This thread may be the biggest shit show in the history of CalgaryPuck, a Calgary Flames fan site/message board I’ve been reading since 2001.
What starts as a discussion of the Jets announcing they’ll require proof of vaccination devolves as a series of antivaxxers keep popping up to make all sorts of logically and factually false arguments, compare others to Nazis and generally bloviate while the rest of the group keeps swatting down their arguments repeatedly.
This was one of the best takedowns in the entire thread:
In the interests of everyone else, I feel the need to pick apart this poorly formed argument
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Originally Posted by JackIsBack
 I stay away from this thread – because just reading the tyrannical views on this thread makes me sick… and just because a majority of people believe it or want it, that doesn’t make it right. Throughout history you can find cases where the majority has oppressed the minority and it has lead to great atrocities.
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Appeal to extreme fallacy
| I only read a few of the past points, but someone said it right, where do we draw the line to helping our fellow citizens. |
Slippery slope fallacy
| This is disease has been overblown at every turn by the governments of the world, together with the media, they have created fear and panic where none should exist. We are dehumanizing our fellow citizens and I think it should stop. Fear is a powerful emotion and you can convince all sorts of normally good people to do all manner of evils by wielding it. |
Factually incorrect about it being overblown. Highly contagious pathogens with even a low death rate are still dangerous because it’s a numbers game. Even with extreme lockdowns last year, we had over 4 million dead globally from it. It’s legitimate to be afraid of a pathogen with that sort of power to kill, nevermind the other long-term effects after recovery. You are equivocating historical examples of using fear for political reasons instead of legitimate public health reasons. They are not the same thing, but this fallacy permeates the rest of your post.
| Here is a good question, what happens if we find out the the vaccines are doing more harm than good? Should we then reverse our punishment regiment and turn it onto the vaccinated instead. |
It won’t happen because the data doesn’t support it after millions of doses in very diverse populations around the world. There’s no mechanism for any long-term effect that may still possibly arise. Your hypothetical of more harm than good is impossible.
| You see, the mRNA vaccine is not really a vaccine in the historical use of the term, |
Okay, sorry, but this is 100% grade A bull####. It’s a vaccine. Full stop. Don’t get it twisted.
| it’s a new technology that hijacks the patients cells at the injection site (although this is the intention, it’s not always the outcome) and makes them create one protein (the spike protein) that is associated with the COVID19 virus… one out of about 28 or 29 proteins that can be used by your immune system to recognize the COVID19 virus and therefore create an immune response and produce antibodies that defend against the virus. |
I have no idea what you mean by “it’s the intention, but isn’t the outcome”. The spike protein is the major antigen targeted because 1) if antibodies bind to it, it cannot attach to cells and infect (agglutination and opsonization) and 2) it covers the outside of the virus at every angle, so it is the antigen that has the highest likelihood of being encountered by circulating antibodies. You can target the other antigens as well, but it won’t substantially add anything to the effectiveness of the vaccine and would only further complicate the production process. mRNA sequences have to be relatively short and uncomplicated for the engineering technology to work well. You’re asking for something that isn’t helpful and would possibly lead to a less effective or harder to produce vaccine.
| The problem is that by only aiming the immune response to one of the proteins, you create a huge incentive (natural selection) for the virus to mutate that one protein, and guess what, that’s exactly what we see happening in the variants (like the delta variant) that are spreading out of control around the world. |
No, the Delta variant was borne out of the large Indian population that had a major surge last year (killing countless in the process BTW). When you put a highly contagious virus into a large population that has no immunity, it has the chance to reproduce rapidly amongst many different hosts, giving countless opportunities to mutate. India didn’t have much access to the vaccines at that time, and so the Delta variant was the end result. The goal of vaccination is actually to prevent opportunities for mutation, not the other way around.
I’m not saying the idea is 100% incorrect, but that’s not what happened so far with any of the variants, so you are misapplying scientific concepts.
| That’s called science… and by demeaning people like me that are trying to promote healthy skepticism and get real improvements in future medicines and vaccines, you are the problem and not the solution – this current vaccine has real side effects and real problems, and no amount of naming calling towards us is going to change that fact – It won’t make you safer, it will do exactly the opposite. |
I’m not going to get into the bull#### you’re spewing about serious side effects. You have greater risks taking an Advil compared to this shot.
