Random News not worthy of own thread

[Vertigo 7]

erm.... Biden wasn't president during COVID. If you mean that the guy who was President during COVID spread a lot misinformation and the US deaths attributed to the lack of response by that administration, then I 100% agree with you.

[Observe]

erm.... Biden wasn't president during COVID. If you mean that the guy who was President during COVID spread a lot misinformation and the US deaths attributed to the lack of response by that administration, then I 100% agree with you.

President Biden: "This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated". Much of the disinformation around the efficacy of COVID vaccines was and is promulgated by the Biden admin, along with heavy-handed censorship of dissenting views.

I realize my view on this is a minority on this forum and that this subject often comes down to whether of not one 'believes' in the 'science' being presented. I don't believe in science any more than I believe in God. I suspect that if we removed the immense censorship around COVID, the facts might show a somewhat different picture than the one that has been painted by the mega-corporations who have an anti-science, pro-profit agenda.

Vaccinated or unvaccinated, fortunately we are both around to tell the tale. However, recognizing that there's probably no way you and I can come to agreement on this issue, I'll leave it at that. Be well.

[Vertigo 7]

You're right about that, we certainly won't agree. I live in reality.

[Ketraar]

I don't believe in science any more than I believe in God.

This is a false comparison though, you trust in science, you don't need to believe in it or even understand it. This is weird since I doubt you make your own food and drink your own water or use your own telecommunication network, etc. So you already trust science 99.999% of the time, you just choose to not trust a arbitrary portion of it, which is fine, just not logical.

MFG

Ketraar

[Cpt.Jericho]

In the last two millenia science has proven itself wrong more often than otherwise (flat earth, Sun orbits Earth etc). Science is not a set of facts carved in stone but a stream that flows. Science is never stopping to question science itself. As soon as this questioning itself stops, science ends and religion starts.

[Ketraar]

In the last two millenia science has proven itself wrong more often than otherwise (flat earth, Sun orbits Earth etc). Science is not a set of facts carved in stone but a stream that flows. Science is never stopping to question science itself. As soon as this questioning itself stops, science ends and religion starts.

This is a very inaccurate statement. Science as we define it today doesn't exists for millennia, its birthed at around 17th century and even then it had to battle established obstacles like Churches and other Political establishments that didn't want to give up the authority of "fact", it still does today. Its the only real way to get facts, like it or not. As such science is not "wrong", our knowledge is lacking and we interpret the result or use tools to get the results based what we know, hence why its a constant update. But there are many things that are very established and are not likely to radical change. Only really frontier science is susceptible to that due to its nature.

Side note on the flat earth thing, this was never a thing really, the knowledge about the roundness of earth dates to about 300 BCE where Eratosthenes calculated its circumference rather accurately.

MFG

Ketraar

[Cpt.Jericho]

The only thing that happened in Europe in the 17th century that science that was happening behind shut doors could be done in the open. It was rather removing the cork of mysticism of a bottle than a revolution. Science was happening way before or otherwise names like Kopernicus or Galileo would not exist. It was on a different level due to lacking equipment but it was still science and used the same methods used today (observing, collecting data and try put both into a coherent picture).
Todays science has been freed of mysticism. That however does not mean it's completely uninfluenced. Universities are usually receiving 3rd party money for research and that money isn't given for nothing. The results have to pay off - be it the better "mousetrap" (money) or to fit an agenda (influence) the giver is supporting. Tabacco companies paid tons of dollars to keep scientists from stating the obvious ie. smoking is bad for you and highly addictive. And that's why you alsways have to question the results of any scientific piece.

BTW.: As close as ancient greeks got calculating Earth circumference it was just a theory in scientific sense. Proof was given 1519 AD when Magellan returned from his journey.

[Golden_Gonads]

In the last two millenia science has proven itself wrong more often than otherwise (flat earth, Sun orbits Earth etc). Science is not a set of facts carved in stone but a stream that flows. Science is never stopping to question science itself. As soon as this questioning itself stops, science ends and religion starts.

