FranLab is getting evicted

[Simon]

when there is so much false information that people cannot tell the difference? it's no fun living surrounded by idiots!

[AVGresponding]

As far as I am concerned people posting utter fake science are as good as the terrorists, they want to convince you of an alternative reality which fits their agenda, gives them power over you, allows them to manipulate you and ultimately harm the stupid that believe them. I don't have a problem with genuine scientific debate, but cmon, you are telling me that you have never seen clear cut junk science?

What an absurdly ridiculous hyperbole. Terrorists? Really?

Of course I've seen clear cut junk science, but I don't try to silence it, I know that will only give it more strength. The way to combat junk science is with good science. Post good information, don't try to silence bad information, that doesn't work, it never works, it can't work. People should be free to speak their mind, even if they're full of shit. Yes some people will be dumb enough to believe them, you can't change that. Nobody ever has had their mind changed by force, it just doesn't work. When someone tries, they dig in their heals and it reinforces their view.

They spread fear among the general public and use it to further their agenda. Just because it isn't physical violence doesn't make it any less harmful; I'd argue an anti-vaxxer causes more damage than any "traditional" terrorist.

[Simon]

Quite, after all, go back to history, society was run by a bunch of religious nut jobs, the peaceful Christians inspired the crusades and knowledgeable people were murdered for being witches. Terrorists aim to take over someone else's society with fear and force. But the producers of false propaganda work from the inside to take over their society, I'm sure there is an example of this somewhere in history....

[tautech]

Quite, after all, go back to history, society was run by a bunch of religious nut jobs, the peaceful Christians inspired the crusades and knowledgeable people were murdered for being witches. Terrorists aim to take over someone else's society with fear and force. But the producers of false propaganda work from the inside to take over their society, I'm sure there is an example of this somewhere in history....

It's been written as we speak !

[Zero999]

And you have just fallen for the trap.

No, my post was about the fact that science provides no facts or truths.  You yourself wrote "thunderfoot's video explaining the truth".  Truth based on what?

I simply stated that there was this nutty guy that was firstly a lyer and a fraud before he even started talking about masks, what he had to say about masks is easily found to be yet another lie.

Problem is, all those adjectives are opinions, not verifiable facts.  Especially "Easily found to be", when I just linked to a recent study that explicitly says we do not have reliable data on this.  See?

Just because you (or I) feel something is obviously true, does not make it objectively true.

My point is, whatever you think is obviously the truth or obviously a lie, is relative to your opinion.  If you start censoring based on that, no matter how good intentions you have, it will sooner or later devolve into a corrupt system where only correct opinions are allowed.  No such censoring system has ever, in the known history, been able to avoid becoming a corrupt one.  Not even the academic ones.

The most dangerous path is when you start censoring content based on the author, instead of the content itself.  It is itself a corrupt method, anti-scientific, because instead of the content of the message, it examines the messenger.

As a media, the only correct option is to avoid having to mark posts "true" or "false"; and not to try and filter or censor them using "truth" as a criteria.

Will you stop trolling? we are not talking about the effectiveness of masks in the covid context.

fact: man who is not a doctor claims to be one
fact: he lied!
Fact: the already discredited individual claims that a face mask used by doctors all over the world, a commonly used everyday item will basically suffocate you.
fact: what he said is a lie. That is all the point I was making, what the hell are you on about?

So are you saying that there is scientific uncertainty about whether or net an item used for many decades without problem is suddenly going to start sufocating people?

I don't think Nominal Animal was trolling, just misunderstood.

Your point wasn't that masks did anything to control the spread of respiratory viruses, just that someone claiming they suffocate you, was talking bollocks and believe should have had their video taken down, but YT decided to go after thunderfoot's video debunking them.

Neither video should have been taken down. There are far greater sources of misinformation, than random YT videos, such as the health authorities themselves, who pushed the idea that facemasks stopped the spread of viruses, even to the point of mandating them, when there wasn't strong evidence to support their efficacy. It wouldn't have been so bad, if they'd said they might help, but there certainly wasn't enough evidence to force people to wear them. Even that wouldn't have been good, since I know people who did things they wouldn't have otherwise had done, such as car share, because they believed masks would protect them. To cap it off, we had big tech being pushed by the government to censor information which contradicted public health policy. The official reason for this was, to prevent people from spreading lies which undermined the authorities' ability to deal with the pandemic, but in reality it stopped people from calling out their own lies.

