#how to fight coronavirus

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

Take care of your body

Why You Should Take a Break: The Importance of Rest and Relaxation

I Think I Need to Go the Emergency Room?

Run With Me if You Want to Save: How Exercising Will Save You Money

Your Yearly Free Medical Care Checklist

Ask the Bitches: Ugh, How Do I Build the Habit of Taking Meds?

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Survive in an Apartment with No Heat?

The Expensive Difference Between Recreation and Recovery 

Take care of your mind

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Everything Is Stressful and I’m Dying: How to Survive a Panic Attack

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake

Ask the Bitches: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed

Update: I Know How to Struggle and Fight, but I Don’t Know How to Succeed

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Absolve Myself of Financial Guilt Over My Pricey PS4?

The Frugal Introvert’s Guide to the Weekend

Take care of your time

Stop Measuring Your Time in Beyoncé Hours

Help! I’m Procrastinating and I Can’t Get Up!

You Won’t Regret Your Frugal 20s

Actually, Fuck Big Goals

How to Insulate Yourself From Advertisements

I’ve Succeeded at Every New Year’s Resolution I’ve Ever Made. Here’s How.

Romanticizing the Side Hustle: When 1 Job Isn’t Enough

8 Free Time Management Systems To Try in the New Year

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

I Am So Over Productivity Porn 

Take care of your career

High School Students Have No Way of Knowing What Career to Choose. Why Do We Make Them Do It Anyway?

The Actually Helpful, Nuanced, Non-Bullshit Way to Choose a Future Career

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

My Secret Weapon for Preparing for Awkward Boss Confrontations

Freelancer, Protect Thyself… With a Fair Contract

I Hate My Job and I Don’t Know How To Leave It: A Confession

A New Job, a New Day, a New Life, and I’m Feeling Good

Season 1, Episode 9: “I’ve Given up on My Dream Career. Where Do I Go From Here?”

How Abusive Workplaces Mirror Abusive Relationships 

Take care of your space

How to Successfully Work from Home Without Losing Your Goddamn Mind (Or Your Job)

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Ask the Bitches: I Want to Move Out, but I Can’t Afford It. How Bad Would It Be to Take out Student Loans to Cover It?

How To Maintain Your Car When You’re Barely Driving It

Take care of your people

How Dafuq Do Couples Share Their Money?

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

How Can I Tame My Family’s Crazy Gift-Giving Expectations?

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

Love in the Time of Coronavirus: How to Protect Your Community and Your Soul from COVID-19

Be Somebody’s Eliza with a Simple Yet Life-Changing Act of Kindness 

The Ultimate Guide to Helping a Sick Friend 

Learning To Reverse the Golden Rule

I Have Become the Rich Relative I Always Wanted  

Take care of your financial well-being

Ask the Bitches: How Can I Make Myself Financially Secure Before Age 30?

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?

Slay Your Financial Vampires

Should Artists Ever Work for Free?

Don’t Spend Money on Shit You Don’t Like, Fool

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Financial Math

Share My Horror at the World’s Worst Debt Visualization

Stop Undervaluing Your Freelance Work, You Darling Fool

A (Somewhat) Comprehensive List of Fun Job Perks that Won’t Pay Your Rent

We will periodically update this list with newer articles. And by “periodically” I mean “when we remember that it’s something we forgot to do for four months.”

Bitches Get Riches: setting realistic expectations since 2017!

Join the Bitches on Patreon

[mangalho]

Ex-warbot OC

They don’t have names yet.

The two bots with the scary faces were specifically made for war, and now that it’s over, they still maintained their original ‘warface’ even though it has stigma associated to it. Many robots changed their faceplates post-war, as it made it easier to find jobs and not get into unnecessary conflict.

The sleeker looking guy used to be in their company, though he wasn’t made in the same factory as them; he isn’t their ’batch-mate’.

After the war he completely modified his frame, and now has an idol career. He desperately wats to erase his past, as people (and robots alike) will respond better to a ‘new’ and untainted idol.

The two warface bots are “brother and sister” and they do odd jobs here and there to make ends meet and to be able to afford things they want. Rich people hire them as bouncers a lot since they are a symbol of terrible times. Sometimes they earn 15k in one night for just one gig it’s crazy. They both really love clothes since it distances them from their body’s original purpose while simultaneously not erasing their past. Also they look cute and cool!