No-one ever believed the Earth was flat. There are record dating back 2,000 years saying "Of course the Earth is round, it's why we have the horizon". Fiction popularised the idea that our ancestors were completely stupid, so that modern man can feel smug and superior. Of course, we now have idiots who believe the Earth is flat, proving that truth is stranger than fiction and that mans ability to be a complete blithering nincompoop is truly without limits.

[Ketraar]

Also Magellan never completed the journey as he did in the pacific. Despite my fellow Portuguese people like to claim credit for it.

Also also, why would we believe him and not a tobaco researcher, they both were privately funded with economical prospects. Spoiler alert, most science is funded for economical prospects, that's how the world works, so claiming funding defines the veracity of results is silly at best. My point is, if you dont trust science, you don't trust anything because all things are based on it.

Doesn't mean people cant abuse it or skew it, but the scientific method (the modern one) is the best way to route out most issues, but like money, it only works if there is a base of trust. Otherwise I have a 300 euro note I would like you to exchange for me with a 100 euro one.

MFG

Ketraar

[Cpt.Jericho]

Blindly trusting that funding science isn't biasing it is not silly but outright reckless. Questioning the results of this is most imperative. If the results hold to your questions you can start to trust it.

And now for the last time: Tons of people used to believe in a flat earth as they didn't have access to any kind of education and got told from the powers above what to believe.

[Ketraar]

And now for the last time: Tons of people used to believe in a flat earth as they didn't have access to any kind of education and got told from the powers above what to believe.

But this exactly my point, the unknowledgeable masses "believe" things, for whatever reason, but that doesn't say anything about the trustworthiness of science, only about the ignorance of people.

MFG

Ketraar

[felter]

And now for the last time: Tons of people used to believe in a flat earth.

And tons of people still do, and they have access to education.

[clakclak]

And now for the last time: Tons of people used to believe in a flat earth.

And tons of people still do, and they have access to education.

They need to feel smug, they need to feel superior and think they figured out a great conspirarcy, a mystery that eludes others. It is an easy way to flatter onself. Reality does not play a role as what is real or not only plays a minor role to the need to feel superior. My brother is a nurse working in an isolation ward, he has worked there since before Corona started. People would be on respirator barely able to breath and still deny the existance of Corona, accusing the hospital staff of being actors or police officers paid to kill them because they figured out this great conspirarcy about the Corona virus being fake and thus were allegedly to dangerous for the government to let live. I can not say that I have any patience for people like that who often very willfully endangered the lives of my brother and his co-workers with their reckless behaviour.

[alt3rn1ty]

The power of social media to influence is amazing.
I knew someone who should have been very respectable in his long serving post, but I believe he became socially influenced enough to start believing what the flat earthers had to say, and asked me a few questions ( cant say too much but I am so glad he never became a Navigator ). I just reminded him of publications like the Admiralty tide tables and how they are worked out, or looking out for radar contacts through binoculars on a ships bridge watching for the mast/upperdecks/hull slowly coming into view as they come up over the curved horizon circa 10-15 miles away, or manual plotting of charts which take into account the curvature of the earth and magnetic offsets depending on where you are on the earths surface. Or the tidal effects of the moons gravitational influence as it comes around the circumference of the earth and pulls the shape of the earth to be higher at the closest point of passing, making the tides rise and fall on a roughly 12 hour period (refined by logarithms). And lastly the measurement of how far away the moon surface is, determined by a pad placed on the moon surface which reflects lasers straight back at the emitter via mirrors which recipriocate the beam straight back at the sending device. End of discussion.
Sad, but human I guess. We are all variably gullible ( Trump supporters more than most ).
Confirmation bias is such a powerful tool you can be sidetracked/seduced from reasonable logical thinking with.

[chew-ie]

Oh what a "funny" world we live in ... first Turkey tries to influence swedish domestic policy in order to let them into NATO. Now with that out of the way, Turkey is trying to force their EU membership ... in order to let Sweden join NATO. Oh, and they get F-16 jets. What's next, I wonder? And how often will the "final deals" be altered?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... membership

While we are at it (making hilarious bad jokes) this might be a good opportunity to introduce a ring trade. "Turkey, you might be able to join EU if you convice Hungary to leave".

Suffice to say if Turkey is serious about that then Sweden can kiss that NATO membership good bye (I hope). There is a reason why Turkey isn't part of the EU yet. And still having Erdogan in power doesn't help with those... issues.

