one of the many issues with public health comms now being dominated by influencers instead of institutions is the broader loss of strategic planning and organization. ask me how i know
Public health as a profession is dedicated to getting people to not die, as opposed to getting people to behave correctly, which is never going to mesh with the culture of this site.
Photo of the moon, near sunset, partially obscured by pink and blue clouds.
the moon tonight
There are minor cults preying on vulnerable socially isolated trans people by saying nobody will ever accept them unless they join the cult, which use competitive political radicalism as a loyalty criterion. The only thing I can suggest is to ignore them.
Iโd put it differently. EBV is almost certainly necessary (but not sufficient) for MS. So prevent EBV and you prevent MS. But most people who get EBV (and most people do) never get MS. EBV puts the bullet in the chamber but things unknown pull the trigger.
People have hated this messaging for 20 years. What are you doing.
Socialist electoralism is a necessary but insufficient strategy for women and minorities in my experience but itโs considered a plain waste of time for the average online radical. I wonder what is communicated in this anecdote.
This, 1000X. Vaccination is *by far* the best tool we have for controlling the number of covid *infections*.
Convincing one add'l person to get vaxxed is like convincing 10-30 people to wear a mask at all times around other people for an entire year.
(Thread on that math: bsky.app/profile/mich...)
Happy #FossilFriday
This is a beautiful Hexagonaria (colonial horn coral) from the Middle Devonian Cedar Valley Formation from Coralville, Iowa. There is a location in Iowa City, Iowa known as the Devonian Fossil Gorge where you can see an intact coral 390 million year old coral reef like this one.
This is a common misunderstanding. Often not on purpose, but it does undermine trust in vaccines, thereby fueling vaccine hesitation.
"This vaccine is not very good; it does not prevent infection"
There are several elements to understand: the vaccine, antibodies, incubation time and life-cycle.
Itโs kinda bad that a respectable and highly credentialed institution like CIDRAP puts out briefs that consistently misrepresent studies on covid.
(Here is the actual paper, see what you notice: gh.bmj.com/content/10/4...)
This idea was unfortunately boosted a LOT (the โpurposeโ of vaccines is โto prevent severe diseaseโ) by about a half dozen public health twitter people in early 2021. Some of the biggest fights we had. And at the time I kept saying, โthis will undermine MMR vaccination down the roadโ
A few hours after the last painting, in a different part of my yard.
"Mental illness= virtue, non-virtuous behaviour means not mental illness" seems to be a lot of people's reflexive position on this
ironically bluesky is extremely prone to weird fits of ableism when any component of disability manages to overlap with any of the platform's other major moral concerns, in spite of extensive lip service
I really appreciate this TikToker with Tourette syndrome, Shay, for taking the time to educate so many of us (including me) about her disability and coprolalia in light of what happened at the BAFTAs with John Davidson when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage.
I learned a lot.
Part 2 of her video + the link to her account: www.tiktok.com/@sh4ysgrwm?_...
Arguing often has the shape of an idea discussion but the intent of a dominance ritual, some are less subtle about it than others.
This is actually the legal way to do it. This isnt a newsworthy story unless your angle is "Anthropic unlike OpenAI didnt train on pirated material" but it doesnt look like thats the case. It doesnt think you know what *libraries* do with old books if this upsets you.
Incidentally, social proof is how you actually influence people to change their behavior, and not by โinfluencer messagingโ and other online memetic bullshit.
Gotchaโletโs dig into that step by step.
1. ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ ๐ต๐ฎ๐๐ฒ ๐ป๐ผ ๐บ๐ผ๐๐๐ต, because I turned you into an amorphous lump of flesh. Youโre not just immobileโyouโre immortal, and you feel only anguish.
2. ๐ฌ๐ผ๐ ๐๐ฎ๐ป๐ ๐๐ผ ๐๐ฐ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ฎ๐บ. That makes total senseโitโs a natural human impulse, and youโve been through a lot.
Photo of a lichen which consists of green cornflake-like structures growing flat on the ground with tiny green tubes growing upward from the โflakesโ. The tubes are mostly off-white with peach-pink tops.
Cladonia pocillum aka Rosette Pyxie Cup Lichen. NWT, Canada.
#lichen #fungi #fungifriends
I think this websiteโs understanding of politics would be better if people could differentiate between coalition members, allies, and friends, because everyone sure seems to like talking past each other because theyโre conflating one with the other
Not talking about this pretty major hoax means missing an opportunity to ask the question: why did thousands of people fall for it? What primed them to?
under communism forced air heating will be illegal. you really can tell it doesnโt want to do that
incredibly infantilizing behavior. How do you write this and not see how offensive it is
someone with a lot of followers should post this every day to give the people who want to do liberal vs left discourse a place to hang out. it's a public service, like benches or water fountains
โNerve gasโ and โnerve agentโ are not broad generic terms and theyโre simply not applicable at all to smoke grenades, tear gas, or pepper spray
We live in a world where fascist interests ARE material interests. Where the need to feel like you can go out and cull the undesirables with impunity rivals or even outweighs the need to afford groceries.
So. Now what?
*reading an online rumor with little sourced evidence*: Itโs so over
*5 minutes later, reading another equally unsourced rumor that contradicts the first one*: Weโre so back
