axiom

Just to point out that none of this matters.

@Danioover9000 I am not saying let’s wait and see before rolling out vaccines or before announcing covid measures such as lockdowns. I am simply saying let’s wait and see before jumping to any premature conclusion - one way or the other - on the cause of excess deaths.

@zurew yes, those things might explain it. So might the covid vaccines. We don’t know the causes of the excess deaths yet.

Yes, we can’t know. Some prominent cardiologists - amongst the most cited in the world - believe there is some causal link between covid vaccines and excess deaths. Now, I say let’s wait and see until there is more data and this can be substantiated. In the meantime, we cannot know. I think what is really silly is holding on to the idea that there is definitely, absolutely no link here and that there will ultimately be nothing to answer for. Again, we can’t know yet, but the growing number of medical professional beginning to take this more seriously indicates - to me at least - that there might be something to it. It’s not necessary to take a position on this yet.

@zurew Fair enough. Keep an open mind. You never know where this is heading…

That’s true, but it took many years for the causal link to be established, as explained. Right now we have unexplained excess deaths. These may / may not be attributable (in part) to the covid vaccines, covid policy, or longer term complications from covid itself. This will be investigated and I guess we’ll know - hopefully sooner rather than later.

As far as I’m aware, myocarditis is very much a known side effect of the vaccine. Happy to be corrected.

Without referring to authoritative sources - just from a common sense perspective - if a side effect can take 1-2 years to materialise, it’s not going to get picked up in a vaccine development and rollout that takes under 12 months. I don’t need to back up this obviously true fact with links to sources for the same reason I don’t need to ask gpt-3 if I’m hungry. Phase II and Phase III trials (typically lasting years) are not conducted because long term side effects are expected, but rather - in part - to hopefully discover them if they exist. This is one of the reasons most drugs take a long time to approve. Yes, it is understandable that they had to rush through the phases and the approval for the covid vaccines. I’m not criticising that. But obviously, there is less chance to discover longer-term side effects with a rushed rollout. By now we know that there are side effects of the vaccines that weren’t foreseen prior to their approval, so this is a moot point.

Yes, this is true. In fact the thalidomide crisis ultimately led to greater regulatory oversight and monitoring of drugs. However, when a vaccine is developed and distributed so quickly, the monitoring of longer term side effects cannot be followed so stringently. Thalidomide was prescribed most widely in Germany, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and South Africa. Around 2.5 to 3 million doses were distributed worldwide before it was withdrawn. Two to three months is obviously not long enough, and this is one reason why most drugs are tested for years. As far as attributing excess deaths or an increase in myocarditis etc to the covid vaccines, this also takes time to establish. It will take a while, obviously, and it may yet prove to be "only" a minor link. But a minor link is still a link. Birth defects and miscarriages caused by thalidomide were quite rare (0.3%). But the impact was clearly severe enough to warrant compensation regardless. It is something that must be taken seriously. This is not so much about a big conspiracy as it is about the proper evaluation and reporting of longer side effects. This can only be done in real time over years. It seems very likely that there will ultimately be some form of compensation to those affected even if the incidence of harms is only a tiny blip relative to the number of administered doses. There could also prove to be a very substantial causal link. Only time will tell.

The discovery of increased numbers of birth defects probably happened fairly early on, due to skewing of the expected numbers. We can assume this would have happened around the same time the first thalidomide babies were born. Chemie Grunenthal employees (the distributor of the drug) appear to have had early access, and the first known thalidomide baby was born to one such employee in 1956. Most of the first crop of birth defects were occurring in late 1957, around 9 months after the drug was in more widespread use. The direct causal link appears to have been first established in 1961, but it would have been suspected for some time before this. If social media had been available back then, there probably would have been more widespread concern about the drug in the public domain as early as 1956 / 1957, but it also seems likely that "thalidomide scepticism" and "anti-thalidomiders" would have been subject to ridicule, censorship, fact-checking by corporate interests, etc. This is also reminiscent of the global lung cancer epidemic of the late 19th / early 20th century. A causal link was established by the 1940s, but the tobacco companies effectively propagandised the public into believing cigarette smoking was harmless or even beneficial. Even by the 1960s, only a third of all doctors in the US believed that the case against cigarettes had been established.

