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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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A pure hypothetical thought experiment: imagine it occurs that the Pfizer mRNA vaccination + all booster follow-ups (4+ shots) regimen is disastrous to health, and has a high 10-year mortality rate. In other words, those who strictly adhered to the recommended CDC/Pfizer vaccination schedule have a 25% of dying by the decade’s end, or some such risk. What would be the public’s response and what would be the just punishment for those involved?

I think in such a hypothetical, the whole political climate of 21st century neo-neoliberalism will be fundamentally altered. There would be a huge rightward shift on distrust to authorities, especially but not limited to scientists and public health authorities. I don’t think the public would be satisfied with Fauci and other heads being tried, and will demand sentences for the thousands of individuals involved in the decision similar to what we would see in the Nuremberg trials. This would also fundamentally change the political climate, as the “vax-maxxed” lean left.

-- Profound dysegenic effects on the population. I'm not here to argue what the "smart" opinion is, or to generalize to the whole grouping, but the numbers don't lie: and it would be horrifying.

A Kaiser Family Foundation brief from September still showed gaps in vaccination by insurance, education levels and income. Individuals with an annual income under $40,000 had a 68 percent partial vaccination rate, compared with 79 percent for incomes $90,000 or higher.

The discrepancies just get worse as you work into the tails, especially once you correlate with education. We'd lose disproportionately smart, educated, employed people relative to dumb, uneducated, and unemployed people. Simple facts. Fall of civilization level event? Maybe.

-- I think your definitions of Left-Right might be idiosyncratic to mine. One would think that the reaction to such an occurrence would be civil libertarian and a strong enshrinement of bodily autonomy, something like Kulak's dreamland. One could equally see urges towards civil libertarianism leading to 60s/BLM excesses and a corresponding backlash. I don't see a strong Right-Wing gain in the sense in which the Republican party passed the Patriot Act or the sense in which the Right wing favors abortion restrictions. All the political effects will be downstream of the dysgenic effects. If we lost 20% of our engineers, lawyers, codemonkeys maybe we get a safetyism administration that seeks to carefully husband our remaining human resources.

-- I'd like to think that political leaders involved would be permanently discredited, but that has not been my experience of prior disasters. See E.G. the Iraq war; people today say that everyone supported it. I point out that I went to large protests against it and Ted Kennedy fillibustered it, they say I'm nitpicking. It will all be memory holed.

If they're so smart, why did they fall for the psy-op?

I can see smart teenagers fall for it because they're too busy to study to go online and 'do their own research' which has been the easiest thing in history since circa 2005.

Anyone with a certain brain processing power that has lived in the Western world for 20+ years has no excuse.

Weren't you around for the Iraq WMD or any of these dozens of disasters resulting from trusting government and corporations?

What is your exact definition of the psy-op, here?

That young people had a need to turn themselves into GMO experiment.

-injections do not protect from getting the disease

-have negative side effects in a % of the pop, including fertility (imaging wanting children in the future and submitting to a potentially sterilizing procedure)

-below a certain age the disease itself is basically not deadly

-governments prevented travel from pure humans but that's over

-colleges prevented attending but that's on the way out

-some companies prevented holding a job, probably over and plenty of companies did not

In summary, injection was unnecessary, harmful to health, and not taking it relatively easy to avoid for presumably smart people

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turn themselves into GMO experiment

pure humans

mRNA vaccines do not modify your genome. They trick your body into turning genes they carry into spike proteins, just like the virus does, but they don't replace your genes, and they don't make more of their own genes to repeat the process at exponentially-increasing scales like the virus does.

This stuff isn't as clearly against the rules as the "anyone with a certain brain processing power" above, but it is a good time for "proactively provide evidence" to come to mind.

-injections do not protect from getting the disease

They had better than 90% protection from disease in the first RCT. That dropped with time and with new variants, but even if it had had zero lasting protection, the temporary protection still would have been worth taking a chance for by vulnerable populations in the first megadeath-scale waves.

have negative side effects in a % of the pop

This is trivially true because "ow my arm" is a negative side effect, but for any serious claim you'll need specific side effects and numeric percentages. It didn't have as many negative side effects as getting Covid-19 one extra time. The trouble with trying to avoid risk here is that Covid's spread was so extensive that there was no way to avoid risk. There was just "risk exposing your body to a carefully metered dose of Covid spikes" versus "risk exposing your body, with your immune system unprepared, to an exponentially reproducing dose of Covid viruses".

including fertility

And this is at least true because zero is a percent?

