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YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

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Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they are effective. They are not as effective as a N95 mask but all scientific data shows they are still effective and reducing transmission rate in a population.

Are [gaiter masks] effective? On the other hand some researchers think cloth masks, specifically gaiter types, are worse than nothing. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083 > A bigger droplet scatters more light than a smaller droplet. This insight is important to interpret the result of the neck gaiter. The neck gaiter has a larger transmission (110%; see Fig. 3A) than the control trial. We attribute…

https://medical.mit.edu/covid-19-updates/2020/08/neck-gaiter...

The study was not about testing masks, it was about developing a new cheap method of testing masks. They only tested each mask once, because the question was whether they could get data from the technique, not to actually study each mask type.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are actively spreading disinformation. SARS-2 ("covid") will never be extinct. It is completely infeasible to eradicate a highly infectious zoonotic respiratory virus w/ abundant animal reservoirs. > but cloth masks work very well for reducing the likelihood that a covid-positive person will transmit the virus You cannot possibly honestly make this statement in good faith, considering that there has only ever bee…

> It is completely infeasible to eradicate a highly infectious zoonotic respiratory virus w/ abundant animal reservoirs. We know SARS-CoV-2 is abundant in humans, and we know it's related to viruses with abundant animal reservoirs, but do we know that SARS-CoV-2 has abundant animal reservoirs? I wasn't aware that it did, and I wouldn't expect it to have. And… what kind of a defeatist attitude is that? They said it wa…

> We know SARS-CoV-2 is abundant in humans, and we know it's related to viruses with abundant animal reservoirs, but do we know that SARS-CoV-2 has abundant animal reservoirs? I wasn't aware that it did, and I wouldn't expect it to have.

Yes, it has abundant animal reservoirs. The fact you're not aware of this suggests that you are lacking some essential background info, which would explain why you are so myopically characterizing my attitude as "defeatist" rather than "obviously true".

Here's just one study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8002747/

> There is intriguing evidence that farmed mink infections (acquired from humans) have led to infection of other farm workers in turn, with a recent outbreak of a mink variant in humans in Denmark

Now on to the "defeatist" point:

> They said it was completely infeasible to eradicate smallpox, but we did – because the people actually eradicating smallpox knew how to do it.

Smallpox had no known animal or reservoirs. Compared to the SARS-2 vaccines, smallpox vaccines at the time of eradication were far more effective.

Again, you clearly lack the most rudimentary understanding of this topic. I'm not saying that as an attack but rather as a statement of fact. I would suggest starting with the Wikipedia page on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eradication_of_infectious_dise...

> The targeting of infectious diseases for eradication is based on narrow criteria, as both biological and technical features determine whether a pathogenic organism is (at least potentially) eradicable. The targeted pathogen must not have a significant non-human (or non-human-dependent) reservoir (or, in the case of animal diseases, the infection reservoir must be an easily identifiable species, as in the case of rinderpest). This requires sufficient understanding of the life cycle and transmission of the pathogen. An efficient and practical intervention (such as a vaccine or antibiotic) must be available to interrupt transmission.

Reading even just the intro paragraphs of that article should make it abundantly clear why SARS-2 cannot and will not be eradicated.

Oh, and BTW, even if we did eradicate it, which we can't, it would still exist in the bioweapon labs of every major country in the world. All it would take is one bad actor intentionally releasing it, or alternatively an accidental lab leak (which has happened with SARS-1, and SARS-2 is even easier to leak). Again, you simply haven't thought this through.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#353
post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of this is about 'masks' and really about Rand Paul calling for mass civil disobedience against COVID restrictions? Here's the full video: https://twitter.com/RandPaul/status/1424399282447298563

What's exactly wrong with mass civil disobedience? If anything, it shows that you have problems with your political system; and that the current ruler has lost the narrative.

According to prevailing wisdom, civil disobedience means you're a X-ist, denier gun nut who has fallen for disinformation. No room for questioning the official narrative, lives are at stake.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mass civil disobedience against COVID restrictions is not only awesome, it a very explicit and central civic value of the American political mythology. I can't emphasize enough how bizarre and soviet-esque that this is even on the table as a contentious issue these days.

YouTube pulled the TidePod-eating challenge videos because they endangered public health. This is no different.

Hopefully they pull the fat acceptance videos too.

