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[–]SychoShine509 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Is that the proper construction of the "mainstream narrative", though? What sources do you claim constitute the "mainstream narrative"? For me, the "mainstream narrative" refers to the one put out by formal academe - so I'm thinking University health websites/publications and related resources, as well as government health agencies (CDC and esp. WHO). Which one of these have said the statement "the vaccine is entirely free from risk" and moreover, where is this statement often repeated?

And you're right it could be a risk for some people. The problem is that vastly more people than could be reasonably assumed to be at such risk refused the vaccine, and a million died for it in the US alone, while many more people now likely have long term disability (long haul COVID) and ... it's still out there, just not at the high tide levels we saw in the summer and winter of last year. And your bit about a headache is probably right (I don't really use meds for those anyway) but my point is the 37% does not mean "significant" effect by the scaremongering definition (i.e. something life threatening or at least chronically disabling - ironically the latter is much more likely with COVID itself). I'd also suggest that that doctor, using the phrase "significant injury" to describe a figure that the papers quite clearly state includes the ordinary mild effects that many vaccines have, is, due to the fact of its connotations, being dishonest in doing so.

Insofar as having too many or too few meds, that's also a complicated call. There's good cases to be made for both under different circumstances. For example, the obsessive use of cleaners and antibiotics is almost surely reached the point of overuse because not only are we seeing that autoimmune diseases are rising and it's believed by a lot of experts this is due to the lack of having enough pathogens to have to put up with a fight with, but also that bacteria are evolving and may come out at some point in a form we won't be able to easily beat back. A few such "super bugs" already exist, e.g. MRSA, and the fear is enough of them will come that we will be back to having no antibiotics, and that brings me to the other point where our medication is not only highly effective but many people around the world are deprived of such medicine. With vaccines I think the use is more or less on the mark.

What I would point the finger squarely at, is people lacking good scientific literacy and ability to think critically in the face of data. That, and the inability to separate the facts of how the world is from moral/political facts, i.e. what ideology you use. I always said at the heights of the pandemic that I was not adverse to people who wished that it wasn't the place for Government to tell them to get a vaccine and I could respect that (heck I've always had some sympathy for Anarchism which has gotten stronger [though I'm not gonna actually claim the big 'A' for myself] since Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but ...) - what really got me angry, as in real blood boiling desk pounding mad, was people thinking that they could just ignore the facts of the matter and repeat the same basic errors over and over even though I could clearly see the theoretical soundness behind the various interventions because I was following the experts and could see the internal logic behind them. Such as with masks, how the mask blocks the spit particles and moreover it's more there to protect others than you, and these were points I'd see people consistently, consistently keep ignoring.

It seems to me that people have taken profession of a certain ideological, moral, or values stance as permitting and requiring that they live in a world where that is "easy". But that's not how it works - not even for "left" people either, like I would tend to be considered as more aligned with in most cases. Some leftist want to make apology for Stalin and Mao, for example, and too many don't want to get serious about how that cancel/censorship culture can really hurt things not because of "sticking it to the big bad bigots" but because of scaring off reasonable people. If someone is feeling afraid to even ask a question or to voice an opinion even if they are otherwise perfectly willing to admit they were wrong, I can hardly see how that is "progress". Yes, we need to do something about real bigots, but we should make sure that what we are doing isn't coming at a grave cost in collateral and worse, potentially setting up for a rerun of Stalin & Mao.