The idol bot once meets the warfaces by chance in the street and pretends he doesn’t know them AGAHAKALAK I think he’s insane… completely erasing your past and the person you were is psychopathic to me idk. Anyway

There arent a lot of warfaces going around anymore. since they either died during the war or changed their frames. Pre-war bots were re-fitted during the conflicts and just had to go back to their former unweaponized frames after it was all over so they’re fine.  All of these robots can download information and i want that type of learning to mostly disappear if its deleted, but if they learn things like we do or experience real events, those memories and skills can’t really truly be erased; if they do try erasing them, they will still remember them, just not with HD video clarity, which brings them immense suffering sometimes. “How to people live like this?!” Well buddy it sucks idk we all cope

Newly minted robots are wack because they don’t exactly have a ‘soul’ yet they just do things they’re supposed to do, but after some time, all of them actually develop real awareness and shit… my war bots had like a 78% chance of dying everyday when they were activated, but they survived and attained sentience at like one year post birth and they wised up rly fast after that. They remember their first year, but they describe it as a ‘weird haze’

These robots feel pain so they wont like dive into a hole or damage themselves too much. Self preservation means longer-lived machines which means less repair costs and less human lives on the line as well.. slay !!!

While the conflicts went on, most robots achieved sentience and decided to stop fighting so there was like a robots rights movement and eventually the war stopped altogether and now the robots have a salary and a normal life mostly. They arent organics, so they need other things. They are solar powered and need oil sometimes and also they need new nanomachines once in a while like we need vaccines. Get your boosters… its not just tetanus and coronavirus anymore now they gotta think about like..the trojan horse 9000

I want them to have this aversion to organic things dying bc they are universally gross. Like they dont like seeing living-machines die either but a rat being squished by a car is also gross!

There are probably some tensions between humans and robots but like i kinda get it bc i wouldnt mess with a guy who has like lead pipes for arms. also most robots ARE normal but some are insane idk 🙆‍♀️🤷‍♀️ just  like people are.

 mine are normal tho they’re just vibing 💖🗣🤙

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Hello! First of all, thank you for the wonderful content! It's a real joy, and an enrichment, food for both the brain and the heart! I was wondering if through your treasures, you could find some writing notes/words/concepts/vocabulary relating to genetic engineering? Like...creating a virus, and a vaccine for it, modifying the virus so it has certain specific effects.... Thank you in advance!

Writing Notes: Virus & Vaccine

References How Viruses Work; Replication Cycle; Mutation, Variants, Strains, Genetically Engineering Viruses; Writing Tips; Creating your Fictional Virus & Vaccine

Virus - an infectious microbe consisting of a segment of nucleic acid (either DNA or RNA) surrounded by a protein coat.

It is a tiny lifeform that is a collection of genes inside a protective shell. Viruses can invade body cells where they multiply, causing illnesses.

It cannot replicate alone; instead, it must infect cells and use components of the host cell to make copies of itself. Often, a virus ends up killing the host cell in the process, causing damage to the host organism.

Well-known examples of viruses causing human disease include AIDS, COVID-19, measles and smallpox. Examples of viruses:

Viruses are even smaller than bacteria and can invade living cells—including bacteria. They may interfere with the host genes, and when they move from host to host, they may take host genes with them.

Bacteriophages (also known as phages)—viruses that infect and kill bacteria.

Size differential between virus and bacterium

Viruses are measured in nanometers (nm).

They lack the cellular structure of bacteria, being just particles of protein and genetic material.

How Viruses Work

Viruses use an organism’s cells to survive and reproduce.

They travel from one organism to another.

Viruses can make themselves into a particle called a virion.

This allows the virus to survive temporarily outside of a host organism. When it enters the host, it attaches to a cell. A virus then takes over the cell’s reproductive mechanisms for its own use and creates more virions.

The virions destroy the cell as they burst out of it to infect more cells.

Viral shedding - when an infected person releases the virus into the environment by coughing, speaking, touching a surface, or shedding skin.

Viruses also can be shed through blood, feces, or bodily fluids.

