors lost the control group in the Johnson County Clinical Trial (Lenexa, Kansas) on purpose:

NPR: “Dr. Carlos Fierro, who runs the study there, says every participant was called back after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine.

“During that visit we discussed the options, which included staying in the study without the vaccine,” he says, “and amazingly there were people — a couple of people — who chose that.”

He suspects those individuals got spooked by rumors about the vaccine. But everybody else who had the placebo shot went ahead and got the actual vaccine. So now Fierro has essentially no comparison group left for the ongoing study. “It’s a loss from a scientific standpoint, but given the circumstances I think it’s the right thing to do,” he says.

People signing up for these studies were not promised special treatment, but once the FDA authorized the vaccines, their developers decided to offer the shots."


NPR: "Dr. Steven Goodman, a clinical trials specialist at Stanford University, says losing those control groups makes it more difficult to answer some important questions about COVID-19 vaccines.
"We don't know how long protections lasts," he says. "We don't know efficacy against variants — for which we definitely need a good control arm — and we also don't know if there are any differences in any of these parameters by age or race or infirmity."

NPR: "Clinical trials that include a placebo group are the surest and most definitive ways to gather information about vaccine effectiveness.
"I think over time we'll get that data," Fierro says, even without a placebo group."

Final FDA authorization and approval for the vaccines is based on the outcome of trials.

Final FDA authorization and approval for the vaccines can no longer be based on the outcome of these trials.

There’s no one left within the control group, to give an adequate comparison of outcomes for vaccinated vs. un-vaccinated.

Researchers and doctors, under the payroll of the pharmaceutical companies that have a vested financial interest in the vaccine outcome, lost the control group on purpose.

Pfizer and Moderna lost their control groups on purpose-- abandoning their own protocols and the double-blind clinical trial standard-- For The Greater Good of vaccinating the control group; which denied the entire world The Greater Good of the scientific data-- which was lost when the clinical trial protocol was abandoned.

The participants in the Pfizer and Moderna studies were volunteers, who volunteered for The Greater Good of collecting scientific data-- to benefit the entire world.

The participants who volunteered consented to remain in the control group. Now that their heroic, consensual, volunteer sacrifice has been wasted, NPR reports, the TUSKEEGEE/MENGELE option is indicated:

"...because the best evidence comes from a controlled study, Goodman is thinking about how those could be conducted ethically.... Another option is to conduct studies in other parts of the world, where vaccines simply aren't available. But that raises ethical issues, as well: Why not provide those countries vaccine, rather than recruiting them for a study?

"But the fact is we do have an unfair world and there are inequities in global health and financing," Goodman says. So, offering people a chance to participate in a study could be ethical. "The countries themselves may demand it," he says, as they work to understand the risks that virus variants pose to their populations."


Dissolving the control group was a good idea, because surely we wouldn't need to track that control group to compare how they fare against variants, relative to the vaccinated group. Ah, but that's a 'worst case scenario'. Maybe we'll just get lucky and no variants will emerge, reports NPR:

"The appearance of virus variants "may really scramble things up because there may be certain variants where the efficacy of all vaccines might be so low that we're basically back to zero," Goodman says. "We might have to go back to placebo-controlled trials. It's hard to know."

That's the worse-case scenario. The vaccines currently in use in the United States seem to work well against the variant first seen in the United Kingdom and appear to offer at least partial protection from the variant identified first in South Africa, but more evasive new variants could emerge in the months and years to come.

Fierro sees another possibility. Perhaps in a year or two the existing vaccines will have proven so effective that COVID-19 becomes not much more than a nuisance. Under those circumstances, the risk of participating in a study that has a placebo option would be low enough to be acceptable"

Sure. Why not. Either the virus is so dangerous that we don't need to take the chance of conducting blind clinical trials-- or the virus is so harmless-- hey let's bother to conduct blind clinical trials.

https://archive.is/8RRfi

Outrageous. Things like this are why I don't trust a single scientist or politician. They're all evil, especially the politicians. No one actually gives a single shit about science.

