> everyone you come into contact with to take that same risk
how come so if those "everyone" got vaccinated? I mean all the risk groups who has clearly higher risk from covid than vaccine should definitely go for vaccine. The rest - personal choice of risk. And as a healthy 49 years old, i'm taking my chance with covid and have no plans for vaccination (i was always laughing at anti-vaxxers, yet seeing all misinformation and propaganda (the stench of USSR strength propaganda is just overwhelming) around covid i think i'll pass this one)
> (i was always laughing at anti-vaxxers, yet seeing all misinformation and propaganda (the smell of USSR strength propaganda is just overwhelming) around covid i think i'll pass this one)
No, you weren't. A common false-flag (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag) attack involves presenting oneself as a member of an opposing viewpoint in order to find adherents for the desired viewpoint.
The tell is your use of the words "misinformation" and "propaganda." People who tend to levy such claims also tend to share more of it: https://www.colorado.edu/today/2020/06/17/who-shares-most-fa... - "The paper, in the journal Human Communication Research, also found that people who lack trust in conventional media, and in one another, post misinformation more often."
I was always pro-vax, and that hasn't changed with this vaccine.
Responding to skepticism with hostility does nothing except make you feel better. And further convince the skeptics that you're wrong. After all, if you'll try to tell them that their own lived experience is a lie, why should they believe anything you tell them?
> Responding to skepticism with hostility does nothing except make you feel better. And further convince the skeptics that you're wrong. After all, if you'll try to tell them that their own lived experience is a lie, why should they believe anything you tell them?
I hear you, though it's not an effort at convincing the OP employing manipulative communication.
It's an effort at highlighting the manipulation—with references—so that vulnerable readers are informed and inoculated against it. Unlike OP's comment, scientific skepticism simply seeks information, insight, and references in order to inform their own opinions rather than making assumptions on faith.
> ... it's an effort at highlighting the manipulation—with references—so that vulnerable readers are informed and inoculated against it.
as i've already shown (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27467720) you invented the "manipulation", ie. you generated misinformation, and you're clearly acknowledging here that you're using that misinformation in order to affect "vulnerable readers", ie. for propaganda purposes.
> as i already pointed out you invented the "manipulation", ie. you generated misinformation, and you're clearly acknowledge here that you're using that misinformation in order to affect "vulnerable readers", ie. for propaganda purposes.
I was clear in providing citations. At this point, you need to provide your own backing for all the other vaccines you've supported, such as the flu vaccine, MMR, etc. if you want to lend credibility to the idea that you're not broadly anti-vaccine.
Thing is, even if you're against new-technology vaccines, we have numerous old-technology vaccines following the same paradigms used to make the vaccines I mentioned above (AZ, JJ, etc). Being broadly anti-covid-vaccine essentially acknowledges holding generalized anti-vaccine opinions since the majority of vaccines on the market make use of legacy manufacturing techniques.
I don't see this conversation between you and me being any more productive. Sock puppetry (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sock_puppet_account) is a pretty established pattern, and it's easily defeated by asking people to provide their sources, something you haven't done with your assertions against the COVID-19 vaccines.
>Thing is, even if you're against new-technology vaccines, we have numerous old-technology vaccines following the same paradigms used to make the vaccines I mentioned above (AZ, JJ, etc).
Those two are viral-vector vaccines, which isn't old-technology. They're almost as new as mRNA vaccines.
>Being broadly anti-covid-vaccine essentially acknowledges holding generalized anti-vaccine opinions since the majority of vaccines on the market make use of legacy manufacturing techniques.
You're assuming everyone has the same knowledge base as you and then inferring their decision making process from that. More likely is that people have formed broad opinions about a new event based on scattered information. That's the sort of information that would be helpful to provide, not Wikipedia pages to generalized propaganda techniques.
> You're assuming everyone has the same knowledge base as you and then inferring their decision making process from that. More likely is that people have formed broad opinions about a new event based on scattered information. That's the sort of information that would be helpful to provide, not Wikipedia pages to generalized propaganda techniques.
Hey, thanks for that. This helped me rethink and understand the entire conversation.
I'm not sure how much more effective new information or facts would be either, in hindsight, but it did remind me of an old publication (not research, I should add) discussing the use of personal narratives and stories to fight vaccine misinformation: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.4161/hv.24828
Possibly effective against other forms of misinformation too. Sadly, I'm too buried in the facts and not enough of a storyteller to be effective here.
you've got caught generating misinformation, and now you're clearly deflecting.