Virus Replication Cycle

While the replication cycle of viruses can vary from virus to virus, there is a general pattern that can be described, consisting of 5 steps:

Attachment – the virion attaches to the correct host cell.

Penetration or Viral Entry – the virus or viral nucleic acid gains entrance into the cell.

Synthesis – the viral proteins and nucleic acid copies are manufactured by the cells’ machinery.

Assembly – viruses are produced from the viral components.

Release – newly formed virions are released from the cell.

Mutations, Variants, and Strains

Not all mutations cause variants and strains. Below are definitions that explain how mutations, variants, and strains differ.

Mutation - errors in the replication of the virus’s genetic code; can be beneficial to the virus, deleterious to the virus, or neutral

Variants - viruses with these mutations are called variants; the Delta and Omicron variants are examples of coronavirus mutations that cause different symptoms from the original infection

Strains - variants that have different physical properties are called strains; these strains may have different behaviors or mechanisms for infection or reproduction

Genetically Engineering Viruses

Using reverse genetics, the sequence of a viral genome can be identified, including that of its different strains and variants.

This enables scientists to identify sequences of the virus that enable it to bind to a receptor, as well as those regions that cause it to be so virulent.

Vaccine - a special preparation of substances that stimulate an immune response, used for inoculation

Vaccines & Fighting Viruses with Viruses

Common pathogenic viruses can be genetically modified to make them less pathogenic, such that their virulent properties are diminished but can still be recognized by the immune system to produce a robust immune response against. They are described as live attenuated.

This is the basis of many successful vaccines and is a better alternative than traditional vaccine development which typically includes heat-mediated disabling of viruses that tend to be poorer in terms of immunogenicity.

Viruses can also be genetically modified to ‘fight viruses’ by boosting immune cells to make more effective antibodies, especially where vaccines fail. Where vaccines fail, it is often due to the impaired antibody production by B-cells, even though antibodies can be raised against such viruses – including HIV, EBV, RSV & cold-viruses.

Related Articles: Modified virus used to kill cancer cells ⚜ Genetic Engineering ⚜ Engineering Bacterial Viruses ⚜ Benefits of Viruses

A Few Writing Tips

As more writers look to incorporate infectious diseases into their work, there are quite a few things writers should keep in mind:

Don’t anthropomorphize. Really easy to do, but scientifically wrong. Viruses don’t want to kill you; bacteria don’t want to infect you; parasites don’t want to make your blood curdle. None of these things are big enough to be sentient to want to do anything. They just do it (or don’t do it).

Personal protective equipment. This includes wearing gloves, lab coats, safety glasses, and tying your hair back if it’s long. It is the same as Edna Mode’s “no capes.” Flowing hair looks cool all the way to the explosive ball of flames that engulfs someone’s head.

Viruses are small. You can’t see viruses down a normal microscope—they need a special microscope called an electron microscope. These are highly specialized and take a long time to make the preparations to be able to see the virus. Normally viruses are detected by inference—measuring part of them using an assay that can amplify tiny amounts of material, for example PCR.

Viruses don’t really cause zombie apocalypses. 

Vaccines work. But they take time. The best vaccine in the world will still only prevent infections two weeks after it is given. Drugs are quicker, but still take some time. But the good news is an infection is not going to kill you (or turn you into a zombie) quickly, so they both have time to work.

Scientists use viruses as a vector to introduce healthy genes into a patient’s cells:

Your Fictional Virus & Vaccine

When creating your own fictional virus, research further on the topic and consider choosing a specific one as your basis/inspiration.

Here's one resource. For some of them, you'll need a subscription to access, but those that are available give you a good overview of the virus, as well as treatment options.

You can do the same for creating your fictional vaccine:

Here's one resource. And here's one on vaccine developments.

Sources: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 ⚜ Writing Notes & References

Lastly, here's an interesting article on how science fiction can be a valuable tool to communicate widely around pandemic, whilst also acting as a creative space in which to anticipate how we may handle similar future events.

Thanks so much for your kind words, you're so lovely! Hope this helps with your writing. Would love to read your work if it does :)

[mariacallous]

For Sander van der Linden, misinformation is personal.