This is an especially weird one for me, because actual testosterone decline has been going on for 50 years, sperm quality included, with no complete explanations, and even the incomplete explanations don't seem to be engendering much concern from anyone. If one side of the Culture War wants to go all Buck Turgidson, couldn't we at least get some good out of it, and focus on an actual measurable corruption of our precious bodily fluids?

below a certain age the disease itself is basically not deadly

This is true or false depending on your definition of "basically" and "a certain age"; risks did rise pretty much exponentially with age, but there were still a few hundred pediatric deaths and tens of thousands of hospitalizations in the US. If you look at excess death counts Covid starts clearly showing up in the 25-44 age group; not kids, but not exactly great-grandma either.

-governments prevented travel

-colleges prevented attending

-some companies prevented holding a job

This is all true (and more: some companies were forced to prevent holding a job, to remain federal contractors), and in hindsight (or maybe with foresight, from anyone who didn't see any a priori reason to expect long-lived sterilizing immunity against a disease not obviously more static than influenza) it was questionable to bar people even temporarily from half of society under the desperate belief that this was going to be the final step to push R below 1 for good.

mRNA vaccines do not modify your genome.

The Reuters 'fact-checker' quotes Mark Lynas who is merely speculating:

"It does not enter the (cell) nucleus and cannot interact with your DNA or cause any changes to the genome (here)”.

Then this other source:

'In an explainer about COVID-19 vaccines, Oxford University’s Vaccine Knowledge Project rebukes misinformation about mRNA with equal force: “there is no way for human DNA to be altered by an mRNA vaccine.” (here).'

They are asserting this claim without evidence.

Until this is actually tested, it is possible.

Here's a few contradicting evidences :

We know the certain viruses like HIV are able to insert their genomes of RNA into the human genome but only after they have converted it into DNA. This is accomplished via a virus enzyme called reverse transcriptase – an enzyme humans don't have. So the upshot is we don't have a way for mRNA vaccines to be inserted into our genomes. SO current vaccines are safe.

Basically it is established that RNA can be turned into DNA and integrated into the genome.

This is a well-known phenomenon.

The point of contention is whether or not what is in the injection can do the same thing.

Until there is a study coming out to prove in a large sample that this does not happen, it remains a possibility, no matter what fact-checkers say, as this is something that happens in nature.

Here's one in-vitro study that found DNA integration of the injection product

Here is the commentary on that study that says 'vaccines are safe but actually that study makes a good point'

Fourth, retroviruses in particular are known to reverse-transcribe intracellularly and have the ability to be integrated into the host genome. There is some evidence in support of SARS-CoV-2’s ability to integrate some of its genetic sequences into the DNA of the host cells [7]; however, unlike retroviruses, the infectious SARS-CoV-2 virus could not be reproduced from the integrated subgenomic sequences.

The mechanism exists in nature but we need to know whether or not it happens in injected humans.

Issues have to do with whether or not the injection reaches the cell nucleus, and whether or not the RNA gets reverse-transcribed, and what dose is needed, etc.

The FDA itself did not have even specify an actual dose on its emergency authorization if I recall correctly.

They are not controlling how much of the RNA mixture each injection delivers, as far as I know.

Here's one of your previous Fact-chunkers describing some of the side effects.

Regarding fertility, I'm basing it on the widely reported complaints about menstruation issues from women who were injected and some other anecdotes.

Even if it did not make one sterile, it still would not make sense for young people to take it.

If you look at excess death counts Covid starts clearly showing up in the 25-44 age group; not kids, but not exactly great-grandma either.

A lot of unhealthy people in that age range that could use some more obvious remedies before dipping into transhumanism; for example watching their diet or avoiding paraphilia associated with sexually-transmitted diseases.

Interesting how pendulum swings. 2 years ago Job's posts would be much better received. I do agree that the vaccines are likely not dangerous, but they do not stop spread of Covid either, and experts oversold efficacy of stopping covid.

But there are key differences between the injection and an infection.

If I get infected, I'm getting a few particles as part of a spray.

Where do these particles come from? Well they were built by a virus infecting another person, so if that virus contained RNA sequences that turned the host cell cancerous and unable to produce more viruses, it probably would not be able to produce more particles to infect me.

What is the dose I get? Probably something proportional to the amount of air I'm able to breathe.

If I'm a large guy, I'm probably inhaling a lot of air all at once, so more of these particles.

If I'm more pocket-sized, I would guess that I'm not inhaling as much of the virus at once.

I don't know how many of them there are, but they are diluted among other stuff in the particle itself, in the air, into my mucosa, my mucus. Right there and then my immune system starts taking charge of some of them.

