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Have any prominent Objectivists addressed this point II?

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15 hours ago, whYNOT said:

I've heard you often. "Unnecessarily increasing the risk of the spread..." Possible "initiation of physical force". You have not deviated from your stand.

"The Risk".

Two contexts that you drop: a. Risk is relative and variable. b. Risk has another side to the equation, risks can't be assessed in isolation from corresponding rewards. e.g. "risk-benefit", as the sensible immunologists insist about vaccination decisions.

Both contexts were ignored by scientists, national health departments and by governments, from the pandemic start (lockdowns for all) now through to vaccines (for everyone, imposed by any means) on the back end.

Different people will have ¬much¬ differing threats from Covid, healthwise - and/or from the possible exposure to Covid they allow themselves. Second, different people have differing hierarchies of values, goals and life-requirements. As I've seen, quite elderly men and women who are technically at a higher risk refused to stop normal functioning, working to keep their businesses afloat, and so on this past year. You see the point, knowing the greater risks, they were prepared to make a higher risk-benefit choice, which is rational - if riskier.

When those risk -benefit, moral decisions which only each individual can make - were assumed and taken over by bureaucrats and mostly concrete-minded scientists they naturally responded as governments can only understand, collectively. With a blanket, uniform distribution of potential risks, equally and dogmatically applied for everyone in society, regardless. That meant of course no one's life was their own any longer. Self-responsibility turned to and was loaded with other-responsibility.

Then, with draconian measures made lawful, we saw here, e.g. the utter stupidity of police interventions on surfers out in the waves, charged for not masking, not distancing or some-such crime.

Mass lockdown for all was the hugest, global policy error back then as it is now with mass vaccinations: scientifically, rights-wise, ethically.

Increasing the risk of death to the point that a lot more people die outweighs the small benefit most people get from not vaccinating or not masking.  Again, there should be medical exceptions.

In our current society, everything government does is contaminated with bad fundamental ideas.  We have to use rational judgment about which measures to support,, such as outlawing child molesting, and which to oppose.  We also need to understand the implications of the true principles as well as we can, to prepare for the time when they can be implemented.

 

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The very least, listen up to someone who knows all the virology, the proper medical practice, risk/benefit, the logic and the ethics. Refreshingly, one who understands "the sanctity of the individual" above the power of the collective.

(And yes, Malone is completely in favor of these, albeit, imperfect ("leaky") vaccines, specifically for whom they are necessary - by risk assessment of health. When mass inoculated, he says we will get what everybody already knows with over-using antibiotic drugs: the vaccines' rapidly decreasing efficacy, weakening immune systems and more virulent mutant viruses evolving, in order, logically, to defeat the newer vaccines and boosters).

 

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2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Increasing the risk of death to the point that a lot more people die outweighs the small benefit most people get from not vaccinating or not masking.  Again, there should be medical exceptions.

In our current society, everything government does is contaminated with bad fundamental ideas.  We have to use rational judgment about which measures to support,, such as outlawing child molesting, and which to oppose.  We also need to understand the implications of the true principles as well as we can, to prepare for the time when they can be implemented.

 

The conclusion I reached is you really have no idea what we we are all being stampeded into. One does not tackle the blanket effect from bad science, societal emotionalism, sacrificial doctrine and coercive policies, by allowing minor 'exceptions'. You go back to before the root cause - mass evasion and subjectivity - and rebuild from there.

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2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

If unnecessary, it is technically an initiation of force, but a very small one, probably not worth bothering with.

Alright then that would imply that some initiation of force is to be ignored. But nevertheless it is an initiation of force.

Which goes back to the issue of an objective cutoff point. At some point it becomes actionable.

We are now in the real of "threat identification" which has subjective and objective elements.

It seems that some threats, we decide to ignore, because we can't live if every little threatening behavior is disallowed. As in breathing.

Or do we define "threat" such that, if it is not actionable, it is not a threat?