I suppose the vaccine sceptics are thinking it will prove to be another Thalidomide, which was recommended as a matter of course to women in early stage pregnancy in the late '50s to early '60s. It took five years (1957 to 1962) for the connection to be made between thalidomide and oddly increased numbers of birth defects. Ultimately a direct causal link was found, and it was estimated to have caused 10,000 birth defects and miscarriages. Surprisingly, the class action suit was only settled in 2013 - over half a century later - for $89 million. Are the excess deaths we are currently seeing the result of the covid vaccines? There is no way to be sure yet. Like thalidomide, hopefully within five years we'll have a better picture. We already know there are some unusual vaccine-implicated deaths, but as the fuller picture builds, there may prove to be a very limited connection overall. Of course, if there is a direct causal link, then I hope the families of those affected receive their compensation more promptly than in the thalidomide case. I remain open minded, simply because there is nothing super convincing to go on except correlation at this point. And as the old saying goes... correlation does not equal causation. However, the correlation is interesting. In the meantime, whilst beating someone down is always silly, there's nothing wrong with asking the right questions - and hopefully this comes with the kind of transparency that will be needed to investigate it properly (looking at Pfizer here primarily)

It will be people at both ends of the bell curve, i.e. the lowest and highest intelligence. Not so many in the middle. Most people are of average intelligence by definition. Most people took the vaccine.

I think it’s more to do with social media specifically amplifying hatred and groupthink. The vaccine sceptics are relatively fringe (most people took the vaccine), but they have a right to question the official narrative. Some of the world’s most qualified people have expressed doubts as to vaccine efficacy or covid policy and have also been wondering about the excess deaths. These include Robert Malone and Michael Yeadon, so in my opinion it is not something to just be brushed aside.

I agree. I think it's unlikely that the vaccines themselves were any sort of planned evil, but the methods of coercion and shaming employed by the government, by the media, and just by people in general keeping each other in line... that stuff made me feel very uncomfortable. I didn't go for it myself. I am not in a high risk group, thought the natural immunity data seemed pretty good, and was concerned over the potential for longer term side effects that could not have been tested for (given the hurried and decisive action you pointed out).

A few more months, maybe. Thinking exponentially does not come naturally, so I think a lot of people are vastly underestimating the rate of progress.

@Danioover9000 Yes, the vaccine seems to have been effective, and seems to have saved lives in general. But not necessarily equally effective or equally useful across all age groups, or considering underlying conditions etc. It seems reasonable that people may want some form of compensation or recognition if they or their family members suffered severe side effects. A class action will have more chance of success if these prove to be above a certain frequency, so we should have a clearer picture in a few years. We can't know just yet.

@bloomer Back in 2009 Pfizer paid $2.3 billion to settle a lawsuit for the illegal promotion of arthritis medication for non-medically accepted indications. At the time, this was the largest health care fraud settlement in history. If evidence of harm from the mrna vaccines continues, then a class action suit does seem like a possibility. It's a few years away I think though. Maybe Pfizer will break its own record. Or Moderna might steal their thunder. Place your bets...

100%

Yes, it's an imperfect metaphor. A character talking about apparent enlightenment has nothing to do with enlightenment. The "experience of life in the movie" is just the movie. A character never attains enlightenment.

@Breakingthewall It's not the character. It's the seeking energy that attaches to and identifies with the character. The character is just an appearance. Can enlightenment apparently happen along with changes to the character... yes. But there is no interdependence.

@LordFall An imperfect metaphor, but... Imagine being so immersed in a movie that you forget you're watching a movie. At some point, you snap out of it, and remember that it's just a movie. Should you now expect the behaviour of the characters or the plot to change? The stuff being discussed here is relative domain, not really about enlightenment. It can be asked whether a character like Andrew Tate can seem to change their behaviour based on their present conditioning, sure. And the answer would be yes, that isn't impossible. Anything could happen.

@Breakingthewall It is not the character that reaches enlightenment.

Enlightenment is not in any way dependent on the apparently good, bad, healthy or unhealthy conditioning of a human character.

@Leo Gura I thought your take on Godel was brilliant, although Godel himself did think along similar lines. It’s the same with the originators of quantum theory - they were all over the metaphysical implications, but for a very long time the profundity of the discoveries were extremely downplayed by academia (suggesting that quantum effects only occur at the quantum level, for example) But the landscape is changing.

Maybe I am derailing the topic too much Briefly I'd just say that this is just this. It's not an experience and it's not made of anything. Nothing can really be said about it. The body seems to exist. It cannot be said that it does exist. Metaphorically, it could be said that the true nature of things is superposition (only a metaphor). As in quantum mechanics, things only appear real when a self / "consciousness" is there apparently looking. The self makes things seem real... but the self itself is not real, so there is actually no anchor. Nothing to hold on to, no time nor place. Just this, whatever this is.