As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He became absorbed by the question of how so many people came to support the ideas of someone like Adolf Hitler, and how they might be taught to resist such influence.

While studying psychology at graduate school in the mid-2010s, van der Linden came across the work of American researcher William McGuire. In the 1960s, stories of brainwashed prisoners-of-war during the Korean War had captured the zeitgeist, and McGuire developed a theory of how such indoctrination might be prevented. He wondered whether exposing soldiers to a weaker form of propaganda might have equipped them to fight off a full attack once they’d been captured. In the same way that army drills prepared them for combat, a pre-exposure to an attack on their beliefs could have prepared them against mind control. It would work, McGuire argued, as a cognitive immunizing agent against propaganda—a vaccine against brainwashing.

Traditional vaccines protect us by feeding us a weaker dose of pathogen, enabling our bodies’ immune defenses to take note of its appearance so we’re better equipped to fight the real thing when we encounter it. A psychological vaccine works much the same way: Give the brain a weakened hit of a misinformation-shaped virus, and the next time it encounters it in fully-fledged form, its “mental antibodies” remember it and can launch a defense.

Van der Linden wanted to build on McGuire’s theories and test the idea of psychological inoculation in the real world. His first study looked at how to combat climate change misinformation. At the time, a bogus petition was circulating on Facebook claiming there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to conclude that global warming was human-made, and boasting the signatures of 30,000 American scientists (on closer inspection, fake signatories included Geri Halliwell and the cast of M*A*S*H). Van der Linden and his team took a group of participants and warned them that there were politically motivated actors trying to deceive them—the phony petition in this case. Then they gave them a detailed takedown of the claims of the petition; they pointed out, for example, Geri Halliwell’s appearance on the list. When the participants were later exposed to the petition, van der Linden and his group found that people knew not to believe it.

The approach hinges on the idea that by the time we’ve been exposed to misinformation, it’s too late for debunking and fact-checking to have any meaningful effect, so you have to prepare people in advance—what van der Linden calls “prebunking.” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

When he published the findings in 2016, van der Linden hadn’t anticipated that his work would be landing in the era of Donald Trump’s election, fake news, and post-truth; attention on his research from the media and governments exploded. Everyone wanted to know, how do you scale this up?

Van der Linden worked with game developers to create an online choose-your-own-adventure game called Bad News, where players can try their hand at writing and spreading misinformation. Much like a broadly protective vaccine, if you show people the tactics used to spread fake news, it fortifies their inbuilt bullshit detectors.

But social media companies were still hesitant to get on board; correcting misinformation and being the arbiters of truth is not part of their core business model. Then people in China started getting sick with a mysterious flulike illness.

The coronavirus pandemic propelled the threat of misinformation to dizzying new heights. Van der Linden began working with the British government and bodies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations to create a more streamlined version of the game specifically revolving around Covid, which they called GoViral! They created more versions, including one for the 2020 US presidential election, and another to prevent extremist recruitment in the Middle East. Slowly, Silicon Valley came around.

A collaboration with Google has resulted in a campaign on YouTube in which the platform plays clips in the ad section before the video starts, warning viewers about misinformation tropes like scapegoating and false dichotomies and drawing examples from Family Guy and Star Wars. A study with 20,000 participants found that people who viewed the ads were better able to spot manipulation tactics; the feature is now being rolled out to hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

Van der Linden understands that working with social media companies, who have historically been reluctant to censor disinformation, is a double-edged sword. But, at the same time, they’re the de facto guardians of the online flow of information, he says, “and so if we’re going to scale the solution, we need their cooperation.” (A downside is that they often work in unpredictable ways. Elon Musk fired the entire team who was working on pre-bunking at Twitter when he became CEO, for instance.)

This year, van der Linden wrote a book on his research, titled Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity. Ultimately, he hopes this isn’t a tool that stays under the thumb of third-party companies; his dream is for people to inoculate one another. It could go like this: You see a false narrative gaining traction on social media, you then warn your parents or your neighbor about it, and they’ll be pre-bunked when they encounter it. “This should be a tool that’s for the people, by the people,” van der Linden says.

[luna-rainbow]

Hello, hello, long rant incoming

When I reposted this on AO3, I had intentionally minimised tagging and summary because I wanted to archive it rather than attract readers. I didn’t even tag it Steve/Bucky because there just wasn’t enough mention of Bucky in it. Importantly, P*ggy was not tagged.

