Comments by "Jason Dashney" (@jasondashney) on "Francis Collins: National Institutes of Health (NIH) | Lex Fridman Podcast #238" video.

  1.  @nickc3856  Are you in the habit of turning off every interview the moment you hear something that sets off your bullshit detector? You will never be able to fully understand your opponent's argument if you can't hear the totality of what they are saying. If you can't fully understand your opponent's full argument, how will you ever be able to credibly counter it?
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  2. That's what brought me here too. I am in the wrong headspace to listen to a long interview right now. I'd be punching babies.
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  3. I withhold final judgement on literally everything until I get what I assume is a relatively complete picture. Once I believe I have that, I'm table pounding and rabid about the conclusion (unless new information comes along to disprove me). Objective people like us are the ones they should want to reach. Our circles know that we don't spout off about things we are quite ignorant of, so our opinions are often trusted more than others. The fact that only one side of this debate has tried to reason with objective minded people is hurting their case on a level they just can't seem to grasp, or perhaps they know we are much harder to con so they don't even try. They should spend all of their time trying to convince skeptics, as opposed to repeating simplistic talking points over and over. When's the last time someone swayed you buy belittling you? If they would actually address any of our concerns head on, they could eliminate most of the tinfoil hat conspiracy theorists. How can these people not see that their obvious lies and obfuscations are fertile soil for conspiracy theorists at worst, but skeptics at best is beyond me. The way they've gone about it could not be crafted any better if they wanted to ensure that people are largely sceptical. It's beyond belief. God help us all if we are ever attacked by aliens because I think we've demonstrated that we would not unite as a species. At all.
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  4. I'd love to see Kory debate Fauci or this guy on the show.
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  5. The official narrative is: if you can't win by reason, go for semantics.
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  6. Haha, I love your last line. That's fucking perfect.
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  7. Rand Paul is trying to distract from his own failings? THAT'S why he's going after Fauci?! FFS come up with something better than that. So Rand Paul is thinking "Man, people are all mad at me. I better come up with something to deflect that anger. I know, I'll go after Fauci!"? Fuckssakes. "A really good communicator"? The guy who lied about masks? The guy who has never emphasized how people need to keep up their immune systems to better, ya know, fight pathogens? That's your great communicator? This guy is having a semantic argument about gain of function but he very carefully avoids addressing the core of the question. Is this because he wanted to but gosh darn he lacks Fauci's incredible communication skills? I'm not saying this guy is wrong or lying. I'm certainly not qualified to say that, but I wish that instead of this podcast he had gone on Darkhorse to argue with Brett. Heather would've probably jumped the table so she can't be there, haha. I just want to see someone ask this guy the tough questions in a way he can't wriggle out of. He's probably not evil, but he's probably not a saint either. Okay, officially fuck this guy and I'm only 23 minutes in. He says there are no credible attacks you can lay on Fauci. How about the mask statement? I don't care how justified it was in their minds, he still lied about it and he is still supposed to be the top official so of course it's OK to attack him based on that. And he kept insisting in the early days that it was theoretically technically possible for this to be a lab leak but that thinking that it was our insisting that it was probably a lab leak made you some sort of conspiracy nut even though, as this guy admits, three times there have been leaks of coronaviruses. I don't trust anyone who puts anyone else on such a pedestal. Even if Fauci has been unfairly vilified for certain things, he absolutely has also fairly warranted criticism for others. At 25:12 he says Fauci has told the truth at every moment, then a couple minutes later admit Fauci said you don't wear masks partly cuz the hospitals needed them. I can't think of a better example of talking out of both sides of your mouth at the same time. And Fauci literally chuckled when saying it, as if the suggestion was ridiculous. That was the part that struck me at the time. That he was so dismissive of the concept as to openly mock it. I'm really, really hoping for a sign of hope in this podcast. A sign that I need to put the pitchfork away and admit the complexity of the issue and maybe find some middle ground. I have not found that. All I've found is a guy who seems like he's so steeped in the politics that it's become one with his life and he doesn't even see it anymore. I believe that he believes what he's saying. I don't think he's malevolent or purposefully misleading. I just think he's so far down the rabbit hole that he can't see the forest for the trees. WTF?! Just as I'm starting to empathize with this guy a little bit when he's talking about trying to get his message out to the vaccine hesitant, he says that there have been dozens of vaccines. Come on man, you know damn well that the issue is the fact that most of the vaccines were created with a brand new technology, and that the ones that weren't, were created at a much faster time scale than anything else in history and that includes longer term studies of their safety and efficacy. Dude you almost had me, but every time I start to move a bit towards your side you say something that drops my jaw. There's no way you can fundamentally misunderstand people's basic, obvious hesitancy like that. You are certainly not a stupid man, so what gives? Around the 34 minute mark he makes this overtly political. He talks about "misinformation" and is most certainly only calling out media that doesn't support his agenda, cuz CNN etc have also done their fair share of garbage reporting to instil fear, and then he equates this to the 2020 election's legitimacy, especially after 2016 had the exact same problem according to Hillary herself (but we won't mention that, I guess). The next thing Lex says is about humility and he's absolutely bang on. OMG, then this guy says Joe was anti-vaccine. He is NOT. He thinks everyone who is vulnerable should absolutely take it, but that he himself is healthy and doesn't need it. He was proven correct with regards to himself. Even this guy is unfairly painting Joe. So fuck this guy. I've made my decision just under 1/2 way in because he's said soooo many questionable things already, starting right at the beginning. Holy fuck. Right after that he goes off about how Ivermectin is not known about yet as far as efficacy and that the information thus far supporting it doesn't come from science. What? Paging Dr Pierre Kory and many others. This guy absolutely lacks any form of humility. It's cool for him to say they are still working on the data, but he makes it seem like anything that goes against the popular narrative can't possibly come from science, even though many people who've been skeptical of things or have stumped for Ivermectin could not be more highly credentialed. Maybe Ivermectin turns out to be a dud, but to dismiss the push as unscientific is infuriating. He won't give the other side and inch. In any way. "The vaccine doesn't care how healthy you are"? Please find better wording because that's just nonsense. FFS the data says otherwise. Outlier cases have healthy people getting fucked up but look at the hospitalizations and deaths and tell me you can't draw conclusions as to who those people are. Then he tries to bolster his claim using anecdotal evidence, the type he purportedly abhors. The longer I listen the less I like this man and that sucks so much. I was really hoping to sympathize with the position he's in but I find my sympathies few and far between. I'll stop ranting now because I'm barely halfway through and look what I've already written.
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