>I was clear in providing citations.
All the citations/links you brought in were to build a house of cards of your pet narrative on top of a factually wrong false statement you generated about me out of nothing. You generated that false statement in order to be able to apply those citations. Without that foundational false statement your citations didn't make sense.
Now, once you've got caught (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27467720) by me showing that you just casually generated that misinformation, you're trying to drown that fact under the pile of the long winded meaningless word-abouts like this gem here:
>Being broadly anti-covid-vaccine essentially acknowledges holding generalized anti-vaccine opinions since the majority of vaccines on the market make use of legacy manufacturing techniques.
It is a classic device of propaganda - equating risk-benefit analysis unfavorable in a specific narrow situation (a healthy very low risk group in this case) with blanket non-acceptance ("broadly anti-covid-vaccine"). Like back in the USSR - "You don't like the absence of hot water?! You're anti-Soviet!" It is strange that you didn't notice that propaganda device description among your "manipulation" describing links.
It is pretty clear that you're trying to paint me, against the already demonstrated facts, as an anti-vaxxer in order to undermine whatever i was saying. I think you'll be able to find on your own a link describing that fallacy.
You should apologize to trhway. He's proven that his statement was correct with a comment he made here on HN in 2015 where he does indeed take a (very) pro-vax position.
> You should apologize to trhway. He's proven that his statement was correct with a comment he made here on HN in 2015 where he does indeed take a (very) pro-vax position.
>The tell is your use of the words "misinformation" and "propaganda." People who tend to levy such claims also tend to share more of it
you said it yourself. It is kind of ironically not surprising that you levied the above mentioned claim and actually posted the misinformation and propaganda yourself - see below.
>No, you weren't.
you really don't know, yet you're making with complete confidence such a completely false blatantly contradicting facts[0] statement just because it suits your narrative
>A common false-flag ...
and helps you to advance your agenda. Thus your post is a clear example of misinformation and propaganda. Not sure that you're doing it intentionally, probably you're just caught up in that mob hysteria.
Hey, I figure the downvotes were probably a consequence of tone, but your quoted post is a robust defense of your prior assertion about your position on vaccines.
(in all honesty, I clicked the post a few times and wondered why you were linking it, but it only clicked after mike drew attention to it.)
Anyway, I apologize for doubting. I still don't understand your position regarding the current batch of mRNA vaccines, but I can appreciate that you're not an anti-vaccine generalist.
It's very amusing you were actually able to show yourself laughing at anti-vaxers right here on HN, thus winning the argument against eganist completely. You should probably have called that out more clearly. I guessed what might be in the link but it would have been good to quote it.
> It's very amusing you were actually able to show yourself laughing at anti-vaxers right here on HN, thus winning the argument against eganist completely. You should probably have called that out more clearly. I guessed what might be in the link but it would have been good to quote it.
My guess is that what drew so much ire was the tone and presentation. Similar to "thus winning the argument against eganist completely" when it was less of an argument and more of an immune response to common patterns that proved in this case to be a false positive.
But yes, simply going with quoting the past post, drawing attention to it very clearly in text ("Please see linked one example of a past post where I've declared my own pro-vaccine views"), and then using that past position to contextualize their current aversion would've been great for constructive engagement.
Water under the bridge. Either way, sorry trhway; glad you're not anti-vax, but hoping to win you over to the mRNA side (though feel free to laugh at me on my way to the grave if I die of vaccine induced long term effects. I guess I'll have earned it at that point).
"everyone" currently excludes a large number of people who would otherwise like to be immunized for a variety of reasons (age, medical risks), and vaccines are not 100% effective
> And as a healthy 49 years old, i'm taking my chance with covid and have no plans for vaccination
so you would rather be at between a 1 in 500 and a 1 in 250 risk of dying in your age group + a much higher risk than that of some long covid symptoms that are debilitating/unknown if they will ever get better vs. a 1 in a 1,000,000 chance you get something that might be bad but is likely survivable... I don't understand the anti-vaxxer "logic"
I don't necessarily disagree that the known risks outweigh the known benefits for that age group, but your numbers are way off.