The user calls themselves “Rebuttal” and their only work is another essay rebutting someone else’s post on Civil War, which they had to post separately because I guess the OP blocked them. So we have a serial offender with too much time on their hands going around to directly suck the joy out of other people’s fandom experience.

They begin with this:

Although I don't particularly care for Steve's ending, this essay does not offer support for a different one.

*Inhales* Honey, can you please Google analytical essay and narrative essay before you unload your drivel on other people? This "essay" is a fic - while there's some character analysis, the emotive language should be sufficient clue that the focus is the story. It’s like reading The Fifth Elephant then writing to Sir Pratchett to argue his “essay on Discworld” is factually incorrect because it offers no support for the idea that the Earth is flat.

Steve is self-sufficient. He is not shown as requiring Bucky as foundational to his being. (…) We do know Steve was willing and expecting to go it alone after Sarah's death and that he is fully confident in his own abilities; he can "do this all day." Bucky's offer at the apartment earns a small smile, not a great overcoming.

I enjoyed how you, at multiple points in your essay, pick at certain turns of (evocative) phrasing while ignoring actual canon mentions. Explain why you deliberately omitted my mention of the canon phrase "Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky". Sure, Sarah was Steve's touchstone, but Steve's words clearly indicated that upon Sarah's death, that touchstone role shifted to Bucky.

Steve's "I can do this all day" is said a total of 4 times during all the movies. Each time he says it to a bully (one time he specifically says it to protect Bucky), and never in relation to his emotional turmoil. Also just, factually, he never references "I can do this all day" when Sarah dies can you be real for a sec.

It's mighty rich of you to say a grieving person who had JUST BURIED HIS SOLE LIVING RELATIVE that a) "he is willing to do it alone" - I can guarantee no one who has lost their sole beloved family member feels "willing" in that situation; and b) downplaying the smile that took all of Steve's energy to muster. All I can conclude is you know nothing of grief. (And since you love the word "disservice" so much - your interpretation of the scene is a fucking disservice to CEvans' acting.)

Steve's choice to go to war has nothing to do with Bucky. Steve has tried five times to enlist and stated his reasons, which have nothing to do with Bucky and everything to do with not liking bullies.

Because, you know, saying “I want to join the 107th cos I’m gay for my best friend” is going to go down real well in the 1940s military *snerks*

Can you get your head out of your ass for one minute and consider that people make decisions based on multiple factors? By acknowledging that Bucky is an important factor in Steve wanting to join the war DOES NOT MINIMISE STEVE'S MORAL COMMITMENT TO FIGHT BULLIES.

Steve is also not aghast at hearing Bucky's assignment. - Back this up.

Bucky does not believe in pre-serum Steve as much as pre-serum Steve believes in himself. - Right. *In Bucky’s tired voice* Because simply ~*♫~believing in yourself~*♫~ is going to stop you getting killed. This is a fucking war, not a back alley. Do you know the death rate for US soldiers in WW2? 1 in 40. For perspective, the death rate from coronavirus is currently sitting at 1 in 70.

Whether Bucky went to war or not, Steve wanted to go. - Again, back your ass-umptions up.

Steve was told Bucky was dead. He was going to try to rescue the rest of the 107th. Again, to suggest that Steve's courageous act is about Bucky is a disservice to Steve.

So not only do you remember fuck all about the movie where it doesn’t involve your fave, you apparently remember fuck all about the scenes where YOUR FAVE APPEARS.

P*ggy: “What do you plan to do, walk to Austria?” Steve: “If that’s what it takes.” P*ggy: “You heard the Colonel. Your friend is most likely dead.” Steve: “You don’t know that.”

NOW LOOK THOSE WORDS IN THE EYES AND TELL ME HIS RESCUE MISSION IS NOT ABOUT BUCKY.

Also, Steve wanting to rescue his best friend is a "disservice" to his character? Condolences to your friends and your character, I guess.

