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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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I can sort of see what tea leaves you're gesturing to. I just don't know what you mean exactly.

This is a tactic that allows mottes and baileys and is why we talk about speaking plainly. If he were to post that the vaccine is dangerous, it could be rebutted.

The main thing that distinguishes that from a troll post is that there is a lot of Covid skepticism here that he could be trying to appeal to, but the skepticism here is about lockdowns and the political handling of Covid, which is only his point 1. Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.

Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.

I'd note that this kind of demonstrates one of OP's points — the lumping together of "all vaccines into one monolithic product and doctrine." That you either believe "vaccines work" — all things that we choose to label a "vaccine," regardless of how novel the technology — as a whole, or you want to bring back polio. That anyone who so much as doubts the mRNA shot must be a scientifically-illiterate moron who thinks Edward Jenner was a fraud and the MMR shot causes autism.

Plus, it's also consensus-building.

In theory, you could believe that one vaccine works independently of the others. In practice, not so much.

Broadening the scope, it's uncontroversial to believe that some medications work, some medications don't really work, and some work but have unacceptable side-effects. I don't see why vaccines have to be any different.

Along those lines, I tried an allergy nasal spray for the first time yesterday and it's the single most effective thing I've ever had at relieving sinus pressure (and being able to breathe through my nose). The problem is I read the side effects list after trying it once and apparently cataracts and glaucoma are side effects of regular use, and apparently this applies to pretty much all other allergy nasal sprays as well.

Definitely not worth going blind to get some sinus relief.

Some medicines have different levels of effectiveness and different levels of side effect severity for different people even. I used Flonase on and off for a couple years, and never had any issues with eye pressure as far as my optometrist could measure. Allergists were thrilled by the stuff, because "maybe it'll give you glaucoma if you're susceptible and use it for years on end and don't check for warning signs" from nasal steroid sprays was still a big step up from "you can clear up your congestion for a few days, after which you have to stop or the rebound effect will just give you double-strength congestion for much longer" from nasal decongestant sprays.

Anyway, you don't want to use anything for years for sinus relief, regardless of side effects. If you've got congestion problems that last longer than the few weeks at a time of bad pollen seasons, get yourself taking allergy shots. They're very inconvenient (for me it was three shots a week, tapering down to one a week as they increased in dosage, for months and months) but very effective (I went for about two years unable to breathe through my nose after moving to a new neighborhood with more and different pollen; a decade or more after my shots I get congested maybe a few days a year during a bad year).

In practice, not so much.

"Some vaccines work and are worth the harm they cause and other vaccines do not work or are not worth the harm they cause" would be a statement 95% of the people regularly labeled vaccine deniers or anti-vaxxers would agree with

even a slight amount of honest engagement with them would reveal that

How about believing that one "vaccine" doesn't work, independently of all the others that do?

I get it, you want to smear anyone who has concerns about the mRNA "vaccine" as a brain-dead "science-denier" who wants to bring back measles and mumps, but quite a few people — including most people I know IRL — accept that all the many real vaccines do work… but not the "clot shot" bioweapon.

In practice, I'm fairly sure a lot more people believe in polio vaccine than flu vaccine.

Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.

I find OP somewhat frustrating for those motte/bailey/tea leaf reasons, but the CDC had to change their definition of vaccine because the COVID vaccine turned out so mediocre.

I think this was more due to the arrogance of the average public health agent combined with a heaping serving of sunk cost fallacy than some planned maliciousness, but it wasn't exactly encouraging as a development.

Everyone here (minus the lizardman constant) thinks vaccines work.

There probably are few here who would claim that no vaccines work, but if referring to the COVID vaccine specifically, that's a lot of lizardmen.