Forestluv

A vaccine is not effective at the societal level unless a threshold % of people take the vaccine. If the majority of people had your mindset of "wait and see" - coronavirus would continue to spread through populations and continue to harm economies and healthcare systems. Impact on one's individual self is a concern, yet it's also important to consider the population level. Your framing is essentially saying "I want other people to take the small risk of getting vaccinated, yet I want the benefits of them getting vaccinated". . . If 90% of people take the small risk of getting vaccinated, the coronavirus subsides and the economy / heathcare system recover - would you be willing to refuse to benefit from their vaccinations? Would you be willing to sacrifice your finances and access to healthcare as if they never got vaccinated and coronavirus crippled the economy and healthcare? Due to the severity of covid, vaccine development has been accelerated. As well, there are likely some profit motives to accelerate the process. There will be higher risks than vaccines developed over 3+ years. Yet there are also major risks if a majority of people refuse the vaccine. It could cause global depression and mass suffering for a generation or longer. I think there are legitimate concerns for both taking and refusing vaccination - yet anti-vaxxer conspiracies and misinformation prevent us from making the best decisions for ourselves and society. In terms of game theory consider the following scenarios: A) A majority of people refuse the vaccination - at a societal level the vaccine is ineffective and covid continuues to spread leading to global economic depression and partial collapse of healthcare systems for a generation. B) 90% of people agree to take the vaccination. Of those 1% experience significant long-lasting side-effects, 10% experience mild short-term side-effects and 89% have virtually no side-effects. The vaccine is effective and covid is essentially extinguished like smallpox or polio. Global economies go through recessions for about 5 years. At a societal level, option B is obviously the better option. Yet the key is that a majority of people get vaccinated. If a majority of people say "I want them to take the small risk, I don't want to take the small risk myself" - the vaccine won't work at the societal level.

The issue is far more complex than myopically looking at death rates. The rabies virus has a very high death rate, yet it isn't that harmful to society since it's frequency and contagion is low and it quickly kills the person it infects. The rabies virus doesn't cripple the economy and health care system. In addition to crippling the economy, covid cripples the health care system. When hospitals are at 90% capacity due to covid, healthcare for ALL illness is impacted. People in car accidents, people with chest pain, people needing chemotherapy etc. The ENTIRE healthcare system is brought to it's knees. It doesn't matter if 98% of covid patients survive. A high survival rate for hospitalized patients actually puts MORE stress on the healthcare system. A covid patient needing 10 days of intensive treatment to survive is much more demanding on a healthcare system than if covid patients quickly died within 2hrs of reaching the hospital. As well, a certain percentage of a society needs to take a vaccine for the vaccine to be effective (at the societal level). A vaccine that is very effective at the individual level, will not be very effective at the societal level if only 50% of the population get vaccinated. The individual may be protected from coronavirus, yet their world would be crumbling around them due to covid impacts.

Old thread, nearly three years old.

The video style is like a regular guy encountering a rare snow leopard and filming it on his 1990s camcorder.

Digital editing keeps getting better and better.

This is taking a few nuggets of truth and distorting it into absurdity. In general, green does not do everything in its power to destroy blue. Fro example, Green does not do everything in its power to destroy the below features of Blue. Green actually supports these blue features. Hard work and discipline Justice, stability, security Meaning & greater purpose Respect for elders Honor, principles, moral codes of conduct Good manners Ceremony, rituals self-control, restraint Charity, giving back to my community Loyalty Building character These are examples of blue features that positively serve as a foundation to move up the spiral. Hollow Green lacking these features is problematic. Yet there are also toxic aspects of blue that impede progress up the spiral. A frame such as “Blue is good and Green is bad for trying to destroy blue” is hyper simplistic to the point the framing has little value. It’s much more nuanced than that. As well, blaming 10% of the population for the majority of societal problems seems irrational to me. Green has very little power in the grand scheme of things. Toxic red, blue and Orange are contributing much more to global problems such as wealth inequality, destruction of the earth / climate etc. Throughout history, brilliant people also had some really bad theories. Wilber is no exception. He is brilliant in many regards, yet also has a few warts.

Televangelist preacher Kenneth Copeland and his congregation coping with the election result:

Both the left and right may split. I think people are underestimating how much MAGA energy there is. 25% of the country is hardcore MAGA furious with GOP establishment because they are caving by accepting Biden’s win. There are some major power shifts and realignments occurring now.

For those who followed the election closely. I got them all, except one.

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Rudy Giuliani’s reaction as he hears the news that all the networks called the election for Biden.

