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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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I find these 'I'm one of the reasonable ones' posts so tiresome because the status quo will lump you in with other dissidents to discredit you no matter how many times you post comments like these. It doesn't matter how much you ridicule and insult the people further down the "conspiracy nut" totem pole than you. Your only defense is just being correct and telling the truth.

Nonetheless, I would never make a ridiculous claim to support my position like admissions being down, or ventilators killing more people, or vaccines being worse than the disease

I think part of this is my shorthand is leading to confusion.

admissions being down

Hospital admissions and emergency room admissions were lower in February 2020 through at least April 2020 than previous years. This is findable data which I looked up years ago. You can think it's ridiculous all you like, but you are wrong and that is a true statement.

the dancing nurse/doctor phenomenon makes more sense (and you can just look into the periphery of the videos) when you realize part of the reason is the hospitals were not full, the pop-up tent hospitals were empty, and the hospital ships were empty

or ventilators killing more people

my claim is ventilators were overused and this overuse caused people to die

ventilators are dangerous and should only be used when the downsides of their lack of use are dire

in the early days of the covid hysteria, they were regularly being used on people when they shouldn't have been for various reasons but the result was people who would have lived otherwise fell into the ventilator spiral where they declined and then died

and this is why the protocol for their use w/re COVID19 treatment was significantly changed in the summer of 2020 which substantially reduced their use

vaccines being worse than the disease

have you ever heard of the 1976 flu vaccine which was pulled from use?

well shucks, this cannot be because it has the word "vaccine" in the name!

I get it dude, but these slimy 'I'm one of the reasonable ones!' posts gain you nothing and just make holding dissident beliefs harder and more costly as it reinforces exactly what you're complaining about.

After all: you're the conspiracy nutjob who thinks there was some crazzzzzzzzzzzzed conspiracy at local, state, and federal government and their corresponding institutions and people lied repeatedly about facts and stats on the ground and the known effects of lockdowns! I'm one of the reasonable ones, I don't believe lockdowns are the greatest crimes against humanity outside of war. Please don't lump me in with people like you.

Hospital admissions and emergency room admissions were lower in February 2020 through at least April 2020 than previous years

Presumably because the lockdown stopped idiots like me from breaking bones playing sports and riding bikes (I've done both) and that decrease in hospital visits was larger than the increase due to COVID? Which was literally the point of lockdowns (at first, before we all went insane).

Had hospitals had to deal with both the regular base-line level of hospital admissions + COVID patients they would likely have gotten absolutely fucked and quality of care would plummet for all.

It also stopped people having heart attacks from going to the hospital, stopped people with cancer from having appointments, et cetera and so forth.

I really hope people with heart attacks, cancer appointments, etc still went

Them not going is a massive failure on our society

I'm not even pro-lockdown, I was very against them by mid 2020 when it was clear no one had a plan or coherent strategy.

I just dislike bad reasoning

I really hope people with heart attacks, cancer appointments, etc still went

A bunch of diagnostic services were cancelled which didn't necessarily reduce the amount of Triage attendees but impacted the discovery of major issues.

I really hope people with heart attacks, cancer appointments, etc still went

Probably varied heavily by region and severity, and we'll never really know the stats.

At one point early on I had some sort of gallbladder attack, with symptoms fairly similar to appendicitis. I bet on it not being that, and it turned out okay. But maybe somebody else ignored the same symptoms for the same reason and it didn't. So goes life.

I just dislike bad reasoning

As we should!

To be honest, I just don't believe you.

But more importantly, your thinking seems extremely blinkered, like you can't see the wood for the trees.

Covid was a very infectious disease, hence why even very strict lockdowns were mostly useless. Across the world a very large number of people died and probably a significant majority of the population was exposed to it.

How many people do you think died because of improper medical care from ventilators (keeping in mind the counterfactual where they might die anyway without any intervention)? What was the death rate or side effect rate from vaccines? It's not going to be even 6 figures. It's a fraction of a fraction.

What was the death rate or side effect rate from vaccines? It's not going to be even 6 figures

How are you defining side effect? Unless you're defining it narrowly, "side effect rate" is going to be like 90+% of people that take a vaccine- the vast majority of people have some degree of soreness and lethargy after a vaccine, and COVID vaccines seem worse for this than most.

I'm also left to wonder how many side effects were not identified as caused by the vaccines because the message was broadcast loud and clear to every doctor that if you question the vaccines you risk becoming a pariah and a crank.

My wife got a condition that could have also been blamed on the vaccines, but since there was another plausible explanation for it, doctors clung to that other one. I'm not saying they're wrong, but I'm saying I'm not confident that they gave the possibility that the vaccines were the cause a serious, scientific look. Multiply events like this all over and who knows what the death rate/side effect rate even is? That's what happens when achieving political objectives is more important to politicians and the high level medical establishment than achieving the correct medical outcomes.

Thoroughly seconded.