Corona Virus Vaccine, would you take it?

[Woke Locc]

Originally Posted by Lune [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Getting it ASAP. FIL is high up in vaccine development, works with Fauci and has consulted on all the major vaccines, and he keeps me apprised. When these vaccines are available they will have passed phase III trials and will therefore be backed by the same scientific rigor that makes everything else, that every fucking dope in the Western World takes for granted, run. Trials have been very successful with minimal adverse events and high rates of protection.

The internet as it currently exists is the great disaster of our time; not an economic disaster, or a natural one, but an intellectual disaster. Hundreds of millions of people were given a voice along with access to the sum of human knowledge, without the cognitive skills or social structure to navigate it successfully. The result has been radicalization and thought cults, and the viral spread of misinformation, lies, propaganda, and just plain stupid opinions. The voice of experts who have actual knowledge on issues, based on factual evidence, and the surrogates who can recognize that and amplify their signal, is drowned out by millions of idiots on Facebook who think they are qualified to spread their take to anyone who will listen.

It's literally the intellectual death of a generation by memes and it's far scarier than Trump, coronavirus, 9/11, or anything else I've seen in my life. We used to have professionals who would filter fact from fiction, experts from village idiots, making sure the things we heard on a day to day basis were well curated. It wasn't perfect. There were a lot of things we didn't learn about it, and it was vulnerable to manipulation by the people who hold society's reins, but that imperfection was nothing compared to this. It's done to boomers exactly what they told us video games would do when we were kids-- rotted their fucking brains out.

It all looks pretty grim. I think the only solution is to somehow remove anonymity from the internet, tie every bit of your presence to your real life persona and credentials, and then adjust all the various levers and algorithms such that your ability to reach people with posts about topics that you really know nothing about is severely limited. That and teach children intensively how to spot misinformation. I thought it was intuitive but apparently it's not. The sad thing is I doubt any of that shit would work. I think we're just fucked and I'm just doomed to spend the rest of my life constantly running into people who tell me some of the most stupid shit I've ever heard, hot off the presses from instagram.

You can literally notice a difference over the last 10 years right here on this very board. Lots of people with lots of stupid opinions 2011-2013, but most of it was home grown and was based on actual real matters of personal philosophy, like the merits of fiscal conservatism vs. socialism, not the outright lies and conspiracy theories that dominate this board now.

I think it will make me sterile, like in the Sliders episode.