Episode Details

I respect vaccine skeptics.
They keep vaccine proponents honest.
They force vaccine defenders to provide strong justifications.
It's important to communicate with them with respect, not derision.

If you think there's skepticism in the high-income, educated world, you should visit the rest of the world.

It's higher.

I'd like to respectfully address some of the concerns that vaccine skeptics have.

The Coronavirus Pandemic has lasted for two years, which is the same amount of time that took for the Spanish Flu Pandemic to begin to die out.

I fear neither the Coronavirus nor its vaccines.
Most people fear one or both.
That fear pushes them to take a strong position.

I don't take a strong position because I don't give a f**k what people do since COVID is no big deal unless you're old and/or fat.

1. What is the percentage chance that you'll get COVID?

2. If you get COVID, what is the percentage chance that you'll get extremely sick or die?

3. What is the percentage chance that you will get extremely sick or die from getting a COVID vaccine?

1. 80% - if it's not already endemic, it will be in 2022.

2. Less than 1%. If you're old/fat, much higher. If you're thin/young, much lower.

3. 10-1000x less likely than #2.

I took the vaccine because I figured that the odds that I would get hospitalized (or die) due to COVID was probably 1 in 1,000 since I'm old but not fat.

Meanwhile, the odds of getting seriously fucked up from the vaccine was probably, at worst, 1 in 10,000.

If my estimates are reasonable, the answer was clear. Neither poses a grave risk. I do many things that are far riskier. So I need not lose sleep over either the vaccines or COVID.

Of the two highly unlikely events, getting fucked up from the vaccine was even less likely than the virus destroying me.

Of course, anti-vaccine folks probably flip my estimates.
Some flip them to a comical level.
One friend claimed that if she took the vaccine, there was an 80% chance that she would be hospitalized, which is f*****g hilarious.

I'd advise you to research this, but the problem with the internet is that you can find a seemingly "reliable source" for almost anything you can imagine.

I can "prove" that:

• the moon landings didn't happen


• the world is flat


• broccoli is bad for you

If you don't want to take a vaccine, it's probably because you don't trust the standard news sources. And you don't trust over 90% of doctors and medical experts.

I'm all for taking contrarian perspectives - I do it all the time. There's a famous line:

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain

However, at some point, you might want to pause and reflect more carefully if you're in the minority.

Why not be skeptical about whether murder, stealing, or Hitler are bad?

The evil mainstream media, the powerful politicians, and the fat cat corporations are unanimously pushing the narrative that murder, stealing, and Hitler are horrible. Shouldn't that make you suspicious? Isn't obvious why that is? I'll tell you why:

• They're against murder because they want to keep the population high so that more people are competing for jobs and that brings wages down!


• They're against stealing because the prison and justice system makes fat profits from all the thieves - and powerful people don't want to cut into their ill-gotten gains!


• They're against Hitler because all those powerful entities are run by Jews and they