"When did you stop beating your wife?" is the classic example of a dishonest loaded question, one that can't be answered with a straight yes or no because it either of those responses takes the assumption in the question for granted.
Bear in mind that since it is *you* who asserted "AIDS/HIV affect[s] only gay men and IV drug users in American and the Western world", the burden of proof is on you to explain how Arthur Ashe was secretly gay, an IV drug user, or didn't die of complications from AIDS. You also would need to to explain how all the women and children with HIV in this country got it from IV drug use rather than sex or blood transfusion. If you can do that without looking like the Pepe Silvia guy, you should get a medal.
You can also get AIDS from a blood transfusion, which is how Ash might have contracted the disease. RFK, Jr. and, I think, many others, speculate Ash didn't die because of AIDS but because he was given AZT.
I'll qualify my statement: 99 percent of AIDS victims in America who died got the virus from sexual intercourse or sharing contaminated needles (heroin drug addicts).
Am I correct in stating that most of the HIV/AIDS patients in Africa are NOT homosexual males or IV drug users?
Am I correct in saying the vast majority of AIDS victims in America ARE in these two groups?
I don't understand why the different outcomes and results in two different continents. This question makes me think the "science" on AIDS and HIV is not settled. A virus should affect people the same way regardless of where they live.
I started this thread only to dispute the author's apparent position that anyone who questions the HIV/AIDs theory should be cancelled or dismissed as some kind of kook.
Is the virus that causes Covid different in Europe than America?
Do you mean affect people the same way, or do you mean have the same demographics regarding infection? There's been a lot of research into the demographics aspect over the years. This one was from 24 years ago: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.288.5474.2153
I guess the different demographics who are "infected."
Why isn't HIV/AIDS a mortality risk to Americans who don't engage in homosexual sex or share used needles?
In the mid-1980s, the narrative was that AIDS was going to be a huge risk to every American. This did not turn out to be the case.
I compare it to the narrative that Covid was a mortality risk to "everyone." This clearly did not turn out to be the case. The average age of a Covid victim is 79 to 82 depending on the country's data you look at.
It's hard to find an example of a healthy person under 40 who definitively died "from" Covid.
I personally knew three people who were said to have died from Covid. They were 70, 80 and 81. That's in four years. So I personally knew/know nobody under the age of 70 who died from Covid.
That tells me Covid was NOT a real mortality risk to people under the age of 70. That's why I question the authorized narratives.
All things being equal, PIV is lower risk in terms of infection than anal, most gay men aren't also having sex with women, untreated STDs in areas with poor heathcare coverage up the risk across the board, and public health messaging in the US was a huge help in keeping the epidemic from completely breaking containment. (Ah, the joys of Gen X sex education and spending your teens being scared that if the nukes didn't get you killed, sex would! Not that it stopped us.)
I know some people under 40 without preexisting conditions who have post-viral issues because of COVID infections, especially those who caught it in 2020 when we were all immunologically na├пve, so there are risks (overblown by many on the left, but not trivial) beyond just mortality.
That said, I strongly wish that the public health messaging had been more flexible/honest (just tell us when you don't know enough yet to know and update when you have better information, damn it) and that it hadn't become a political football, which I think happened at least in part because of the boneheaded decision to treat the protests about police brutality as if they were somehow a different risk level than mask protests were. (I ranted at length about this to my spouse at the time. It was such a stupid decision and undermined so much public trust, which was limited as hell in the first place here.)
No. In fact I think a really good metric to deduce the truth value of just about any claim would be to see what Alex Jones says about it and comfortably assume that the opposite is true in nearly every case.
Yeah. TheyтАЩre generally safe and effective, which is what almost every credible scientist on earth has indicated when asked about the topic.
And there are plenty of reasons people arenтАЩt getting boosters - IтАЩd chalk it up to general fatigue and a feeling that after getting the initial vaccine theyтАЩre probably protected enough to where the virus wonтАЩt make them seriously ill or kill them. IтАЩm serenely confident that тАЬhundreds of millionsтАЭ of people donтАЩt agree with the тАЬgay frogsтАЭ guy
Wilson, I think I scored a debating point because I got you to admit that 90 percent of the public doesn't feel they need any more booster shots. This is going against the guidance of those scientists and medical associations you reference. They are still encouraging "everyone" over 6 months old to get these shots. Certainly the CDC is. It seems to me this is an example of large swaths of the public that is not convinced that the "settled science" is settled. Legions of citizens are certainly voting with their own bodies to reject the authorized guidance.