It is strange to ignore Steve's interactions with people other Bucky. Okay here we go, we’re finally getting to why this steaming trash heap landed in my inbox. It's Peggy who - I knew it. I fucking knew it. Of course it came from someone who likes Miss I-need-to-make-everything-about-me - appreciated pre-serum Steve at the flagpole - Oh you mean the appreciation she showed by not uttering a single word to him?

Peggy and Erskine supported pre-serum Steve's drive to do his part when Bucky did not. It seems truer to say that they more likely "kept Steve afloat" during his basic training, of which Bucky had no part.

Hold on. *walks off to cackle* *walks back, wheezing*. P*ggy kept Steve afloat? Miss-never-said-a-single-word-to-Steve-P*ggy, “supported” Steve during his basic training??

Again, I urge you to actually watch CATFA, where *checks notes* your fave has her biggest movie role. AFTER STEVE FINISHES BASIC TRAINING, the two of them sit in a car and exchange the infamous lines:

P*ggy: “You have no idea how to talk to a woman, do you?” Steve: “I think this is the longest conversation I’ve had with one.”

They have, by their own admission, not had a conversation before this, so which bull’s ass did you pull the “P*ggy kept Steve afloat during his basic training” shit out of?

There is nothing in the scenes to suggest he finds it a great miracle. The whole assumption of Steve's reaction seems to be a Bucky-centric projection rather than Steve-centric.

No, honey, I think you are just blinded by your Bucky hate. You looked at a scene where 2 characters (including your fave) claimed that Bucky is no longer alive, and Steve himself said, "I thought you were dead" - and Bucky was, against all odds and expectations of at least 3 different characters, found alive...and said, NAH NAH NAH NAH there's nothing here! There's nothing~here~to~suggest~it's a miracle.

Honestly I think you're the one living in a different plane of projection.

When Steve awakens in the future, his line to Fury is "I had a date." With Peggy, not Bucky.

Pfft he said “I had a date”, not "I had a date with P*ggy". So your interpretation is just as invalid.

And just, realistically, do you really think Steve is deluded enough to expect he’d wake up in time for a dance? And...do you really think Steve is desperate enough that he'd go for a woman who blasted him with live rounds for locking lips with another woman? When in your own words you said he hates bullies?

We do not know what Steve thought as he died, so saying he is content with death is not supported.

How about this -- "we do not know what Steve thought as he died, so saying he is not content with death is not supported". It’s my conjecture against yours and you’ve come onto my turf to be a presumptuous prick.

He has Peggy and Natasha. To ignore these two relationships seems to do a disservice to both characters.

Ah yes, the great relationship with P*ggy, who in 5 minutes of her screen time is characterised by: 1) mocking Steve as “dramatic” when he asks for guidance, and 2) her florid delirium in which he had to pull the emotional labour to placate her, and 3) her being grateful that she's led a great life without Steve.

If oldwoman!P*ggy was such an important relationship to Steve, he wouldn't have lamented to Natasha that "it's not easy finding someone with shared experience".

If there is any lesson Steve should learn in the modern day, it is that Steve sacrifices and Bucky leaves. Once involuntarily with the Snap, but twice voluntarily.

WHO THE FUCK HURT YOU AND MESSED UP YOUR BRAIN. I don't know how you can look at those scenes and pretend that the sole victim is Steve.

(Actually I can, because it's a common refrain from certain shit!stans who can't deal with the idea of Bucky being morally good)

Bucky sacrificed his own freedom and lived time in order to protect other people from getting hurt. And Bucky being involuntarily "Snapped" only counts as "Steve's sacrifice"?? The one who actually dies/gets Snapped isn't making a sacrifice? My gods the logic in this one is strong. (Also by referring to Bucky's death as Steve's sacrifice you have inadvertently acknowledged just how important Bucky is to him but I guess that flew over your head like the rest of this story)

It also ignores that Steve lived five years without all of those people. He had accepted the loss and changed into someone they would never truly know or understand.

Mate…

Do you hear yourself…

YOU LITERALLY WROTE THE COUNTERARGUMENT TO YOUR ENTIRE ESSAY.

