There is going to be an obvious bias here because a good fraction of those people will be anti-maskers, anti-handwashers, anti-vaxxers, ... basically mentally defective to begin with.
I don't see how you can account for this. It would be unethical to give a random sample of people Covid-19, and measure the cognitive abilities before and after.
People who disagree with you must be borderline mentally defective? This is unnecessary and against the HN guidelines. If you replaced those three categories with ones that describe any 'protected class' of people, I think you would instantly see why this is so.
Social distancing, masks, hand washing and related practices were available. While I'm not saying that everyone who ever contracted COVID-19 was careless (and how could we even begin to think such a thing front line workers?), there is going to be a correlation.
A random sample of people from the "got COVID" category is going to be dumber than the population.
Doctors were more exposed than average. Same for other healthcare workers and related fields, as well as service workers, sanitation workers, food industry workers (Frito-Lay has wonderful working conditions since COVID, I'm sure), essential workers... While every person with a desk job worked from home. Every person in physical rehab was stuck being in-person, as well as the occupational therapists, the home help for the disabled, etc... If this is as dangerous as we think, it means every single privileged person was able to stay home, safe and away from the unwashed masses while getting their creature comforts delivered in the safety of their lordly home, while the poor suffered trying to make ends meet delivering the aforementioned comforts while the former class were telling them "we were all in the same boat." And then the people that caught it because they tried to make it easier for others to live through this are supposed to feel what, stupid? These people are good enough for bringing you food, but not good enough to be entitled to control over their body? These people who caught COVID because they brought meds to people door-to-door because the elderly couldn't go out... Are they all stupid? Or stupider than average? Or are you (without thinking) insulting kind, courageous souls from behind your keyboard? Just a humble proposition.
To me, your post feels like an insult to the people who have to work for a living without either cushy desk jobs or the option to work with their brains exclusively, like lawyers. Watch the implications of what you say, especially if you're going to make value judgements about other humans. You don't seem to value these people's opinions or their right to live their life the way they want to. Genocides, fascism, and authoritarianism start this way. "They're stupid anyway." "They deserve it." "They're dirty." "They don't think right." "They're too dumb for their own good." "We should force them to do the right thing." "Of course the people who have that disease are stupid, they..."
The shoah started this way, and I find it disgusting that we seem to be treading the same path again, 100 years later, but for different reasons. History never quite repeats, but goddamn does it rhyme. "These damn $MINORITY, they don't $THING, we should force them to do it!", as if anything gave you such a right over another human being on G-d's green earth. They are not "less than" because they don't think like you. They have a right to be heard, and a right to tell you "I refuse." This is why fundamental, inalienable rights exist. For these moments, where momentary problems would make everything worse for everyone in the aftermath. Losing control over what gets put inside my body is a big deal, and seeing it sacrificed for temporary security makes me feel wrong.
Keep in mind that $MINORITY : $THING in the analogy above has many, many tuples. Quite a few can be pulled from history with not much thought, some persecuted because of genetic reasons, some for religious reasons, some for "I have a right to decide for myself", a.k.a. freedom reasons. But your implication that someone is stupid, and by this I mean actually measurably dumber, to the point of needing statistical compensation in a study(!), and not only stupid, but stupid to the point where they should be "assisted against their will" or mocked for doubting new medical interventions borders on the reckless, stupid, and the kind of thing future generations will look back towards with great sadness, I think. Or they'll never know we had that freedom in the first place.
It's not joyful to me, but I guess it will take one massive wake up call for people to understand vaccines (even the regular type, nevermind these new mRNA ones) are not 0-consequence, and that imposing them on others amounts to giving the state control over everyone's body in perpetuity... "My body my choice", but not when people get scared... Which is deeply unwise. Corollary to this, is that you shouldn't have a right to impose injections to healthy, aware, clearly unconsenting people. Because you might be forcing someone to go through Hell to make you feel safer. Having side effects from a forced injection is inherently cruel, and having it done to you "because you won't do it yourself" doesn't make this easier on the soul, if anything it's an even worse violation of the basic right to choose medical intervention freely and without coercion.
