A case study of how miscalculated fear, media propaganda, and selective deference to scientific authority lead to the dangerous sacralization of mRNA vaccines.
Sam Harris is one of the most over rated narcissists "thought leaders" I used to listen to him but realized more often then not he doesn't have an original thought of his own. whether you love of hate Trump. his TDS was over the top and ridiculous. I didnt get the vax but as a physician had enough experience to know that unquestioning trust in the FDA and big pharma is going to get you into trouble. Their track record is horrendous and for someone as "smart" as Harris to say otherwise is well, not smart.
Have to call BS on the claim of one of the most Brilliant minds and intellectually honest .... His first claim about rationalizing it was an unselfish decision to get vaccinated does not support the claim. Consider the impact on your family if the vaccine killed you or permanently disable you. It was know relatively early simply by observation that few healthy people were getting seriously sick never mind dying of C19. Ioannidis' first study estimated a IFR that was not particularly lethal, in fact more like the flue, forget the exact date published but early enough to stop many from taking a poorly tested product. Finally, if you have a perfectly healthy young person, is it ethical to kill them and harvest their organs to save 5 others in need of organ transplants? Harris is implying it is by supporting taking a product that may kill you to maybe save someone else. Not brilliant logic in my far less brilliant mind.
"Not all of this was Harris’ fault — the experts he selectively platformed (primarily Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Nicholas Christakis) took strangely extreme positions on this matter and did not exercise appropriate caution"
You are actually too kind here. It was precisely Sam Harris' fault by virtue of the voices he chooses to listen to and feature on his podcast. He applies the same biased discretion favoring statist establishment views when it comes to politics and, I would maintain, virtually all other matters.
> Indeed, it was not out of the question at that time — given the absence of long-term data — that vaccines may substantially curb transmission
There was long-term data though on other coronaviruses and the complete failure of vaccines to prevent spread. We know that they spread through upper respiratory and that immunity is localized, so we knew that an injection wasn’t going to slow transmission. Maybe a nasal spray could have. A group of biologists called RadVac were trying to make an open source nasal spray vaccine-- just some selected peptides in a spray, no need for fancy manufacturing other than the peptide synthesis, for which labs already are well capable.
> I have genuine faith Harris will come to his senses.
I think people who got the vax under real delusion or under the spell of this mass formation thing are pretty much unrecoverable. It’s one thing to get the vax like Robert Malone did, in a cold and calculated way. It’s another thing to be a part of the Covidian cult and let them enter your body with the shot. People are spiritually injured and Sam-Harris-style rationality cannot heal one from such an injury-- something much deeper is needed.
I have zero faith he will come to his senses......arrogance is baked in the cake....the damage is done and many people follow and listen to him....even if he comes around it will be too late.....
Sam Harris lost his intellectual integrity long before Covid. Trump Derangement Syndrome tore away any semblance of pervasive sense Sam claimed to possess.
His vehemently zealous anti-Trumpism delved deep into his psyche, a psyche so distorted he raised the likes of Hillary Clinton on a proverbial pedestal. His inability to discern existing and unfolding information on his assessments exposed a mind vulnerable to, in fact overcome by, 'religious' fervor.
Quite the irony.
His Covidiocy was just a continuation of his fall from intellectual prowess - though I never viewed him to have approached the pinnacle, or, even have it in sight.
Frankly, preceding this, his approach to atheism was fundamentally religious, exposing a mind trapped between impenetrable boundaries. Made obvious by his complete inability to acknowledge any positive contribution Christianity, in particular, has made to Western Civilization.Whilst being ludicrously naive to the dangers of what was to fill the gap of loss of faith, or, the death of God.
Contrast the contemporary reverence of Sam Harris, to Friedrich Nietzsche, who understood the flaws of religion, but was intellectually honest enough to see the vacuum the death of God would leave in the human psyche - we fell very short of his aspirational ubermensch.
Sam thought of himself as an exception, and there are some. As did many of his admirers. But no, Sam is a glaring example of the rule.
Listening to Harris’ use of language in his podcasts, it’s clear he is one of those commentators that hides his smarts by using a sneaky cultivated line in passive-aggressive whereby, in one sentence he makes a benign reference to the opposition, and two sentences later drops in a derogatory adjective to catch the tail end of the memory of the benign statement and thereby subverts the listeners settled opinion. All delivered in a measured, hypnotic, soporific, meter, revealing the the spaces in his line of thought. Clever, but extremely irritating.
I wish it would make a difference but I had to accept long ago (when I canceled all subscriptions with Sam H) that his is the worse case of Trump Delusion Syndrome and vaccine/Covid mass formation psychosis I’ve witnessed. He is so mentally ill it is disturbing.
Stop lying about Sam Harris. "one of the most brilliant, intellectually honest, and sophisticated minds of the 21st century". Sam has never been any of those things. He is a great regurgitator of ideologies he subscribes to. Nothing more. He is not an original thinker, nor is he a critical thinker nor is he honest when faced with contradictory truth. He wanted and achieved the aura of a great thinker... but he was a stupid person's smart person (to borrow a phrase).
