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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 13, 2023

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Seems like it’s been a while since we had a COVID report. I am seeing reports of excess deaths continue in western countries especially mRNA vaxxed countries. Theoretically after a pandemic that targeted people with a high risks of death we should see a period of below trend deaths. Usually I use Berenson when something feels off on the vaccine; always thought he misrepresented data but I knew he would have the vaccine skepticism data and seemed to do Scott’s line of the official media (he was NYTimes) will always present you true data just misrepresent it.

So he’s showing 1 million excess deaths in the last 12 months in MRNA countries which is a lot

https://twitter.com/alexberenson/status/1622623915775336448?s=46&t=5lPC0Ua_zfSaFWePIhVHfg

And a few counties I believe parts of UK and Germany are at peak excess deaths.

Then you had the Hamlin incident which doesn’t look like the initial story sold to me.

A few rationalist made mea culpas lately for being too pro lockdown etc. I’m now questioning whether my pro-vaccine position was correct. Scott Adams gave a mea culpa he was wrong on vaccines.

https://youtube.com/embed/C41GCgyG4mI

Of course on death counts. Overdoses seem to be at a new base rate adding some excess deaths. Maybe explains 150k. Murders up too but that’s like 30k tops. And some more suicides. And COVID still exists. But we also thinned the herd of near death people which should pressure excess deaths down. Did everyone get fat sheltering in place and/or didn’t stimulate their immune system enough with all sorts of pathogens plus other health care (cancer etc) went undetected?

I think the long term mRNA vaccine bear case rests on it training your body wrong for long term immunity by flooding your system with just the spike protein. Plus the Pfizer project Veritas guy said they don’t have a good explanation for menstrual changes that shouldn’t be occuring but could indicate it’s doing something with hormones unexpected.

Now I was never pro-mandate. Got COVID before vaccination confirmed and without symptoms. Eventually got 1 jab of mRNA as a booster and it knocked me out for 36 hrs so I swore off taking more shots. But I still recommended it to older family members.

Which leads to the discussion - what is causing the excess deaths? Will the mRNA vaccines end up being viewed as a huge failure and Berenson moves from quack to Seer who saw everything everyone else was blind to. And Kyrie Irving moves from fool to semi-normal. Currently I am in the confused stage where the data seems to be not fitting with my prior beliefs and trying to figure out what is going on. Is there a more rational explanation for excess deaths than mRNA vaccines are bad.

The excess deaths are probably caused by the after effects of Corona. Myocarditis and other heart issues are moderately common in people who didn't even have severe cases. Most of the people who have these issues probably don't know they have them. Then there are the severe cases, of which there were a lot, where people were stuck on ventilators and likely had all sorts of complications. Those people often aren't long for this world. There's also a case to be made that isolation caused by the pandemic has increased all cause mortality, bit that's pretty foggy and may not be true. It's also possible that the data is just off.

If the vaccines caused noticeable health risks it would be absurdly easy to see a correlation. Vaccination=higher mortality. That correlation isn't there. Also, hiding a health issue caused by a drug is so outside of the FDAs historical behavioral pattern that it's really ridiculous to lean into some conspiratorial coverup. Remember, when 2 J&J vaccine patients had heart issues out if millions (a rate which is far less than the rate in the random population) the FDA pulled the vaccine immediately. Yet they're covering up mass sickness from other vaccines?

This is one of those conspiracies that's really hard not to be condescending about because it's just so thinly supported.

What would you say if a positive correlation seemed to exist between number of vaccine doses and likelihood of contracting Omicron?

See page 21

That double blind trial data is a lot better and very clear that this isn't the case. We don't have to do guessing games with outside factors (such as risk taking when you know you're vaccinated), so why would we?

What double-blind trial is studying booster performance against Omicron?

Anyways, you said "correlation" -- one seems to exist, what now?

They have trials for all the boosters.

Double blind ones looking at probability of infection as compared with zero, one, two (or more) previous doses?

I don't think they do, please link.

Being boosters, they are inherently looking at the effect vs the previous dose.

Its a bit ridiculous to ask for something so easily accessible on google as moderna vaccine trials.

It's a bit ridiculous to try changing the subject when called on your own bullshit asked for data to back up your unsourced assertions.

You said that if vaccines caused increased chance of health problems, there would be an obvious correlation -- and asserted that it wasn't there.

When I provided a large survey (in a young and pretty homogeneous population, btw) by a bunch of infectious disease PhDs showing... an obvious correlation between # of vaccine doses and likelihood of contracting coronavirus, instead of re-evaluating your position, you bring up different studies studying different things. (most notably conducted ~2 years ago, against a significantly different variant than the one currently circulating)

Have you considered that your position in this matter may not depend on what's true at all?

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