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23 hours ago, whYNOT said:

The very least, listen up to someone who knows all the virology, the proper medical practice, risk/benefit, the logic and the ethics. Refreshingly, one who understands "the sanctity of the individual" above the power of the collective.

(And yes, Malone is completely in favor of these, albeit, imperfect ("leaky") vaccines, specifically for whom they are necessary - by risk assessment of health. When mass inoculated, he says we will get what everybody already knows with over-using antibiotic drugs: the vaccines' rapidly decreasing efficacy, weakening immune systems and more virulent mutant viruses evolving, in order, logically, to defeat the newer vaccines and boosters).

While of course it is important to allow individual choice, it is never beneficial to argue for that by using bad scientific reasoning, especially if that means supporting individual choice by emphasizing one's own skepticism of scientific thought. 

A simple refutation:

Vaccines do not function like antibiotics; one acts on the person, the other acts on the germ itself.

Vaccines don't lose efficacy, the efficacy stays consistent for the virus it was designed for.

Vaccines don't lead to drug resistance, in the same way that there has never been new outbreaks of measles because of over vaccinating against measles. Rather, outbreaks of measles have always been caused by under vaccinating. Unlike antibiotics, there is no case of a vaccine inadvertently causing virus resistance. There is no such thing as over vaccination.

The first point, about antibiotics, is very deceptive by that scientist. It's an argument by analogy that doesn't work. And I'm sure he knows it. 

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"The efficacy stays consistent for the virus it was designed for" -  Perhaps, maybe not. I don't know.

However, if assuming that, that very precise point is what makes a vaccine less efficacious for evolving mutations of the virus - for which it was ¬not¬ designed. Virologists have reason to be concerned at what future mutants - and further necessary vaccines opposing them  - might eventuate into. They see causality in play one gathers, I'd think of as a vicious cycle: vaccines which oppose a specific virus, which in turn, opposes the vaccine by evolving, necessitating an improved vaccine ... etc. And Malone isn't saying anything controversial, that a virus is not eradicated totally. (Smallpox the one exception).

A virus like any organism is ruled by the standard of its own survival.

" ...Actions generated by the organism itself and directed to a single goal: the maintenance of the organism's life".

"An organism's life depends on two factors: the material or fuel which it needs from the outside, from its physical background [the virus host], and the actions of its own body, the action of using that fuel *properly*". AR

No saying either, and even more critical, what will happen to the human natural antibodies that will be repetitively invaded by new vaccinations. One suspects the natural resistance will be weakened.

It's an unknown territory. The whole goal now is to attain mass herd immunity by vaccination when there was very little natural herd immunity gained first - due to broad (and draconian) preventative measures. To my knowledge we have no precedent for mass inoculations during a mass pandemic so there is fair reason to be skeptical about what some scientists and drug makers may confidently claim, concerning the long term effects on entire populations.

 

 

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"The HART group are informing us that several media outlets in the UK have simultaneously released a story alleging that, "unvaccinated people are risking their own health and will become potential factories of  coronavirus variants". Commenting on these news items, Dr Gerry Quinn who is a post-doctoral Researcher in Microbiology and Immunology (and therefore appropriately qualified to comment), points out that the reverse is more likely to be true. He says, "there is the as yet unproven (but not discounted) theoretical possibility that vaccination may be making the situation of ‘mutant variants’ worse".

The reason for this is that natural immunity, which is now estimated to be at over 80% provides a far broader protection as it is not narrowed to a reaction to just the spike protein".

https://www.totalhealth.co.uk/blog/are-people-getting-full-facts-covid-vaccine-risks

 

 

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13 hours ago, Eiuol said:

While of course it is important to allow individual choice, it is never beneficial to argue for that by using bad scientific reasoning, especially if that means supporting individual choice by emphasizing one's own skepticism of scientific thought. 

A simple refutation:

Vaccines do not function like antibiotics; one acts on the person, the other acts on the germ itself.

Vaccines don't lose efficacy, the efficacy stays consistent for the virus it was designed for.

