waxwing on Nostr: OK you're probably right about the first paragraph; it was lazy of me to make ...

OK you're probably right about the first paragraph; it was lazy of me to make assumptions just from seeing the guys videos about 10-20 times back in the day.
I did listen to TWiV a few times, but it's a bit too in the weeds for me.

"But if you're 100% sure .. baseline for comparison should be infection." Hmm, that sounds true, but this part and especially the 2,3 paragraphs that follow is the centrepoint of what I mean about expertise, intelligence, wisdom: I know you are a trained scientist, as am/was I, but afaik you are not an expert in this field (if you are, forgive the error): do you really think you can assess correctly things like mRNA vaccines? I certainly cannot. But, I did not believe the scientific information coming out at the time, due to the mass hysteria. (The idea of science, even physical science, as unbiased and objective is a bit fantastical nowadays; no chance, and *especially* not something with political sensitivity and with huge economic incentives, too). Sorry if that seems luddite, unserious analysis, but to me it was obvious. And it also seems clear, trying hard to filter and admittedly I could be wrong, but it seems clear that the vaccines did not come without substantial health risks, and were rushed, and were using experimental new tech. It's just to me obviously unwise. The data on total death rates was just not there to support the idea that this was a plague level event requiring desperate measures. All this is an example of taleb's "via negativa" way of thinking; there's a ton of stuff here we can't fully, properly assess; but in the absence of a plague-level event a rush to action like we saw with these vaccines was unwise. Everyone got infected anyway, as you'd expect; the virus became less dangerous over time, as you'd expect. I believe it was a profoundly unwise decision to mass vaccinate with something so new.

Also, thanks for the serious critique of my point of view.