As far as I am concerned people posting utter fake science are as good as the terrorists, they want to convince you of an alternative reality which fits their agenda, gives them power over you, allows them to manipulate you and ultimately harm the stupid that believe them. I don't have a problem with genuine scientific debate, but cmon, you are telling me that you have never seen clear cut junk science?

What an absurdly ridiculous hyperbole. Terrorists? Really?

Of course I've seen clear cut junk science, but I don't try to silence it, I know that will only give it more strength. The way to combat junk science is with good science. Post good information, don't try to silence bad information, that doesn't work, it never works, it can't work. People should be free to speak their mind, even if they're full of shit. Yes some people will be dumb enough to believe them, you can't change that. Nobody ever has had their mind changed by force, it just doesn't work. When someone tries, they dig in their heals and it reinforces their view.

They spread fear among the general public and use it to further their agenda. Just because it isn't physical violence doesn't make it any less harmful; I'd argue an anti-vaxxer causes more damage than any "traditional" terrorist.

What a load of rubbish. It's not a single anti-vaxer who causes the damage, but when when no one questions him. The MMR autism scandal was a classic example of the mainstream media not questioning Andrew Wakefield, who incidentally was not an anti-vaxer, but had vested interests in an alternative vaccine. I was a teenager at the time and didn't believe it, since it was fairly obvious autistic children showed symptoms around the age they'd get the MMR vaccine and that more children were being diagnosed was due to an increase in screening.

The reverse can happen too: an overzealous vaccine rollout can lead to death an injury because important safety signals are missed. A classic example of this was the swine flu vaccine, back in 1976, which caused an increased risk of Guillain–Barré syndrome resulting in injury and death. Many respected medical professionals fear a similar thing has happened recently and it's being covered up.

[tautech]

The reverse can happen too: an overzealous vaccine rollout can lead to death an injury because important safety signals are missed. A classic example of this was the swine flu vaccine, back in 1976, which caused an increased risk of Guillain–Barré syndrome resulting in injury and death. Many respected medical professionals fear a similar thing has happened recently and it's being covered up.

100%

Some used the so called epidemic as an opportunity to enforce emergency powers and keep injuries suppressed and wobetide any that spoke out about what was being done to us.
A chapter in history that we'd all rather forget and in many ways it's sad we have not learnt that authoritarian rule can be counterproductive as many here have gone out of their way to fall off all state records of their existence effectively raising 2 fingers to authority.

[Simon]

I guess we should just abolish schooling too. Between free speech and not trusting anyone lets just go back to the middle ages, we are not far off anyway.

[tautech]

I guess we should just abolish schooling too. Between free speech and not trusting anyone lets just go back to the middle ages, we are not far off anyway.

Have you not seen some of the rubbish pushed down kids throats these days....even 20 years ago our daughter had to listen to alternative sexual education and when stating it was not natural and her parents would be bankrupt because of such shit as 2 cows can't produce a calf !
She and others like minded with the balls to stand up against such being taught in schools were excluded from the class to spend the remainder in the Principals office.

All authority has lowered standards and as parents we now need ensure the next generation be properly guided.....

[sokoloff]

Rather than imagining the ministers of truth are infallible, consider the possibility that they’ll sometimes be wrong and sometimes it will be unclear who’s right/what’s right and they might not side with you.

[tautech]

Rather than imagining the ministers of truth are infallible, consider the possibility that they’ll sometimes be wrong and sometimes it will be unclear who’s right/what’s right and they might not side with you.

Consider those Ministers are guided by their scientific advisers that could be plain wrong and proved such later as better info becomes available......or won't go against the hand that feeds them for fear of being replaced.

[AVGresponding]

What a load of rubbish. It's not a single anti-vaxer who causes the damage, but when when no one questions him. The MMR autism scandal was a classic example of the mainstream media not questioning Andrew Wakefield, who incidentally was not an anti-vaxer, but had vested interests in an alternative vaccine. I was a teenager at the time and didn't believe it, since it was fairly obvious autistic children showed symptoms around the age they'd get the MMR vaccine and that more children were being diagnosed was due to an increase in screening.

The reverse can happen too: an overzealous vaccine rollout can lead to death an injury because important safety signals are missed. A classic example of this was the swine flu vaccine, back in 1976, which caused an increased risk of Guillain–Barré syndrome resulting in injury and death. Many respected medical professionals fear a similar thing has happened recently and it's being covered up.

If you can't see the contradiction in what you just said, there's no point talking to you further.

[m k]

when there is so much false information that people cannot tell the difference? it's no fun living surrounded by idiots!

True dat.
But how come every other is above average.