Justin Trudeau gleefully congratulates Biden. The first world leader to do so.

A dagger into Trump.

The last holdout, FoxNews, calls it. Trump implosion is accerelating.

FoxNews still holding out

In unison, the media networks call the election for Biden (except FoxNews).

Hilary read him like a book

Trump is now complaining his lawyers suck.

It's hard to predict because Biden isn't clearly beyond recount thresholds - which means nearly all the votes need to be counted before a state is called. The last 3% or so of ballots take the longest to process because they include damaged ballots and provisional ballots. Those ballots can't be processed through a machine, they need to be processed by a person. The machines can process ballots much much faster than hand processing. As far as I know, GA is the only state doing a recount at this time. Official declarations may take several weeks, yet calling the election for Biden is a major step forward and would change the narrative. Trump is in a much weaker position after the election is called. I think at this point, holding back on the call is important for legitimacy. If they wait until there is no chance of a recount, it makes the call much stronger.

NV update: Good news for Biden lovers. NV just released more data that expanded Biden's lead. This puts Biden up 21K votes (0.8%). A losing candidate can request a recount, yet it would be really hard to prevent the calling of a state with a 0.8% lead in which the loser requested a recount without evidence of tabulation errors. (It would be similar to Trump requesting a recount in WI). The optics of that would be awful, especially since Biden is in the stronger position. The AP and FoxNews called AZ for Biden and they don't want to retract that call. They are sitting on NV, until they are 100% sure on AZ. Calling NV for Biden would declare Biden the winner. Trump can request a recount in NV, yet I don't think it would be taken seriously without a recount in AZ or PA. From my POV, Trump will need a recount in AZ or PA. And there is relatively good news out of AZ - Biden just led in a new batch released from Yuma. This is a county Trump is winning by 6%. This puts him further off pace. Currently, Biden has a 1.1% lead and it's looking more and more unlikely Trump will reach the 0.1% threshold for a state-mandated recount. AZ does not allow a loser to request a recount. Yet I suppose Trump could try to get one via a lawsuit if it's under 0.5%. Yet Trump winning a lawsuit to over-ride AZ law and force a recount is not a good look. That is very different than a state like GA that will conduct an auto state-mandated recount. If Trump closes to under 0.2%, that is well within recount range - and most states would have an auto recount. In this case, the strict AZ recount laws would benefit Biden. Yet I could see a court mandating an AZ recount if PA enters a recount and Trump is within 0.5% in AZ. The next large data release from AZ will be about 9pm est and it will give a better idea how close Trump can get. My impression is that 0.5% seems to be perceived as a "reasonable" standard for a recount. In PA, Biden has expanded his lead to 19.5k. . . Only 1% of provisional ballots have been reported. Although they were from deeply red areas, Trump barely won them. As well, statewide provisional ballots are 0.9% of the total vote, yet over 2% of ballots in Philly are estimated to be provisional - so there are a disproportionate number of ballots in Philly. And historically, provisional ballots heavily favor Dems. So there is no reason to believe that the provisional ballots will favor Trump. It's much more likely the provisionals will favor Biden.

Exactly. the post-marked late-arriving ballots have not been invalidated (that is Trump's lawsuit). For now, they have just been placed to the side and have not been added to the published vote totals. My impression is that the courts will hear Trump's case and this is why the PA court told election officials to put the ballots aside. In PA, the state senate is majority republican. The governer and head election official are democrat and wanted to start VBM counting days before Nov. 3rd - yet the republican PA senate blocked them. My impression is the election officials want to publish the the post-marked, late arriving ballots. I hope they are counting those ballots now. If the PA supreme court decides against Trump and gives elections officials the green light - they need to immediately release those numbers - because Trump will try to immediately get scotus block their release to get a scotus trial. Once those numbers are released, it will be much harder to invalidate those ballots. It's much easier to invalidate ballots most people don't know about and aren't included in the tally. In contrast, imagine a court invalidating ballots that have already been included in the tally, such that Biden's current 28k lead was cut to a 2k lead. Those optics look like blatant cheating and their would be public outrage. Even though the post-marked ballots are legal, Trump's team can hope most people don't know about them or he can portray them as "pending" or "illegal" ballots,. The PA supreme court has consistently ruled against Trump. I just read up more on this case and I made an error. The PA supreme court upheld the law and said the post-marked, late arriving ballots should be counted and tabulated. The PA republican senate then went to scoutus, who said the ballots must be separated and could not be included in the tabulation at this time. PA election officials have said there are about 55k of these ballots, which would be a 27k lead. That 27k could have helped prevent a recount.