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.

Viruses replicate, in a way that the mRNA vaccine...doesn't? And goes into your bloodstream?

The spike protein could be produced if its sequence integrates into DNA.

Viral integrases are particular about what sequences they integrate, and...

What if there is so much RNA floating around that they just act in a more non-specific way?

A cell that is that actively translating viral reverse transcriptase is a cell that's...dying to the virus

Maybe. This is all about chemical logistics.

The assumption is that the mRNA is safe from integrating DNA because there is no reverse transcriptase packaged with it

turns out there could be cells containing reverse transcriptase but then the cells are probably dying so them getting spike DNA wouldn't matter

so we're assuming that the event won't happen because the enzyme and the RNA would not be together in the same cell

or that cell would not be producing spike protein for long

So it seems unlikely that we would have spike protein or some other type of foreign protein continuously produced after the injection. But then who knows what actually happens, until this is actually studied?

COVID itself possibly could be reverse transcribed into a small number of cell lines post-infection in a much less controlled manner, producing chimeric human-viral proteins.

Did anybody test the same thing for injected people? That's what I'm asking for, before 'fact-checkers' assert that 'it's impossible'. Actually test it, then tell me whether it's possible or not. If one study finds no evidence of such a thing occurring in a large sample, it's better than a couple people hand-waving the issue away.

It wouldn't just spontaneously turn into DNA. Reverse transcription is not a modification of the RNA sequence, it is a synthesis of new DNA strands based on the old one.

That seems correct. It seems that reverse transcriptase would be necessary for integration into DNA.

It wouldn't just spontaneously turn into DNA. Reverse transcription is not a modification of the RNA sequence, it is a synthesis of new DNA strands based on the old one.

Not even making an attempt at providing evidence while simultaneously claiming something to be impossible is even worse. If it's impossible, at least produce evidence that you could not see it happen when you looked for it.