One problem is that every asshole can vote.
But if not then finally the great asshole asshole will be the dictator.
There free education is one preventer, moderate state church another.

I'd say that what we are seeing now is a recoil to instant information exchange.
It will fade away when silent majority have time to react against vocal minority.
Good recent example is patent trolls.

Now rainbow folks and their opponents are two vocal minorities.
Finally equal rights will prevail and fear of change will fade.

[Simon]

Every society as a whole gets the government/leadership it deserves, If people vote for the corrupt why do they complain afterwards? The problem is for the few that can see through the false promises as just people pleasing and accept reality and work with reality rather than the one that propaganda politics produces, but are stuck with what the majority want.

[Zero999]

What a load of rubbish. It's not a single anti-vaxer who causes the damage, but when when no one questions him. The MMR autism scandal was a classic example of the mainstream media not questioning Andrew Wakefield, who incidentally was not an anti-vaxer, but had vested interests in an alternative vaccine. I was a teenager at the time and didn't believe it, since it was fairly obvious autistic children showed symptoms around the age they'd get the MMR vaccine and that more children were being diagnosed was due to an increase in screening.

The reverse can happen too: an overzealous vaccine rollout can lead to death an injury because important safety signals are missed. A classic example of this was the swine flu vaccine, back in 1976, which caused an increased risk of Guillain–Barré syndrome resulting in injury and death. Many respected medical professionals fear a similar thing has happened recently and it's being covered up.

If you can't see the contradiction in what you just said, there's no point talking to you further.

You still haven't backed up your ludicrous idea that an anti-vaxer can cause more harm than a terrorist.

They spread fear among the general public and use it to further their agenda. Just because it isn't physical violence doesn't make it any less harmful; I'd argue an anti-vaxxer causes more damage than any "traditional" terrorist.

I'd argue that kind of rhetoric is dangerous and needs to be called out. As soon as one starts to compare others to terrorists, when they say something they bad, unless perhaps it is advocating physical acts of terrorism, then they've either lost all sense of perspective, or are trying to scare and anger people.

The truth is, pushing a dangerous vaccine is just as harmful, as claiming a safe and effective one is bad. If we take your idea that being against any vaccine is as bad as terrorism, then there's a huge danger people will be killed and injured from bad vaccines, because important safety signals are ignored.

Every society as a whole gets the government/leadership it deserves, If people vote for the corrupt why do they complain afterwards? The problem is for the few that can see through the false promises as just people pleasing and accept reality and work with reality rather than the one that propaganda politics produces, but are stuck with what the majority want.

And what information do they use to pick the government? Mostly the mainstream media, who are strongly influenced by the government.

[magic]

LMAO

[tom66]

You still haven't backed up your ludicrous idea that an anti-vaxer can cause more harm than a terrorist.

Hmm. Well, we can probably calculate this.

How many people has terrorism killed in the UK?  Well, since the end of the Troubles, in any given year it's typically less than 50 (rough source: imgur.com/o5LBSIc).  For devil's advocate reasons, let's assume 50 per year.

How many people has COVID likely killed?  Officially, the death count is around 225k since the start three years ago, but let's assume that the real death figure is half that to be generous, because there will be cases where someone was near death and Covid was a likely but not certain cause of death.  I'll also ignore long Covid and general sickness too, for which cases we know the vaccine is generally beneficial.  So I'll just assume around 50,000 deaths per year for this figure to get a lower bound.

We know the vaccine reduces deaths by 90%, even if its effectiveness at reducing the spread of the virus is less than was expected.  This is evident in the data - the death rate and infection rates have fallen by around this figure since the rollout of the vaccine despite all restrictions now disappearing.  We also know that, overall, death rates across all cohorts have returned to normal.  So, if the vaccine is killing people (and, yes, vaccine sickness and deaths do happen, I'm not denying that) then it's seemingly a fairly minimal phenomenon.

So all an anti-vaxxer needs to do is convince around 0.018% of the UK population to not get vaccinated (assuming an IFR of ~0.5% in the unvaccinated cohort and ~0.05% in the vaccinated cohort) and they've statistically killed more people than even the worst case assumptions about terrorism would for one year.  Whilst any individual anti-vaxxer is not likely to be a concern, if they were a popular figure and had more than around 12,000 followers and were able to convince those people to not be vaccinated (when they otherwise would) then they are more dangerous than all the terrorists that strike in any given year.  They're even worse, really, because those who have been convinced that the vaccine is dangerous will likely remain unvaccinated for life, and will spread further disinformation.

