site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   16082 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 19, 2022

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

16
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

China not using their zero COVID strategy to vaccinate the population with Pfizer/Moderna/J&J vaccines is puzzling. I was under the impression the entire goal of zero COVID was to buy time to vaccinate the populous. The PRCs decisions remain a mystery to me.

This is only puzzling if you think the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are highly effective.

And that the Chinese communist party has the welfare of their people as their top priority.

Or that

Personally think you’d have to believe CCP level propaganda to think Pfizer and Moderna are not highly effective for high risk groups to protect against the most serve outcomes/death.

That is quite the change in positioning relative to their initial billing. It might even be true, but it doesn't do much at all if the goal is something akin to zero COVID, particularly if the pricing would be anything like what Western nations paid.

Both unfortunately and fortunately, this is almost certainly wrong. That may be the mainstream media narrative, but it's the result of a little bit of bad science and a whole lot of bad science reporting. The science is tricky because a lot of different things are happening at once: vaccine rollout, vaccines waning, variants changing, population getting infected, etc. But despite really promising initial apparent effectiveness against infection, we have every reason to believe herd immunity against coronaviruses is impossible because the human immune system's immune protection from infection (i.e. mostly antibody based) wanes too quickly (as opposed to protection from severe disease which appears to be more driven by long-lived T cells). The original studies were misleading because they didn't have the time to look at long enough after vaccination.

The fortunately part is that it doesn't appear the virus has changed enough to noticeably evade the vaccines (by which I mean 3 doses of one of the mRNA vaccines) at all. The reduced effectiveness against Omicron appears to be due to the virus being better at evading the immune system not due to a mismatch between the vaccine and the virus. Although that's difficult to tell because it's hard to find an entirely immune naive individual to expose to Omicron (either the actual virus or a vaccine). From that perspective, China would actually be an interesting place to do some reason and get some more solid data... but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

Source: listening to a lot of TWiV. Apologies, writing in a rush, so not tracking down good specific episodes.

The reduced effectiveness against Omicron appears to be due to the virus being better at evading the immune system not due to a mismatch between the vaccine and the virus. Although that's difficult to tell because it's hard to find an entirely immune naive individual to expose to Omicron (either the actual virus or a vaccine).

One approach: why not engineer a new virus that the vaccine doesn't protect against and that mimics Omicron's ability to evade the immune system? It could give us deep insights into future pandemics.

One approach: why not engineer a new virus that the vaccine doesn't protect against and that mimics Omicron's ability to evade the immune system? It could give us deep insights into future pandemics.

"Hey we've made cancer airborne and contagious, you're welcome! We're science - we're all about coulda, not shoulda."

From that perspective, China would actually be an interesting place to do some reason and get some more solid data... but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

I feel that China has already done more than enough research on novel corona viruses.

This is a cheap shot at China. It's of course possible to research corona viruses without doing gain of function research.

The initial billing was in respect to a virus that is now extinct. The vaccines were super effective against the original strain of COVID. If we had managed to roll them out globally in March of 2021, COVID would likely have been eradicated.

No, there's no way. Far, far too many animal reservoirs, and even when the vaccines were effective the longevity of the immunity was too short. Then there's the question of whether there would have been a similar number of cases but a much higher proportion of asymptomatic ones (i.e. the debate over whether the vaccine actually provided sterilizing immunity or just decreasing symptoms below the threshold of detectability).

Maybe if we had remarkably broad monitoring procedures (not feeling great? Swab in your bathroom, stick it in this tube and get same-day next gen sequencing!) that sounded the alarm much sooner after a new pathogen emerges we could prevent it. The experience from this pandemic killed that idea for a generation or two, though.

Mystery solved then, right? The CCP doesn't need to drop $50 billion on Western vaccines that are marketed on the basis that they are "highly effective for high-risk groups to protect against the most severe outcomes and death", particularly when doing so would be a declaration that they're unable to produce their own equivalent. This isn't a confusing policy decision.

particularly when doing so would be a declaration that they're unable to produce their own equivalent

I think that this is an important addition to your initial explanation.

The CCP might be willing to lose face if Western vaccines could e.g. reduce transmission to a minimum, but not to save a relatively marginal number of lives whose deaths won't be officially attributed to covid anyway.

My assumption is that the ccp either believes their own propaganda with respect to the quality of their vaccines OR they are simply refusing to import western vaccines out of some kind of misguided national pride. I’d love to know if the leadership and other important Chinese officials have used moderna or phizer vaccines (not that we are ever likely to find this out but it would be a great example of revealed preferences)

If the entire population is "up to date" with the vaccine doses, and the state imposes no lockdown, and given that vaccines do not confer 100% immunity, more will die (at least due to covid) than if house arrest is permanent.

The covid-related deathtoll from house-arrest-until-collective-immunity-is-achieved probably is only a low, but preventing the virus ever spreading would be even lower.

Some may claim that indefinite house arrest without probable cause would cause other health issues, or in some way be contrary to human rights, but ones goal is to make covid-related deaths as low as possible, everything else be damned, I see no better way.

"We don't care how many people die of despair, so long as they don't die of Covid" was a mainstream position in the West until early 2022 as well.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats