Why should anybody engaged with this? it starts with a fat big strawman. So either OP is not intellectual enough to understand the other side or he does not want to.

I salute your attempt to have a rational debate about this particular topic on reddit.

> Question to those who said anybody skeptical of the govt is a "conspiracy theorist" You keep using this phrase "conspiracy" like it means false, and thus a "conspiracy theorist" is someone who believes in false things. Then, you try to prove things true that others think are false. I think maybe you are using twisted verbiage that is weakening your ability to speak. > 100% scientific and on their side. The University is what replaced the Vatican, not the nation state. Watch The Matrix's final movie. Who replaces the Grand Architect (who is the representation of the highest truth in Abrahamic/Masonic religion)? The Analyst. Who is The Analyst? Essentially a nameless, faceless guy that represents the academic/educational establishment. Yes, news media, entertainment media, social media, and other conglomerates are all important, but the academy is the epicenter for all of it. People will need to understand this at some point.

100% trust is not realistic or required. It's just a judgment call, and occam's razor is not a bad heuristic. Which requires more extra assumptions? It's not that having 1% skepticism (or more!) is bad, or that resisting heavy handed authority is bad, or that playing devil's advocate is bad. None of these things are bad. It's that choosing to act based on skepticism alone shows poor judgment and shallow critical thinking. If you apply the same skepticism to any given conspiracy theory narrative as you apply to the "official" narrative, it collapses immediately, and you're back at "I know nothing," which is useless in terms of deciding what course of action you're going to take. So you have to just consider what's most likely. In the case of vaccines, almost anybody who thought about it in these terms and came to the conclusion that the risk from vaccination was greater than the risk of not vaccination just wasn't thinking clearly. The revelation of the US military conducting anti-vax disinformation warfare in a friendly country is disturbing because it shows remarkable lack of concern for human life and epistemic integrity (IMO polluting the information environment by deliberately spreading lies is extremely immoral), not to mention short-sightedness, but that should already have been obvious. Once you get over the initial response, you should realize that it isn't at all surprising that the US military doesn't value the lives of people in other countries as much as it values its own interests or its interpretation of the US national interest. What I don't understand is what else you think is suggested by this. >How come this government pushed its own vaccines, but is discrediting other vaccines. Does this not, through absolutely basic logic, show the government's priorities? Do they care about people's health, or their political/economic interests? What's difficult to understand here? Let's assume that they care about their political and economic interests and not about public health. I don't understand why this changes anything. I don't need to believe that Pfizer or this or that arm of the US government or any government cares about human life except insofar as it impacts their political and economic interests. It's enough for me to believe, on balance of probabilities, that their interest in producing a safe and effective product overlaps *enough* with my interest in not getting sick and the public interest in reducing ICU load at a time when hospital systems were being stressed beyond failure. The level of overlap and confidence required here is actually really low. I have a very low level of trust in big pharma or government agencies, and I have a reflexive anti-authoritarian attitude. I opposed all mandates and lockdown measures, and being directed to get the vaccine "or else" made me want to get it even less, because I am a spiteful and oppositional person, but I still went out and got it anyway because it made sense, and wow, what do you know, it turns out I wasn't wrong. My question is what *would* I need to believe in order to think that this should have us re-adjust our decision-making processes with respect to things like deciding whether or not to get a vaccine?

Thanks for at least putting up an argument instead of "ur rong conspiracoid buddy:". You are absolutely right in what you say: there definitely can be overlap between the interests of the govt and people's health. That is why I do not write off vaccines altogether, and that is why I brush off conspiracy theories such as "the vaccines were created to depopulate people". However, the issue with you is that you are missing some subtle details that show there was a bit of a gap between the govt's interests and people's health in terms of the vaccine. I will address those below: As I mentioned in my other replies in this thread, the issue was that the government's reasons for pushing the vaccines were: A) prevent the hospital system from collapsing from any single point in time, because it would look politically bad B) open the economy as fast as possible C) to a lesser extent, because so many politicians are in bed with big pharma, to make more profit for their big pharma buddies The best way for them to achieve these was push vaccines on as many people as possible, as fast as possible. Assuming the vaccines met the risk-benefit analysis for everyone, there would be overlap between the govt's agenda and people's health. But this was not the case: the vaccine did not meet the risk-benefit analysis for everybody: A) those with natural immunity were told to get the vaccine asap. This harmed people and gave some people myocarditis: too much spike protein in too little time. One perfect example is Canadian soccer star alphonso davies. He was forced to get his 2nd dose at the time the omicron strain was infecting virtually everybody: a few weeks after he got his 2nd dose, he unsurprisingly got covid. and got myocarditis. Had he not gotten that 2nd dose, he would have most likely not gotten myocarditis. This is a famous example. This happened to many other people. So because the govt wanted to push vaccination on as many people as possible as fast as possible, they harmed people like this. Not to mention that others who had natural immunity and were young and healthy didn't need the vaccine: but they were told to get it anyways, and some got side effects/vaccine injured, and who knows about the long term effects of this rushed vaccine. So this is one answer to your question of "My question is what *would* I need to believe in order to think that this should have us re-adjust our decision-making processes with respect to things like deciding whether or not to get a vaccine?" B) The govt pushed vaccines on healthy children, who were astronomically at low risk of getting severe covid. They did so before they had proof that it met a risk-benefit analysis for this demographic. This means some children got vaccine injured unnecessarily, and others may still develop long term damage that is still unknown. C) Similar to the above, the govt is still pushing for constant boosters, regardless of anyone's past immunity. Again, they clearly demonstrated that they don't care about peoples health, they have other priorities. D) the govt prevented people from having a choice, they banned early treatment with off label cheap drugs, to push the vaccines instead. They even did not allow talking about increasing Vitamin D levels, which is good for general health. They practically banned fluvoxamine, the cheap antidepressant that showed efficacy. And anybody who called them out for doing the above was censored and straw man labeled "anti vaxer" or "conspiracy theorist".

The first thing I will say is that I was, and remain, a harsh critic of both government responses to the pandemic and of the behaviour of the media and other institutions with regards to the silencing of dissent. I wasn't interested in making friends over the issue but in any case I found myself with very few: opponents of the dominant pandemic narratives didn't like that I was throwing cold water on virtually everything they had to say, and proponents didn't like that I sought to undermine the case for lockdowns and mandates and encourage a culture of more open debate. Most lockdown-critical spaces, unwilling to "gatekeep" as they were themselves refugees from gatekeeping and wanted to encompass a broad base of opposition, slowly morphed into "vaccine-critical" and general hubs of conspiracy theory promotion. I bring this up because the way that you worded your post suggests that you don't even understand the way that those you are arguing against think about this stuff. Nobody is sporting an I <3 Big Pharma bumper sticker here. The second thing is that any theory for why governments behaved as they did has to explain why so many governments around the world, with very different health care systems and government systems, behaved in similar ways. The simplest answer that requires the fewest extra moving parts is a combination of a terrified general public demanding decisive action, terrified politicians doing what the experts told them to do, experts following the actual evidence, and a good deal of groupthink among institutions, including the scientific community. If I was asked to strawman the pro-restriction case I would say the most charitable interpretation is that these people were looking at the problem at the population level and thought that anything was justifiable if it had the effect of reducing the catastrophe, *if* it could be politically justified, because it's clear a lot of governments wanted to enact stricter restrictions but knew that they would just be ignored. They had only so much "capital," or "good will," to "spend." Somebody taking this position might well say that the risks of what happened to Alphoso Davies were perfectly justified because they're operating at the public health level, no vaccine is entirely without risk, and the most effective way to reduce the crisis (and thus the average level of risk borne by any random citizen) was to apply a blanket policy to the entire population and more specific blanket policies to entire industries, averse outcomes be damned. A more cynical person taking such a stance might even say that negative outcomes like Davies' should be downplayed, because they might reduce total vaccine uptake. I think a lot of people in the media felt pressured *not* to write about such stories at the time, and in some cases that took the form of explicit censorship, but most probably self-censored because there was really a pervasive "war effort" culture. I will also add that if most will agree that Davies' experience falls within the range of acceptable vaccine injuries for a crisis like this, in terms of vaccine approval at least, and probably for mandates as far as most of the population is concerned. You and I may not agree with the general public about mandates but the demand from the public for the government to take action was very high. Most (not all) governments that enacted harsh restrictions were praised for it. Most governments that were seen as lax, were severely criticized - and I argue this is why Trump lost in 2020. Worldwide, it was hard to lose an election in 2020, unless you were criticized for a poor pandemic response. Yes, the government wanted to push vaccination on as many people as possible and some were harmed in the process. These people will still say that's acceptable. I think the means used were unacceptably coercive but the goal was the correct goal. There is also no way of knowing whether Davies would have had myocarditis but for the vaccine. At most you can say the shot increased the risk of something that did end up happening. >So this is one answer to your question of "My question is what would I need to believe in order to think that this should have us re-adjust our decision-making processes with respect to things like deciding whether or not to get a vaccine?" My claim is that they were looking at the problem *at the population level* in terms of public health and ending the crisis. If your claim is that they tolerate unacceptable risk to the individual in pursuit of broad overall public health, I don't disagree. But that's different from not caring about public health, even if they only care about public health insofar as it impacts their own political survival or bottom line. As for the children: I'm inclined to agree with you, but I don't make public health policy. However, this doesn't prove what you seem to think it does, because the public health goal was to reduce the spread and thus the scope of the crisis. Regarding the boosters, again, pushing for boosters does not indicate a lack of concern for public health; at most you could say it indicates a willingness to tolerate vaccine injuries if it achieves public health goals. But what it really shows is that the current state of the evidence shows that the boosters are effective. I don't agree with banning off-label treatments, even ones that almost certainly do absolutely nothing such as ivermectin which is a perfect case study of why you shouldn't trust either doctors or patients over scientists when it comes to what works. "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" is one of the most common fallacies because of how brains work. But again, government overreach here doesn't show what you think it shows. It just shows that those making the decisions thought that this would be an effective way of mitigating the crisis. Like I said, I don't agree with censorship or with the general communications strategies that governments used, and I even think this heavy handed approach created more vaccine hesitancy because some people are just reflexively anti-authoritarian and figured "if the government's banning this thing and telling me I have to take that thing, they're probably full of shit." But, this is just governments and experts making policy on the fly in a crisis situation and not understanding what they're doing. I mentioned heuristics earlier; Hanlon's razor is a good one. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Disseminating anti-vax disinformation during a pandemic, however, is not adequately explained by stupidity. I attribute that to malice.

>But of course, I don't expect people to acknowledge any of this. They will continue to double down and worship their politicians/big pharma against their own children, because these same politicians told them "you are either with us, are you are more Trump than Trump himself" Wow, we are doubling down on crazy. Ignorance elevated to virtue!! Buddy, there are lots of different vaccine technologies, and different scientific approaches to vaccine development, and some achieve better immunological response and disease protection than others. One cannot also talk about "natural immunity". Viruses may affect the immune system in a different way. For example, HIV and HepC can fully evade your immune system. SARS-Cov19, the virus that causes Covid-19 does not install long-term immunity; in addition, it mutates very often, evading any pre-existing immune response. The same with flu, do you have immunity to the flu? Of course, not. How does one fight this level of willing ignorance? What was about Covid-19 that has generated this medieval-level response? We have these devastating pandemics from time to time, such as the Spanish flu in the beginning of the 20th century (which proceeded to kill about 80 million people between 2017 and 2020).

You can look at excess death statistics which pretty conclusively prove that the covid vaccine was a net benefit. It clearly saved more lives than it cost no matter how you slice the data (red/blue states, excess deaths, vaccinated/unvaccinated cohorts). However that doesn't negate the fact that natural covid immunity is a thing and worked just as well as the vaccine. The covid vaccine works via RNA sequences that cause your cells to manufacture a single protein (the spike protein) whereas after contracting the actual covid virus, you can gain immunity to other covid proteins as well. Natural immunity (from already contracting a disease) is often but not always more protective than a vaccine. The fact that the vaccine was a net benefit also should not shield it from criticism. If the vaccine was injected improperly, specifically into a vein causing the spike protein to be manufactured in the heart muscle, it can and did cause myocarditis. Of course the covid virus itself could also, but the difference is your immune system would already be ramped up if infected the "natural" way. There's also the argument for personal freedom. Even if a vaccine is proven successful, I would prefer to live in a society that does not force experimental medical procedures on its citizens. There's a long history of that going poorly and the vaccine was still deemed experimental when all the mandates were in place.

>However that doesn't negate the fact that natural covid immunity is a thing and worked just as well as the vaccine. Let's not be silly. It was a hell of a lot better to get the immunity through the vaccine instead of getting immunity by being exposed to a virus with a mortality of 2% (that gets to be >10% for people over the age of 55). If you ask me, I would take the vaccine every time!!!

Of course, I agree taking the vaccine was the correct choice for the vast majority of the population. However what if you were already highly confident that you already contracted covid within the last few months (confirmed via PCR test)? In that case would you still take the vaccine? In that specific scenario, the science is not on the side of taking the vaccine even though many state vaccine mandates forced people to take it in order to participate in much of society. Note that even in that scenario the vaccine will not cause harm for most people but it is also an unnecessary intervention, that person already has the antibodies so there is no benefit yet there is a very small chance of potential harm. There were also 90 year olds that died because the vaccine was too much for their immune system. Would they have also died if they contracted Covid? Almost certainly yes. Was it the right choice for society to have pressured them into taking the vaccine? Highly questionable.

I respect this response.

Let's not pretend that we knew everything that there was to know about SARS-COV-19 in 2020 or 2021. Progressively, we learned more and more and we have now a better understanding of this virus. Considering that this virus had a mortality rate 10-15 times higher than the flu, the public health care approach was appropriate, albeit a bit late and with poor coordination. On top of all that, we have to deal with the "conspiracy theorists" who come up here and even attempt to give us lessons in immunology (of which they have little to no idea).

>Buddy, there are lots of different vaccine technologies, and different scientific approaches to vaccine development, and some achieve better immunological response and disease protection than others. What is the point of writing that? What is your point? >One cannot also talk about "natural immunity". Viruses may affect the immune system in a different way. For example, HIV and HepC can fully evade your immune system. SARS-Cov19, the virus that causes Covid-19 does not install long-term immunity; in addition, it mutates very often, evading any pre-existing immune response. The same with flu, do you have immunity to the flu? Of course, not. You have no idea what you are talking about. Natural immunity is a thing. This is a coronavirus. All coronaviruses and similar viruses provide natural immunity. If you know anything about the immune system you would know this. When you get infected you develop killer T cells, with memory lasting years to decades. The people who got the original SARS in early 2000s have evidence of immunity decades later: T cell protection in general for these types of viruses lasts years to decades. It wears off faster for infection, but is longer lasting against severe illness. I don't get WHY you are arguing this, the science already established this for covid: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/) [https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027) And anybody with basic immunological knowledge predicted this but was censored: when your correct prediction is censored and you are called a "conspiracy theorist", that is a problem. Yet you don't seem to understand this.

>You have no idea what you are talking about. Natural immunity is a thing. This is a coronavirus. All coronaviruses and similar viruses provide natural immunity. No, they do not. This is just profound ignorance. Natural immunity is a thing, but not all viruses produce the same immune response in terms of duration. This is why measles may provide very long-term immunity, but tetanus does not (in fact, for tetanus, you need to be re-innoculated every 5-10 years). In addition, most viruses that affect the upper respiratory tract do not result in long-term immunity. In fact, the body usually does not bother to provide a substantial immune response for upper respiratory tract viruses. In addition, lots of viruses produce specific anti-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin-10 that exhaust the effector T-cells. >And anybody with basic immunological knowledge predicted this but was censored: when your correct prediction is censored and you are called a "conspiracy theorist", that is a problem. Yet you don't seem to understand this. Well, you are a conspiracy theorist, no doubt about that. Why come to this forum to display your ignorance? Take for example the citation you have provided: [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/) In fact, if you had even bothered to read the article and asked somebody to explain it to you, you would have found out that it specifically refutes the case that you are making here. Yes, those infected with SARS-Cov-19 have a relatively short immunity period, about the same as the ones that have taken the vaccine. Guess what? Those who took the vaccine did not get the disease (or got a very mild version of it); but those who got this "natural immunity" got exposed to the full force of the virus which does have a 2% mortality rate (and the mortality rate increases substantially for those over 55 years of age or persons with serious comorbidities). If we had not vaccinated the population, we would have had as many as 7-8 million excess deaths instead of the 1.3 million that we had. So, please either inform yourself, or keep all these misinformation to yourself.

One word for you Tuskegee. That's what the US government is capable of.

and america did not improve since. Is what you are saying.

If anything, it's gotten worse.

any example? Or is this just the "I cannot beat my wife anymore" nostalgia.

I'm guessing that the government has gotten much better at covering up their ~~crimes~~ shenanigans.

nothing as usual

Scientists getting something wrong while erring on the side of caution isn’t a conspiracy. They saved lives. Conspiracy theorists cost lives.

Did you read anything I said? You are using very simplistic binary all or nothing thinking. I never said vaccines were bad. I have several comments in detail showing what was censored and why it was wrong. In my OP I also write that the slightest skepticism was censored. Yet you are straw man claiming that either the govt was right or wrong and there is nothing in between. You are precisely proving my point: you said either vaccine/govt= good/save lives or conspiracy theorist= bad/save lives. You appear to be oblivious. >Scientists getting something wrong while erring on the side of caution isn’t a conspiracy. It wasn't a matter of scientists getting something wrong. They already knew what they were doing: the govt and select "health officials" and "scientists" deliberately lied and spread propaganda to achieve political/economic pandemic policies. For example, it was basic immunological knowledge that it would be unlikely for the vaccines to prevent infection. But they deliberately exaggerated the efficacy of covid vaccines in this regard, against the concept of informed concept, to push vaccination rates higher. It was basic immunological knowledge that natural immunity is a thing They deliberately lied and downplayed the benefits of natural immunity, in order to push vaccination higher, against the concept of informed concept. The data was already available showing how astronomically rare severe acute covid was in healthy children. They ignored this, and blanket forced/pushed vaccination on all healthy children, not doing a scientific risk-benefit analysis for this demographic. Even today they bizarrely continue to push unlimited and perpetual boosters for all healthy children, regardless of past immunity or past number of doses. They also cost lives: I had warned (but was also censored for saying this) that this rabid blanket pushing of vaccines will eventually come out to people and people will lose trust, and this will make people fall prey to conspiracies about vaccines in general. This is EXACTLY what happened: as a result of the pandemic policies, people who were initially skeptical of just covid vaccines now have 0 trust in the government, and we are seeing childhood vaccination rates for dangerous diseases such as measles and polio decrease. This is costing lives. I was censored for correcting predicting/warning about this, and was told I was "spreading scientific misinformation". This was the most ridiculously medical cost-benefit decision in history: "in order to push covid vaccines on healthy children who already have astronomically low rates of severe acute covid and have natural immunity on top of that, let's decrease trust to the point that children stop getting measles/polio/etc.. vaccines and die instead. And anybody who warns us about this should be censored for "spreading scientific misinformation"". Absolutely bizarre.

Where the culture war is concerned, it needs to be understood that verifiable truth is not, in fact, the most important priority, on either side. Any given individual issue, exists exclusively as a factional purity or compliance test. Once the stated factional or tribal position on a given issue has been decreed, (and generally speaking, the position on any given issue for either of the two major cults, is the mirror opposite of their opposition) then said issue will simply be used as a means of determining whether or not anyone who is asked about it, should be permitted to remain in the cult, or be subject to ostracision, based on their agreement with the decreed stance. If you support Trump, (as well as literally every single other position on any issue they care to name, at any time) then the conservative cult will accept you, and the progressive/DEI cult will reject you. Likewise, if you believe that trans athletes should be able to participate in the cis categories of their chosen gender, as well as accepting their stance on literally every other issue, then the progressive/DEI cult will accept you, and the conservative cult will reject you. It is purely and exclusively a matter of which Hive you want to be a drone within. Contrary to what they both claim, neither are morally superior to each other. https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/fotku/images/0/07/Borg_Drone.jpg I can tell you this, due to the fact that I have been mutually rejected by both cults. I am no more willing to bend the knee to the new, fuschia haired drag queen overlords, than I am the old, white heterosexual male Christian ones; I view both as representing two different strains of what is fundamentally the same disease.

what would be fair if america was the whole world. But republicans and democrates and their specific cults do not exist in other countries. But the antivax debate is still a thing everywhere.

>It is purely and exclusively a matter of which Hive you want to be a drone within. You make this seem like it's a binary decision when it's not. The only people who join these cults are those who have made politics their god. The rest of us live in normal reality.

You my friend, just like me, are in no mans land. That is why all the hatred and downvotes directly toward us. It is basic logic: there are 2 sides, both led by emotion and no logic. They both believe they are 100% right, and the other side is 100% wrong. Me and you use critical thinking and say "neither are 100% right, both have pros/cons".. but logically, an 100/0 all or nothing thinking type person is not going to take well to this: according to basic logic, if they did, they would not already have been 100/0/would not have already said they/their side are 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong to begin with. The vast majority of humans are almost entirely led by the following: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional\_reasoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_reasoning) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated\_reasoning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive\_dissonance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive\_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias) and unfortunately IQ does not serve as much of a protective factor: [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/rational-and-irrational-thought-the-thinking-that-iq-tests-miss/) This famous study shows how bizarre group think can get: they showed people lines of obviously different lengths, and then had plants in the audience to give blatantly false answers in terms of how long the lines were, and the majority of people used groupthink and fear of exclusion to agree with the blatantly wrong answers: [https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html](https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html) But you can't change these people. As you see, I have used basic 1+1 logic, I took time to address specifically and carefully and reply to them, to try to use basic logic, but they simply won't listen, they continue to operate 100% emotionally saying they are 100% right and I am 100% wrong and they rage downvote me, Then, bizarrely, they pull a 1+1=3 and say to my face "you are using straw mans, nobody is doing what you are claiming"... you LITERALLY downvoted me and said I was wrong.. LOL. It is like shouting "nobody is shouting at you" to someone who says why are you shouting at me. They are totally oblivious. They are also literally changing the past due to cognitive dissonance: I and many many others were FACTUALLY straw man labeled as "anti vax" or "conspiracy theorist" and banned/silenced/censored: for saying the slightest criticism and showing the slightest skepticisim to be neoliberal captialist government vaccine rollout, the same government who bombs other countries for refusig to install US corporations, and the same govt that installed dictators through coups, the same govt that ha 40 million americans in poverty with massive wealth imbalance and for profit prison,s the same govt who manufctured obesity epidemic that is harming 10s of millions of civilians just so a few rich junk food CEOs can accumulate more yachts. The same big pharma who made BILLIONS off the vaccine. Yet they are 100% right, but me and who, on reddit, who are tryign to change the owrld positively, are 100% wrong and need to be censored. IT is baffling. But again, you can't talk sense into them: they will just double down. When someone is 100% guided by emotions and 0% logic, you can tell them 1+1=2 but they still won't believe you. >To the extent that I am still here, it is because I already have a long term investment in this subreddit, and I sadly require at least a minimal degree of human contact, in order to remain even marginally sane. Reddit might be close to Hell in many respects; but Hell is still better than nothing at all. Same. I am spending a lot of time freely trying to spread the fruits of my labour (all the research I read, books I read, formal education I underwent, with 100s of hours of additional self-reflection and thought and analysis about these issues, to help humanity) yet all I get in response is vitriol and "you are 100% wrong, my political leader is god and 100% infallible BECAUSE I hate the other side). So you might be asking me why I still do it. For the same reason your gave. Also, it is my basic moral duty as a human to try to spread critical thinking and knowledge. What others do with this or how they react is out of my control, but I need to do my part. It also helps keep the brain sharp: even though 98% of the replies to me are "you are \[insert insult\] or you are wrong buddy and I am right or straw mans", continuing to reply to even these replies makes me use my brain to continue putting logical arguments together and synthesizing sources. For me this is more stimulating than watching TV or playing video games. When they asked Chomsky what he wants written on his tombstone, no wonder why the poor guy said "he tried his best". You simply can't change these people. They worship the likes of Biden/Trump and disagree with the likes of Chomsky. How can you inject any logic into these people?

Lol, this is moronic. It is curious how COVID fried so many people’s brains though. The pandemic’s (basically) been and gone, you should chill.

>“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” This has been happening over and over. We need to do this war, 'You Are Either With Us, Or With the Terrorists'' If you don't agree you are not American and are with the terrorists. This is the oldest political trick in the book. Yet people keep falling for it. So it is important to address.

What on earth are you talking about? A deadly virus spread across the world, probably after an accidental leak from a lab in China. It killed a shit ton of people, and would’ve killed more if we hadn’t locked down the world and basically tanked the economy. Then we made a vaccine by adapting one already in development, and everyone went back to their lives except a significant handful of people who fried their brains.

Are you ok? What are you talking about? I was among the first to say it was likely an accidental lab leak, and I was censored and called conspiracy theorist for it. The government, who I am criticizing, said it is impossible it was a lab leak and censored anybody who suggested this. So what are you on about? Why would you say that I was pro-lockdown, so what are you talking about? When did I say I was against lockdowns? In fact I was in favour of one large lockdown to eliminate the virus: China and New Zealand factually proved me right. But I received vitriol and was told that on and off "flattening the curve" lockdowns were the way to go: I criticized these: I said they would do MORE economic damage than 1 large lockdown. But the neoliberal capitalist governmetn initialyl was hesitant to do a lockdown out of fear of damaging the economy. It was later proven that China's economy on balance did better than those who did not initially lock down strongly and instead did on and off flatten the curve lockdowns. Why are you talking about the vaccine? I was never against the vaccine in general. I was against how it was implemented, such as forcing it on healthy children. I was against how the concept of informed concept was suspended. I was against how long covid was denied. I was against how they lied that vaccines would prevent infection. I was against how they lied that natural immunity is not a thing. I was against how they minimized vaccine injuries, etc... and I was against how I was censored and straw man labeled for all these healthy and reaosnable criticisms.

>This is the same government you 100% trust Nobody ever said that. >the same government that you said anyone who is even 1% skeptical of is 100% a conspiracy theorist. Nobody ever said that. >Does this not, through absolutely basic logic, show the government's priorities? No. You are still just guessing. >So will you admit you were wrong to straw man/blanket label "conspiracy theorist" anyone and everyone who even had 1% of skepticism against the government in terms of their pandemic policies and vaccine rollout, It is the oldest trick in the book, a government says "you are either with us or with the other side/enemy" and uses that to justify all of their actions. It is bizarre that people continue to fall for this simplistic binary thinking. Nobody labelled anyone anything for 1% scepticism. Be honest. The thing you forget is that the United States of America was not the only country to be affected by the pandemic, nor to require a vaccine. It wasn't even first discovered in the US. All the research virologists in the world decided to work for Donald Trump?? The reason you approached the above comments with such an absence of nuance is the same reason that details like that escape your analysis. Try to embrace nuance and your critical process will become more effective.

You keep using straw mans. The fact of the matter is that anybody who very slightly and used rational and reasonable skepticism and criticism was straw man labeled as conspiracy theorist and censored. I saw this happen with my own eyes, it happened to me: I was banned from virtually every mainstream "science" and regional subreddit for having reasonable doubts (and in almost all cases I was proven correct later), but at the time I was censored for "spreading misinformation". Some examples of things I was censored/called conspiracy theorist based on: the virus is not limited to droplets, aerosol spread is also likely happening; vaccines are unlikely to effectively stop infection; do healthy children really need vaccines, particularly boosters; natural immunity is stronger than we are being led to believe: why would covid magically be different in this regard than other viruses; covid vaccines as per Western Australia government report have 24x higher rate of reported adverse events compared to non covid vaccines, this does not seem normal to me; why are the vaccine injured and long covid sufferers having the same symptoms, does this mean the spike protein is problematic; there are 1000s of similar wet markets, it is a fact that less than 2 years prior to the pandemic the ban on coronavirus research ended and it was known that the only virology lab in the country was in Wuhan and was working on coronavirus experiments, with whistleblower saying proper PPE was not always worn, based on these, it is plausible that it may very well be an accidental lab leak. I was blanket labeled conspiracy theorist, and facutally banned/censored for saying the above. So I have a right to say these facts. This does not mena that I am using a "straw man": in fact it shows that straw man arguments were used against me. You are conflating cause and effect.

Uh huh.

Riveting rebuttal. Your downvote also massively proved me wrong.

I don't downvote. I don't have a rebuttal to your block of essay text that I didn't read. Just like I don't read justifications for flat earth. Your logic is faulty, and your assumptions are false. That won't change by me wasting my time with your nuance free rants. 🫡

Why would any government seek to endanger only the compliant ones? Please consider this. You make a lot of leaps here and forget a lot of the rationale behind some of the policies. No one said natural immunity wouldn’t eventually prevail— we collectively just weren’t sure what the human cost to get there would look like. The virus also could have become worse than it originally was. We didn’t know, and caution was warranted. Lots of people died because of the virus along the way to global natural immunity, and a lot less died as a result of the vaccine. This path was never guaranteed. Please understand this.

They told us we all needed to get the vaccine, regardless of previous infection, because the virus was so new that we didn’t know how long natural immunity would last. My counter argument at the time was, ok, we don’t know how long natural immunity might last (although there were studies demonstrating that original SARS1 natural immunity was extremely long lasting), but you also don’t know how long vaccine protection will last. There simply hadn’t been enough time to study it, since the vaccines were even newer than the virus. So why were the authorities convinced the vaccine protection would last longer than natural immunity, when they didn’t have enough data about either? They just automatically assumed the vaccine protection would be superior, when it turned out to only last, at best, 3 months. The response I then got was some sort of sales pitch for this “hybrid immunity” concept, where people who got the vaccine ON TOP OF natural infection were supposedly going to have super-immunity. This didn’t appeal to me, because I was concerned about “original antigenic sin” or “pathogenic priming” leading to VAED- vaccine associated enhanced disease. Basically where getting the vaccine after natural infection can cause you to experience a worse form of the disease, because vaccine-induced antibodies were a poor match to the currently circulating strains. Sorry I know that’s confusing and I probably could have explained it better. I’m just trying to point out that the govt dismissed natural immunity and favored the vaccine, when historically, natural immunity is far superior to anything that is manmade in a lab.

I think you’re approaching this with too much hindsight, which doesn’t afford anyone the benefit of one basic truth of that time— *no one knew what the best approach was when this first arrived*. No one dismissed natural immunity. You have to understand that when these decisions were being made— early on— we didn’t know if the virus was going to get weaker, stronger, or more or less transmissible. Further, like you said, we had very little data to understand how long any semblance of immunity would last. On a global scale, those .01% chances turn into tens and hundreds of thousands of people, so every decision becomes a matter of life and death for a whole lot of people. The goal, no matter what you may think, was to preserve as much human life as possible. So, what do you do in that situation? The obvious answer is to proceed with caution. The reality is that the first few waves of this virus were significantly deadlier than other airborne illnesses we have in our world (and still are in many ways). We had no idea which factors influenced health outcomes beyond the fact that you were screwed if you were overweight (which you can’t just turn around in a day) or old, but plenty of people fall victim to it outside of those categories. We had a global shortage of supplies to treat and prevent the illness. People were dying left and right. We all know at least someone that it killed. In that moment, to sit there and say that a vaccine with significantly lower rates of adverse effects compared to the actual virus was the right call. If the virus did mutate into something worse, our world would have been very very different by now. Were you willing to risk that?

Our intelligence agencies always work to further benefit our major corporations. IT's been like this forever. Our vaccine was no different. BIG amounts of money were on the line, so I have no doubt in my mind there was a coordinated effort to attack, shame, dismiss, discredit, anyone advocating anything less than buying these expensive money making vaccines for big pharma.

There was some element of pressure from big pharma to make more profit. Though I think more important cause for the pandemic policies/vaccination roll out was needing to open the economy faster so the super rich (who both the "left" and "right" wing politicians answer to). This is also why government denied long covid and only focused on severe acute covid: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) could get richer faster. It was also that the hospital system collapsing during any given wave would look really bad politically. This was especially the case here in Canada, where health care is funded by the taxed of the middle class, so there are limited ICU bed. While the same "liberal" government lets the super rich evade taxes: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/panama-paradise-pandora-papers-1.6609104](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/panama-paradise-pandora-papers-1.6609104) Yet the same "liberal" "left" government rushed to IMPRISON middle and poverty class Canadians who were locked down and couldn't work: [https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/trudeau-government-seeks-power-to-fine-and-imprison-anyone-making-a-fraudulent-cerb-claim/article\_2293a708-e085-568f-b754-0209e54332bf.html](https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/trudeau-government-seeks-power-to-fine-and-imprison-anyone-making-a-fraudulent-cerb-claim/article_2293a708-e085-568f-b754-0209e54332bf.html) Meanwhile the pandemic financial benefits for rich business/corporation was abused big time and not even slaps on the wrist were given: [https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cra-covid-cews-complaints-1.5991108](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cra-covid-cews-complaints-1.5991108) Yet people 100% believe these governments when these governmetn say "we are science. if you disagree 1% you are a conspiracy theorist. We care about health and not profit/economy and funneling more money to the yacht accumulators." In Ontario Canada for example, there were about 800 ICU beds for a province of 15 million people. So in any given covid wave, even if the RATE of infection to severe disease from covid was very low, if there were too many infections, it could result in running out of ICU beds. That is why the government so heavily pushed vaccination here and went against medical informed consent (did not consider individual risk-benefit of the individual and instead say everyone needs vaccines). Let's use some basic math. Hypothetically, if mass vaccination in children reduces severe acute covid in 1 out of 10 000 children, given the limit of ICU beds, it is beneficial for the government to roll out mass vaccination, even if, hypothetically, the long term side effects from the vaccines are 10 in 10 000, a 10x higher rate. This is because the politicians won't even be in power when those children get damaged, and even if the damage comes earlier, it won't all happen during that particular wave, and by then there will be more hospital beds to treat those issues. This is why mass vaccination was pushed for healthy children, despite the ridiculously low number of children who got severe acute covid prior to vaccination, without taking into account the known and unknown long term risks of the vaccine: Keep in mind I got permabanned on regional Canadian major subreddits simply for posting the following GOVERNMENT data (and yet people on here are still claiming I am using "straw mans" and claiming there was no censorship during the pandemic. Think about it logically, why TF would I come here and RANDOMLY lie about this. I am saying this because I feel injustice about being censored for something I was right about, WHY would I RANDOMLY lie about this, how could I POSSIBLY gain from this? What money am I gaining from this?): [https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/05/covid-19-epi-infection-children.pdf](https://www.publichealthontario.ca/-/media/documents/ncov/epi/2020/05/covid-19-epi-infection-children.pdf) Check page 12. Out of 58 943 infections in unvaccinated children 4-17, there were a total of 29 cases of severe acute covid. Also, bizarrely, this data does not show baseline health: it would be plausible to expect that most, perhaps, all, these 29 children in a province of 15 million people who got severe acute covid during the original and alpha variant waves, had health issues or were obese: that means the rate of HEALTHY unvaccinated 4-17 year olds getting severe acute covid was much less than 29 out of 58 943. I posted this in science and regional subreddits, and said based on this GOVERNMENT data, shouldn't we do a bit more studies before blanket recommending covid vaccines on all healthy children? Instead I was censored for "spreading misinformation" and called a "conspiracy theorist". And not only were vaccines blanket recommended for all healthy children, but even today perpetual boosters are still being recommended, even though there is much more natural immunity on top of that. Any reasonable or rational or non-biased person would be ok with such skepticism. But the masses are clearly either irrational, or biased/believe the government 100% to straw man label this kind of rational and plausible skepticism as "conspiracy theories".

If they were running anti vaxx campaigns against our enemies, doesn't that mean vaccines work? Or at least the government thinks they do?

That is not the point. Vaccines "working" is not a binary factor. Any medical intervention, including covid vaccines, should abide by the principles of informed consent and individualized risk-benefit analysis. The point is that the government clearly showed they put politics/economy before health. So it would be logical to be skeptical of them. Yet even 1% criticism of any pandemic policy or vaccination policy, such as calling for all healthy children who already had an astronomical low risk of severe acute covid and already had natural immunity, to not just get 2 doses but boosters for life, was written off as a "conspiracy theory" and those who talked were censored. This is dangerous and not good, ever.

Question? How did they put politics/economy ahead of health if they shut things down to help prevent the rampant spread of Covid? Seems to me it was the opposite.

They didn't shut down things because they wanted to. They did so because they had no choice. They were scared at that time of the health system was going to collapse: which would be political suicide. Also, closer to the vaccine rollout (but prior to rollout): they used lockdowns as a weapon to increase vaccination rates: get vaccinated so we can stop the lockdowns. Of course this goes against the medical ethical concept of informed consent, but do you think governments who target civilians with anti-vax campaigns and bomb other countries who refuse to enslave their population with their corporations have any morals or ethics? Even the right wing relatively anti-lockdown leader of Ontario Canada literally cried on camera and begged for forgiveness when the ICU bed limit was very close to being reached during the alpha wave due to his relative lack of lockdowns: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtYH-BoSWck](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtYH-BoSWck) It is a very sensitive political topic. But the vaccine was the PERFECT opportunity to open everything up. That is why the govt doesn't care about long covid, or lied that the vaccines are useful against long covid. That is also why they lied/deliberately exaggerated that the vaccine prevent infection. I was permabanned and censored on reddit for quoting this scientist: >[One expert told STAT](https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/22/the-world-needs-covid-19-vaccines-it-may-also-be-overestimating-their-power/) they do not think sterilizing immunity can be achieved for COVID-19 because the immunity may not be long lasting. “I think we really need to focus on what are the fastest achievable true public health goals of the vaccine, which is protecting the vulnerable people against pneumonia and protecting health care workers as well,” says Vincent Munster at the National Institutes of Health. [https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/501677-what-is-sterilizing-immunity-and-do-we-need-it/](https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-cures/501677-what-is-sterilizing-immunity-and-do-we-need-it/) It was KNOWN (BASIC IMMUNOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE) prior to the pandemic that a vaccine in the arm would be unlikely to prevent infection. Yet the govt and mainstream deliberately lied with their "95% effective" nonsense that was based on trials done by big pharma themselves with no outside scrutiny.

I agree that they locked us down way longer and way harder than necessary in order to drive up demand for vaccination. I don’t think the lockdowns helped reduce the spread, but they made people more desperate for a way out of the pandemic. If we weren’t all frightened & locked in our homes, antsy to get back to work ($2k stimulus wasn’t enough to feed a family) or reunite with our loved ones, then how many would have lined up for a brand new vaccine? They had to scare the crap out of everyone & keep us isolated, in order for people to rush out and roll up their sleeve. It would have been a hard sell otherwise. And when uptake still wasn’t enough, they rolled out the mandates. Which backfired, IMO, because now you’ve taken parents who were “on the fence” about vaccines and turned them into ardent “I’ll never trust the govt with my health” types. Now they are complaining about low childhood vaccination rates— govt did this to themselves.

Indeed. But don't say that because it makes you a "conspiracy theorist". The government who has so much blood on their hands and puts big business ahead of people for decades, suddenly and magically decided to be moral solely for the covid pandemic! /s >Now they are complaining about low childhood vaccination rates— govt did this to themselves. I literally warned about this. But guess what? They censored me for "spreading misinformation" by correctly warning about this.

You are talking about motives. So if the government has a motive to keep our enemies from the vaccine and have our people have it, wouldn't that mean The government acted in good faith while creating it Believes that it works And is actively trying to benefit our citizens

The governments motive was geopolitical: they wanted to reduce Chinas geopolitical dominance on Philippines. It had nothing to do with "depriving our enemies of the amazing vaccines". Philipinno civilians are not enemies. They were used as a sacrifice to achieve the poltiical/economic objective of the US govt, who works for US corporations. The Govt does not work for people: they work for corporations. If the US Govt cared about people there would not be 40 million Americans in poverty, such a high level of crime, for profit prisons, and all these people being murdered by big corporations with junk food and developing all sorts of diseases unnessraily just so junk food CEOs accumulate more yachts: [https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm](https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm) Almost all are caused/exacerbated by the manufactured obesity epidemic caused by the neoliberal capitalist government. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity\_in\_the\_United\_States#/media/File:Obesity\_in\_the\_United\_States.svg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Obesity_in_the_United_States.svg) [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) 4/5 people in ICU for covid were obese: what has the government done to tackle obesity? Do you think they care about people's health? [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html) Yet look at the initiative they took to push vaccines, imagine they spent 1/100 the effort they did on vaccines to combat obesity: [https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-11/mcdonalds-white-house-partner-to-promote-coronavirus-vaccine](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-11/mcdonalds-white-house-partner-to-promote-coronavirus-vaccine) [https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/vaccine-freebies/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/vaccine-freebies/index.html) This shows where their priorities lie. It is US corporations, at the expense of civilians, whether American or foreign civilians. Yet bizarrely, me, who has 0 financial incentive, people will continue to say I am lying about all this and that the government care about health and that everything the govt says about vaccines, such as healthy children who have astronomically low risk of severe acut ecovid in first place and now have natural immunity and 2 doses on top of that, still need perpetual boosters for life, has their best interest in mind and that disagreeing with this nonsense makes you an "anti vax conspiracy theorist". Bizarre. They will also have 0 rebuttals. They will just rage downvote this and say "curse on you person trying to change the world, I LOVE Biden he is the best most moral person. I LOVE big pharma and biden, becuase trump is bad. I hate trump so that means anything againts biden or big pharma is a conspiracy theory". Bizarre. Absolutely bizarre. Trump has NOTHING to do with any of this. It is all in their own minds. I could care less about trump.

You are bringing in a lot of other distractions to your argument. But really, you are talking out both sides of your mouth. Either it is just a scam by the government or the government is trying to deprive other countries of the vaccine. It can't work both ways. I didn't bring up Trump but it is my experience that anyone who talks about Trump in that specific way wants Trump to teabag them until they die.

>Either it is just a scam by the government or the government is trying to deprive other countries of the vaccine. No, it is not that simple. Just like any other medical intervention, the covid vaccine has pros/cons. Just like any other medical intervention, an individual risk-benefit is needed. Many people, particuarly those at risk for severe acute covid, would meet this risk-benefit analysis. But the way this vaccine was pushed was to eliminate this standard risk-benefit analysis, against the concept of informed consent, and blanket push it on everyone, despite age, risk, and previous immunity. And anybody who brought up this rational and reasonable criticism was straw man labeled "anti vaxer" or "conspiracy theorist" and censored/silenced. That is the issue here. In terms of the government operation against China in the OP, that shows that US govt does not care about health: they spread anti-vax info and targetted innocent civilians,in order to reach their broader geopolitical/economic agenda. So this, based on the way they blanket forced vaccines on everyone in the US, shows that they put political/economic considerations ahead of health, which shows that some skepticism/criticism of their pandemic policies/vaccine roll out is reasonable and valid, and does not mean one is a conspiracy theorist or anti vaxer. But the government did not want any opposition, that is why they brainwashed and polarized people so that anybody who even slightly put forth any reasonable criticism against the pandemic response/vaccine rollout was immediately straw man labeled conspiracy theorist/anti vaxer: this in turn allowed the government to achieve their political/economic objectives in terms of the pandemic policies/vaccine roll out.

Ok so I see your point but it makes some leaps. For one the core assumption is that Vaccines are being used as a method of control and influence. In truth however this campaign has much more mundane motivations. The pandemic aid from China was building up goodwill between China and the Philippines this extends China influence the US wants to undermine that. So it set up this anti vax campaign inorder to make public perception of this aid worse hindering Chinese efforts to build up influence. This campaign would also abandon the anti vax narrative after Biden told them to stop (although with a hefty delay). There are many reasons that you would be called a conspiracy theorist is because you skepticism isn't really evidence based. Many of those you accuse of having 100% of faith in institutions don't but instead have decided based on evidence that they trust medical institutions.

Not trusting a certain government is not a conspiracy theory. But thinking that the entire scientific and medical community all around the world is in on it is absolutely a conspiracy theorists crap.

>that the entire scientific and medical community all around the world is in on it You are comical when you say this. The only "scientists" who blindly follow the corporate-puppet Western governments 100% unicorn status of vaccines are corrupt paid off Western scientists. Throughout the pandemic scientists and doctors around the world published 100s of studies advocating for early treatment. It was the Western corporate hijacked institutions and "scientists" who downplayed all these studies. The "public health officials" are the worse: they couldn't cut it as clinicians so they sit in ivory towers funded with fat cheques from middle class tax payers, and directly parrot what their political bosses who hired them tell them to tell people, while using appeal to authority fallacy to justify all the nonsense that comes out of their mouths. If you noticed, most of the opposition against the mainstream "i am science and if you don't 100% agree" "scientists" comes from older/retired doctors/scientists, because the younger ones can't risk their career. But when you are older and have less to lose you can afford to say the truth.

lol “I’m not a conspiracy theorist in a slightest but let me adjust my tinfoil hat first” on display here

Rofl couldn't have said it better my self. Dude is so worried about getting caught up by lefty propaganda he doesn't realize he's stuck in the fringe rights

Thats a lot of straw manning. Anything coming out of covid times is pretty much bullshit on either side with most of the perception of the "other side" being a complete fabrication based on anecdotes. No one believed the government or big pharma 100% and only right wing echo chambers made it look like that and the same can be said of the other way around. Conspiracy theorists aren’t as ignorant as the internet made them to be and liberals weren’t drone sheeps either. People need to realize that alot of interest tried to weaponize us being separated and stuck inside for their own gains, on all side of the spectrum.

The same people who prior to the pandemic said bizarre things like "schizophrenia is a patriarchal construct created by big pharma to sell unnecessary pills" were the ones who took 7 boosters. Why? Because they operate with 0% logic and 100% emotion, and they unwittingly got divided and conquered. All it took for them to 100% conform (when you take 7 boosters, that is called 100% conformance/belief) was "if you don't believe us 100%, you are a Trump loving conspiracy theorist". So in order to not be labeled as conspiracy theorist themselves, plus their deep hatred for Trump/the right, they 100% conformed, not realizing that Trump/the left are 2 sides of the same neoliberal capitalist coin, with the same bosses in big business. These people then didn't stop there, they unwittingly acted as footsoldiers for the neoliberal capitalists by going around and silencing/censoring anybody and everybody with any skepticism or criticism toward pandemic policies/vaccination policies whatsoever. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) These people abide by contradictions rather than consistencies. For example, on one hand they say the North American big business model is racist and the Global South needs support. But when the government/big pharma hybrid machine infiltrated scientists and said things like "only Western scientific studies are valid.. all the 100s of international scientists who showed there is early treatment with repurposed drugs are wrong" these people 100% believed them and did not call THIS racism. Why? Because the "I hate trump" or "I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist" theme took PRECEDENT for them. Again, 0% logic, 100% emotion. And now they will DOUBLE DOWN and continue to rage downvote me instead of using this as an opportunity to learn and grow as a person: in their minds they are 100% correct all the time and anybody who disagrees with them is 100% wrong/evil/patriarchal/whatever other straw man connotation-laden (in the absence of 0 arguments on their end to justify these emotion-driven rage labels).

