Wuhan Killer Sneeze (thanks Tea)

[luka]

Right, but they haven't fucked themselves over to anything like the extent we have.

They played a blinder. I'm not saying otherwise. But they're not going to escape unscathed cos they are part of the world.

 

[catalog]

Something about gay wolves right?

i think it means 'man is a wolf for other men' so yeah, you're not far off i suppose...

 

[Leo]

still awaiting word whether the Pfizer vaccine will be administered at the same time as the neck barcode or after.

 

[version]

Britain's GCHQ to wage cyber war on anti-vaccine propaganda - The Times

Britain's GCHQ has begun an offensive cyber-operation to tackle anti-vaccine propaganda being spread online by hostile states, The Times reported.

uk.reuters.com

 

[beiser]

Britain's GCHQ to wage cyber war on anti-vaccine propaganda - The Times

Britain's GCHQ has begun an offensive cyber-operation to tackle anti-vaccine propaganda being spread online by hostile states, The Times reported.

uk.reuters.com

quite remarkable how quickly "war on anti-X propaganda" has supplanted "pro-X propaganda" in the lexicon

 

[IdleRich]

I take your point but there is a distinction between creating your own propaganda and stopping the propagation of someone else's.

 

[constant escape]

True, but a lot of the time you negate something, you imply something else is to be posited/valued, no?

 

[version]

Two-thirds of Britons would get COVID-19 jab; less among the young: poll

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain say they would get vaccinated for COVID-19 but young people are far more likely to refuse a jab than older people, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday.

uk.reuters.com

 

[Mr. Tea]

True, but a lot of the time you negate something, you imply something else is to be posited/valued, no?

Is it bad to imply vaccines are good?

If getting sick is bad, then not getting sick is good, isn't it?

 

[constant escape]

I meant more categorically, that the distinction is largely whether you directly, explicitly posit some answer, or indirectly, implicitly posit some answer.

But yeah I'm with you on vaccines.

 

[IdleRich]

Is it bad to imply vaccines are good?
If getting sick is bad, then not getting sick is good, isn't it?

We're just talking in the abstract. Semantics really.
If you have two sides A and B who respectively want people to believe X and Y, suppose side A puts up a website pushing X then there are two obvious things for side B to do - either take down that website or put up their own website pushing Y, now I think I think it's not unreasonable to say that those are slightly different things and while the option of pushing putting up a website pushing Y is clearly pro-Y, the option of taking down the first website is not the same and could, not unreasonably, be called anti(pro X propaganda).
My point is that the phrase anti(pro X propaganda) is not just a tortuous way of pretending that you're not just pushing Y propaganda.

 

[constant escape]

Yeah you've got a point there, think I was just zeroing in on the similarities between the two approaches.

One way they are different is that Y's identity developed by way of anti-X is dependent on X, in a way that a simply pro-Y approach wouldn't be. So if Y manages to snuff out X, by way of an anti-X approach, then it might need to scramble to define itself afterward, seeing as the anti-X approach only works when there is the X to push up against.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah it's necessarily reactive. And I'm sure both strategies will be pursued in general. Though to what extent "pro vaccine propaganda" can be successful in a world where most people would rather believe a random website called "Therealfuckinghonesttruthhonestguv.com" than any official source supplied by governments or doctors or whatever.

 

[constant escape]

Yeah and I get the feeling that a position of anti-antivaccine is more attractive, perhaps more libidinally charged, than a simple pro-vaccine. For some, at least. Having some deplorable target to work against would likely arouse greater passions than simply being in favor of a medical process.

 

[IdleRich]

Yeah definitely. Especially in a world where the US election was a lot more Pro-Trump v Ant-Trump with Biden almost an afterthought. Are negative feelings stronger than positive ones?

 

[constant escape]

Could be that they are easier to define, easier to cater to, market to. Cause positive messages require some kind of invention, whereas negative ones involve opposing things that are already defined, no?

 

[IdleRich]

Well they do.... or did. I mean some people support Manchester United and some people, they call them ABUs (anyone but United) hates them, but being FOR united doesn't require any invention (although possibly it did 130 years ago or whenever they were constituted).

 

[constant escape]

Yeah so maybe pro-something doesn't require invention, if its just affirming something that already exists.

I had political campaign ads in mind, where the two general tactics would either be pro-yourself or anti-opponent, but now that I'm really thinking about it, I don't know if the dichotomy works too well.

 

[Mr. Tea]

quite remarkable how quickly "war on anti-X propaganda" has supplanted "pro-X propaganda" in the lexicon

I suppose what I was getting at is that when I was a kid, there was not, as far as I'm aware, any such thing as "pro-vaccine propaganda", because there was no anti-vaccine propaganda - or if there was, it was far less widespread. In much the same way, nobody back then spent their time making videos patiently explaining how we know the Earth is (roughly) spherical. The pro-vaccine position was the default among people who didn't want kids to be killed or maimed for life by infectious diseases, which was assumed to be anyone who isn't a hateful lunatic. So it would no more occur to anyone to be actively "pro-vaccine" than it would to be pro-air or pro-gravity or whatever.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

My scientist friends are hoping to adopt a wait-and-see policy as far as the vaccine goes.