Why do people get vaccines? Don't they research the ingredients?

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I trust experts.

I don't. Nor should you. Studies have shown that experts predict the future just about as well as blindfolded men throwing darts at a dartboard.

What I trust are experiments. Put the formless, merely-conceptual hypotheses of the so-called experts to the fires of empirical reality. Expect failure. Iterate, iterate, iterate.

But the globalists don't like that. Accepting our own ignorance in the face of the unpredictability of the future is not compatible with applying the same uniform policies to everyone; a single world order implies knowing the solution to all problems, knowledge vested in some cleracy of philosopher kings. You can't iterate repetitively if you're putting all your eggs in the same basket — experiments are risky, and one only risks that which the world can afford to lose.

I don't think the anti-vaxxers are bad people for failing to believe the words of experts. I believe they're bad people because they don't heed the empirical evidence left behind by the anti-vaxxers which came before them.

i would trust all authority if corruption and evil didn't exist.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

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Aim_Deep wrote:

I trust experts.

I don't. Nor should you. Studies have shown that experts predict the future just about as well as blindfolded men throwing darts at a dartboard.

What I trust are experiments. Put the formless, merely-conceptual hypotheses of the so-called experts to the fires of empirical reality. Expect failure. Iterate, iterate, iterate.

But the globalists don't like that. Accepting our own ignorance in the face of the unpredictability of the future is not compatible with applying the same uniform policies to everyone; a single world order implies knowing the solution to all problems, knowledge vested in some cleracy of philosopher kings. You can't iterate repetitively if you're putting all your eggs in the same basket — experiments are risky, and one only risks that which the world can afford to lose.

I don't think the anti-vaxxers are bad people for failing to believe the words of experts. I believe they're bad people because they don't heed the empirical evidence left behind by the anti-vaxxers which came before them.

The fuck are you smoking? Can I have some?

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xMustard wrote:

i would trust all authority if corruption and evil didn't exist.

There's a difference between skepticism and cynicism.

A skeptic might note that corporations have a vested interest in recommending everyone take their products, but would look further and discover that, by and large, vaccines are not huge money-makers, and that furthermore, the people most loudly pushing antivaccine talking points are deeply corrupt themselves (seriously, it's hard to get more corrupt than Andrew Wakefield using unethical methods, falsifying data, and lying about it for decades afterwards to cover for his own self-dealing.)

A cynic would also note the above, and go from there to, "therefore nobody can be trusted and any opinion is as good as any other (therefore I'll just believe what I want to believe)." The bracketed part is not thought consciously, but it's where this cynicism leads, and ultimately makes it phenomenally easy to manipulate cynics - if everything is shit, how do you tell what's better or worse?

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鬼殺し wrote:

thats one crucial but.

Not to be confused with a crucial butt:

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

A skeptic might note that corporations have a vested interest in recommending everyone take their products, but would look further and discover that, by and large, vaccines are not huge money-makers

Confirmation bias alert: a product having low profits is not an indicator that everything is good, as if money is the root of all evil — it's an indicator that there is economic pressure to keep manufacturing costs down — both in materials AND labor — so as to preserve what little margins remain. The lower margins get, the more manufacturers take on a "dollar store ethos" in terms of quality of product and the pay of those hired to produce it. (In contrast, higher margins indicate the ability to afford — but not necessarily the willingness to implement — quality increases and better pay for workers.)

While I'd imagine that low margins also include an aversion to being sued successfully due to violation of safety regulations, it is my firm belief that vaccine manufacturers make their products in the cheapest way possible that they believe (sincerely) that they can get away with. Not because they've got some evil conspiracy, but because pressure from their competitors forces them to keep costs down.

I'm concerned that, in an attempt to adopt a cost-cutting measure, vaccine manufacturers might push a procedure through testing with enough thoroughness to make their products not the obvious cause of problems, but insufficient thoroughness to prevent their vaccines from actually causing those problems. I'm not overly concerned, though, BECAUSE we have many folks who criticize the vaccine manufacturers, even if their reasons are usually nonsense.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

Confirmation bias alert: a product having low profits is not an indicator that everything is good, as if money is the root of all evil

My statement is, by and large, responding to a specific argument - "they push vaccines on us to make money". It's an example of the kind of really bad argument you find in the antivax sphere, used as an example. A skeptic sees this potential problem and makes sure it's relevant.

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While I'd imagine that low margins also include an aversion to being sued successfully due to violation of safety regulations, it is my firm belief that vaccine manufacturers make their products in the cheapest way possible that they believe (sincerely) that they can get away with. Not because they've got some evil conspiracy, but because pressure from their competitors forces them to keep costs down.

I mean, that's just capitalism. Of course they're going to keep production costs as low as possible. And I have no problem believing that this may lead to problems. But barring further regulation (and there's already plenty of that) or better tools to prevent regulatory capture (good luck with that) that's not really a problem you can fix.

The good news is, all available evidence indicates that vaccines are like seatbelts - in extremely rare cases they can hurt you, but you are still almost always better off with than without. And just like how anyone arguing that you shouldn't wear your seatbelt because you could get trapped in a burning car is obviously talking nonsense, anyone arguing that you shouldn't get vaccinated because of minor health risks (or fraudulent ones, in the case of autism) is not your friend. In fact, it's a useful litmus test for health care sources - if you're unsure as to the value of any given website on health care, you can check what they say about vaccines and use that as a bellwether.

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Budget_player_cadet wrote:

The good news is, all available evidence indicates that vaccines are like seatbelts - in extremely rare cases they can hurt you, but you are still almost always better off with than without. And just like how anyone arguing that you shouldn't wear your seatbelt because you could get trapped in a burning car is obviously talking nonsense, anyone arguing that you shouldn't get vaccinated because of minor health risks (or fraudulent ones, in the case of autism) is not your friend. In fact, it's a useful litmus test for health care sources - if you're unsure as to the value of any given website on health care, you can check what they say about vaccines and use that as a bellwether.

I agree wholeheartedly — as I've said before, even if by some Twilight Zone reality all increases in cases of autism were caused by vaccines, it would still be idiotic not to vaccinate your children. (As a parent of a severely autistic child familiar with the "autism community," I can tell you with certainty that the main a significant cause of increases in cases of autism is expansion of the diagnostic criteria to officially fit children who are merely stupid, and not truly autistic, under the umbrella, which parents are taking advantage of to collect SSI benefits in their child's name; since the diagnosis includes expanded privileges under Medicaid for nursing and related services, the healthcare industry also benefits. In short, "increased incidences of autism" are an indicator of a massive and technically legal welfare fraud.)

However, I don't think that's reason to just write off the handful of seatbelt deaths that do occur. Some of those may have also been preventable. We shouldn't be complacent about a product with safety risks that could be improved, even if its benefits are so great that boycotting it is self-destructive. Evidence indicates the market is competitive — so we can support the better manufacturers and hurt the worse ones, if we can have a voice in Medicaid procurement.

Aren't vaccines supposed to be beneficial, or science has proved otherwise?

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Jamesdave wrote:

Aren't vaccines supposed to be beneficial, or science has proved otherwise?

The current scientific understanding surrounding most if not all vaccines currently recommended is that they are overwhelmingly effective methods for preventing dangerous and deadly infectious diseases. What's more, the existing research overwhelmingly reaches the conclusion that the risks associated with vaccines are overstated or flat-out lied about by antivaxxers. Vaccines do not cause autism. There are extremely rare negative reactions (1/100,000 doses administered), but the benefit of being innoculated against diseases like measles far outweighs the risks involved.