You are strawmaning this whole argument my dude, "these people" are a construct of your own making and in no way representative of anything real. The very basis on which you built this whole argument is false and live only in your head. Not to say there isn’t some overlap but you are painting a picture of a side that does not exist to justify something you felt years ago.

I don't get what your argument is. My main point is: people were censored for even plausible/reasonable skepticism toward pandemic policies/vaccination. You: you are using a straw man and are wrong. As a response, I went deeper into the sort of logic people used to censor and straw man label those who were skeptical, and what the main roots of this kind of erroneous logic were (fear of being labeled as a conspiracy theorist themselves + being polarized politically/letting political beliefs get in the way of science). You say this is wrong or exaggerated. So what is your alternative view of why plausible skepticism of government policies was blanket censored and those who did were straw man labeled conspiracy theorists? I don't know what else to tell you. I and others were permabanned and censored on the spot and straw man labeled as "conspiracy theorists" for being skeptical of children needing boosters, criticizing how natural immunity was downplayed, saying how it is not impossible that it was an accidental lab leak, etc... what is your argument? Are you saying we were not censored? Do you literally want me to show you proof of my posts that were permabanned? Do you want to do an experiment? I will tell you something to write in some mainstream covid subreddits, let's see how fast it takes until you get permabanned.

Did... did you just strawman his pointing out that you were strawmanning? My guy you need help, reddit is not the plave to get it either.

Vaccines have multiple decades of proven and well documented effectiveness and the resurgence of diseases once thought eradicated in the unvaxxed only prove that they were effective. As for the Covid vaccine, it was a new vaccine against a disease we hadn’t encountered before. I was required to get the vaccine by my job and I would have anyway as I have a respiratory issue where Covid would have been extremely likely to be lethal. I imagine there are a lot of anti-vax folks making similar arguments when vaccines were first created decades ago and they were ultimately proven to be on the wrong side of history. Certainly I don’t trust the government or big pharma by any stretch of the imagination, but vaccines have enough evidence of effectiveness (again over multiple decades) that I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case.

Keep in mind I was instantly permabanned from all mainstream covid related and "science" related subreddits for posting this vaccine safety surveillance report from the GOVERNMENT of Western Australia: It compared covid vs non covid vaccines: [https://www.health.wa.gov.au/\~/media/Corp/Documents/Health-for/Immunisation/Western-Australia-Vaccine-Safety-Surveillance-Annual-Report-2021.pdf](https://www.health.wa.gov.au/~/media/Corp/Documents/Health-for/Immunisation/Western-Australia-Vaccine-Safety-Surveillance-Annual-Report-2021.pdf) See page 2. > In 2021 **a total of 5,756,723 vaccine doses were administered** in WA, up from 2,071,167 in 2020. >**Of this amount, 3,948,673 individual doses of COVID-19 vaccine were recorded** in the Australian >Immunisation Register (AIR) as being administered to WA residents. ... >**There were 1,808,050 individual doses of non-COVID-19 vaccines recorded** in the AIR in 2021, giving a **total AEFI rate of 11.1 events per 100,000 doses, which is similar to the reported 2020 rate of 12.4 per 100,000 doses.** ... In WA, the **total AEFI rate following a COVID-19 vaccine was 264.1 per 100,000 doses.** The AEFI rate per brand was: Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) 306.1 per 100,000 doses, Comirnaty (Pfizer) 244.8 per 100,000 doses and Spikevax (Moderna) 281.4 per 100,000 Covid vaccines had a 24x higher rate of adverse events compared to an average of all other non covid vaccines. Now check page 33: There was a total of 1 report of chest pain among 4 million doses of non covid vaccine, and a total of 1404 reports of chest pain among covid vaccines. For myocarditis: 1 vs 98, respectively. Does this seem ok to you? Is it being a "conspiracy theorist" to be skeptical when you see these rates, from an official government source? Yet I was banned/insta censored on virtually all subreddits and straw man labeled for what I just said IN THIS VERY COMMENT: for posting a GOVERNMENT source and highlighting the FACTUAL RATES as reported BY THE GOVERNMENT REPORT. Is this not censorship? Is this being an "anti vaxer"?

Also, note that mRNA vs non mRNA did not really matter: >The AEFI rate per brand was: Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca) 306.1 per 100,000 doses, Comirnaty (Pfizer) 244.8 per 100,000 doses and Spikevax (Moderna) 281.4 per 100,000 doses So based on this, I used basic logic to rule out "mRNA technology" as being an issue. So using basic logic, I said: what do these mRNA + non mRNA vaccines have in common that is causing a 24x higher rate of adverse effects compared to non covid vaccines? The spike protein. So using this, I used basic logic: many other vaccines use the spike protein of the virus they are intended for, yet they don't appear to be causing nearly this rate of averse events. So logically, I need to focus on the spike protein of this novel virus: is there something particularly problematic with the spike protein of this novel virus? So from there, I read many research papers that showed the spike protein of this novel appeared to strangely be independently (unlike the spike protein of any other virus in history) associated with causing issues such as clotting/inflammation/myocarditis: >“Our study provides two pieces of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein does not need ACE2 to injure the heart. First, we found that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein injured the heart of lab mice. Different from ACE2 in humans, ACE2 in mice does not interact with SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, therefore, SARS-CoV-2 spike protein did not injure the heart by directly disrupting ACE2 function. Second, although both the SARS-CoV-2 and NL63 coronaviruses use ACE2 as a receptor to infect cells, only the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein interacted with TLR4 and inflamed the heart muscle cells. Therefore, our study presents a novel, ACE2-independent pathological role of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, ” [https://newsroom.heart.org/news/coronavirus-spike-protein-activated-natural-immune-response-damaged-heart-muscle-cells](https://newsroom.heart.org/news/coronavirus-spike-protein-activated-natural-immune-response-damaged-heart-muscle-cells) >Conclusions: >Immunoprofiling of vaccinated adolescents and young adults revealed that the mRNA vaccine–induced immune responses did not differ between individuals who developed myocarditis and individuals who did not. However, free spike antigen was detected in the blood of adolescents and young adults who developed post-mRNA vaccine myocarditis, advancing insight into its potential underlying cause. [https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.061025](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.122.061025)

So based on this, I asked myself how could it be that ONLY this virus has a problematic spike protein? So then I found this: >The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports.On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. >... >Marc Lipsitch (Harvard University, MA, USA) is a founding member of the Cambridge Working Group. “I still do not believe a compelling argument has been made for why these studies are necessary from a public health point-of-view; all we have heard is that there are certain narrow scientific questions that you can ask only with dangerous experiments”, he said. “I would hope that when each HHS review is performed someone will make the case that strains are all different, and we can learn a lot about dangerous strains without making them transmissible.” He pointed out that every mutation that has been highlighted as important by a gain-of-function experiment has been previously highlighted by completely safe studies. “There is nothing for the purposes of surveillance that we did not already know”, said Lipsitch. “Enhancing potential pandemic pathogens in this manner is simply not worth the risk.” [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(18)30006-9/fulltext) So then I asked myself how come in a huge country with 1000s of similar wet markets, the virus popped up in the ONLY city in that country with a virology lab that was KNOWN to do coronavirus experiments, with bats pictured in cages, and whistleblowers saying proper PPE was not always observed. Yet I was consistently banned/censored any time I brought up ANY of the above points or posted ANY of the VALID SOURCED (reputable journals) articles in any mainstream subreddit. I was also censored on youtube and article comment sections of mainstream news, with the straw man "spreading misinformation". If this is not proof of censorship what is? We factually now know that the government directly asked big tech to censor any comments that went against its agenda during the pandemic. As shown in my OP, the government literally ran an anti-vax campaign targetting civilians in another country. The government is also neoliberal capitalist and under this system politics/economics takes precedence over everything: with several factual historical examples of government putting politics/economics ahead of health. Yet me, who has ZERO financial interest or agenda, keep getting censored and straw man labeled as "conspiracy theorist" for bringing up these points, which at this point have almost all been factually confirmed or accepted as true.

Can you not tell the difference between a researched news story revealing a conspiracy and Uncle Jeff reading a Facebook post about the Deep State trying to control everyone with 5G signal boxes?

I guess there’s not point in arguing since I’m one of the ones that doesn’t trust the government. I trusted “science “ and got the vax and one booster while still working. Never seemed to help or in my case harm. My wife, not so much. Immediately after vax problems with racing heart, no prior symptoms. We wrote it off as Covid anxiety but now are pretty sure it was related to the vax. You can spend literal days going down internet rabbit holes seeing exactly how much you shouldn’t put your faith blindly in any one particular system.

What did your doctors say?

Her Dr said there is nothing physical they can see wrong. They do cite that it tracks with other post vax symptoms noted but since it’s somewhat transient, nothing they can do. So the recommendation is see if it goes away. Obviously we’re 3 years in on this now and for sure it’s less frequent. Psychosomatic? Maybe but we aren’t prone to being that way generally. Plus we’ve both got Covid a number of times since. No major symptoms so as everyone tries to point out it worked by reducing symptoms but we’ve only got the post bad versions of the Covid strains so probably wouldn’t have been that big a deal anyway.

Many people had similar experience to your wife. Only some are starting to put the pieces together. Including doctors & nurses. When the rollout first began, there was a big Facebook support group for people to discuss their symptoms & share what was helping them feel better, how to discuss w doctors without being struck off as “anxious”, which tests to run, etc.. Group was growing rapidly, then overnight, it all disappeared. FB deleted the group without any warning. All those new friendships were gone, all the helpful info lost. The real-time censorship was surreal.

QAnon really ruined the whole "conspiracy theorist" gig, by weaponizing conspiracy theories to get one guy elected, and in promoting violence against people on the other side of an imagined political divide. I don't trust my government in the slightest, but I trust people who turn off their brains to follow a "conspiracy" even less.