[johansen]

We know the vaccine reduces deaths by 90%, even if its effectiveness at reducing the spread of the virus is less than was expected.  This is evident in the data - the death rate and infection rates have fallen by around this figure since the rollout of the vaccine despite all restrictions now disappearing.  We also know that, overall, death rates across all cohorts have returned to normal.  So, if the vaccine is killing people (and, yes, vaccine sickness and deaths do happen, I'm not denying that) then it's seemingly a fairly minimal phenomenon.

no, they have not.

from your own source for the last week
 

1.Main points
In the week ending 21 April 2023 (Week 16) 12,420 deaths were registered in England and Wales; 538 of these deaths mentioned novel coronavirus (COVID-19), accounting for 4.3% of all deaths.

This is an increase in all deaths compared with the week ending 14 April 2023 when the number of all-cause deaths registered was 9,978; COVID-19 accounted for 465 of these deaths (4.7%).

Of the 538 deaths involving COVID-19 in Week 16, 66.5% (358 deaths) had this recorded as the underlying cause of death, which was a greater proportion when compared with Week 15 (65.8%).

The number of deaths was above the five-year average in private homes (29.0% above, 771 excess deaths), hospitals (20.2% above, 924 excess deaths), care homes (25.3% above, 525 excess deaths) and other settings (11.7% above, 92 excess deaths).

The number of deaths registered in the UK in the week ending 21 April 2023 (Week 16) was 14,024, which was 22.1% above the five-year average (2,540 excess deaths); of these deaths, 615 involved COVID-19.

[tom66]

We know the vaccine reduces deaths by 90%, even if its effectiveness at reducing the spread of the virus is less than was expected.  This is evident in the data - the death rate and infection rates have fallen by around this figure since the rollout of the vaccine despite all restrictions now disappearing.  We also know that, overall, death rates across all cohorts have returned to normal.  So, if the vaccine is killing people (and, yes, vaccine sickness and deaths do happen, I'm not denying that) then it's seemingly a fairly minimal phenomenon.

no, they have not.

from your own source for the last week [...]

OK.  Fair point.  COVID deaths have spiked up as another wave comes through, and COVID hasn't totally disappeared - but it still doesn't change the thrust of the argument.  Look at the COVID-19 attributed death rate in the UK gov data.  The fall is approximately 90% despite restrictions being removed.  We had a peak of 9,000 deaths per week with some of the strictest restrictions the UK has ever seen, like not *legally* being able to visit family for Christmas and so on.  The following year only advice was given on meeting up in the private home, and socialisation levels had returned to normal amounts, yet the death rate rarely broke 1,000 per week.   That's the power of vaccination.  (Note: Venues were still required to check vaccination status before allowing entry - that restriction ended in Mar 2022 for most of the UK.)

We're going to be living with COVID for a very long time, possibly for the rest of our lives, but we've managed to find a very effective way to manage it.  I know some,  I would call them extreme individuals,  continue to advocate for restrictions but we're now at the level where we accept this as a cost of living without the restrictions.  I would have said they should have ended earlier than they did, but I can see that's only apparent in hindsight as we didn't know how effective the vaccine would be at mass scale or if variants would defeat it (they so far have not managed to do so.)

[SiliconWizard]

COVID is the new Godwin's law as it seems. Any thread long enough ends up with something about COVID, and then gets locked.

[xrunner]

Geez ... some of us got a little off topic in another thread and got a warning from the higher ups. And this goes all COVID which was supposed to be a big no-no and nothing happens?

I just don't get it.

[Simon]

Geez ... some of us got a little off topic in another thread and got a warning from the higher ups. And this goes all COVID which was supposed to be a big no-no and nothing happens?

I just don't get it.

I guess we just went with YouTube rules....

[james_s]

Geez ... some of us got a little off topic in another thread and got a warning from the higher ups. And this goes all COVID which was supposed to be a big no-no and nothing happens?

I just don't get it.

Well Dave isn't omnipotent. If somebody flags the posts and he notices then he'll probably delete them or give a warning.

[xrunner]

Geez ... some of us got a little off topic in another thread and got a warning from the higher ups. And this goes all COVID which was supposed to be a big no-no and nothing happens?

I just don't get it.

Well Dave isn't omnipotent. If somebody flags the posts and he notices then he'll probably delete them or give a warning.

He has to be omnipotent to notice all this off-topic junk in a thread he participates in all the time? Give me a break.

[Simon]

I'm sorry but we just engaged the free speech drive....

[EEVblog]

Come on guys, a couple of pages of covid now isn't needed.
How about those house prices huh...