Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!
NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.
Vaccines are a victim of their own success, imagine what would happen if tomorrow some procedure that prevents cancers would become available. Soon enough almost everyone would undergo it because everyone knows someone that struggled with and died of cancer.
What would happen in the next decades is that oncology clinics, specialists, research and machinery for current (then outdated) treatments would slowly drop down to near zero.
Same would go for the cultural relevance of cancer, now a common plotline in entertainment media and common subject of news and just general conversation, would then become rare mention mostly in historical settings.
Soon enough you'd have generations of parents that never knew anyone that had cancer, that barely ever saw it mentioned, and yet the government and healthcare industry tells them they should keep doing a procedure for this archaic disease that no one even saw. Something's amiss, it must all be a big lie so they can control us.
That's the correlation between Trumpism and anti-vaxx, it's not that one is fueled by the other, it's that people unable to analyze longer term multiple-step causes and effects and unable to learn from outside of direct personal experience are the most vulnerable to both.
I know it's been said before, but to get hired by Trump's administration seems to require a cult-like adherence to the party-line. A doctor who is the nominee for a surgeon general cannot give a straightforward much less an evidence-based answer to whether or not flu-vaccines are efficacious but has to dance around the question because she knows what RFK says and a rabid section of MAGA thinks and therefore what Trump wants her to say, but she can't say that either because as a doctor she cannot sign off on what MAGA world wants her to say.
Trump is a black hole that distorts and warps everything around him.
That was so painful to watch. Imagine going through years of grueling medical school just to sell out and voluntarily become an anti-science villain. She'd be a perfect fit for Trump and RFK Jr., but I hope she's never allowed to work as a real doctor because of her compromised medical ethics - she's definitely failing the "Do No Harm" part.
Fucking hell, absolutely ridiculous stuff. I think the most painful part is the non-committal. I know nothing of this person, but just watching that clip it feels she knows the right answer, but is too terrified to give it in case it jeapordises the gig. I assume if she was some anti-vax lunatic she’d just go with that.
I mean I’m basically just repeating what Falling already said so eloquently but it’s completely preposterous. This is how the Trump administration and the wider MAGA phenomenon operate and it’s utterly ridiculous.
Us non-USians, at least in the West (I’m not too familiar with other locales), I mean shit is far from perfect in our wee domains but stuff like this is to me basically inconceivable in the UK, Ireland, the auld Anzacs, vast swathes of Europe.
What the fuck is going on in America? It’s utterly bizarre
A lot and nothing at the same time. Most people have checked out other than to keep "going about their business" (or the terrorists fascists win or something) the best they can. They're assuming this will all somehow sort itself out by sticking to the regular motions.
It's super weird because there's this "waiting for the elections" feel combined with a "Trump is rigging the elections" with a side of "we can't really say that without undermining US democracy entirely" and a garnish of "Trump is doing that anyway".
I'm obviously partial to revolutionary socialism, but I'm also deadly serious about desperately wanting to see people that aren't discuss their alternatives (among themselves if they choose) for all our benefit
To this point, if I was a Democrat supporter, this is the kind of stuff I'd like to see them lean into and make more of ahead of 2028.
As opposed to Newsom's Democrats should be "more culturally normal" rhetoric
On February 27 2026 06:40 Dan HH wrote: Vaccines are a victim of their own success, imagine what would happen if tomorrow some procedure that prevents cancers would become available. Soon enough almost everyone would undergo it because everyone knows someone that struggled with and died of cancer.
What would happen in the next decades is that oncology clinics, specialists, research and machinery for current (then outdated) treatments would slowly drop down to near zero.
Same would go for the cultural relevance of cancer, now a common plotline in entertainment media and common subject of news and just general conversation, would then become rare mention mostly in historical settings.
Soon enough you'd have generations of parents that never knew anyone that had cancer, that barely ever saw it mentioned, and yet the government and healthcare industry tells them they should keep doing a procedure for this archaic disease that no one even saw. Something's amiss, it must all be a big lie so they can control us.
That's the correlation between Trumpism and anti-vaxx, it's not that one is fueled by the other, it's that people unable to analyze longer term multiple-step causes and effects and unable to learn from outside of direct personal experience are the most vulnerable to both.
Exactly. If vaccines had only saved 90% of the people who would otherwise have died of smallpox, everyone would be begging to get a smallpox vaccine, and any other vaccine they can get their hands on, because everyone would have had a friend who died from it when they were a child.
But vaccines are so good that no one dies of smallpox anymore. The disease is eradicated. Measles were nearly there, too.
It is a classic case of the paradox of prevention. Effective prevention stops the thing it prevents, and makes people question why they spend so much on prevention even though the thing the prevention is supposed to stop never works.
Why spend so much money on dams when there is never any flooding? It makes no sense! And if you don't even spend so much money it, there must be some other even more sinister reason they want us to build dams all over the place. Those dams probably form demonic runes to summon the antichrist.
There is huge money in the alternative medicine because you can make any claim without needing any of the expense of figuring out what actually works and it’s not regulated. Once you get people to be so mad you don’t trust mainstream media, gov and science you can sell almost anything and snake oil has massive margins and repeat business. Get them scared of “them” and what “they don’t want you to know” then sell the alternative. There is a huge cross over with MAGA because they pretty much only trust these right wing influencers. And then if the guy is rich, even off selling shit that doesn’t work, that makes them trust and worship the more.
EPT
