site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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.

10
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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?

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?

Yes.

You're asking these questions like this is the first vaccine ever proposed. We know the answers from several decades of experience developing vaccines. Dosage of vaccines is tiny and not weight-dependent because the immune system doesn't work that way. Dosage is smaller for children not because they are smaller but because their immune systems are less developed.