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Is the end of AIDS in sight?

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Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#161

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #133
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promiscuity does not propagate sexually transmitted diseases. You are working off of a false stereotype which has limited the capacity of your rational thought, and as a result, you imagine a world which does not exist, and propose solutions which will not work. This is a common problem with HN people. They come up with this one idea that kind-of makes sense, and then stop thinking, and shape their whole thought proc…

STDs are spread through sexual activity, and the more partners you have will increase the transmission rate. Gay men are well documented to have on average more sexual partners than other sexualities. Both of these are… obvious and well documented, depending on your experience or understanding of the literature (take your pick). Obviously HIV can be spread by other vectors, that doesn’t make what I’ve said above not…

I'm willing to bet you're a white male, because on average, most HN users are. Given that, would it be okay if I said most white people are imperialistic, colonizing abusers who oppress women and minorities? Because on average they have been exactly that.

Once you're on the receiving end of these "averaged" generalizations, you realize that it's not a great idea to think that way or to try to rationalize using them. It's like the people that say things like "on average, black people commit more crime" and then use that oversimplification to justify racial bias.

(and yeah, i'm probably gonna be flagged for pointing out the logical fallacies that get propagated to justify systemic racism, misogyny, homophobia and slut-shaming, but i'm not gonna censor myself to avoid pointing out fallacious tropes in common discourse)

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#162

Post by bitwize »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #157
bitwize wrote: post #95

When AIDS and MS are manageable diseases, you know you live in a miraculous society.

MS has become manageable? Is that true???

It's a lot more manageable now than when Annette Funicello was diagnosed. People who stay on their treatment regimen can live decades of productive life with the disease.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#163

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

x0x0 wrote: post #68
EatingWithForks wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference with AIDS is that AIDS at the time condemned you to a slow, horrible, visible decline, in which your death was celebrated via a radio talk show host that at the time had an entire regular segment to name and mock the people who died. Like, this doesn't apply to people who get cervical cancer from HPV or other similarly tragic outcomes of acquiring an STD. The cruelty on the scale is way above anything.

Don't forget Reagan's press secretary mocking the so-called "gay plague" https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9828348/ronald-reagan-hiv-aids

As painful a read as that was, I think it's really important to understand what the social norms were at that time. Thousands of people had died and the reaction, not just from the press secretary but from the press pool at large, was to laugh and joke. Really the only widely socially acceptable response to even the mere thought of gay male sexuality was complete and utter disgust. If you were a man, to not express disgust at this thought opened the door to "you might be a fairy too", which is why you see so many of these displays of "the banality of evil".

Audio from those press conferences is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAzDn7tE1lU

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#164

Post by willmadden »

graeme wrote: post #159
willmadden wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But you need another explanation. Oh, I have the explanation, and stacks of studies to back it up, but I'll be banned and downvoted for explaining it here. Have a nice day.

You need an alternate explanation which started February 2020. That’s when the excess deaths began.

No, a much bigger spike happened in December 2020 to February 2021, with another spike July-August 2021. https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#165

Post by hinkley »

at_a_remove wrote: post #25
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19

As a gay man well into middle age, whenever I get somewhat depressed about the state of human affairs, I think about the incredible improvements in AIDS treatment and prevention and I feel a little better. It's hard for people who didn't live through it to really understand what a terrifying time the 80s and 90s were. First off, the general message of sexual education was pretty much "If you have sex, it's probably g…

I often mention the whole Gen X trauma thing. Part of it is literally seeing the ladder being pulled up just as we reached for it. Not just for jobs or college tuition, but also sexually -- the previous generation had a pretty good time and the worst that was on offer was herpes. Puberty starts rumbling around and we're wondering what the future looks like and suddenly "GRID." And we were flailing around, is it viral…

I point out that the eighties got so bad that George Michael, known mostly for writing happy celebratory songs, very nearly released a 'whole world is going to end' song in 1990's "Praying for Time"

It's hard to love / there's so much to hate / hanging on to hope / when there is no hope to speak of / And the wounded skies above / say it's much too late / So maybe we should all be praying for time.

They released that on the radio, it went to #1 on the Billboard charts, and stayed on the charts for 10 weeks. All while the First Gulf War was starting. Which he wouldn't have known when he was writing it.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#166

Post by Obscurity4340 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #123
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does it relate to misogyny if you don't mind me asking?

