Doing this kind of thing is research. Scientists do this all the time calling it a literature review (although with scholarly material, although to be honest, usually we’ll start with Wikipedia. Wikipedia may not be citable but it often provides a nice overview and has some citable papers at the bottom 
). It is done precisely to gain an understanding of the state of the world before doing what you’ve described as the second kind of research. The key to it being research or not is whether it involves critical thought. Critical thought is at the very core of legitimate curiosity and research. And that’s what I mean when I say people who often say “do your own research” don’t really understand what that entails. They take that it to mean “reject what I disagree, regardless of the level of evidence supporting it, and accept what I agree with, regardless of how little is behind it.”
I think he might have drank the Q-laide. (Hey, it looks like I may have just coined that one.)
I like it.
You seem pretty cool. I think you and I could be good friends. I don’t have to hold the same views or opinions with someone to be good friends with them.
You keep using variations of the word “omega” in reference to me. Is there some specific reason for that which I am not aware of, or did you see that I jokingly used the word “sigma” in my profile, and are using the wrong word?
If the latter, is that an indication of how good your research skills are? Do you normally mine through peoples’ profiles and post histories? If so, what reward do you get from it - besides repeating the wrong word?
The omega comes from here.
And it isn’t, I think, unusual to mine through people’s histories if you want to get more of a idea of who they are, especially when they show (back) up complaining about all the places they have been banned for their speech, mention conspiracy theories, and immediately leap into two threads spouting right-wing conspiracy theories.
You may mean the “sigma” in your profile jokingly, but when you also describe yourself as a “biological male” and “conservative”, it sure makes it look like you mean it seriously.
Eight years ago? Sheesh. People change, my dude. Almost none of that post is accurate anymore.
Yes. For example, eight years ago you seemed like a perfectly reasonable, pleasant poster. Now you sound like a qanon nut.
Since you didn’t respond to my previous post……
Since you consider yourself to be a renowned self-taught medical researcher, are you aware that the yearly vaccine for the seasonal flu, on average, has an efficacy that hovers at around 50-60%? Do you understand that the reductions of infection rates effected by these flu vaccines have a huge positive impact in terms of slowing community spread from a public health standpoint?
Knowing that, are you going to go on a crusade to get people to stop calling it a vaccine? Are you going to encourage people to stop getting it?
And as a skilled researcher, you surely must have discovered that despite some promising theories, drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have been proven time and again to be utterly useless against pretty much every known and emergent virus —- not just Covid?
If you want to use your researching prowess to educate the public, you could possibly start there.
Wow! Yes. I’m shocked that’s the same poster. He sounded really decent back then.
You are free to have any opinion, political view, theory or ideas you want.
Doesn’t offend me at all.
Where you go wrong, IMO, is disputing someones knowledge of how their loved one died and of what disease.
Poking at people in their grief is just wrong.
You can’t know where they are in that grief and you’re not qualified to diagnose.
COVID has caused millions to grieve.
Dispute that.
I dare you.
False. I never claimed that. I have access to all the same information (until it is censored) as everyone else. I read it and digest it. Don’t exaggerate with your strawmen.
Influenza is different every year. They guess which kind of influenza will be most prevalent, and engineer the flu shot that year around that. The reason we have not eradicated the flu is because it is transmissible across species. The same for Covid. As evidence of this, the origination of Covid probably was a lab leak (which was information that people were banned for stating), but probably initially due to human infection from a bat.
The CDC does not recommend the flu shot for people under 65. But, you probably recommend the Covid shot for everyone.
Again, the CDC does not even have the Covid shot on their list of vaccines.
Please stop with your disinformation.
Nope. Zoom out.
What I am trying to avoid is someone believing something very important blindly without asking important questions about it. That poster mentioned all the other comorbidities that their mother had. But, they were told that it was Covid that killed their mother.
If the mother would have survived had they only had Covid alone, then how can you discount all the other comorbidities? You can’t. And, by the definition of the word “comorbidities”, they are possible causes of death.
I mean, they can believe what they want to believe, and believe blindly what other people tell them. I’m just trying to give a macro view of how someone shouldn’t automatically go that route.
Yes, I’m using omega to poke fun at your use of sigma in your profile.
Sadly, you don’t seem to have improved with age. As with quite a few others, after seeing your first thread, I also went back and looked at some your historic posts. You seem like a completely different person back then. I thought, cool, maybe we’ll have another conservative here who isn’t a complete asshole. I noticed you had voted for Trump, which was concerning, but I could understand why somebody might have voted for Trump. Nobody in their right mind could possibly be still pro-Trump, or even pro-Republican.
But then came your first post that I saw on climate change, and I thought, “wow, this isn’t good”. How can then be anybody who with all the evidence that has become increasingly apparent in the past few decades still be in a climate change denialist. But you know ok, I can still give a small benefit of the doubt.
But then I saw the COVID post, and it was obvious that you had fallen DEEP into the right-wing conspiracy hole. The stuff you’re posting is madness. It is completely detached from reality. If there is anything of the person you were on these boards 8 years ago, then you desperately need new sources of information because your mind has been poisoned by right-wing media.
So yeah, here we are. My guess is that you will not go and start to acquire new, and better information, but instead will double and triple and quadruple down on this insanity, until you slink off because everybody here is mean to you, and are not worthy of your superior wisdom anyway. I’m definitely seeing why you felt unwelcome (or were kicked) from other places.
The CDC recommends a flu vaccine for everyone 6 months of age and older with some rare exceptions.
As for your vaccine list, I wouldn’t expect the Covid vaccine to appear on a list that, according to your link, was last reviewed on April 13th 2018.
You are either a straight up liar or incredibly stupid. People as dumb as you shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer, it’s a public safety issue.
Why can’t he be both?
Not your job.
Off-topic. I think being a conservative here is a minority. At least, it was when I was here before. That doesn’t scare me. It energizes me. (Is Shadodan still here, by the way? The guy that made the viral post about the horrors of those helium-filled metallic balloons?) If you ever wanted to do an honest Q&A on this above, I’m game. I’ll even start it off with a controversial declaration: I’m not Republican. At least, not anymore.
Shodan was banned.
Let me guess, you’re an RFK Jr Democrat.