In order to have proper skepticism, you have to understand the science properly, which you don’t. Unless you have even a bachelor’s degree in a scientific field, I’m not wiling to listen to anyone’s skepticism at this point. You aren’t going to create any improvement to future medicine or vaccines by sitting on your computer yelling about government overreach hoping in vain to understand this science. You aren’t going to change anything by shouting about how dangerous these shots are, you will simply be ignored for being factually incorrect.
| There was a time, and not that long ago, when residential schools were popular and the majority of people support them, they were a HUGE mistake and the vaccine passports will eventually go down in history as a terrible idea along these same lines. |
I’m sorry, but WTF? I don’t see how something borne out of quasi-racism has anything to do with what we’re talking about. That’s a pretty ridiculous point to bring up. And were they ever “popular”? Did people even understand what was going on at the time? I’m going to argue, no, not really, and they would have chosen otherwise if they did.
| If the passports came into effect today – currently I would be given a passport, or passing grade or however they work… but what about tomorrow? They can simply say that mine in invalid tomorrow because some other requirement is necessary, like a second booster (this is already the suggestion by the CDC – a third shot)…. or maybe the flu shot is required. What happens if they don’t want you travelling more than a certain distance from you home – they can add that to the requirements. The passports will dwarf into a social credit score, a score on how good a person you are… I don’t drink or smoke, should I judge you on my expectations and push your score lower because you choose to do so. How ridiculous right? But isn’t the precisely what you want to do because someone is not vaccinated. But… it will only be used for this one purpose… right, so I’m being ridiculous again… since when have you known a government to not expand a program, to not expand control – I can’t think of one area. Go back through history…. most great atrocities have been committed by governments against their very people… Mao’s China, Stalin in the Soviet Union, Cambodia, Nazi Germany…. but they weren’t democratic you say…. Hitler was elected, more recently Chávez in Venezuela was also elected. But it could never happen here, that’s what Venezuelans thought too, in fact, it so easy to get the majority to turn against a minority group, it’s been done throughout history with ease. |
This may be the stupidest and most poorly reasoned slippery slope argument I’ve ever heard. Congratulations. 
| People here will claim they are for free speech and then demand that I be censored because they simply disagree with me… but isn’t that exactly what free speech is? It’s not free speech if the only speech you allow is ones you agree with. |
I agree in principle, but when we have misinformation leading to the direct harm of people, then yeah, I think that shouldn’t be allowed on private platforms and social media. Go shout it on your neighborhood corner all you want, your ability to speak freely isn’t determined by people shouting you down or taking you off platforms. Free speech rights are about putting people in prison for speaking agains the government. That’s not happening, nor will it ever happen.
| Same with science…. It only takes one scientist, one experiment to prove a theory wrong – and it doesn’t matter how many scientist agree or agreed with it – it’s now wrong. |
NO! That’s a common misconception that people have about science. Science works on consensus, not a single experiment. That would be stupid because a single study could be incorrect, even if done properly. One scientist or experiment proving an entire theory wrong never happens. I will explain further on your point below. What a single experiment adds is data to consider with ALL the other studies. If a single study runs contradictory to many other studies, the data produced in that study has to be overwhelmingly convincing to even begin to disavow previous work that has already been established.
| Once the majority of people, scientist’s too, thought the earth was the centre of the universe – and they were WRONG. |
Oh good! You decided to cite geocentric vs. heliocentric theory! I literally wrote a textbook on this just recently. Check this out…
That is an example of how limited we were historically in terms of our ability to gather data. Geocentric theory came out of Ptolemy’s mathematical work trying to create an elegant structure out of the observed movements of heavenly bodies. There were many presuppositions that forced it into a model that wasn’t mathematically accurate, and there were many logical inconsistencies with what he produced (using imaginary equant points for centers of rotation etc.). However, it wasn’t the only theory used to explain the structure of the universe at the time. There were many other competing theories developed at the time, but none of them had enough mathematical calculation or observed data to put them higher than geocentric theory, so until we acquired better observations, it was the “best explanation” we had at the time.
That’s how a theory works, it’s simply the best explanation we have given the information we can acquire. It’s also why theories can be modified over time to fit new observations and data, but rarely is a theory simply done away with.
What happened during the Renaissance is that we started to transition into the modern world and actually fully performed the scientific method for the first time in that period. Imagine trying to find a scientific truth without fully completing the scientific method? Well you might miss something in that process, and that’s just what happened to Ptolemy.
When people like Copernicus and Kepler looked at geocentric model, they thought it was problematic because the observed data of retrograde motion and relative distance of the stars away from Earth didn’t add up. This is called a crisis point: When the data and observations runs directly counter to a theory. At that point, there were years of experiments done by various scientists like Kepler, Descartes, Galileo etc. etc. etc. to find the data necessary to overturn geocentric theory and support heliocentric theory. THAT’S how consensus works in science to change a prevailing idea, not a single experiment.
You haven’t presented anything that would indicate that the theory of vaccines is wrong or that these aren’t effective vaccines.
| We may have thought or hoped that the mRNA vaccines would work for this COVID virus, I know I did, I know I got vaccinated, but more and more evidence is proving my original hope and thoughts to be WRONG. |
Factually incorrect. The data from the initial trials was always about preventing serious illness and death, and that has pretty much held up to the same standard. What has changed is the percentage of symptomatic infection, but of course, that mutation was bound to happen with rapid spread amongst unvaccinated people.
Your statement is wrong, these vaccines ARE effective against the virus. One only needs to ask my neighbors down the street.* The husband got the vaccine, but the wife refused (because of crazy reasons not unlike your own). She got the virus and ended up in hospital. He didn’t even get a sniffle. Her lungs are still shredded 5 weeks later with lots of scar tissue. That will likely cause her to have regular pneumonia in older age and probably will shave off a few years of her life because of it. Doesn’t seem that hard to figure out to me.
*(I know it’s an anecdotal case, but it shows the differences very clearly)
| It doesn’t matter again if you believe me, it doesn’t matter if you ban or censor me, it doesn’t matter if the media tries to convince you otherwise, it doesn’t matter if Canada pushes these vaccines on the mass population, and it doesn’t matter if they mandate them… the shortcomings in these vaccines will remain until we fix them. I wonder, if we removed the liability exemption from these vaccine producers, governments, and doctors, if we released an unbiased media and scientific community to truly study them, if we opened up our minds to the truth – whatever it be…. If we truly would be having this conversation to day…. If we simply shined some light on this process and let the chips fall where they may. I think everyone is going to be shocked in short order of what has been going on here, the truth is going to come to light. |
This is meaningless conspiracy theory drivel. Top health officials have full access to the data, and there’s lots of real world data that validates all the prior conclusions. I’m not going to bother saying anything more about that ridiculous paragraph.
| We are on a very bad path…. and I’m sickened by it and quite frankly… I’m sickened by many posts on here. What was that excuse again used at the Nuremberg trial – “I was just following orders”. Like in the French revolution, how long will it take before you’re on the wrong side and the guillotine is used against all those cheering the last poor chap who lost his head. Are we to ask before we help someone, have you been vaccinated? And that truly will be a sad day when it come, and by what I read on here, it could come very soon indeed. |
Horrifying equivocation and slippery slope arguments again.These are really, really poor arguments. Nobody is asking for people to be killed or to be rounded up into death camps. I can’t believe you continue to use the most extreme examples in history to make your poorly formed points.
Listen, I think some people are a bit too extreme demanding mandated vaccines and the like, but you also need to understand that people are ####ing angry. They’re angry at the lack of compliance and those who holdout for stupid reasons. They’re angry that they have to keep sacrificing (small groups, masks, social distancing) because the small and stupid minority are holding us back from truly making this a manageable problem. They’re angry because, like me, they’ve lost people in this pandemic and they’re sick to death of people minimizing it in order to make a poorly formed argument. In short, they’re sick of all the bull#### that they’ve been forced to deal with, and so they don’t want to deal with it anymore because a few people haven’t got a clue in their head. The anger is justifiable.
Me? Personally I’m just angry that I have to bother taking time out of my morning to debunk and explain this stupid, stupid post. So do us all a favor and just stop spouting this crap. Thanks.
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