Steve lived TWELVE YEARS WITHOUT YOUNG P*GGY. He had ACCEPTED THE LOSS (although, in my mind, it's really no big loss) and BOTH OF THEM HAD CHANGED INTO COMPLETELY UNRECOGNISABLE PEOPLE, not to mention they never truly knew or understood each other to begin with. So if your logic is that Steve has changed too much in 5 years to be around his old friends, why the fuck would he want to be around a woman he last saw 12 years ago and who he knew got an entire happy married life with another man. Eww.

I mean if NTR is your kink that's fine but no need to flaunt that on my turf.

The fun thing about fandom is that canon is open to different interpretations. You could read the tavern scene to say P*ggy is inviting Steve to be her right partner, just as I could point out that Steve’s pointed silence is a resounding rejection of that invitation.

But there is incorrect fandom etiquette, and that’s when you stomp into an innocuous narrative musing and start a ship war.

And I beg of you to learn another word from "disservice".

(The whole pile of horse shit for anyone needing to have their blood boiled)

[covid-safer-hotties]

Noah Lyles' collapse underscores our collective COVID denial - Published Aug 10, 2024

Read the full story at either link! (covidsafehotties archive is always free of pesky in-line ads!)

We keep pretending that the pandemic is done and over, but it keeps knocking us off our feet

The 2024 Olympic Games are serving up some less-than-subtle metaphors for how poorly we handle public health. Just after winning a bronze medal in the much-anticipated men's 200-meter race, U.S. sprinter Noah Lyles collapsed on the track in exhaustion — not just because he’d completed a brutal run in just 19.7 seconds, finishing third, but also because he was sick with COVID-19, a diagnosis that he’d concealed from others. He had been favored to take home gold, as he did in the 100-meter race a few days earlier.

But seeing an American Olympic star sprawled out and gasping on the track, and then taken away in a wheelchair, was more than a shocking image. It also represented the general “mission accomplished” attitude toward SARS-CoV-2: We think we’ve won against this virus and we haven’t.

COVID isn’t just spreading like wildfire through the Olympic Village in Paris — we are undergoing surges across the globe, with the World Health Organization tracking steep rises in infections in 84 countries. After more than four years fighting this thing, it is still knocking us out.

In some parts of the U.S., the amount of COVID is so high that experts are claiming this summer surge is on par with winter waves of the virus. But none of this should be unexpected at this point. This is no longer the “novel” coronavirus that once terrified people with its unpredictability. We know how it behaves, with surges in both summer and winter, and we know how to fight against it — yet our apparent strategy at the moment is to pretend it doesn’t exist at all, even when it swipes us off our feet.

It’s true that the pandemic is much different than it was in 2020. For one thing, in spite of this surge, deaths are relatively low, following trends since vaccines became available. In 2023, COVID dropped from the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S. to the 10th, according to recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's not great, but it does indicate that widespread immunity (from vaccines, previous infections or both) is giving us some level of protection. Though let’s not forget that at least 1.2 million Americans have died to date from COVID. It’s nothing to sneeze at.

Deaths aren’t the only concerning metric, of course. Sometimes a COVID infection is asymptomatic, while at other times, the symptoms last for months or years or never fully go away. Patients call this long COVID and public health experts have described it as a mass disabling event. Lyles isn’t just lucky he won a bronze medal — he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t experience months of headaches, lung issues or extreme fatigue that never goes away.

Yet long COVID is rarely factored into discussions about this pandemic, even when kids get it. Instead, it’s treated as if infections are merely a mild cold at this point. Just shake it off, as Taylor Swift might say, while her summer tour dates become superspreading events.

Millions of patients can attest that COVID is anything but mild — and it's definitely not the flu. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can worm its way into nearly every part of our bodies, trashing our immune system and damaging our organs. We tend to think of the disease as a respiratory problem, given all the coughs and sniffles it produces, but it’s really more of a vascular disease, impacting any system that relies on blood vessels. That can include damage to the brain, which can manifest in symptoms like long-term cognitive impairment and Parkinson’s disease.

Yes, a virus that can literally cause brain damage is spreading at record levels and most people are acting like it’s just another wave. Just keep running.

But we’re not just paying the price with our bodies. The economy is also getting smacked by long COVID. A recent comprehensive review in the journal Nature Medicine found that the “cumulative global incidence of long COVID is around 400 million individuals, which is estimated to have an annual economic impact of approximately $1 trillion.” That's ignoring the long list of ways that long COVID wreaks havoc on the body, including, as the study notes, "viral persistence, immune dysregulation, mitochondrial dysfunction, complement dysregulation, endothelial inflammation and microbiome dysbiosis."

