I’ve made similar points earlier with regards to smokers.
There’s no reason for teachers to get vaccinated in terms of protecting others.
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If the risks to health are so high that teachers need to be vaccinated then schools should close and work remotely anyway. Thankfully this logic has held so far.
The vaccines went through phase three trials, are fully approved and have now been taken by hundreds of millions of people. You don’t get better information. I can understand hesitancy upon initial rollout but not with the proof that they are saving lives.
Would you be willing to show them how to make that kind of vaccine?
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I would say don’t give them ideas. However, that seems to be what’s happening.
It’s exactly what’s happening. I really don’t mind, apart from the backache. Only thing that has properly annoyed me is the precise correlation between the wasters in my class and “faulty cameras/microphones” when we switch to Zoom. I know some of these kids are fanatical gamers, and they’re there, putting me on that they can’t unmute their mic or turn on their camera.
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@Marco, I wasn’t attacking you, or taking the piss out of you. I was actually addressing it to everyone here who takes the counter argument and defends the government narrative. My reply was based off your response so I just don’t hit the general reply and drop at the bottom of the thread. As simple as that.
Unlike many on this forum, I don’t hate people. I genuinely have no desire to attack others for the opinions they hold, regardless of what they are. That includes Gates, Faucci, Biden, WHO/WEF, and all those on this forum, including Guy. I don’t hate them, I don’t even dislike them.
I don’t wish harm or have any ill wishes for any of them, regardless of their attacks and spitting of venom at me. I do care for all of the people on this forum a hell of lot more than those in the government and the health institutions that are supposed to care about people. What has gone on around the world in governments, ‘health’ bodies, and big sections of the scientific community as well as nearly all of the media has been nothing short of disgusting. But I don’t hate them either.
There is much bigger game than a virus going on here, this is the distraction. People attacking each other here is part of the problem. Were all of the COVID threads to be removed or never have existed, then a lot of people that dislike each other here, would probably actually be friends based upon their conversations on other parts of this website. I don’t get the need for the hate.
I came to the forum for up-to-date information I wont get in the media or from the government. That’s it. I contribute here what I can to support other people and sometimes I’m silly enough to actually write things that are going to activate others deeply held belief systems. I’m sorry about that.
Humanity is in an absolute mess at the moment, and it has been for aeons, I don’t wish to add to it any more than I already have.
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Good post.
Since my name was mentioned, allow me to say that—to the best of my knowledge—this might be the first time I have been named in the same sentence as “Gates, Faucci, Biden, [and the] WHO/WEF.” I assure you that my qualifications/accomplishments are far more modest than the first three. I have no views on the World Economic Forum, but my views on the WHO as a water carrier for Beijing can be found elsewhere on this board. There may be a more worthless supranational organization out there, but I am unware of it. 
Enjoy your day people. One can only hope better days are coming.
Guy
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Well said.
My personal conspiracy theory is that the vaccines were put out there for no other purpose than to cause discord. A population divided against itself is going to be so busy pointing fingers at each other that they’re going to ignore the people who have caused all the trouble.
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
I don’t mean literally. At least not yet. But when faced with overt malice, hope is probably not a viable strategy.
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You always make good points, but then you always find ways to lose me, for instance when going into conspiracy territory like that, which is not really working well with your science-based arguments.
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I am Gramscian in this regard:
Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.
We’re going to need both.
Guy
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Then it is not necessary to point at me and tell me what I am going to say. Only I know what I will say. It’s funny too. I was going to express agreement with some of your post.
If you wish to change the paragraph to a more impersonal form, like ‘some will say’ or ‘others have said’ then I will consider it water under the bridge and I’ll retract my own replies.
I don’t think many people like being spoken for.
I can appreciate this. I largely agree. Not everything. But most of it.
What’s not “science based” about that?
It’s what happened, isn’t it? There has been a schism in society regarding vaccines, the like of which we’ve rarely seen in the West. The animosity on forumosa is a little microcosm of society at large.
That outcome was completely predictable - I mean predictable from very basic psychological precepts. It wasn’t the vaccines as such that caused it, but the politicisation of the vaccines and the lying/propaganda that was released concurrently with them. If the politicians had simply said “here’s a vaccine, try it if you like” in accordance with established medical practice, there would have been no such unpleasant outcome.
So if it was predictable - and indeed a lot of qualified people predicted it - then I see two possibilities:
- It was deliberate.
- Our leaders are such a horrific bunch of lying, scheming, ignorant, egotistical bastards that they didn’t actually care what was likely to happen. All they cared about was being obeyed, and playing doctor for the fun of it.
Do you think there’s a third possibility?
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Are you talking about Taiwan politicians specifically or those around the world in general?
To me conspiracy theories are often based on fear and emotion not on rational thinking. And they are often vague when it comes to the who. It’s often just “they.” “They must be up to something.” “They want to control us.”
Unless there is concrete evidence, not just speculation, I am not interested. Concrete evidence, for example, would be when one of “them” came out and admitting to conspiring with “the others” or a reputed journalist caught them red-handed doing the conspiracy. I am tired of listening to people speculating about conspiracies.