It's far from unusual to realise from early results that continuing a trial is actually unethical, and the information that the emergency approval was based on was that early analysis that showed the placebo group getting infected at ~10x the rate of the vaccinated group. To continue in those circumstances would have caused preventable deaths in the placebo group, and when that word gets out see how easy it is to get volunteers for future trials. The purist approach you advocate would be like trialing a new cancer treatment against a placebo group who get no treatment, and that tends not to fly with ethics review boards, even if you're using mice as subjects. The aim these days is to make anyone volunteering for a trial to be, at the least, no worse off than if they hadn't volunteered. So the placebo mice get the best existing treatment and are compared to those getting the new treatment. We stop trials all the time when it is clear that harm is being done by the test treatment. At some threshold, it makes equal sense to stop them when it is abundantly clear that witholding the new treatment is doing harm. Evidently we have to pick a threshold where we can be sure we are not just seeing a small but random variation favouring the new treatment, and none of this prevents other aspects of the trial continuing, like following up for side-effects.

I agree with Screw in this case. The vaccine had an obvious and high effectiveness early on. I would be inhumane to deny vaccines to the placebo group. The problem is that this change in the placebo group doesn't give much help in looking at side effects. Still... I think they made the right choice in this case.

The problem with 'agreeing with Screw in this case'-- is that Screwtape's opinion is based on reading the SNIP'ed reply to what I posted-- and 'Ignoring' my actual post. Screwtape is quite confident that he's sufficiently-informed to reply with authority. Screwtape's idiotic arrogance is all-too-common among Our Betters making Medical Decisions for The Rest Of Us.

Anyone who reads my entire post-- will see the quotes from the NPR story-- about how Same Geniuses Who Killed The Double Blind Trials are now considering re-performing the blind control trials-- in the THIRD WORLD because those Niggers (like a lab rat) will be No Worse Off if they're in an un-vax'd control group... since Being Niggers In A Shithole Country meant they were gonna be un-vax'd anyway. (So... ta-da!... a Victimless Crime!) All Lab Animals Are Equal But Some Lab Animals Are More Equal Than Others. By the same logic-- Dr. Mengele's test subjects were on-their-way to the Gas Chambers/ so No Harm Done in mutilating them first.

And don't forget Those Tuskeegee Niggers: "The researchers involved with the study reasoned that they were not harming the men involved in the study, under the presumption that they were unlikely to ever receive treatment" Reverby, Susan (2009). Examining Tuskegee:The Infamous Syphilis Study and its Legacy. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807833100.

Another flaw in Screwtape's reply-- is a failure to understand what my post was 'about'. Screwtape thinks the subject is the ethical pros-and-cons of continuing the blind control trials-- As Originally Scheduled-- for the full 2 years. That's only _part_ of the story.

The bigger picture includes
1.) the short-sightedness of the researchers who focussed soley on the risk to the immediate control group. (A risk that group had given informed-consent for!).
2.) Also-- the conflict of interest between the researchers' making the decision to kill the blind control trial-- AFTER their asses were covered by the Emergency Authorization which protected them from liability.
3.) the selfish benefit-- of Pfizer and Moderna obscuring follow-up data... which might reveal their products are ineffective or dangerous.
4.) And the absurdity of this news story appearing only-now... because NPR is relatively-exempt from the blanket of Censorship imposed on more-critical news sources.

I could go on and on. I will add a minor
5.) one thing on my mind, when I read then NPR story-- was John D.'s objections to Bret W. & the Ivermectin Hype. I recalled John's exasperation with all the pro-Ivermectin research... which didn't rise to the standard of a blind control study. (John is far from alone in putting that standard on a pedestal-- as the end-all-be-all of Best Practices.) So...

I wondered if it would bother John that Pfizer & Moderna were so willing to abandon the blind control study Gold Standard, in favor of a (perhaps) more-humane alternative. I got my answer from John: "[It] would be inhumane to deny vaccines to the placebo group." THAT'S FINE! BUT! That's literally the EXACT SAME REASON that several Ivermectin studies-- did not use the Blind Control Study format: The Ivermectin researchers also felt it was inhumane to deny a 'control' group the benefit of Ivermectin: so they used study-methodologies which did not require a blind control group. Such as the public health bureau in Mexico-- which Offered Ivermectin to anyone who tested-positive. Then tracked the hospitalization rates of those who accepted Ivermectin/ vs. those who refused it. That study has been faulted-- because the quasi-'control' group Self Selected & knew they did not receive the drug. Fuckin' apply One Standard Of Evidence to all the Fuckin' Options!

[John D]

I wondered if it would bother John that Pfizer & Moderna were so willing to abandon the blind control study Gold Standard, in favor of a (perhaps) more-humane alternative. I got my answer from John: "[It] would be inhumane to deny vaccines to the placebo group." THAT'S FINE! BUT! That's literally the EXACT SAME REASON that several Ivermectin studies-- did not use the Blind Control Study format: The Ivermectin researchers also felt it was inhumane to deny a 'control' group the benefit of Ivermectin: so they used study-methodologies which did not require a blind control group. Such as the public health bureau in Mexico-- which Offered Ivermectin to anyone who tested-positive. Then tracked the hospitalization rates of those who accepted Ivermectin/ vs. those who refused it. That study has been faulted-- because the quasi-'control' group Self Selected & knew they did not receive the drug. Fuckin' apply One Standard Of Evidence to all the Fuckin' Options!

This topic is not so obvious in my opinion. I agree that the pollution of the control group has negative impact. This is not the perfect way to run a trial. But... at some point it is not ethical to deny treatment (vaccine) if the treatment is found to be highly effective.

Keep this in mind. It is up to the individual if they get the jab or if they don't. I respect anyone's opinion on this right now. If someone doesn't want the jab I say fine... your choice. But I don't think it is right to deny someone the possibility to get the jab if they want it.

This is the dilemma with the trials. How is it fair to people who volunteered to be part of the trial to deny them a medical treatment that is obviously beneficial?

Ivermectin - sorry - I think the data is super weak and I think that Ivermectin as a Covid cure is 100% bull shit. Fine. I could be wrong... but I doubt it.

[John D]

And yes... sometimes it sucks being a "Nigger". Yep... maybe they run a trial of vaccine effectiveness in Africa. Yep... it sucks being African. They have no money. They are a very unproductive culture. If it were not for the help of westerners they would be suffering more than they are. There culture is barbaric and ineffective. Should we help them? Sure.... but don't play fucking guilt trips on westerners. We are only helping them because we are successful, powerful, and productive. I am not going to feel guilty about it.

[Service Dog]

it sucks being African. ... I am not going to feel guilty about it.

Well said. To be clear-- I'm not irritated at you at-all. I think you make your case well... and you 'play fair' with dissent.
And you 'own' the consequences of hard decisions, warts & all.

I am irritated by screwtape-- who sneers down-- as-if he's ethically pristine & opponents like me have a monopoly on clay feet. Screwtape sweeps the dirty little secret of African control groups under the rug.

[Service Dog]

https://media.patriots.win/post/DdkQO5MZ.jpeg

[ThreeFlangedJavis]

I wondered if it would bother John that Pfizer & Moderna were so willing to abandon the blind control study Gold Standard, in favor of a (perhaps) more-humane alternative. I got my answer from John: "[It] would be inhumane to deny vaccines to the placebo group." THAT'S FINE! BUT! That's literally the EXACT SAME REASON that several Ivermectin studies-- did not use the Blind Control Study format: The Ivermectin researchers also felt it was inhumane to deny a 'control' group the benefit of Ivermectin: so they used study-methodologies which did not require a blind control group. Such as the public health bureau in Mexico-- which Offered Ivermectin to anyone who tested-positive. Then tracked the hospitalization rates of those who accepted Ivermectin/ vs. those who refused it. That study has been faulted-- because the quasi-'control' group Self Selected & knew they did not receive the drug. Fuckin' apply One Standard Of Evidence to all the Fuckin' Options!

This topic is not so obvious in my opinion. I agree that the pollution of the control group has negative impact. This is not the perfect way to run a trial. But... at some point it is not ethical to deny treatment (vaccine) if the treatment is found to be highly effective.

Keep this in mind. It is up to the individual if they get the jab or if they don't. I respect anyone's opinion on this right now. If someone doesn't want the jab I say fine... your choice. But I don't think it is right to deny someone the possibility to get the jab if they want it.

This is the dilemma with the trials. How is it fair to people who volunteered to be part of the trial to deny them a medical treatment that is obviously beneficial?

Ivermectin - sorry - I think the data is super weak and I think that Ivermectin as a Covid cure is 100% bull shit. Fine. I could be wrong... but I doubt it.