... I've got to run. We're probably taking up too much of this Comment section. Take care. I enjoyed our debate.
Well, I tend to leave this stuff to actual experts, but IтАЩd say that they make you a less likely to catch the disease, and if you do catch it they make you a lot less likely to suffer serious illness or death from the disease.
Now IтАЩm curious: do you agree with Alex Jones that the Sandy Hook shootings were a false flag orchestrated by the Deep State in order to take away our freedoms and that no children were killed that day, that the parents are all actors, that the police and the school and the media and the families are all in on a grand conspiracy to pull the wool over our eyes? Were the judgments against him in Texas and Connecticut efforts by those same nefarious forces to silence a great thinker and patriot who тАЬhundreds of millionsтАЭ agree with? You can handwave it away by saying тАЬbut he apologized!тАЭ (which is bullshit) but honestly if you really want to go for it with your Covid conspiracy claims youтАЩd do better to find a more credible source than Alex тАЬMale Vitality PillтАЭ Jones
God no. Alex Jones saying that infuriated me too. It's ridiculous.
I do agree with Jones if he believes the health threat of Covid was massively over-hyped/exaggerated. Lockdowns weren't needed. I don't think anyone needed a vaccine.
I tried to make these points on Facebook .... but I was banned. So I can empathize with people who are being censored or de-monetized or cancelled.
What's your answer to the question? Why the difference in AIDS/HIV victims in America and Africa? I don't get the snarky analogy.
"When did you stop beating your wife?" is the classic example of a dishonest loaded question, one that can't be answered with a straight yes or no because it either of those responses takes the assumption in the question for granted.
Bear in mind that since it is *you* who asserted "AIDS/HIV affect[s] only gay men and IV drug users in American and the Western world", the burden of proof is on you to explain how Arthur Ashe was secretly gay, an IV drug user, or didn't die of complications from AIDS. You also would need to to explain how all the women and children with HIV in this country got it from IV drug use rather than sex or blood transfusion. If you can do that without looking like the Pepe Silvia guy, you should get a medal.
You can also get AIDS from a blood transfusion, which is how Ash might have contracted the disease. RFK, Jr. and, I think, many others, speculate Ash didn't die because of AIDS but because he was given AZT.
I'll qualify my statement: 99 percent of AIDS victims in America who died got the virus from sexual intercourse or sharing contaminated needles (heroin drug addicts).
Am I correct in stating that most of the HIV/AIDS patients in Africa are NOT homosexual males or IV drug users?
Am I correct in saying the vast majority of AIDS victims in America ARE in these two groups?
I don't understand why the different outcomes and results in two different continents. This question makes me think the "science" on AIDS and HIV is not settled. A virus should affect people the same way regardless of where they live.
I started this thread only to dispute the author's apparent position that anyone who questions the HIV/AIDs theory should be cancelled or dismissed as some kind of kook.
Is the virus that causes Covid different in Europe than America?
Do you mean affect people the same way, or do you mean have the same demographics regarding infection? There's been a lot of research into the demographics aspect over the years. This one was from 24 years ago: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.288.5474.2153
I guess the different demographics who are "infected."
Why isn't HIV/AIDS a mortality risk to Americans who don't engage in homosexual sex or share used needles?
In the mid-1980s, the narrative was that AIDS was going to be a huge risk to every American. This did not turn out to be the case.
I compare it to the narrative that Covid was a mortality risk to "everyone." This clearly did not turn out to be the case. The average age of a Covid victim is 79 to 82 depending on the country's data you look at.
It's hard to find an example of a healthy person under 40 who definitively died "from" Covid.
I personally knew three people who were said to have died from Covid. They were 70, 80 and 81. That's in four years. So I personally knew/know nobody under the age of 70 who died from Covid.
That tells me Covid was NOT a real mortality risk to people under the age of 70. That's why I question the authorized narratives.