"one of the most brilliant, intellectually honest, and sophisticated minds of the 21st century."
lol. Seriously? You're loosing me and killing your cred. He's precisely the opposite while putting up the appearance. Trump. The Jordan Peterson conversations. Get real.
1) Has Harris taken any of the covid money that greased the palms of "influencers"? Would this explain his perplexing recalcitrant position? A lot of people are chained to the carrots they took during the heyday of the covid narrative.
2) Is/was Harris involved with the Department of Defense in any way? It turns out this was a military psychological operation in which the DOD and all sorts of intelligence agencies were swarming the western world in an unusually coordinated fashion. Could Harris be an operative?
I know one thing, these questions are not out of the range of possibility.
I disagree with Harris as brilliant but have you also considered he may have received “funding” from the Biden Admin to push a pro vaxx message? I wish we could have a list of all the influencers who received money. Not sure if it’s possible through FOIA.
"The infection fatality rate for Covid in the non-elderly population was known to be in the proximity of 0.035% at the time (credit to John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacahrya on this area of research) with a massive age gradient. Natural immunity was an established fact. The Covid death figures that greatly alarmed Harris at the time were known to be seriously inflated and miscalculated..."
From very early on unequivocal information was readily available to make a sound decision: Wait.
Harris should have known the risk profile of Covid. For him it was very low. The unavoidable fact there was no, and could not possibly have been, any medium/long term safety testing/data on the 'vaccines' was clear.
Undertaking an irreversible medical procedure to eliminate/mitigate a known (extremely low) risk, whilst assuming a completely unknown risk - could be zero, could be catastrophic - was always a fool's errand. The risk of Covid was known, though obscured by propaganda. The risk of the novel mRNA/lipid nano-particles vaccines to treat a corona virus was completely unknown- though careful research would have exposed serious concerns.
Harris took the gamble, which he now dresses up as reasoned thought. He was wrong. No doubt, catastrophically wrong for many of his followers.
The error is forgivable. Even understandable. But, his failure to acknowledge his error over a prolonged period, coupled with his continuing disparaging of those who 'got it right', is his self imposed intellectual death sentence.
Harris is a miltant atheist. He took down his Twitter account after people objected to his tweet "he hated Trump to such an extent ........"
"Gad Saad suggested that Harris' decision to leave Twitter was just the latest in a string of "acts of childish insolence," where he "broke friendships, doubled down, and exhibited astounding pomposity."
Sam Harris is one of the most over rated narcissists "thought leaders" I used to listen to him but realized more often then not he doesn't have an original thought of his own. whether you love of hate Trump. his TDS was over the top and ridiculous. I didnt get the vax but as a physician had enough experience to know that unquestioning trust in the FDA and big pharma is going to get you into trouble. Their track record is horrendous and for someone as "smart" as Harris to say otherwise is well, not smart.
Have to call BS on the claim of one of the most Brilliant minds and intellectually honest .... His first claim about rationalizing it was an unselfish decision to get vaccinated does not support the claim. Consider the impact on your family if the vaccine killed you or permanently disable you. It was know relatively early simply by observation that few healthy people were getting seriously sick never mind dying of C19. Ioannidis' first study estimated a IFR that was not particularly lethal, in fact more like the flue, forget the exact date published but early enough to stop many from taking a poorly tested product. Finally, if you have a perfectly healthy young person, is it ethical to kill them and harvest their organs to save 5 others in need of organ transplants? Harris is implying it is by supporting taking a product that may kill you to maybe save someone else. Not brilliant logic in my far less brilliant mind.
"Not all of this was Harris’ fault — the experts he selectively platformed (primarily Dr. Eric Topol and Dr. Nicholas Christakis) took strangely extreme positions on this matter and did not exercise appropriate caution"
You are actually too kind here. It was precisely Sam Harris' fault by virtue of the voices he chooses to listen to and feature on his podcast. He applies the same biased discretion favoring statist establishment views when it comes to politics and, I would maintain, virtually all other matters.
> Indeed, it was not out of the question at that time — given the absence of long-term data — that vaccines may substantially curb transmission
There was long-term data though on other coronaviruses and the complete failure of vaccines to prevent spread. We know that they spread through upper respiratory and that immunity is localized, so we knew that an injection wasn’t going to slow transmission. Maybe a nasal spray could have. A group of biologists called RadVac were trying to make an open source nasal spray vaccine-- just some selected peptides in a spray, no need for fancy manufacturing other than the peptide synthesis, for which labs already are well capable.
> I have genuine faith Harris will come to his senses.
I think people who got the vax under real delusion or under the spell of this mass formation thing are pretty much unrecoverable. It’s one thing to get the vax like Robert Malone did, in a cold and calculated way. It’s another thing to be a part of the Covidian cult and let them enter your body with the shot. People are spiritually injured and Sam-Harris-style rationality cannot heal one from such an injury-- something much deeper is needed.
I have zero faith he will come to his senses......arrogance is baked in the cake....the damage is done and many people follow and listen to him....even if he comes around it will be too late.....