The article mentions that women are afraid to take prophylactic treatments, because their husbands/boyfriends will take umbrage. It's not uncommon for men to have multiple sexual partners, and transmission is often accomplished that way. There's also a fairly pervasive problem with sexual violence. Women tend to bear a lot of the pain.

There's something so morally depraved about punishing someone for insisting on protecting themselves. It really is unspeakably and irredeemably evil in my view to insist someone disregard their boundaries so thoroughly that they leave themself open to a lethal devastating virus just to satisfy someone else's ego in tandem with their nihilistic desire for short-term gratification.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#167

Post by mrmlz »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #161
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STDs are spread through sexual activity, and the more partners you have will increase the transmission rate. Gay men are well documented to have on average more sexual partners than other sexualities. Both of these are… obvious and well documented, depending on your experience or understanding of the literature (take your pick). Obviously HIV can be spread by other vectors, that doesn’t make what I’ve said above not…

I'm willing to bet you're a white male, because on average, most HN users are. Given that, would it be okay if I said most white people are imperialistic, colonizing abusers who oppress women and minorities? Because on average they have been exactly that. Once you're on the receiving end of these "averaged" generalizations, you realize that it's not a great idea to think that way or to try to rationalize using them.…

I'm not sure this is the GREAT COMEBACK you'd hoped for.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#168

Post by DiggyJohnson »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #161
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

STDs are spread through sexual activity, and the more partners you have will increase the transmission rate. Gay men are well documented to have on average more sexual partners than other sexualities. Both of these are… obvious and well documented, depending on your experience or understanding of the literature (take your pick). Obviously HIV can be spread by other vectors, that doesn’t make what I’ve said above not…

I'm willing to bet you're a white male, because on average, most HN users are. Given that, would it be okay if I said most white people are imperialistic, colonizing abusers who oppress women and minorities? Because on average they have been exactly that. Once you're on the receiving end of these "averaged" generalizations, you realize that it's not a great idea to think that way or to try to rationalize using them.…

I'm sorry if you're not comfortable with dealing with averages. It's not that I don't understand that the average doesn't define all or most members of a group.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#169

Post by water-data-dude »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #66
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #19

As a gay man well into middle age, whenever I get somewhat depressed about the state of human affairs, I think about the incredible improvements in AIDS treatment and prevention and I feel a little better. It's hard for people who didn't live through it to really understand what a terrifying time the 80s and 90s were. First off, the general message of sexual education was pretty much "If you have sex, it's probably g…

I have spent my adult life in a community that experiences higher-than-average HIV/HepC exposure, and well remember the "Great Die-Off" of the early-to-mid 1990s. To anyone that missed out, dying of AIDs is horrible. The West has the luxury of expensive drugs to treat it, but much of the developing world doesn't have that, and they are still dying like flies, with very little of the transmission happening through hom…

I feel like that “good riddance” attitude is a left over from an earlier time in human history. When the struggle for resources was life or death, and the survival of your community sometimes meant going to war with another community and killing other human beings, it was probably extremely useful to be able to mentally put those other other humans into a “not people” category. Now we’re living in a different world where survival doesn’t work like that anymore, but we still have the machinery in our heads that wants to classify The Other Group as less than human.

Re: Is the end of AIDS in sight?

#170

Post by 535188B17C93743 »

local_crmdgeon wrote: post #156
cltby wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's wide, wide middle ground between celibacy and the debauched status quo.

I don't think that attending "100% bareback, no loads denied" orgies regularly is a good idea, yet a bunch of my queer friends do exactly that on a fairly regular basis. I know it's not popular, but AIDS is just what we have now . If people continue living like this, there will be another, and it might be worse. Hell, we probably already dodged a bullet with Monkeypox due to concomitant COVID precautions.

Lol, no one was observing COVID precautions at that point. It was dodged because people got vaccinated for it and observed spacing requested in a responsible manner.

Hell, in the UK heterosexual cases of AIDs overtook homosexual cases because of adherence to medication and good practice. [1]

1. https://www.tht.org.uk/news/heterosexual-hiv-diagnoses-overt...

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