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I see this argument a lot on here, and I really don’t get why it’s so popular. It amounts to something like “you can’t prove that there was a conspiracy, therefore these terrible outcomes are not as important as you say they are”.
As for the identity of “them”, take your pick. The schism that I’m talking about is exceedingly real: it is not a matter of speculation. Furthermore, someone caused it to happen. It didn’t just happen all by itself. And it either happened (a) accidentally, or through incompetence, or (b) deliberately.
The identity of the immediate actors is reasonably clear: in the case of Taiwan, it was the CECC. It was they who instituted vaccine mandates. It was they who published … misleading information about the vaccines (I have to be pretty careful how I phrase things like that, for obvious reasons). It was they (presumably) who failed to rein in media scaremongering.
Much the same thing happened across the planet. There are not many countries where there’s an absence of knock-down arguments about “anti-vaxers”. This could have been completely avoided if governments had not indulged in the propagandizing that they did.
So the question remains: why did they do it? There aren’t too many possibilities, and none of them are good. Do you really think the answer to this question is unimportant?
Despite my ranting about The Man, I’m reasonably optimistic. We’re living in interesting times, and it’s far from over. This is going to get far, far worse. But somewhere in there is an opportunity for humanity to discover the better angels of our nature. We’ll get through this, but there will inevitably be a shakedown.
That’s easy. There are a lot of lunatics out there believing in outrageous conspiracy theories and there are lot of evil-minded people out there coming up and propagating these theories. So it is understandable that many people don’t want to here about them, even if there is good reason to believe in them. There’s also lot of people who are seemingly obsessed with these theories and go to great lengths trying to convince others. This kind of obsession can actually be detrimental to getting the message across. Not saying you are obsessed, of course.
I didn’t say anything about importance.
I think incompetence is probably the main reason for most wrong decisions that might have been made in regards to Covid in Taiwan. Government seems to be ill equipped dealing with a crisis like this. On the other hand, I feel that Taiwan has been successfully in keeping Covid out until most people did get their vaccinations to be better equipped to deal with infections (if that is what the vaccinations can do) and until the virus turned into a less harmful variant.
Quite worrying to hear some suggestions that those who refuse vaccinations should face some sort of health surcharge. If we go down that route then those who drink more than the recommended levels of alcohol and end up with liver disease should also be taxed….also those with type 2 diabetes caused by excessive sugar intake……and what about those who don’t exercise and eat poorly and end up with cardiovascular disease and/or cancer……
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It seems to me that a lot of people don’t want to look at what’s right there in front of them, because if they did, they’d crawl into a corner, curl into a fetal position, and hope it all just goes away. To consider the possibility that 300 years of civilized progress is being deliberately dismantled is just too frightening.
Now, this is interesting. You’re prepared to consider the possibility that - say - Alex Jones is motivated by evil motives. But you’re not prepared to consider the possibility that State actors are similarly motivated. But at the end of the day, does it really matter? Politicians and officials have lied continuously and fluently throughout the pandemic, and they’ve created chaos by doing so. Bad outcomes are bad outcomes; it matters not one jot whether the motivations were noble.
To be clear: I’m pointing out something that is (the collapse of social cohesion and the erosion of Reason), not something that might be. I think it’s important that we have a serious discussion about why that has happened and what might be done about it. Those who aren’t interested can simply not engage in the conversation.
I would say the same about people obsessed with vaccines, masks, and other magical thinking. Someone just blocked me because that’s easier than facing reality of the situation - viz., that the absolute numbers involved in this “crisis” are so small that vaccines would be irrelevant even if they worked.
OK. I acknowledge that that’s one possibility. So then we have to ask: why is it that people who are incompetent are allowed to tear society apart? How is it that they’re still in their jobs? Aren’t our elected leaders supposed to protect us from that sort of thing? Wouldn’t it be a good idea if people spoke up about it? Why do we have to accept incompetence, and the fallout that it generates?
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This kind of bombastic statement, whether reflecting the truth or not, I think, makes lot of people less interested in what else you have to say.
I am just explaining why people don’t want to hear conspiracy theories. Has nothing to do with me not considering the possibility of State actors’ evil motivations.
Listen, I like to hear your thoughts and theories (in moderation) but sometimes I feel the way you present them is not really helping your cause (which is… I dunno, help people see the truth?)
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Huh? Scared by a coincidence? If one has faith in the government and the vaccines, why would you be scared? The govt ruled it a coincidence. I’m not arguing that point. Neither did I write the news article.
One could similarly argue that all the stories about “kids dying from Covid” are simply provoking fear amongst the general population, in order to drive vaccines into them. The facts appear to be that all these (few) kids are not simply dying from Covid alone, but from various things. How much Covid contributed to their conditions isn’t stated in these headlines, yet they are generally publicized as ‘Covid deaths.’
Young children die of other things also in Taiwan, yet very rarely do they receive front page news. Old people also. IIRC, the weekly death count due to pneumonia or influenza is 550 for the past week, in the 65+ age group it was 494.
Not much news for those poor souls.
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