Sam Harris lost his intellectual integrity long before Covid. Trump Derangement Syndrome tore away any semblance of pervasive sense Sam claimed to possess.
His vehemently zealous anti-Trumpism delved deep into his psyche, a psyche so distorted he raised the likes of Hillary Clinton on a proverbial pedestal. His inability to discern existing and unfolding information on his assessments exposed a mind vulnerable to, in fact overcome by, 'religious' fervor.
Quite the irony.
His Covidiocy was just a continuation of his fall from intellectual prowess - though I never viewed him to have approached the pinnacle, or, even have it in sight.
Frankly, preceding this, his approach to atheism was fundamentally religious, exposing a mind trapped between impenetrable boundaries. Made obvious by his complete inability to acknowledge any positive contribution Christianity, in particular, has made to Western Civilization.Whilst being ludicrously naive to the dangers of what was to fill the gap of loss of faith, or, the death of God.
Contrast the contemporary reverence of Sam Harris, to Friedrich Nietzsche, who understood the flaws of religion, but was intellectually honest enough to see the vacuum the death of God would leave in the human psyche - we fell very short of his aspirational ubermensch.
Sam thought of himself as an exception, and there are some. As did many of his admirers. But no, Sam is a glaring example of the rule.
Listening to Harris’ use of language in his podcasts, it’s clear he is one of those commentators that hides his smarts by using a sneaky cultivated line in passive-aggressive whereby, in one sentence he makes a benign reference to the opposition, and two sentences later drops in a derogatory adjective to catch the tail end of the memory of the benign statement and thereby subverts the listeners settled opinion. All delivered in a measured, hypnotic, soporific, meter, revealing the the spaces in his line of thought. Clever, but extremely irritating.
I wish it would make a difference but I had to accept long ago (when I canceled all subscriptions with Sam H) that his is the worse case of Trump Delusion Syndrome and vaccine/Covid mass formation psychosis I’ve witnessed. He is so mentally ill it is disturbing.
Stop lying about Sam Harris. "one of the most brilliant, intellectually honest, and sophisticated minds of the 21st century". Sam has never been any of those things. He is a great regurgitator of ideologies he subscribes to. Nothing more. He is not an original thinker, nor is he a critical thinker nor is he honest when faced with contradictory truth. He wanted and achieved the aura of a great thinker... but he was a stupid person's smart person (to borrow a phrase).
"one of the most brilliant, intellectually honest, and sophisticated minds of the 21st century."
lol. Seriously? You're loosing me and killing your cred. He's precisely the opposite while putting up the appearance. Trump. The Jordan Peterson conversations. Get real.
I absolutely adore Dr. Battacharya. What a sweet, humble man he is.
As for Harris, he’s proven himself to be quite the superficial phoney
I have two questions about Sam Harris.
1) Has Harris taken any of the covid money that greased the palms of "influencers"? Would this explain his perplexing recalcitrant position? A lot of people are chained to the carrots they took during the heyday of the covid narrative.
2) Is/was Harris involved with the Department of Defense in any way? It turns out this was a military psychological operation in which the DOD and all sorts of intelligence agencies were swarming the western world in an unusually coordinated fashion. Could Harris be an operative?
I know one thing, these questions are not out of the range of possibility.
Sam Harris is a clown.
I disagree with Harris as brilliant but have you also considered he may have received “funding” from the Biden Admin to push a pro vaxx message? I wish we could have a list of all the influencers who received money. Not sure if it’s possible through FOIA.
"The infection fatality rate for Covid in the non-elderly population was known to be in the proximity of 0.035% at the time (credit to John Ioannidis and Jay Bhattacahrya on this area of research) with a massive age gradient. Natural immunity was an established fact. The Covid death figures that greatly alarmed Harris at the time were known to be seriously inflated and miscalculated..."
From very early on unequivocal information was readily available to make a sound decision: Wait.
Harris should have known the risk profile of Covid. For him it was very low. The unavoidable fact there was no, and could not possibly have been, any medium/long term safety testing/data on the 'vaccines' was clear.
Undertaking an irreversible medical procedure to eliminate/mitigate a known (extremely low) risk, whilst assuming a completely unknown risk - could be zero, could be catastrophic - was always a fool's errand. The risk of Covid was known, though obscured by propaganda. The risk of the novel mRNA/lipid nano-particles vaccines to treat a corona virus was completely unknown- though careful research would have exposed serious concerns.
Harris took the gamble, which he now dresses up as reasoned thought. He was wrong. No doubt, catastrophically wrong for many of his followers.
The error is forgivable. Even understandable. But, his failure to acknowledge his error over a prolonged period, coupled with his continuing disparaging of those who 'got it right', is his self imposed intellectual death sentence.
Harris is a miltant atheist. He took down his Twitter account after people objected to his tweet "he hated Trump to such an extent ........"
"Gad Saad suggested that Harris' decision to leave Twitter was just the latest in a string of "acts of childish insolence," where he "broke friendships, doubled down, and exhibited astounding pomposity."