[mr.WHO]

Sweden is nice to have in NATO, but it was Finland that was more in danger and more essential.

I doubt that NATO and EU are that desperate to trade off much more than is currently on the table.

I think this is Erdogans' last hailmary to try to get more benefits from the deal, but he doesn't got much of strong cards left.

[Chips]

erm.... Biden wasn't president during COVID. If you mean that the guy who was President during COVID spread a lot misinformation and the US deaths attributed to the lack of response by that administration, then I 100% agree with you.

President Biden: "This continues to be a pandemic of the unvaccinated". Much of the disinformation around the efficacy of COVID vaccines was and is promulgated by the Biden admin, along with heavy-handed censorship of dissenting views.

I realize my view on this is a minority on this forum and that this subject often comes down to whether of not one 'believes' in the 'science' being presented. I don't believe in science any more than I believe in God. I suspect that if we removed the immense censorship around COVID, the facts might show a somewhat different picture than the one that has been painted by the mega-corporations who have an anti-science, pro-profit agenda.

Vaccinated or unvaccinated, fortunately we are both around to tell the tale. However, recognizing that there's probably no way you and I can come to agreement on this issue, I'll leave it at that. Be well.

Well, there's statistical data available on the number of deaths of vaccinated and unvaccinated.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/unit ... ion-status

Maybe in the US the language is different, but in the UK they were always clear that the chances of dying were significantly lower if you were fully vaccinated than unvaccinated. They were also clear about how age and ailments also affected chances of mortality. There was never a claim you were safe if vaccinated. Just how, statistically, you were better off than not.

That did, of course, inform decisions by the Government to offer vaccines, and it did inform policy and especially various locations, of what they would and would not accept.

Feel free to offer up opinion and or alternative theories for the discrepancy in the numbers of deaths between the two in the above link.

If it's about the rules and regs that went around covid - that's nothing to do with vaccines. Is it.



Interestingly enough, there's an article in the papers today about the chances of a Measles outbreak in London due to the low take up of MMR vaccine. Vaccination rate down to 85% whereas about 95% is required for effective herd immunity. It points out that 2 in 1000 children who contract measles die (statistically speaking) and modelling shows a break out could (could!) infect between 40,000-160,000. The most important was knowing that if not immune (which the vaccine is supposed to make someone), then a single measles infected individual can spread to 10-20 other non immune individuals; hence why 95% is so important - implying 1 to 1 infection rate, so no outbreak.

No 100%'s in this, is modelling and statistical historical data used. But gives insight into what immunity and vaccination is about - incase anyone is sceptical as to vaccines in general.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lond ... s-of-cases

[Gavrushka]

Elderly man from Northeast England renews his Runescape account after almost exactly 10 years (3,634 days) and cannot remember his pin number for the grand exchange for some strange reason...

Weird, but it sure feels good to be back, even if I gave away several billion credits on the last day I played in 2013, and am gonna have to start from scratch again. To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised my character still existed and had imagined I would be starting from lvl 1 everything again.

Well, I wasn't gonna start a new thread just for this now, was I?

[Warenwolf]

Elderly man from Northeast England renews his Runescape account after almost exactly 10 years (3,634 days) and cannot remember his pin number for the grand exchange for some strange reason...

Wow, I forgot about that one. I hope the elderly gentlemen finds enjoyment in Runescape.

[Chips]

BTW.: As close as ancient greeks got calculating Earth circumference it was just a theory in scientific sense. Proof was given 1519 AD when Magellan returned from his journey.

Just re-read this, missed it first time. Magellan did not "prove" the calculation of the circumference of the earth whatsoever. It apparently proved that the earth was round.

Of course, in the rigour of science, it's only "proven" because it's repeatable and therefore others can follow and find the same results; it's testable, it's repeatable, it's verifiable. Otherwise, you're actually saying "someone said they sailed around the world so now I wholeheartedly believe the world is a sphere!". Someone *saying* something doesn't make it fact. People say they've been abducted by aliens after all...

It's amazing how some people question things that are provable* - such as vaccine efficacy, yet believe things that aren't remotely provable. Like religion.

*via measurements etc