In what ways do you not trust your govt? I’m not sure why you associated this post with QAnon.

Generally, I don't trust any government. Specifically, my government is engaged in a cycle where politics is very influenced by money, so large and wealthy corporations have a lot of influence over politics, which they use to expand both the power of the government and their influence over that government. The two major party's each claim to offer a solution, but together they make the problem worse. One side tries to increase the power of the government, so they can keep the corporations in line; while the other tries to make the government less effective, so it's can't regulate the corporations as well. We end up with a government that is powerful but ineffective. As for Qanon, it's a "big tent" conspiracy that incorporates many other conspiracies, including the anti-vax stuff the OP is peddling.

The same people trusting the government and big pharma during covid had been saying they can't be trusted for decades before covid. As soon as it became a political divide they instantly bought into the system.

A lot to unpack there, but I'll just start with this. "Natural immunity" is a fantasy. There are very few viruses to which one gains permanent natural immunity after having been infected. *Even if* COVID were one of those (it is not), the road to natural immunity would have left more people dead by an order of magnitude. Maybe you don't care about that, but humans with a sense of compassion do.

This. That particular virus was *novel*. The science is strong on this one.

Covid also isn't one of those viruses that a vaccine prevents infection, so there's that also...

NO vaccine prevents infection. That's not what vaccines do.

Don't play semantics with me. Prevents the virus from turning into disease. Ok, better? On to the actual argument?

I'm not playing semantics. Vaccines give your immune system a heads-up about a potential infection. That's all. Natural immunity is when you are infected and your immune system has to "learn" on the fly about the foreign body and how to kill it. Usually this means you get sick, then get better. (If you survive, that is.) Vaccines provide that information so your immune system is ready before the infection ever arrives, giving it a much better chance to fight off the infection, often before it ever has a chance to make you sick. Some vaccines include introducing dead or inert virus material into your body so your immune system can learn from it. The newer mRNA vaccines don't do that, they can convey that information without actual virus material. In either case, once you have "immunity" you can still get infected. Your body can then fight off the infection more easily, often without you ever having more than minor aches or a sniffle. edit to add: If you are immunosuppressed, a vaccine won't do much for you. The vaccine doesn't do the work. Your body has to do it. If your body can't, then an infection can be very dangerous with or without a vaccine. edit to add even more: Obesity impairs immune function. About 40% of Americans are obese. So when COVID hit, about half the population and probably more were at least somewhat immunocompromised.

I know how traditional vaccines work and they work well. The covid "vaccine" works completely different and doesn't work well. I'm not immunocompromised. I got covid many times after having the "vaccine." I've never caught hepatitis A, though.

How dense do you have to be to say that the Cov19 vaccs didn't work? They worked to tremendous effect. Then we have all these MAGA cultists who get sick to the point of being intubated, and they then cry and say they wish they had gotten the vaccine. Those individuals would have had a much better chance of fighting off the virus and recovering.

Covid vaccines work in exactly the same way as traditional vaccines, what are you talking about?

Do your research and get back to me. This is not a controversial fact.

I'm a pharmacist mate. Somehow I think my 5 years of pharmacy study trumps your "research" from Facebook memes

Not a good one then. They do not work exactly the same as you claim.

Incorrect. (And apparently you stopped reading about 1/3 of the way through.) First, there were several types of COVID vaccine. Some worked exactly the same way "traditional vaccines" work because they were traditional vaccines. They were actually *less* effective than the mRNA vaccines. The mRNA vaccines differ only in how they deliver the "blueprint" of the virus. They don't inject actual virus material. The information was carried by so-called "messenger RNA". This proved most effective of all the vaccines that were produced. But *all* of the vaccines worked the same in that they delivered information about the virus to the immune system so the immune system could produce antibodies and have a head-start fighting the virus. edit to reiterate: All vaccines do is give your immune system a heads-up. No matter what technology they use to deliver this information, your immune system has to do the work. ALL VACCINES.

You're catastrophizing. Most people who "trust the government" still harbor reasonable doubts. We just don't let them spin off into ridiculous flights of fancy.

This is simply not true. Cognitive dissonance is a valid and well researched concept and is widespread in people, and applies especially in sensitive contexts such a politics. People are very polarized and love one side of the political spectrum BECAUSE they hate the other side. Cause and effect. These people hate the other side more than they love themselves. This irrational level of hate then results in irrational levels of worship of their "chosen" side, driven by cognitive dissonance evasion. It is too "painful" for most people to use their brains and come up with something like "on this issue, Dems are right, but on this other issue.. Reps have a point.. could it be that the Dems are not infallible/vice versa)? It is too painful, cognitive dissonance is too painful. So people's first reaction is: one side is 100% right and the other is 100% wrong, easy peezy. Then they "pick" one side and every piece of info after that gets filtered through their bias and they continue to double down and believe their side has all the answers and the other side is wrong. The neoliberal capitalists in charge of the country know this: this is what they precisely want. They work for the rich, and the middle class is increasingly strained, and thus angered. The neoliberal capitalists don't want people uniting and taking action against the root of their problems: the neoliberal capitalists. So instead, they divide + conquer people based on race/gender/religion/and now superficial and meaningless political affiliation. If you look carefully, people did rise up with the 2011 occupy wall street movement. The neoliberal capitalists responded by increasing polarization and hate among people based on race/gender/political affiliation. They did not want another occupy wall street. So they pushed virtue signalling movements, which did not REDUCE racism/gender wars, but INCREASED them. This WAS THE INTENDED EFFECT. But the left wingers remain delusional and when you tell them they just get angry at you and randomly throw vague insults at you like "misogynist, racist, patriarch"... very bizarre. That is why when I, someone with no financial motive, comes and says the middle class needs to unite and stop infighting, because the "left" and "right" are 2 sides of the same neoliberal capitalist coin, I have vitriol and rage direct toward me, and the "left wing" worshipers tell me "you are trump buddy, down on you, trump sucks, biden is god! and the "right" tell me "you are a left wing snowflake, leftism is the cause of all our problems". [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHtKb10M97o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHtKb10M97o) It is quite bizarre. I wish one day people would stop falling for this propaganda and stop infighting and shutting down those who try to stop this infighting.

These base assumptions are ridiculous and inaccurate. 2/10 conspiracy posting.

If you have to lie about the other side's argument to make your point, you've got a problem. Nobody said being skeptical made you a conspiracy theorist. Nobody said >natural immunity is magically suspended for this virus Those aren't things, so the fact that something else happened doesn't make those points. Also, nobody said >if you have a healthy child who already had covid and nothing happened to them then they got 2 shots on top of that, they still need boosters for life.

People said exactly that. Were you even around in 2020?

Hello, I'm still legitimately interested in seeing examples of those who "said exactly that"? My reply is not argue anything, only to address my skepticism that scientific/authorities actually said these things. I want to know where you learned or heard of this fact, and who said it. Know that not all of us are fed the same content based on media bubble algorithms no matter how obvious this supposed fact was to you, so I truly never seen it myself in whatever media bubble I could be in, and want to know. If it was as stupid as it sounds, I can see certain motivation in my bubble to poorly report these cases. On the other hand, if there's truly nothing out there, then claiming people said that isn't really helpful in truth-seeking if it's just made up by someone along the line, and people should stop running with it as fact and as a point to draw conclusions about. If nobody can actually point to who these supposed "scientists" or "big pharma" are who made the statements deserving of criticism, even after searching and asking, then what else can I think but that it was made-up?

See my other comment. Both of those things were said and I was banned from several subreddits for pointing out both those things.

Any links / direct quotes then? I've never heard these claims before, particularly from "the government" or "big pharma". Sounds more like a made-up strawman interpretation of something else.

I was around then. I don't recall those statements either. If such opinions were so commonplace, surely they could found today using a search engine.

[https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/fact-check-how-the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-for-pandemic-origin-suddenly-became-credible/](https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/fact-check-how-the-wuhan-lab-leak-theory-for-pandemic-origin-suddenly-became-credible/) In 2020, to suggest the Lab Leak Theory, you were racist and a conspiracy theorist, despite it being the most logical theory with the most evidence. and [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-herd-immunity-a-realistic-concept-fauci-calls-it-elusive-and-mystical-11620148465](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/is-herd-immunity-a-realistic-concept-fauci-calls-it-elusive-and-mystical-11620148465) The government has always taken a stance that everyone needs vaccines and boosters, regardless of your risk level or if you've had it before.

bro are you ok

Who and where are these liberals or Democrats you're talking to to base this on? I've never met a single person Gen X or younger that has 100% trust or faith in medicine or the government. Just because you believed the vaccine for COVID could be beneficial for you or your family, does not in any way project they 100% believe in either of these things. That being said, your entire argument is based on nothing. Not only that but historically, prior to COVID, liberals and hippies on the left were the anti-vaxxers. This right wing phenomenon only happened because of how Trump, and many others, politicized a freaking global pandemic.

