site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   32847 thread views

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
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

The virus is also going to be in your blood and spreading everywhere.

Sure, but AIUI it can only replicate in cells with ACE-2 receptors -- which is different from the mRNA vaccines, right?

ACE2 receptors are very widespread, though.

Are they as widespread as cells which can be hijacked by the mRNA vaccines, though? (Or infected by adenoviruses, for that matter)

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure they are different.

Which introduces unknowns.

Which is all that I'm saying.

At a glance I couldn't find anything in particular for the COVID vaccines, but the delivery system used for the mRNA vaccines are lipid nanoparticles, which have been in use for a short while, and can be targeted towards certain cells. (Some newfangled cancer vaccines, for example, use targeted lipid nanoparticles.)

So I'm not sure about whether they would be as widespread as COVID-susceptible cells, but based on the mechanism of uptake - which has nothing to do with the mRNA - it seems to be a technology that can be used for targeted cell uptake of drug/vaccine/etc.

They would probably be different cells, though, yes, though because the vaccines wouldn't replicate like viruses do, I would expect the distribution of uptake to be more local than with a COVID infection.

Not sure what you're getting at with adenoviruses, but it would probably depend on which? Most human adenoviruses would attach to CAR, which I'm pretty sure is widespread but not exactly everywhere, or CD46, which actually is everywhere.

At a glance I couldn't find anything in particular for the COVID vaccines, but the delivery system used for the mRNA vaccines are lipid nanoparticles, which have been in use for a short while, and can be targeted towards certain cells. (Some newfangled cancer vaccines, for example, use targeted lipid nanoparticles.)

So I'm not sure about whether they would be as widespread as COVID-susceptible cells, but based on the mechanism of uptake - which has nothing to do with the mRNA - it seems to be a technology that can be used for targeted cell uptake of drug/vaccine/etc.

In other words, you don't know either.

Not sure what you're getting at with adenoviruses

The other major spike protein delivery vector used in (Western) vaccines was a chimpanzee adenovirus. That was Astrazenica and Johnson & Johnson I believe.

In other words, you don't know either.

Indeed, but based on how it has been used before we can make an educated guess that it was probably not all cells, and probably more likely than not a subset of cells more restrictive than “cells with ACE2 receptor”. Are we really practicing radical skepticism here?

In any case, it‘s likely to get to fewer cells and stay more local than a virus would, given that it doesn’t replicate.

And it rather should dampen your worry (at least re:vaccine vs virus) here:

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.

Since COVID is in your blood and spreads all over the place too.

The other major spike protein delivery vector used in (Western) vaccines was a chimpanzee adenovirus. That was Astrazenica and Johnson & Johnson I believe.

Ah, the vector-based vaccines. I didn‘t read up much on them unfortunately.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats