We are Living Through the Extremes of the CultureWarification of Our Discourse

[In response to http://mic.com/articles/115430/gwyneth-paltrow-has-no-idea-what-living-on-29-a-week-is-actually-like%5D

Liberals finally confront Paltrow over her anti-vaccine dangerous pseudo-science. Just kidding, that would be rational and backed by empiricism and could actually influence how celebrities speak in public. (Do not read this as me advocating for me calling for tons of think pieces on Paltrow in that regard, you might wanna direct your rage at the U.S. Congress. Better yet: vote.)

What are they mad about?

Certain sections (the mad as fuck delusional idealistic juvenile sect) of the left are mad at Gwyneth Paltrow for engaging in a symbolic gesture. Meanwhile, states [those lower organized governmental entities that have elections which you don’t vote in] around the country – like the one I live in which saw only 32% of all registered voters vote, one of the lowest turnouts in the COUNTRY – are finishing up budgets that are devastating to the working poor, minorities, children, and the old, and all of us.

It’s not a smart point to say that Paltrow is out of touch. She literally is worth, allegedly, upwards of $120 million. No shit. No shit. No shit. No shit. No shit. No shit. No shit. This yahoo writes, in his horribly written and literally non sequitur filled word splatter, that: Paltrow needs to realize how out of touch she is. Good job for “punching up,” you are being a good little automaton warrior. Not really. You also write that she was undoubtedly trying to shine a light on poverty which literally is a word that almost no politician hardly ever uses and you find time to write this piece that literally has and should not have any materially influence at all.

You say that she needs to get in touch? She’s not going to. Also, with the kind of social distance that she necessarily has due to her privilege, and wealth, for example, she cannot put herself in the position that nearly half of all Americans are in which is one emergency away from bankruptcy. Anything whatsoever that Paltrow could ever do alone will always be symbolic. Probably read up on estates taxes, offshore accounts, the anti-IRS right wing money making corporate machine, Thomas Piketty, the tax system in general, prison reform, state elections, legislators, the vile Fix the Debt group, the housing crisis, the bailout, welfare reform in the 90s, I could go on forever. Probably start with the brain though and Homo sapiens.

And why does she need to? She’s a liberal so if she votes she will probably vote for a Democrat which regardless of the similarities, won’t try and cut social service spending. Democratic legislators and governors are vetoing and blocking destructive cuts.

I have already spent too much time on this – my problem, not yours – and it could be tightened up but I had to get something out. Bottom line: Paltrow is out of touch, that is all but irrelevant and Paltrow maybe could have bought different stuff – of course she didn’t because she eats that stuff, presumably, and fuck you for spending so much time and tweet-characters to attack a celebrity which already is the one section of society that for some reason we feel like we have the right to do so. God forbid we start acting so vigilant towards the Blackstone Group, or war criminals, or the kleptocracy, or climate change which is going to kill millions upon millions of us sooner rather than later. Look up climate science and the year 2050.

Also, we need to fucking vote more and run for office (thanks David Graeber) and vote out incumbents who vote out entrenched politicians. And get money out of politics.

Your Kid is “Unprotected,” Ok?

You write: “For crying out loud, how on Earth did the modern human race survive for 200,000 years with such a sissy immune system?”

How did we survive? Well, very precariously. In fact, life expectancy just a century ago was in the 30s. The 30s! Life expectancy in Third World countries now have a life expectancy this low too. They don’t have a CDC, NIH, world-class universities who study bacteria, viruses, etc. They don’t have a stable state or infrastructure.

200,000 years ago? So, you are talking about the Paleolithic Era. That’s easy too: Life expectancy was 33 years old. However, if you lived to 10, you could live until your 50s. So many children died in infancy that this caveat is needed to understand the numbers. So many children died that this skewed the numbers downwards. You know how we have a term for a married person who has a spouse that died? Widow? Well, yeah, that’s because it didn’t happen as often so we gave it a category. Children died so often that we didn’t create a name for what you call a parent who has a dead children. It was normal to lose a couple of children while they are really young. Being an parent for MOST of history meant losing a child, or two. These numbers are estimates based on the bset empirical data around. The wealthiest of course lived longer because they were able to enjoy excesses and has the best shelter from nature. The worse off were REALLY bad off. The slightly better than worse off were REALLY bad off. Imagine living without painkillers, and a stable supply of food, and surgery without anesthesia.

Just look at the numbers that are freely available to view that the CDC has posted on their website. In 2008, 18 people every hour died from measles around the world. This is mostly in Africa where immunization rates are minimal. That is 164,000 people a year who die from measles! Are you getting this?

More data: The U.S. all but eliminated measles completely by the year 2000. Now, in 2014, we see a sharp uptick in reported cases. We have great intelligence and data regarding where, why, and how this is happening. It is from not enough children being immunized. This is called herd immunity. Immunization works when over 90% of the targeted audience – in this case, children – receive immunization. If the number is below that, it’s easier for any one child to contact. Go to Wikipedia and look up herd immunity. It’s there. This is all freely available online. Measles is REALLY easy to contract. In fact, I was listening to one doctor speak last night and she said that someone who has measles could walk out a room and 2 hours later, an infant could still contract measles.

You are compromising your child. You are increasing the risk of those children with weak immune systems, and infants especially, who are around your child or other children who aren’t vaccinated. Vaccinations for children should be mandatory. If you have concerns about what is in vaccines, there is tons of literature on them, miles of data, and pools of sources. I read a good book in my medical ethics class a couple of years ago called Autism’s False Prophets regarding an earlier scare regarding a vaccine-autism connection. The scare was perpetrated by a guy who is no longer an accredited doctor. He is literally banned from practicing. He made up data, and straight up falsified the study. But, as we know, myths are hard to kill and once info if out there is can never be erased. If you want to believe something bad enough, than you will.

Finally, why do you think you are qualified to say such nonsense? Literally, you don’t know anything about what you are talking about. Just because you think something doesn’t make it true. There are experts in anthropology, viruses, immune systems, vaccines, biology, neuroscience, and on and on who have dedicated their life to this. This sort of reckless behavior is borne out by privilege. We do live in a wealthy nation and it’s easy to forget just how many people have died and continue to die in this world due to viruses, bacteria, and other preventable deaths.

Your blog post is ignorant, dangerous, and unbearable.