CharonY

Fundamentally being vaccinated only means that a person is exposed to an additional antigen (or set of antigens) compared to an unvaccinated persons. However, since everyone is exposed to many, many antigens every day day simply by eating or breathing, the overall immune system won't look fundamentally different. Likewise, an unvaccinated person can remain healthy, provided they never encounter the pathogen in question. But in return it means that a non-vaccinated person simply won't have antibodies to a disease and are susceptible to infection. There is no mechanism how a healthy lifestyle can prevent that. But the more people are around who are susceptible (e.g. not vaccinated) the less likely it is that you can keep away from folks might infect you. That is precisely what we see with measles and mumps and a few other diseases that were almost eradicated, but are now making a revival among unvaccinated communities. And no, drinking kelp won't save you. There have been a number of studies on vegans and if you look at some immune markers, either there is no difference to non-vegetarian diets in certain factors (e.g. natural killer cell ctyotoxic activity) or lower (e.g. lower leukocyte and lymphocyte counts) (Haddad et al. Am J Clin Nut 70:3 1999; . This is not necessarily a fundamental problem, but shows no indication of actually increasing the body's ability to deal with infections. They are likely better off than very unheathy folks (e.g. obese folks) but there is not benefit over non-vegetarian folks within healthy BMIs, for example. While it goes on a tangent, I should add that during pregnancies vegans have to monitor themselves more than usual with respect to micronutrient deficiency (see e.g. Sebastiani et al. Nutrients 2019 11:3 557 https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11030557) However, I think there is fundamental flaw of that thinking, because a) vaccines are a targeted protection system but perhaps more importantly they are b) a means to maintain population health. You see, it is as at least much about as not infecting someone else and spreading the disease as it is to keep yourself healthy. Focusing exclusively on the health status of the (un)vaccinated is therefore missing at least half the picture. From the public health perspective, vaccinations do at least the following: - curb disease related effects (including mortality, death, loss of quality of life etc.) - maintain public health and reduce strain on the health care system (loss of work and hospitalization- the latter is one of the reason why COVID-19 mortality spikes in overstrained systems) - protect susceptible folks (e.g. folks with weak immune systems, undergoing chemo, elderly and kids, etc.) - reduce the risk of new strains (the more a disease circulates, the more likely it can acquire mutations against which vaccines might not work anymore, potentially happening right now with SARS-CoV-2). - have the potential to eradicate disease entirely. In other words, not vaccinating counters above effects.

Yes, but I would argue that it took a minimum of effort , buy-in from the establishment and elimination of other voices. Nowadays apparently all you need to do is post fiction somewhere and folks are going to run with it.

I think it may be related to getting old, but what gets me is the lack of effort in many of these things. The lies (e.g. QAnon conspiracy) are so obviously absurd and made with no real effort. And conversely folks simply believe even the most absurd of claims without making the effort of double-checking. Trump rose to the top without really putting the works in and was even able to incite an attempted coup. And all without even trying or at least preparing a proper speech. Their whole effort of usurping the power was just lazy and cumulated in a press conference on the parking lot of a gardening centre. Yet folks that are so obviously inept and lazy obviously have no problem getting what they want and, even worse, get support from other folks. I really have trouble understanding that (and the world at large). To me, social media seems intrinsically connected to that, somehow. I am just not sure what is cause and what is effect.

No doubt, I think it has crystallized that really burning out the case numbers is absolutely necessary and surfing the curve is not a good strategy. Provinces such as Manitoba which did well for a time were rather quickly overwhelmed once the numbers surged.

As a whole the flu season in Canada is very mild to almost non-existent. It is almost certainly related to isolation and distancing measures.

There was an interesting article from buzzfeed of all places: It does seem that among the mob, there were folks that had more planned. I doubt that they were able to whip up pipe bombs between Trump's rally and the storming of the capitol.

Also, taking someone's job is just a PC version of why folks really do not want immigration (hint: there is a reason why certain folks are alright with immigration from Norway or Denmark, and it is not the better health care system).