You also have to consider that the absolute risk (the risk of catching Sars-Cov2 multiplied by the risk of COVID) is far lower with current prevalence.
In the end, you arrive at a low known risk either way. It then depends on how you weigh the unknown risks. There's a strong incentive to downplay risks of vaccination "for the public good" while simultaneously exaggerating the risk of infection. By posting these inflated/deflated numbers, you're playing your part, knowingly or not.
> You also have to consider that the absolute risk (the risk of catching Sars-Cov2 multiplied by the risk of COVID) is far lower with current prevalence.
and you are playing your part knowingly or unknowingly in possibly causing the mutation and spread of a new variant that is not effectively controlled by the current crop of vaccines which could lead to another lockdown and mass deaths.
When masks come off there will be a sharp uptick in unvaccinated people getting covid and dying... the current majority of people that get covid and die are the unvaccinated by a large, large margin. It's not going away and you will likely get covid if you are unvaccinated since it spreads so well and life is going back to maskless soon enough.
Again, you're making a speculative "for the greater good" argument. That's all fine and well, but that's a different question as to whether my personal risk outweighs the benefit or not.
We already have the situation that vector-virus COVID vaccines are likely deadlier to younger women than the virus itself. Of course, having all these women vaccinated may well have saved more lives in total, but it would still be immoral to recommend it to them, if their personal risk from the vaccination is higher than from the virus.
> When masks come off there will be a sharp uptick in unvaccinated people getting covid and dying...
In relative terms, but probably not in absolute terms.
> ...the current majority of people that get covid and die are the unvaccinated by a large, large margin.
That's neither here nor there. If you vaccinated 90% of the population, at an idealized 90% efficacy, half the COVID deaths would be in the vaccinated group. What does that tell you about individual risk? Nothing, because it doesn't take into account prevalence in a population that is 90% vaccinated.
I don't doubt that the vaccine is effective, but the absolute risk reduction, for my age group, at current prevalance is probably around 1% (like in the trials). In Israel, the vaccination rate is below 60%, but prevalence is close to zero.
Not OP but the chance of hospitalization in that age bracket is about 0.2% [0] There appears to be at least a 20% chance that post-vaccine someone of that age will feel rough enough to take medication [1].
People who are currently healthy choosing to avoid the risk of immediate short-term pain when presented with a small, remote gain seems like classic prospect theory!
20% chance of feeling rough enough to take medication does not seem much higher than the human average. Without comparing to placebo it is meaningless.
you are conflating "rough enough to take a medication" with being "so sick you are in the hospital with covid." crazy comparison. I got my vaccine and the second shot hit me hard enough that I had to take some ibuprofen. Not a single regret and it wasn't that bad.
I'm not conflating anything? I'm only pointing out, under prospect theory, people value avoiding a loss over a risk for a gain.
It's rational for someone who is currently healthy, in an age group with a 0.2% of COVID turning into anything more than a standard cold/flu, to turn down an immediate risk (orders of magnitude larger) that they will feel unhealthy for a couple days.
> in an age group with a 0.2% of COVID turning into anything more than a standard cold/flu
except that's not the statistic... that's the death statistic for that age group. the odds of getting sicker than cold/flu are higher still and you will get much much sicker than the vaccine will give most people.
the death rate in that cohort is 0.36% or about 1 in 300
14,387 deaths in 3,978,547 cases
considering that they are on the high end of that bracket the next higher bracket is about 1.3% mortality rate or about 1 in 100 though that houses the group up to age 64 so it's more likely closer to the 0.5%-0.8% mortality rate but that's interpolating the data so it's messy.
>between a 1 in 500 and a 1 in 250 risk of dying in your age group
your post is an example of the "logic" that is abundant and has highjacked the info space especially when it comes to covid. The numbers you use are aggregated across the whole age group and not adjusted for health status/risks. There are orders of magnitude difference of risk between different people with different health conditions even in the same age group.
how come so if those "everyone" got vaccinated? I mean all the risk groups who has clearly higher risk from covid than vaccine should definitely go for vaccine. The rest - personal choice of risk. And as a healthy 49 years old, i'm taking my chance with covid and have no plans for vaccination (i was always laughing at anti-vaxxers, yet seeing all misinformation and propaganda (the stench of USSR strength propaganda is just overwhelming) around covid i think i'll pass this one)