I'm a little sorry, frankly, for the way I might be talking about this (English is my second language), but frankly, I find what you said so offensive to reason and logic that I had to comment about it. This is a very slippery slope, and we might find ourselves slipping faster than we think. Never forget how fast life changed in the last 2 years. It can get really bad, really fast.
Do you see why this is undignified in a reasonable society? I'm not really willing to entertain this type of speech, and frankly, I'm a little surprised I'm alone in talking about this. I feel like one of those $MINORITYs again, and the $THING we collectively find wrong is my thought. I swear there used to be a novel or a movie about this, but maybe the Ministry of Truth took care of it. What was the term again? Thoughtcrime? Are we really there? "These are the wrong thoughts", like a scientific inquisition? Like "I deserve to get forcefully injected by someone I don't know because I disagree being injected is the right thing to do"? Keep your ad hominem, and get me a proper scientific debate. Clubbing people down is barbarian shit, and it doesn't matter if your bludgeon is physical or mental if it leads to visiting physical harm in the end. Vaccinating people against their will, like a scared animal, or like something "owned", isn't humane. And I'm not sure you understand, frankly, that that's what you're advocating. Because you disagree. Because they're "just being difficult." Or maybe they're being patient. Careful. Well-reasoned. I find this split in society very strange. Intelligent people are calling intelligent people stupid because of political and intellectual disagreement.
We might be making everyone stupider, and the only thing you have to say for these damaged souls and minds is "No great loss, they were stupid anyway."? I guess we'll see if the S protein itself (or fragments of it) is biologically active on its own... The vaccines are basically that. You sure this is reasonable? Really sure?
[Note : For a forum that regularly talks about computer security, I find that very little thought is put to all the possible side effects of biological code uploads through injection. In other words, the "biocomputational-security" implications of running barely-tested mRNA code (dev -> prod, anyone?) in parallel in millions of humans (millions of different codebases...) at once. Especially as computer scientists, we should be very sensitive to unintended, hard-to-find, reveals-itself-in-three-years-once-you-hit-a-weird-bug-and-your-database-is-kaput, rare-as-hell side effects that are disastrous. That's most of our expertise. I guess I'm one of those people that question the wisdom of random protein-generating mRNA being injected into us, with no choice, no right to examine the code, no way to simulate code execution or sandboxing, and coercion included if you don't go along. I know people who wouldn't download a computer file under these conditions, much less agree to medical treatment...]
In your Titanic analogy, you realize you're the Titanic and I'm the iceberg you hit, right?
> ... and earnestly promise I will stop, just as soon as this seventh paragraph's ink dries ...
It often happens that bullshit needs counter-arguments orders of magnitude larger in order to be shown as bullshit. History is full of "Obviously the Earth is flat" - "No, because $300_PAGES_OF_SCIENCE." situations, and I don't see why this is a problem, in fact I see it as a noble pursuit, in some limited respects. Your statement is abject bullshit, and I'm trying to call it out as the ad hominem, freedom-destroying bullshit it is. Stop being weak, evasive, and willfully blind, and actually read my argument instead of being trite. Maybe there's something there.
Or maybe I'm like all those others that disagree with you. I must be stupid. How else could I disagree?
If you don't want a discussion, you don't want to make points, and you don't want to be debated, maybe don't post inflammatory statements like claiming people are stupid for catching a disease. But don't come over and pretend I'm soapboxing when I'm the one calling you out from the crowd, you Very Smart Person.
[EDIT : Speaking of language issues, I should probably have said "I'm not willing to stand here idly..." instead of "I'm not willing to entertain...". Basically, I'll call out BS when I see it.]
Pretty much the opposite of that. I meant that I read some of his other posts and I would love to talk with him about some music-tech related things. But, I’m glad you’ve created a self-consistent world for yourself in which every statement and utterance by every “other” immediately fits itself into your pre-conceptions. It must be nice. For you.
> I meant that I read some of his other posts and I would love to talk with him about some music-tech related things
Ah, OK. I once read something about this somewhere. You couldn't just say exactly that in a response under one those posts, because it would go against some delicate rule of engagement in bromance.
In combination with their comments here, they now appear to be a person of integrity who shares mutual interests. Enjoy the life you create for yourself.
I don't see how you can account for this. It would be unethical to give a random sample of people Covid-19, and measure the cognitive abilities before and after.