Don't get hung up on the double-blind stuff. You are either infected with Covid or you aren't, so the placebo effect isn't really going to be a factor. When looking at side-effects, which is not relevant to the Ivermectin studies but is with a new drug, you might be concerned with placebo. The stark difference in Covid infection rates between the groups in the Argentinian Ivermectin study is worthy of serious investigation and you can't sidestep that by appealing to bias in the test subjects.

[Service Dog]

the information that the emergency approval was based on was that early analysis that showed the placebo group getting infected at ~10x the rate of the vaccinated group.

1. Was that "early analysis" correct?
2. If not/ why not?
3. If the 'early analysis' was incorrect, then are the justifications-used to obtain Emergency Approval-- invalid?
4. If the 'early analysis' was so early, was it premature to spoil the Control Group before fuller analysis arrived?
5. When you say the placebo group was 'infected' at '10x' the rate of vax'd group... who fucking cares about 'infections'? Asymptomatic. Sniffles. What were the relative rates of death? Hospitalization? Serious side-effects?
6. Heeeyyyy.... is this rate of positive-tests based on those insane PCR tests with, like, 43 cycles & a massive false-positive problem?
7. When you say the infection rate was 10x higher.... are we talking about 100% of the unvax'd getting infected vs. 10% of the vax'd? ...or are we talking about fucking 0.00001% of the unvax'd vs. 0.0001% ?! Both are 10x ...but those are very different 10x's.

To continue in those circumstances would have caused preventable deaths in the placebo group

Is this conjecture? I'm aware of ONE person dying in the placebo group (according to the NPR report.) I concede more MAY have died-- but I haven't seen evidence of that. Have you? Or are you just making up these numbers?

So the placebo mice get the best existing treatment and are compared to those getting the new treatment.

How was this done, in the Pfizer & Moderna trials? Are you saying the Control Group got Zinc & Vitamin D & Hydroxycloriquine & whatever-else their hearts desired... and the Pfizer & Moderna jabs had to beat THAT? I doubt it.

and none of this prevents other aspects of the trial continuing, like following up for side-effects.

False. If you destroy the control group-- you have nothing to compare the vax'd rate of side-effects against.
______

I'll end this reply here... but please contrast the above discussion of What We Knew Then (above) vs. the CDC director saying What We Know Now (my next post below).

[Service Dog]

"CDC Director Makes Case Vaccination Passports are Futile, Vaccines Do Not Prevent COVID Infection or Delta Variant Transmission

August 6, 2021 | Sundance | 807 Comments

"The Director of the CDC made an important admission during an interview today on CNN. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky stated the vaccine does not prevent COVID-19 infection, nor does it stop the vaccinated person from transmitting the infection or the delta variant. According to Director Walensky, the only benefit from the vaccine now is presumably that it reduces the severity of symptoms.

If a vaccinated and non-vaccinated person have the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus – with or without symptoms – then what difference does a vaccination passport or vaccination ID make?

According to the CDC TODAY, both the vaxxed and non-vaxxed person walking into a restaurant, store, group, venue or workplace present the exact same risk to other people there, so how does the presentation of proof of vaccine make any difference? WATCH:

(UPDATE – Google removed the video, I replaced with Rumble)

https://rumble.com/embed/vi667e/?pub=4
https://rumble.com/vkscco-cdcs-dr.-roch ... dmits.html

Additionally, her entire statement makes no sense. There is no evidence that vaccinated asymptomatic carriers are asymptomatic because of the vaccine. There are likely just as many asymptomatic non-vaccinated carriers. The data shows an equally distributed infection rate regardless of vaccination rate, which is simultaneously admitted by Direcor Walensky, which, as an outcome, is an admission that undercuts the entire argument for compulsory vaccines.


The reverse is also evident in the data. There are just as many vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick), as there are un-vaxxed carriers who are symptomatic (ie. sick). The percentage of vaxxed and non-vaxxed people hospitalized it identical to the vaxxed/non-vaxxed population around the hospital.

In regional populations with extremely high vaccination rates, the COVID infection rate continues unabated. The percentage of vaccinated people hospitalized is identical to the percentage of people vaccinated in the community.

In Gibraltar, 99% of the population vaccinated; COVID infection rate climbs. In Iceland over 75% of population vaccinated; infection rate climbs. Singapore and Israel show the same thing [Data Sets Here]. So what value is the vaccination passport?"

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/bl ... nsmission/