I believe your post is an isolated demand for rigor: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/14/beware-isolated-demand...

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife and I were looking into traveling from the US to Europe this summer, if the borders had opened up earlier. At the time, Germany was not allowing cloth masks on public transport. N95, surgical masks, or stay home. So here we have a sitting US senator being censored for agreeing with the German health authorities. WTF?!?

The German health authorities were making the argument that cloth masks weren't good enough if you thought that wearing them meant that you could increase your risk exposure. He's arguing they just don't work and nobody should bother with them at all. The German authorities would agree that if you have to go out to buy food you're better off wearing a mask than none at all. Rand Paul would disagree. Those are two dif…

> He's arguing they just don't work and nobody should bother with them at all.

Are the virus particles significantly smaller than the holes in a cloth mask — nevermind the gaps typically present around the wearer’s face — or not? If they’re smaller, how effective can the masks possibly be?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally silenced. A ban from YouTube comes with a ban from Fox News, NewsMax, Twitter, Facebook, newspapers, local TV stations... /s

Who said anything about being totally silenced? Are you arguing that being banned from YouTube isn't the same as being silenced to some extent?

>Who said anything about being totally silenced?

The White House believes you should be banned from all social media not just one if you spread misinformation. Maybe that is not totally silenced, but it is getting close to it.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/202...

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is misinformation. Masks (cloth or otherwise) were meant to reduce infectiousness, not completely prevent the possibility of infection. Masks (cloth or otherwise) do in fact reduce infectiousness. The misinformation is the implication that masks are pointless because you can still get infected. The point of masks is to get the probability of spreading it down by some multiple, not to be a personal not-my-problem-a…

Saying cloth masks are effective in the context of (K)N95 masks is even worse misinformation. Even the CDC's website on masks points out you should really be using (K)N95's, and that cloth masks are completely ineffective when wet, which they get after 15 minutes or so of breathing through them. The science on cloth masks says they work, but only shortly and just barely. Rand Paul is closer to the truth by saying the…

I've heavily worked out for 2 hours and worked in the office for 8 hours with a cloth mask without wetness issues. My experience may not be the same for others, but 15 minutes is an exaggeration. As early as April 2020 there was research indicating 2 layer cloth masks were at least 70% as effective as surgical masks, and the ones I have seal much better! Not to mention most people are wearing poorly fitted accordion style masks, not wearing N95 masks.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#358
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this reasoning. An imperfect mask is surely going to result in a borderline contacts with infection being non-infections. The debate is "by how much" and without really clear evidence to the contrary, the precautionary principle wins. Wearing masks is usually only a minor inconvenience. I'm gobsmacked how it's become such a battleground.

Wearing masks is usually only a minor inconvenience. It's a minor inconvenience at the grocery store. It's a major inconvenience to wear one at gyms. It's a major inconvenience with regards to socializing with friends (a core human need), I really hate not being able to read other people's facial expressions when I talk to them. It's a major inconvenience to require it at schools. It's horrible for kids not to be abl…

It takes all of 2-3 workouts to get used to a mask. It is not a major inconvenience. It is minor.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - I believe seatbelts should also be a personal choice. Infinite safety was never a goal - and never should be. If it were, our speed limits should be 5 mph everywhere - then nobody would die in car crashes but oops, it causes too many other problems - it would be a bad tradeoff . And lost freedom is a cost that is unacceptable to many people.

What an awful argument. Your black and white thinking is unfathomably ignorant. I'll take a separated shoulder and a broken rib over death or a permanent head injury thank you.

I argued nothing black and white at all. I said that these things are tradeoffs. In this case - it is something along the lines of a freedom safety tradeoff. And why aren't people allowed to draw their own lines on that spectrum. I was just stating that I draw my line in a different place than some.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#360
post #9
post #3

> YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video included the line: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” > It also included the quote: “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.” Regardless of what you think about YouTube's misinformation policy, I don't think this i…

Indeed. Tech companies now silence politicians unilaterally, while governments made up of the same politicians do nothing to stop the widespread flow of toxic misinformation on tech platforms. So, who is really in charge?

The tech companies may be trying to "control the problem" so that the government doesn't decide to legislate. Unfortunately for the tech companies, they're doing it so badly, so randomly, that they're probably making legislation more likely.
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