My nose, my mouth, my mucosa were created by God to expect such aggression.

It's business as usual.

Then some of these particles manage to actually infect cells and the virus manages to replicate itself yadda yadda.

All in my nose, in my mucosa, maybe slightly deeper in my lungs, idk the details of covid infection.

If I get injected, I get a certain amount of liquid (few ml) at a certain rather uniform concentration all in the same spot. Not a spray.

What is the dose I get? The dose that Pfizer/Moderna decided to put in the bottle.

Supposedly the same dose for everybody. So presumably a dose containing enough material to 'work' for people that are 300 lbs or over.

This is all going straight into the fat of my arm, or if the remaining medical staff that fell for the psy-op and didn't quit due to vaccine mandates messed up, straight into my blood.

The material is coming from a factory, where products are sometimes defective, processes can go wrong, quality controls can be overlooked, concentrations can vary, effectiveness, quality, purity of the material might be compromised.

That is if the owners of the factory are not purposefully committed to making poison.

Was the fat of my arm or my blood stream made by God to receive a dose of RNA? No.

Is this expected by my immune system? No.

We are talking about different tissues, different cell types. Different doses. Chemically different substances. Different modes of administration.

anyone genuinely worried about the effects of the vaccine on the human genome should be just about paralyzed with fear given the levels of random viral infection we're all exposed to on a daily basis.

The virus never came out and say that cutting boys' peepees will turn them female, unlike all the doctors pushing the vaccine.

Some people have even called the virus racist, it's hard not to sympathize.

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We know the certain viruses like HIV are able to insert their genomes of RNA into the human genome but only after they have converted it into DNA. This is accomplished via a virus enzyme called reverse transcriptase – an enzyme humans don't have. So the upshot is we don't have a way for mRNA vaccines to be inserted into our genomes. SO current vaccines are safe.

Basically it is established that RNA can be turned into DNA and integrated into the genome.

This is a well-known phenomenon.

The point of contention is whether or not what is in the injection can do the same thing.

Retroviruses like HIV are able to insert their genomes into the human genome because they're built to do so.

COVID is not built to do so. It does not code for the requisite protein for reverse transcription, nor does it code for other vital components like the pre-integration complex, which...integrates the new DNA into the host genome.

The mRNA vaccine, which codes only for one surface protein of the virus that already doesn't have the machinery for DNA integration, naturally does not have the requisite protein for reverse transcription, or for its integration into the genome.

Even if it was from a retrovirus, stripping away the components that integrate it into the genome - i.e. isolating only one surface protein from the entire viral genome - would make the vaccine unable to 1) reverse transcribe that into DNA, and 2) integrate it into the host genome. It is not built to integrate into the host genome.

Even if you were able to integrate it into the host genome, what would you expect to happen? You'd have a stranded bit of coding sequence inserted into a genome essentially randomly without a promoter, coding for a surface protein that doesn't really do anything alone in the context of the human cell. The splicing might randomly impact the cell via accidentally inserting itself into a coding sequence, or an intron, or a promoter sequence, or it might integrate into a region of noncoding RNA where it might affect some of the local molecular architecture.

That young people had a need to turn themselves into GMO experiment.

...

-governments prevented travel from pure humans but that's over

It would be a really, really stupid way of trying to genetically engineer a population, because it actively wouldn't work on so many different levels.


A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Retroviruses like HIV are able to insert their genomes into the human genome because they're built to do so.

Yes, so what you are saying is that there are a bunch of HIV+ people walking around with reverse transcriptases in some of their cells.

What do reverse transcriptases do? They transcribe RNA into DNA.

They don't care if it's HIV or covid.

It is not built to integrate into the host genome.

If I was masterminding a big conspiracy to sterilize a big part of humanity, this is the part I would be lying about.

Not saying that this is true or not, I'm just saying one possibility is that it is actually packaged in there and nobody has the capacity or will to check.

Heck, they could have been injecting us with reverse transcriptase in a separate instance (food, drinks, other injections), but that's a little bit too convoluted.

The splicing might randomly impact the cell via accidentally inserting itself into a coding sequence, or an intron, or a promoter sequence, or it might integrate into a region of noncoding RNA where it might affect some of the local molecular architecture.

That's the fun experiment part.

Do this to billions of people and a few hundred thousands of them will have a few cells where the spike protein sequence just happens to insert itself in the right area to get translated into a functional protein. And some other hundred thousands will have sequences that do not generate a functional protein, but instead generate something like a prion protein, or turns the cell into a cancerous cell, which would be much worse. And some other thousands or millions will have some other kind of integration that just kills the cell instead and stops the issue...

