This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The thing that gets me--and I will admit my loss of facts over the years-- is there's no counterfactual for how effective the vaccines were. I presume the peak numbers would have come down a little, but vs. what? Overall, it doesn't seem to me there's much evidence that the vaccines did anything as the course of the covid outbreak followed every other pandemic just at a different scale. All I get is, "Of course they worked, it's obvious. You're stupid."
The trials presumably produced adequate estimations of the vaccines' effectiveness. I think the problem with public perception was partly that low rates of other infectious diseases created the misconception that sterilizing vaccines are the norm, such that reports that a vaccine "merely" health risks to the recipient by 90% triggered the confirmation bias of anti-vaccine people. (One person repeatedly told me "They changed the definition of 'vaccine.'")
Ah, stupid public, thinking 'vaccines make you immune to a virus' just because scientists have been putting exactly that in kids books and shows and songs, and saying it to the UN and African and Afghani warlords for the past 80 years.
If you don't think the establishment were deliberately relying on the public perception of vaccines being viral immunity you are cuckoo.
Who, specifically, and to what end?
Fucking everybody bud. If the zeitgeist position on vaccines wasn't 'they make you immune' the politicians and the media wouldn't have been so cavalier about safety concerns. If your gish gallop needs names, start with Kamala Harris - "The vaccine will prevent you from getting covid."
The closest comparison here is the influenza vaccine, and I don't recall anyone saying that the influenza vaccine makes you immune from influenza.
At least in the US, colloquially they aren't called influenza vaccines, they're called "flu shots." Not sure on the origin of not calling them vaccines but my assumption has always been that it's because they don't reliably immunize against or prevent the flu.
People calling them "shots" or "jabs" (like for Covid) instead of vaccines probably has less to do with anything like that and more with it being shorter to say words with one syllable instead of two.
I'm not so sure on "jabs" -- AFAIK this is good idiomatic British English, but much less so in North America. It feels like the sudden memetic adoption (particularly on the part of medical authorities, which I'd expect to use more formal language as a rule) of this word here in particular has something more behind it than brevity.
"Shots" of course I buy -- "getting the dog his shots" is a fine thing to say; "getting the dog jabbed" would be very weird (in North America). Doubly so if the speaker were my veterinarian.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link