gallois wrote:
Anti vaxxers can do what they want.
The fact that an individual cannot be bothered to keep going and getting regular jabs (I had the first 3) against something that poses no statistically significantly threat to that individual does not make them an anti-vaxxer.
Anti-vaxxers are those who argue that vaccination in of itself is a bad thing, and often further argue that the process of widespread vaccination is a conspiracy of some sort.
You are correct that, for no logical reason, certain kinds of deaths are accepted as the cost of doing business and others cause much hand-wringing and great effort to eliminate them.
Bit off subject, but when my friends Grandfather was training in Scotland to be a commando during the last war they expected 8% deaths in training or they weren’t doing it right
Someone once told me that her mother didn’t get a war widow’s pension as her father had died in training rather than in combat (WWII, uk).
GRIFF wrote:
Bit off subject, but when my friends Grandfather was training in Scotland to be a commando during the last war they expected 8% deaths in training or they weren’t doing it right
That used to be the attitude of the Swedish Air Force as well (and I guess other airforces) until aircraft got so expensive that you couldn’t afford crashing them at the same rate. So training was completely overhauled and – lo and behold – the pilots turned out just as good.
8% is way too much in peacetime. During a war, sure…
Of course in Russia 80% is OK 
Actually right now they are happy to lose 70% before anywhere near the front, because the other 30% can still do a lot of damage. Same in WW2; 100% loss was fine, until the enemy ran out of ammo.
On a slightly (or perhaps largely) related subject. This guy normally talks about engines. Then he suddenly came out with this, which is one of the more intelligent things I have heard in many years.
Peter wrote:
until the enemy ran out of ammo
US Department of War statistical analysis of WW2 battles showed a strong correlation between number of rounds fired and successful outcome, disproportionate to other factors, e.g. rifle accuracy, terrain, supporting weapons, morale, etc. This led to the new M16 rifle using smaller 5.56mm bullets, instead of the 7.62mm used in its predecessors (M14, M-1 Garand) or competitor (AK-47). The basis being that more ammunition can be carried and fired, making victory more likely.
I’m not sure I follow his reasoning, but maybe I misunderstand.
He says the internet has created polarization where groups believe different things, and one group cannot be convinced by the other group. To me that corresponds to what seems to be happening more and more; ‘believing something’ trumps ‘forming an opinion based on available facts, i.e. being rational’.
He says it’s ok to have people believe different things, but ‘we’ just have to be ‘rational’ and we’ll then move in the right direction. But isn’t the problem with a ‘believer’ that his frame of reference is fixed and he/she will only be receptive to facts that support that frame? So how do you get ‘believers’ to convert to being rational?
The basic problem is that you need a certain amount of education to be able to do “research”.
So it is very easy to create a “story” which is convincing to people with reasonable IQ (say, 100 i.e. average, or above, and those below that probably won’t read past line 10 anyway) but which is complete bollox.
The flat earth one is an old one now but you can make a serious mathematical argument for it.
Much easier are stories where you start with a nugget of truth and built it up with garbage. That is of course a standard recipe for a good novel.
A great example would be a story I saw the other day in the Daily Trash about some drug. “Terribly dangerous”. Within the text it turns out that the side effect mentioned was at the 10ppm sort of level.
@leSving and @Graham I don’t think I ever wrote that either of you are anti -vaxxer. I don’t have a clue whether you are or not. Frankly, now that there is a vaccine that my health service advises should give some degree of protection and what’s more its free, I am happy for others to do what they wish.
I don’t think that anti vaxxers or whatever people who are against being vaccinated are all conspiracy theorists and I have never said so. I have left that to others.
Before there was a vaccine I didn’t want anybody within a few metres of me unless I was pretty sure they were not Covid carriers..I accepted a negative test as proof.
What others did was up to them.
aart wrote:
He says the internet has created polarization where groups believe different things, and one group cannot be convinced by the other group. To me that corresponds to what seems to be happening more and more; ‘believing something’ trumps ‘forming an opinion based on available facts, i.e. being rational’.
That is very much the case, up to the point where conflicting groups appear to live in “different worlds”. Polarisation and pseudo religious beliefs have reached levels which are genuinely worrying.
aart wrote:
But isn’t the problem with a ‘believer’ that his frame of reference is fixed and he/she will only be receptive to facts that support that frame? So how do you get ‘believers’ to convert to being rational?
For “believers” being rational means to accept their way of thinking. “You are with us or against us”, there is no in between.
Peter wrote:
So it is very easy to create a “story” which is convincing to people with reasonable IQ (say, 100 i.e. average, or above, and those below that probably won’t read past line 10 anyway) but which is complete bollox.
The big problem is that these “stories” are made into “documentaries” which often have well made backgrounds such as apparently “known” sources or channels, which are totally fake but appear to be the real thing. Pictures and movies are much more “convincing” than pure texts or audio are. And one huge problem is that there is pratically no means to stop those things, as the perpetrators will shout “free speech” the moment someone takes them down.
gallois wrote:
Before there was a vaccine I didn’t want anybody within a few metres of me unless I was pretty sure they were not Covid carriers..I accepted a negative test as proof.
Sensible attitude, I did the same then.
Once the vaccines became available, I honestly believed that we have Covid under control, or at least we will get it to a point where it’s managable. Then the 2nd and 3rd wave happened with horrible results, primarily caused by people refusing to get vaccinated. During this time, I did indeed loose my basic trust into society. If 30% in my country and up to 60% elsewhere were not ready to be part of the solution but rather part of the problem, the society I had trusted in has ceased to exist. And unfortunately, seeing what is going on in the world supports that, with shooting wars in Europe and the Near East, with more and more demagogues and pseudo- or real dictators taking country after country.