It would be a really, really stupid way of trying to genetically engineer a population, because it actively wouldn't work on so many different levels.

Well maybe this was all a big test and it failed. Maybe they genuinely tried to engineer something functional to save humanity and they just screwed up big time and then they just kept doubling down on, covering their traces because of the stakes, the outrage, the money, and business as usual with Big Pharma and the people that are loyal to it.

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From wikipedia- "SARS‑CoV‑2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus[14] that is contagious in humans.[15]". Specifically, it enters your cell, expresses a RNA dependent RNA polymerase to copy its RNA, and then the RNA is translated into proteins that, with the genome, form new RNA viruses that go on to infect more cells. This means that, like the vaccines, covid itself puts RNA into your cells to replicate itself. So that doesn't make the vaccine any worse than covid. Or any one of the hundreds of respiratory viruses that float around, hundreds of which you've been infected with. And the RNA itself from the vaccine is just a (slightly modified) spike protein RNA from the original coronavirus.

By this standard, plenty of previous vaccines are gene therapy - weakened live virus, adenovirus vector, etc.

We know the certain viruses like HIV are able to insert their genomes of RNA into the human genome but only after they have converted it into DNA. This is accomplished via a virus enzyme called reverse transcriptase – an enzyme humans don't have. So the upshot is we don't have a way for mRNA vaccines to be inserted into our genomes. SO current vaccines are safe.

Yeah, lots of viruses do this. Covid is much less likely to, because it doesn't have DNA as part of its lifecycle, and doesn't encode a reverse transcriptase to make more viral DNA.

this is just a case of 'not understanding what you are talking about'.

Not that I claim to fully understand what I'm talking about (IANAB), but IIRC the difference is that a COVID infection specifically targets a subset of cell-types in your respiratory system -- the vaccine is in your blood and spreads all over the place, entering many types of cells and causing them to produce spike protein.

This seems like quite a different mechanism -- doesn't mean it's not safe, but it introduces a number of unknowns.

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This means that, like the vaccines, covid itself puts RNA into your cells to replicate itself. So that doesn't make the vaccine any worse than covid.

Well I had covid twice so far while some people took over 3 injections.

Obviously a natural infection of a certain dose of particles through the nose or mouth is not the same as an injection in the arm in terms of dose, immune response, affected tissues...

And these triple-shot people are still getting sick!

Yeah, lots of viruses do this. Covid is much less likely to, because it doesn't have DNA as part of its lifecycle, and doesn't encode a reverse transcriptase to make more viral DNA.

Covid doesn't have it but a lot of viruses do.

What happens when somebody that was previously infected with a virus gets the injection?

Another factor to consider is that enzyme are only catalyzing chemical reactions.

Technically, these chemical reactions can occur spontaneously without enzymes as well.

If for whatever reason the RNA is getting concentrated in a given cell, perhaps a certain amount of them can end up spontaneously turning into DNA and getting captured by the cell machinery and getting integrated into the genome.

Another option is that the RNA gets cut into pieces and ends up having inhibitory effects on certain parts of the genome, upregulating or downregulating proteins that are needed for a healthy body.

This could happen for some people and not others depending on their specific genome, or even depending on their microbiome.

There are so many possibilities on what can go wrong depending on the dose, depending on which cells might preferentially accumulate the RNA, depending on the specific genome of the injected, depending on infections from other viruses, depending on the strength of the immune system...

Again, this is for a virus that is more or less as harmful as the flu ie not very.

What I need, instead of 'fact-checking' by 'experts' with no physical, scientific evidence that for example 'RNA cannot integrate the genome', is studies.

Show me that after looking at the cellular, tissue level among hundreds or thousands of people that you could not find one cell producing spikes long after the injection. That you can't find one sample of tissue affected by long-term injection consequences.

Why do I have this standard?

Because the people demanding for 2 years that I take that unnecessary, cosmetic injection are the same that have been claiming that boys can turn into women by taking hormones and slicing themselves. The same people that claimed that Iraq had WMD. The same people that tell me that crime statistics are racist, etc, etc.

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Here is the commentary on that study that says 'vaccines are safe but actually that study makes a good point'

It also says that the reason they're worried is because of a study showing SARS-CoV-2 itself doing the same thing. Personally I'd like to see both studies replicated first. (I recall one interdisciplinary-department joke: nobody believes a theoretical analysis except the ones who wrote it, everybody believes an experimental result except the ones who performed it) But let's assume it's a non-negligible chance for now. Would you think it's fair if I said that anyone exposed to Covid-19 (or to any virus, since we seem to be ignoring the retrovirus/non-retrovirus distinction) is now a GMO, not a "pure human"? If so, then what's the point? If not, then what's the difference?