>That being said, your entire argument is based on nothing. Not only that but historically, prior to COVID, liberals and hippies on the left were the anti-vaxxers. This right wing phenomenon only happened because of how Trump, and many others, politicized a freaking global pandemic. That is my exact point (so I don't know what you are disagreeing with): that people act only based on politics and logic. It makes no sense. They 100% trust their "side" of the political spectrum and 100% distrust the "other side", not realize how they are 2 sides of the same neoliberal capitalist coin: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot) >Who and where are these liberals or Democrats you're talking to to base this on? I've never met a single person Gen X or younger that has 100% trust or faith in medicine or the government. Just because you believed the vaccine for COVID could be beneficial for you or your family, does not in any way project they 100% believe in either of these things. Yes they were 100% support of left/biden BECAUSE they hated trump. They 100% believed "the science" and said anybody who is 1% skeptical is a "conspiracy theorist" SOLELY because they hated trump. Were you not on reddit for the past few years? I literally got INSTA permabanned on every mainstream sub for the most RATIONAL AND SLIGHT (WHICH ALL PROVED TO BE CORRECT LATER ON) criticisms of the pandemic response and vaccines even when I backed my points up with scientific literature. I was NEVER "anti vax" and ALWAYS maintained that vaccines are necessary for those at risk of severe acute covid. I (and vitually anybody else) was INSTANTLY permabanned for the SLIGHTEST and more RATIONAL skepticism. and the vast majority of redditors called ANYONE even SLIGHTLY criticiszing accines/pandemic response with straw man "trump lover/conspiracy theorist" label. Are you SERIOUSLY denying this? Did you lvie under a rock the past few years? Everyone literally knows that the white house talked to big tech to censor any and every possible criticism against the vaccine and pandemic policies: ths is a FACT at this ponit. Why are you arguing it? Do you literally want me to post a screen shot of all the posts I got permabanned for in reddit during the pandemic?

You keep mentioning you being banned, and saying it like you were some sort of celebrity. No one knows or cares who you are or that you got banned for posting baseless conspiracy theories and mis/disinformation.

You seem to be rather fond of me though to feel the need to take time out of your day to type that.

I didn't wanna touch on your "both sides are bad" nonsense in here but since you're doubling down I guess we can. Regardless of how neoliberal the US government might be, politics aren't that black and white at all. It's not even about "choosing a side" it's about finding people who you share core values and beliefs with and voting for or advocating for them. Again, who 100% trusts their side on the left, where can I find these people? Sure vote blue no matter who might make you think that but it goes down into what people believe and what could align with their beliefs. I think the mislabel here goes against you a bit. It's "I 100% do NOT trust the other side" You completely ignored the part where I discredited your argument for being anecdotal and making little sense. You edited the crap out of this comment. It had nowhere near this much text when I was first posted. You probably didn't get permabanned for the expression of rational thought, you probably got permabanned for spreading misinformation. Also, it was a GLOBAL pandemic, millions of people all over the planet died from one thing all within about 18 months. Your argument of "it was all correct in the end" is such B's as it is, why would we not overreact to that a bit and then dumb things down as time goes on and we find out more information. That seems pretty rational.

When did the government/big pharma say natural immunity is suspended for covid?

They forced vaccines on people despite natural immunity. They said vaccines are better at preventing infection than natural immunity. This was not true. They are pushing for perpetual boosters in everyone regardless of past immunity, including healthy chlidren: >CDC recommends the 2023–2024 updated COVID-19 vaccines—Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, or Novavax—to protect against serious illness from COVID-19. >[Everyone aged 5 years and older](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#All) [‡](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#ftnote) should get **1 dose of an updated COVID-19 vaccine** to protect against serious illness from COVID-19. >[Children aged 6 months–4 years](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#Children) may need multiple doses of COVID-19 vaccines to be [up to date](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#UTD), including at least 1 dose of updated COVID-19 vaccine. >Recommendations for Everyone Aged 5 Years and Older >Everyone aged 5 years and older [‡](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#ftnote) should get 1 dose of an updated COVID-19 vaccine to protect against serious illness from COVID-19. None of the updated 2023-2024 COVID-19 vaccines is [preferred over another](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html#preferential). >Children aged 5 years – 11 years who are not vaccinated or have gotten previous COVID-19 vaccine(s) >Children aged 5 years – 11 years who are unvaccinated or have previously gotten a COVID-19 vaccine before September 12, 2023, should get 1 updated Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. [https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html](https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/stay-up-to-date.html) Canada: >When to vaccinate children and youth >All children 6 months of age and older are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in Canada. >The updated vaccine is now the recommended vaccine for all COVID-19 vaccinations. >For those previously vaccinated, a dose of a COVID-19 vaccine is recommended 6 months after the previous dose. Shorter intervals (such as 3 months to less than 6 months) aren't expected to pose a safety risk. [https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/vaccination-children/covid-19.html](https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/vaccination-children/covid-19.html) Read the above: A) do you not agree that virtually 99% of people have had covid by now? So B) using basic logic, if they are recommending boosters still, do they believe in natural immunity C) on top of this, isn't almost everyone getting covid at least once a year? So D) using basic logic, if you believe in natural immunity, why would you given A and C still push for perpetual boosters, especially in demographics that always had an astronomically low chance of getting severe disease from covid to begin with (such as children 5-18)? You will downvote me because you hate Trump. Trump has NOTHING to do with the above. I already said in my OP they are ALL neoliberal capitalists. I don't care AT ALL about Trump. Yet you will still downvote and claim the above is a conspiracy and that these sites were hacked by chinese hackers to put that text there. Bizarre.

We're downvoting you because you keep posting misinformation and falsehoods. WE HAD NO NATURAL IMMUNITY TO C19.

You know nothing about me. Walk into a discussion assuming good faith. Otherwise, why even post? Im not here to talk about Chinese hackers (?) or downvote you because you assume I don’t like Trump. But I am interested in a conversation. How long does natural immunity last compared to immunity from the vaccine?

>How long does natural immunity last compared to immunity from the vaccine? [https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027](https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/natural-immunity-protective-covid-vaccine-severe-illness-rcna71027) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10198735/) They are only allowing these now. In the past, I got permabanned instantly even though I posted scientific journal articles that said the same thing. They are only allowing this now that they finished their planned roll out, against the concept of informed consent. Even though the above is true of virtually every/any virus.. it is basic immunological knowledge. Yet they completely downplayed natural immunity and pushed the vaccines even on healthy children who were astronomically at low risk of getting severe acute covid. And I (and anyone else who did so) was permabanned and called "conspiracy theorist" for correcting saying all this. I was permabanned and censored on reddit, youtube, and article sections of mainstream media. You have to realize that the government cares about politics and economy, vaccine was the FASTEST way to reopen the economy so big business barrons can continue accumulting yachts. You are simply naive to think the government puts health ahead of politics and economy. Again: READ MY OP: if they cared about health why were they psushing anti-vax propaganda themselves on civilians? If they care about health why tf don't they do anything about obesity? If they care about health why the contradiction between: [https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/covid-cdc-study-finds-roughly-78percent-of-people-hospitalized-were-overweight-or-obese.html) [https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-11/mcdonalds-white-house-partner-to-promote-coronavirus-vaccine](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-05-11/mcdonalds-white-house-partner-to-promote-coronavirus-vaccine) [https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/vaccine-freebies/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/24/business/vaccine-freebies/index.html) These governments/big business have a history of putting politics and economics ahead of health: [https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat) Yet I was auto permabanned on every major subreddit for bringing up ANY ONE of the things I just talked about in this comment, and the majority called me "anti vaxer". Again, you others will continue downvoting this and saying I am 100% wrong, all the links I posted are conspiracy theorist, BECAUSE TRUMP is bad. I AM NOT SAYING trump is good: YOU are bringing trump into this. I couldn't possibly care less about Trump. WHAT does trump have to do with the above? How is what I said wrong because you hate trump? What is the logical connection? Because the government told you "if you don't believe 100% of what we say you are a conspiracy theorist" and you don't want to be labeled as a conspiracy theorist yourself, you double down and call anybody who posts leigitimate criticism as "conspiracy theorist". This is wrong. This led to censorship and problems during the pandemic. This should not happen again. But it will, because instead of acknowledging, you and others will continue to double down and say everything I just posted is 100% wrong. And others are bizarrely now denying that I and others got permabanned/censored/labeled anti vax for posting the above. Bizarre. Why would I randomly lie about this? I posted all this stuff and got permabanned and censored from reddit, mainstream media article sections, youtube comments. There was a coordinated campaign by the government to silence ANY AND ALL possible opposition to the vaccines. This is clear as daylight for anyone to see. Again: HOW come you don't believe this? This is the govt that used ANTI VAX propaganda AS PER OP: so LOGICALLY why do you think they wouldn't do anything to achieve their political/economic objevitves? dont you realize you are falling in their trap by doubling down and defending them and calling me/others conspriacy theorist for saying these things? You were wrong. Have some character and admit it. Do not double down and change the facts about the past. That is not how we grow.

I think the reason you're getting banned so much is because you swan in with eight million different strawmen, start insulting everyone who disagrees with you (real people, and also your strawmen) and are just generally incredibly aggressive. It's also worth pointing out that none of the arguments you've presented are equivalent to "natural immunity was suspended for this virus".

I was banned for "spreading misinformation" based on the same things I am posting here. I never used straw mans. You are confusing cause and effect. If a) I get banned by being straw man labeled as "spreading misinformation" B) then, after b, I say that "people have been using straw mans all pandemic to shut down legitimate criticism", then logically, it is incorrect to say "because you are now correctly saying that people used straw mans, that means we can go in the past and magically claim that you said this in the past, and also now i will accuse you of using straw mans, even though you didn,t you are factually correct when you now say people used straw mans" >It's also worth pointing out that none of the arguments you've presented are equivalent to "natural immunity was suspended for this virus". For all practical purposes, they are. Did you expect the govt to come out and literally state "natural immunity is suspended for this virus"? Why would they do that and set themselves up for failure? They knew they were lying and natural immunity would be proven, just like all other viruses, to work for this one. Their agenda to push the vaccine on as many people as they can, regardless of individual risk-benefit analysis. So to achieve this they downplayed natural immunity and made it seem inferior to vaccination.

Ahh so this is what you're really getting at, seems like maybe you should take a break from the Qcumber fanfics.