Hello friends,
Here are the latest crystallizations. Enjoy!
COVID-19
High vaxx Sweden and ultra-high vaxx Portugal have made a somewhat surprising move by announcing a ban on all travellers from high vaxx Israel — including double and triple vaxxed individuals.
Why? The answer I think is the increasing realization that vaccine passports make little sense with leaky vaccines. I expect these moves to be mirrored by other governments in the days ahead.
Another sobering reminder not to get carried away by fear-driven narratives.
Dr. Campbell elaborates on an increasingly apparent position: herd immunity isn’t attainable.
The newest variants don’t seem to be much to worry about.
Great article by Peter Limberg, bridging the divide between the pro-vaxxers and vaxx skeptics.
Once I get over the fury felt by each side towards the other, along with the desire to dehumanize them, the common emotion that comes online is fear. And an interesting thing happens when I dive deep into the fear of either side…
The fears that come online for the COVID thesis: I fear dying from the virus and being responsible for the death of others. I also fear being called dumb for not understanding the science and shamed for being called a bad person by failing to act in ways that would protect others.
The fears that come online for the COVID antithesis: I fear losing freedoms and giving my power away to top-down control structures that can slip into totalitarianism. I also fear being societally segregated and persecuted by those scapegoating me for this mess.
Great little list from @ID_ethics on falsehoods about the pandemic that were pushed by the mainstream. This, in my opinion, is a big reason there is vaccine skepticism. If you would have watched and believed mainstream news you would have been misinformed on each of these topics.
Host of the world’s most popular podcast, Joe Rogan, catches COVID and records a video for his fans detailing the cocktail of vitamins, monoclonal antibodies and ivermectin he took to help him recover. “I had one bad day” he recounts.
A story that came out shortly after the Joe Rogan mentioning of Ivermectin, spoke of Oklahoma hospitals being overwhelmed with Ivermectin overdoses. This story turned out to be a complete fabrication, yet it was propagated across many mainstream media sites, including many ones in my home country of the The Netherlands.
This seems to me to be another case of an uncanny allowance that is given to media outlets, public figures and scientists to distort the truth and even fabricate stories, so long as it is a pro-vaxx or anti-anti-vaxx message. I’ve started to compile a thread of these instances (featuring two prominent Belgian scientists so far).
Long but interesting interview with a German virologist Christen Drosten. Main take-away for me was that what we would ideally want is local immunity in our airways, but the vaccines give us immunity in our blood. This is supposedly the reason vaccinees can still get infected and spread the virus — all of those things are happening in the airways.
The ACLU, historically a champion for civil liberties in the US, has come out in favor of vaccine mandates, which has raised a lot of eyebrows.
Misc
Some interesting and amazing interactive visualizations in this thread to understand certain math topics.
Excerpt from an interview between professor Jordan Peterson and libertarian Bob Murphy. Bob raises an interesting point about the alleged 12% pay gap between men and women: If women are allegedly paid 12% less for the same work, why aren’t CEOs jumping on this potential competitive advantage by hiring all women?
Awesome Ask Me Anything with Vitalik Buterin the founder of Ethereum, the most popular cryptocurrency that supports smart contracts. It covers his recent interests, podcast recommendations and more. An entry point into many interesting rabbit holes.
Great point here raised by @QuasLacrimas. I’ve seen many people pointing at recent floods and indiscriminately connecting them to climate change. If it were that obvious, then where were the calls of anti-flooding measures / equipment?