Again, if only "just never get exposed to Covid-19 genes" was an option, that would have indeed been the non-risky option! That hasn't been an option since 2020 (maybe since January 2022? even the near-hermits were getting Omicron) and it may never be again.

They are not controlling how much of the RNA mixture each injection delivers, as far as I know.

30μg per 0.3mL injection is what's on the Pfizer fact sheet, but I guess for all we know they've just got a guy in a back alley who mixes .001g into one liter and 10g into the next? It would be weird that 90% of doses still worked in the trials, and 80% still worked well enough in the long run though, wouldn't it?

Although as an aside, this really is something I'd love to find out more about: has there been any testing of dose-response curves? If we could have gotten half the breakthroughs for 5% more side effects with a higher dose, or half the side effects for 0.5% more breakthroughs, but what we did instead was just run with the first educated guess that someone got into trials, just because the FDA doesn't like to see things vary without restarting long expensive trials from scratch, that could belong pretty high on the long list of things the FDA ought to be criticized for.

A lot of unhealthy people in that age range that could use some more obvious remedies before dipping into transhumanism; for example watching their diet or avoiding paraphilia associated with sexually-transmitted diseases.

Obesity was another Covid risk factor, though IIRC if you compared "serious obesity" vs "an extra decade of age", the decade was worse for you. And I'd put "obesity epidemic" even above "testosterone decline" on my list of weird potentially-horrible population-spanning issues for which we should be hunting down systematic causes. But why stop at remedying two problems? If I diet and exercise and avoid STDs, that makes me less likely to die; if I diet and exercise and avoid STDs and avoid being virgin territory for a novel virus, that makes me even less likely to die.

Although as an aside, this really is something I'd love to find out more about: has there been any testing of dose-response curves? If we could have gotten half the breakthroughs for 5% more side effects with a higher dose, or half the side effects for 0.5% more breakthroughs, but what we did instead was just run with the first educated guess that someone got into trials, just because the FDA doesn't like to see things vary without restarting long expensive trials from scratch, that could belong pretty high on the long list of things the FDA ought to be criticized for.

They did it for the children dose I think. They still came out with more death on the injection side than what covid gives to children, but somehow that was not a concern.

The fact that there is a standard dose is somewhat concerning, or is it not?

According to this article, there is a standard dose.

Now let's ponder what it means that Moderna/Pfizer had to create a dose that would work just as well for the finest 300 lbs American citizen and the diminutive 150 lbs one.

Is the material just as likely to reach the key immune components necessary for whatever immune response is expected by the merchants in a much bigger body?

Would a bigger body necessitate a larger amount of material to reach the same response due to some unknown logistics?

Are the less-boldly-bodied people getting a larger dose than they would actually need? An excessive dose perhaps, that would perhaps concentrate the material into some cells, say the heart or some other critical tissue?

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If one side of the Culture War wants to go all Buck Turgidson, couldn't we at least get some good out of it, and focus on an actual measurable corruption of our precious bodily fluids?

Point of order, General Ripper was the one concerned about precious bodily fluids. Turgidson was concerned about people seeing the big board.

Other than that, excellent post.

Okay, I admit, it's been decades since I've seen the movie. In my defense, wasn't thinking "Turgid"-son was the "fluids" guy a natural mistake?

sounds like it's time for a rewatch, no?

I'm not too worried about fertility for it's own sake; ceteris paribus I think a universe with more people is a better universe, but we've already made a decent start at that, and I'd be fine slowing down until we have fusion or at least economical widespread fission under our belts before we really go wild.

But shouldn't caring when a animal (including homo sapiens) population undergoes weird unexplained biological changes be the rule, not the exception? This is the sort of DDT-thinning-eggshells type of issue that you'd expect the environmentalist left to be jumping on, and instead it doesn't seem to even get the same level of urgent attention that a coal miner would give to a fainting canary. You don't even have to actually care about canaries (or human men) per se, you just have to be able to think about wider implications. By the time the lurking phalates or whatever the hell the problem is diffuse out of our homes and into the wider ecosystem, it may be too late to clean them up and save the snail darters or whatever directly-leftist-treasured species are next to be affected.

It's not been engendering much concern because everyone's been trained to not care, and anyone that does care is marked out as odd and suspiciously motivated.

After mentioning this issue (sperm and testosterone decline) twice in polite company... I've learned not to mention it in polite company. At least by remaining silent I don't trash my own personal chances of having children.