Yes, these go the heart of the issue, I think. The biggest issue (I thought) would be monopolies, be it private or public, as it would create a means to easily control information flow. In that context, the rise of huge news conglomerates was a huge worry to me. One could see twitter and facebook as similar entities if that is where folks de facto obtain their information regarding the world. On the other hand (though that leads a bit off-topic) even if facebook et al. were not private companies we now also see how badly false information can impact society. To a degree that leads to massive number of deaths in, say, a disease outbreaks (with more to come in the future). So from this standpoint I am not at all certain what the best model should be. I still think that diverse platform rather than monopolies are one aspect. But I am not quite certain whether I am as much on board with social media news distribution as I might have been in the past. Perhaps it is just a consequence of freedom of expression plus new technology and we should just live with the fact that folks will reside in fractured realities. It would also mean that we have effectively crippled our ability to address big challenges which will result in uncountable suffering of the following generations.

Or one can ask the opposite question. Should we have a situation where much of not most of public discourse is owned and mediated by private companies?

Actually the issue is a bit different. For the most part the issue of trans fats and there catabolic products can trigger a range of health effects. In many cases we are not entirely sure why. TFAs for example are often incompletely oxidized and potentially by inhibition of the required enzymes result in lowering polyunsaturated fatty acids, which in turn can result in lower membrane fluidity which kicks off a number of regulatory cascades that can result in poor health outcomes. They also result in the increase of LDL, and some decrease in HDL, which is associated with clogging (chronic inflammation resulting in atherosclerotic plaques for example).

There are different state laws (I think in Canada it is regulated federally), and many do not require time off. In cases where it is allowed one might get 1-2 hours (usuall) paid time off. A big issue is that this time might often not be enough, especially in poor and minority neighbourhoods. Some data suggests that e.g. black voters are 3x more likely to wait 30 mins or longer compared to white voters. In those cases one or even two hours may not be enough to get back to work on time. This year the situation has been especially bad, but there has been a confluence of many issues.

As related piece of information which somewhat connects to the whole matter (specifically with regard to BLM which protests police violence) is in this article.

If you are talking about trans fats, they are metabolized by the body as other fatty acids.

According to Reuters

Adding to that, the Moderna CEO announced that their vaccine is likely effective against the Sourh African and UK strains. However, no data has been forthcoming (yet).

Three months? Gosh, you guys must be rolling in money!

First, the fact that other folks may be inconvenienced is not a good reason to take rights away. For example, the same argument can be made for sports events- the increased foot traffic, risk of hooliganism and other forms of vandalim, not to mention noise are clear inconveniences. Similar arguments can be made for any number of largish events including things like the "Schuetzenumzug" (you know if you are German, and probably would not understand if you are not). In the US protests are covered by the first amendment. There are limits in terms of creating "clear and present danger". The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms offers similar rights. That means is that it is not fundamentally unlawful to engage in protests. So on the one hand you have the fundamental right to protest but there is no fundamental right not to get inconvenienced. So essentially the question now is what are the limits of the rights for assembly and protest. These have been tested in various court cases in both, USA and Canada. Now I am not an legal expert but I have read that it was attempted to shut down protests by using laws that forbid blocking of roads. However, courts have often rejected these claims as they see it as a possible means to restrict the Charter/First amendment, which would take precedence. But it certainly is not absolute. So you could look at each of the protest and figure out what ordinance they may or may not have violated, whether they needed and got the required permits etc. but ultimately the absolutist claim that they are all unlawful just does not hold. Edit: On the moral level, the intent of the protests should also be taken into account. It is one thing to organize a protest to demonstrate for higher wages, but it is another to organize one for example with the intent to intimidate specific folks (which are not in power). Organizing a demo to demonize homeless folks could be legal, for example, but still be shitty. Also, there could be a legal distinction between e.g. traffic issues as a corollary effect vs it's main intent (something like men's rea?), but I really don't know.