Vaccines don't lead to drug resistance, in the same way that there has never been new outbreaks of measles because of over vaccinating against measles. Rather, outbreaks of measles have always been caused by under vaccinating. Unlike antibiotics, there is no case of a vaccine inadvertently causing virus resistance. There is no such thing as over vaccination.

The first point, about antibiotics, is very deceptive by that scientist. It's an argument by analogy that doesn't work. And I'm sure he knows it. 

I am careful not to comment too expertly on matters of expertise. Apart from the science of epidemiology, which I found basically quite easy to understand, these are complex studies which are mostly beyond me even after some exposure. What is striking about someone like Malone is that he displays a unified, conceptual - integrated - grasp of the field, not only his own specialty, and explains logically and credibly. An example, his emphasis on supplemental medical treatment by MD's who first apply the selective method of treating the specific, very individual symptoms of their patients.

For all this time, epidems and virologists, immunoloigists and vaccinologists, microbiologists, biochemists etc. have been seemingly operating in seclusion, and from psychologists and medical doctors etc. also. To "follow the science", we need to follow all the sciences, including philosophy. No one (of those given publicity) seems to be talking to anyone else or candidly admitting to their errors. The loudest voices are those given prominence by controlling governments, the msm and social media, who have had it all their own way - a top-down, authoritarian, politicized 'narrative' - with few competing experts heard.  Immediately, that lends itself to bad science, "scientism".

There has been a ton of reasonable doubt - at least - (and persuasive evidence and arguments) raised against the publicized scientists by those muted others, against lockdowns initially and against vaccine mandates, now.

The scientists must continue, properly, arguing for the best approach and methods to save lives in this pandemic and future ones.

The human element: freedoms, individual supremacy and personal agency, is non-negotiable. The best of them realize this. Forced, mass lockdowns - never again. Forced mass vaccinations - never to be (one hopes, against all indications).

 

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8 hours ago, whYNOT said:

opposes the vaccine by evolving, necessitating an improved vaccine

No, there are not improved vaccines for measles, smallpox, chickenpox, polio, the flu, or anything else. There can be new strains but when that does happen, the vaccine is still effective to some degree. I don't know why this is, but to suggest that vaccines are anything like antibiotics is to ignore some very easy to see things.

9 hours ago, whYNOT said:

what will happen to the human natural antibodies that will be repetitively invaded by new vaccinations.

Only good things. Your "natural immunity" doesn't get worse. 

9 hours ago, whYNOT said:

It's an unknown territory.

It isn't unknown territory at all. It's a very well studied field and very effective results from that study.

5 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Apart from the science of epidemiology, which I found basically quite easy to understand, these are complex studies which are mostly beyond me even after some exposure.

Well, you being you, you are quite easily manipulated into believing false or poorly reasoned things. That scientist's analogy with antibiotics is enough to say that he is either an idiot, or manipulating you with his credentials.

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Natural immunity can’t get worse? HIV/AIDS ?

The same process that creates resistant bacterial strains is at play with viruses, so I’m not sure the analogy does fall a part. Selection pressures are ‘artificially’ introduced into replication and genomic change happens and can’t be identified until post-introduction.

Western governments are applying pressure to their medical institutions to restrict treatment , isn't that an initiation of force ?

Malone just hosted an international medical symposium to try and highlight  the criminal act of withholding and discouraging treatment.

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On 9/15/2021 at 5:24 PM, whYNOT said:

The very least, listen up to someone who knows all the virology, the proper medical practice, risk/benefit, the logic and the ethics. Refreshingly, one who understands "the sanctity of the individual" above the power of the collective.

Eiuol has already addressed the specious comparison of vaccines to antibiotics.  To get a little more specific, there are two problems that apply to antibiotics that have no analog for vaccines.  Patients sometimes demand antibiotics for viral infections, against which they are useless; they may go so far as to shop around for a doctor that will wrongly prescribe the antibiotic.  Patients sometimes fail to take the full course of antibiotics, stopping as soon as they feel better; this lets some bacteria survive and selects for resistance, contributing to the rise of resistance.