All things being equal, PIV is lower risk in terms of infection than anal, most gay men aren't also having sex with women, untreated STDs in areas with poor heathcare coverage up the risk across the board, and public health messaging in the US was a huge help in keeping the epidemic from completely breaking containment. (Ah, the joys of Gen X sex education and spending your teens being scared that if the nukes didn't get you killed, sex would! Not that it stopped us.)
I know some people under 40 without preexisting conditions who have post-viral issues because of COVID infections, especially those who caught it in 2020 when we were all immunologically na├пve, so there are risks (overblown by many on the left, but not trivial) beyond just mortality.
That said, I strongly wish that the public health messaging had been more flexible/honest (just tell us when you don't know enough yet to know and update when you have better information, damn it) and that it hadn't become a political football, which I think happened at least in part because of the boneheaded decision to treat the protests about police brutality as if they were somehow a different risk level than mask protests were. (I ranted at length about this to my spouse at the time. It was such a stupid decision and undermined so much public trust, which was limited as hell in the first place here.)
I take it thereтАЩs a lot that you donтАЩt get
I get that you are one of those posters who don't answer specific questions.
Do you agree with Jones that the water is turning frogs gay?
What a ribbiting question! ЁЯШБ
No. Do you agree with Jones that the Covid vaccines are NOT "safe and effective?"
No. In fact I think a really good metric to deduce the truth value of just about any claim would be to see what Alex Jones says about it and comfortably assume that the opposite is true in nearly every case.
So you think the vaccines DO prevent transmission and spread and that nobody has died or suffered a serious adverse event after receiving these shots?
Since we're using the Socratic Method: Why do you think 90 percent of the public no longer gets the booster shots the CDC is still recommending?
I think hundreds of millions of people, perhaps secretly, agree with Alex Jones.
Yeah. TheyтАЩre generally safe and effective, which is what almost every credible scientist on earth has indicated when asked about the topic.
And there are plenty of reasons people arenтАЩt getting boosters - IтАЩd chalk it up to general fatigue and a feeling that after getting the initial vaccine theyтАЩre probably protected enough to where the virus wonтАЩt make them seriously ill or kill them. IтАЩm serenely confident that тАЬhundreds of millionsтАЭ of people donтАЩt agree with the тАЬgay frogsтАЭ guy
Wilson, I think I scored a debating point because I got you to admit that 90 percent of the public doesn't feel they need any more booster shots. This is going against the guidance of those scientists and medical associations you reference. They are still encouraging "everyone" over 6 months old to get these shots. Certainly the CDC is. It seems to me this is an example of large swaths of the public that is not convinced that the "settled science" is settled. Legions of citizens are certainly voting with their own bodies to reject the authorized guidance.
... I've got to run. We're probably taking up too much of this Comment section. Take care. I enjoyed our debate.
And I think your parents must have been related before they were married. Have a nice day and watch out for the gay frogs!
Define generally effective?
Well, I tend to leave this stuff to actual experts, but IтАЩd say that they make you a less likely to catch the disease, and if you do catch it they make you a lot less likely to suffer serious illness or death from the disease.
Now IтАЩm curious: do you agree with Alex Jones that the Sandy Hook shootings were a false flag orchestrated by the Deep State in order to take away our freedoms and that no children were killed that day, that the parents are all actors, that the police and the school and the media and the families are all in on a grand conspiracy to pull the wool over our eyes? Were the judgments against him in Texas and Connecticut efforts by those same nefarious forces to silence a great thinker and patriot who тАЬhundreds of millionsтАЭ agree with? You can handwave it away by saying тАЬbut he apologized!тАЭ (which is bullshit) but honestly if you really want to go for it with your Covid conspiracy claims youтАЩd do better to find a more credible source than Alex тАЬMale Vitality PillтАЭ Jones
God no. Alex Jones saying that infuriated me too. It's ridiculous.
I do agree with Jones if he believes the health threat of Covid was massively over-hyped/exaggerated. Lockdowns weren't needed. I don't think anyone needed a vaccine.
I tried to make these points on Facebook .... but I was banned. So I can empathize with people who are being censored or de-monetized or cancelled.
Also, are you seriously claiming that someone dying after receiving the vaccine is proof that the vaccine killed them? YouтАЩre not a serious person