What you are describing here is very different what you claimed before. You specifically mentioned that folks here would condone to some degree violent protests. Yet here you conflate it with "unlawful behaviour". I think most people here do not condone violence but support the democratic right to demonstrate and protest. In fact, based on your description it appears that due to police behaviour actual violence did not occur, which seems like a great outcome to me. Again we have got different levels of actions that are conflated. First, are civil protests. These are enshrined to various degrees in the right of speech and assembly (typically peaceful is added to that). If one has an issue with that (regardless whether they are BLM or MAGA folks), you have an issue with democracy. The second are the risks associated with those assemblies. There is always the risk that folks that take part may have violence in mind. These include opportunistic looters, hooligans but also, as it turns out in the BLM protests, right-wing agitators. These are not condoned by anyone, including BLM folks, who have been very vocal about it. However, it should be noted that if the protest in itself was peaceful and had a peaceful goal, it is to some degree the cost of freedom of assembly. The third, and which are talking here, are those that are not protesting or demonstrating for something, but which have a specific violent agenda in mind. If folks set out to enter the capitol to do a sit-in, to protest something, it would be a different matter. But here, the idea was to overturn a process and it was in essence non-peaceful. It was not a small fringe within the group that demanded the overthrow of the government. If you do not see a difference between those three groups and just consider them all unlawful an hence equal, I do not think that there is a common basis for further discussion of this matter (I mean you kind of acknowledge it, but I still have trouble to get the point). If your point, however, was that some folks can use demonstrations of the groups with other views as a threat to themselves and then react to such a perceived threat, then yes, you are correct. Many folks that would, for example, call police on a black person in a neighbourhood would are no doubt afraid of a whole bunch of them protesting against being shot. But at the same time, I will re-iterate that this is the price of democracy. It is easy to say that there are platforms and rules that folks should follow in order to be heard. The issue is that the rules have been made by folks in part to specifically make it harder for certain folks to be heard. In all democratic societies protests, strikes and demonstrations have been an outlet for these grievances.

I think the slogan kind of implied that already.

Absolutely, I know a couple of researchers, some really excellent ones that basically were temps until their retirement (or close to). The system is not really good if things like predictive career planning, high income, job security early on, work-life balance are important to you. Eh, I made myself sad now.

I think it depends a lot on the level. Once you secured tenure (which is a big if) job security is as good, if not better than in an industrial position. However, before that, I agree that an academic career is far more uncertain. I would also agree to some extent with the benefits. There are few objective benefits, most of the motivation for pursuing an academic career is internal (and to a certain degree probably masochistic).

That thread is fairly long but it could make sense to fuse them. I will say that this is the most expected unexpected outcome. Who knew that lying to folks for so long will make them believe that stuff. Also, I think riot is a misnomer. They are not protesting against a perceived injustice, they were basically attempting a coup, even if it is an incompetent one (weapons and pipe bombs were secured during that event and the specific goal was to overturn the election). It is also not a big surprise that despite the mounting threats, police were underprepared (some unsubstantiated reports indicate that police either removed barricades or at least did not stop the mob from passing said barricades. Numerous news outlets have been contrasting that with the actions during BLM protests. I am not saying that police should have been escalating the situation, but rather that the same restrained should be extended to other folks.

In academia there is a huge gap between tenure-track/tenured (as well as otherwise permanent) positions and non-permanent ones (e.g. postdocs). The latter I would not consider a career (and certainly not the half of ones career) as such but at best as prerequisites. It is also a misconception that a PhD mandates an academic career to begin with. It may have been that the path to an academic career was easier in the olden days (way, way, way back) but it hasn't been so for decades. Part of it is the mentioned oversupply of PhDs, but it only looks lopsided if you only consider the academic track (which really, you should not). In reality, the vast majority of jobs are found outside academia, such as industrial jobs (the biggest chunk), public sector and so on. About 20 years back the numbers were roughly 20-25% of PhDs making an academic career, a number that has been dropping constantly from years prior. I do not have current values but chances are that they are even lower now. At the same time there has been some inflation with regards to PhD requirements in industry and some positions which used to be held by MScs often require a PhD now. In terms of types of jobs there are a lot, ranging from sales, support, product and project management and so on. There is also R&D but it tends to be a smaller slice.

! Moderator Note I have split the increasingly off-topic discussion into a new thread. I apologize for taking matters into my own hands but there are few mods available and most have taken part in this thread.

Not sure what the videos says, but mutation in the gene for the spike protein are concerning. No conclusive evidence either way, yet.