If Malone's argument depends mainly on the specious comparison of vaccines to antibiotics, it would be a waste of my time to listen to the video.  Does he have anything else to offer?  Does he address my key point that unnecessarily increasing the risk of spread of disease is initiation of physical force?

 

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On 9/15/2021 at 5:46 PM, whYNOT said:

The conclusion I reached is you really have no idea what we we are all being stampeded into. One does not tackle the blanket effect from bad science, societal emotionalism, sacrificial doctrine and coercive policies, by allowing minor 'exceptions'. You go back to before the root cause - mass evasion and subjectivity - and rebuild from there.

If bad thinking and bad actions are involved in passing a law, it does not necessarily follow that the law is bad.  Hitler and Stalin probably had laws against murder, rape, arson, and robbery.  They could easily have misused such laws.  It does not necessarily follow that those societies would have been better off without such laws.  It certainly does not follow that better societies would be better off without them.

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22 minutes ago, tadmjones said:

Western governments are applying pressure to their medical institutions to restrict treatment , isn't that an initiation of force ?

Malone just hosted an international medical symposium to try and highlight  the criminal act of withholding and discouraging treatment.

If you're talking about hospitals having to ration care because they don't have the capacity to treat it all, and governments saying the rationing is permissible, your comments are inappropriate.  If you're talking about something else, please give examples.

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26 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

If you're talking about hospitals having to ration care because they don't have the capacity to treat it all, and governments saying the rationing is permissible, your comments are inappropriate.  If you're talking about something else, please give examples.

Most of the hospital ‘rationing’ is due to staffing changes, changes that were implemented in the beginning of the pandemic.

But more specifically I was referring to the treatment protocols .

 

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2 hours ago, tadmjones said:

The same process that creates resistant bacterial strains is at play with viruses, so I’m not sure the analogy does fall a part.

Clearly not, as I said, there has never been a case of over vaccination. I don't know why that is, but it is still true. 

I'm not responding to the rest, most of what you said is sophistry of some kind. Especially the first question you asked. 

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4 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Patients sometimes demand antibiotics for viral infections, against which they are useless; they may go so far as to shop around for a doctor that will wrongly prescribe the antibiotic.  Patients sometimes fail to take the full course of antibiotics, stopping as soon as they feel better; this lets some bacteria survive and selects for resistance, contributing to the rise of resistance.

I

 

Perfect example of introduction of artificial selections pressures and some unintended consequences.

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It is as good of an analogy as comparing bacteria selection pressure caused by vaccines to the selection pressure on rabbits caused by more predators living in the area. They are so different that it is meaningless to make the comparison except to make a very general point about evolution. 

 

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Even if wearing a mask or subjecting one's self to one of the vaccines available were the morally superior action, both masks and vaccines need be brought to the marketplace by capable minds. 

The mere fact that something is ultimately right does not justify mandating another's mind to accept it. 

The story of Mother Hen could probably be adapted to "Who will help me make the masks (vaccines)?"

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1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:

What about them?

Without getting into a discussion of specific treatments, should any attention be applied to the top down pressures that have not allowed physicians the freedom to treat their individual patients?

If it can be shown that political pressure has affected the ability for physicians to exercise and apply their practice on individual cases , could that be described as an initiation of force upon the general public propagated by the government?

The algorithms are showing me that there are many doctors that are frustrated by what they perceive as a top down effort to basically ‘send the patients home , until they turn blue and need acute care’ , they complain their ability to relieve symptom suffering and strategies that may decrease disease progression are being thwarted. 

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Recently the number of COVID-19 deaths in the USA topped 1/500 of the population, or .2 per cent.  This is a pretty large risk of death from a single cause in less than two years, certainly a lot larger than the hypothetical percentages in some of Easy Truth's posts.  It is possible that this is an undercount, since the total deaths from all causes have increased by more than this.  Also, this does not count people who survive, but with serious long-term harm.  

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