[meret118]

COVID isn’t just spreading like wildfire through the Olympic Village in Paris — we are undergoing surges across the globe, with the World Health Organization tracking steep rises in infections in 84 countries. After more than four years fighting this thing, it is still knocking us out.

In some parts of the U.S., the amount of COVID is so high that experts are claiming this summer surge is on par with winter waves of the virus. But none of this should be unexpected at this point. This is no longer the “novel” coronavirus that once terrified people with its unpredictability. We know how it behaves, with surges in both summer and winter, and we know how to fight against it — yet our apparent strategy at the moment is to pretend it doesn’t exist at all, even when it swipes us off our feet.

. . .

Deaths aren’t the only concerning metric, of course. Sometimes a COVID infection is asymptomatic, while at other times, the symptoms last for months or years or never fully go away. Patients call this long COVID and public health experts have described it as a mass disabling event. Lyles isn’t just lucky he won a bronze medal — he’ll be lucky if he doesn’t experience months of headaches, lung issues or extreme fatigue that never goes away.Yet long COVID is rarely factored into discussions about this pandemic, even when kids get it. Instead, it’s treated as if infections are merely a mild cold at this point.

. . .

Millions of patients can attest that COVID is anything but mild — and it's definitely not the flu. The SARS-CoV-2 virus can worm its way into nearly every part of our bodies, trashing our immune system and damaging our organs. We tend to think of the disease as a respiratory problem, given all the coughs and sniffles it produces, but it’s really more of a vascular disease, impacting any system that relies on blood vessels. That can include damage to the brain, which can manifest in symptoms like long-term cognitive impairment and Parkinson’s disease.

--------

I was absolutely appalled he knew he had covid, but was out there without a mask hugging people. Incredibly fucking selfish.

[bopinion]

2024 / 33

Aperçu of the week

“All we have to do is call our opponent a communist or a socialist or someone who will destroy our country.”

(Donald Trump. We'll see about that...)

Bad News of the Week

Since the end of the coronavirus pandemic - although there hasn't actually been one - I've been waiting for its successor in a slightly anxious mood. Another rapidly infecting virus that spreads worldwide, is potentially deadly and, above all, restricts all our lives again. Now it's here: Mpox. For the first time since Corona, the WHO (World Health Organization of the United Nations) has declared the highest alert level, a “public health emergency of international concern”. Because of the virus that was previously called “Monkey Pox”. Discovered in Congo at the end of 2023, it has now also broken out in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya.

The initial figures spoke of 14,000 suspected cases. Based on the usual 50% rate and the reported 500 deaths, this means that one in twelve people who become infected will die. That's a lot. So it's certainly a virus that should be taken seriously. One day later, it was reported that the first case in Europe had emerged in Sweden. Then the first three in Asia in Pakistan. It's the usual pattern: on the one hand, every infectious disease spreads faster and more uncontrollably in times of international travel. On the other hand, specific cases are only discovered when they are specifically sought or tested for. So the numbers will now quickly go through the roof. Because the spread is already more advanced than we know.

What will happen now? What will the states do? How will society react this time? And above all: what have we learned? There is a lot of talk in Germany about the need to come to terms with everything that has happened around COVID. Also to learn from the mistakes. There is a lot of need for clarification - for example with regard to the procurement of masks, the closure of schools, compulsory vaccination, curfews and unequal treatment in the retail sector. And what has happened since (drum roll please!): Nothing. What applies to politics also applies in private life. Some friends turned out to be conspiracy theorists, others were law and order hardliners, most were simply irritated and unsettled. There were even rifts right through families. Rifts that still exist.

And now we could all be facing the same situation, just as ill-prepared. And if Mpox doesn't develop into a pandemic, perhaps swine fever will spread to humans. Or bird flu. Or something else entirely, be it from the South American jungle or from the secret laboratory of some deep state. Or a revenant from the past spreads again - cholera still exists after all and first cases of polio are reported from Gaza. No, I'm not panicking. But I do have one or two worries. After all, humanity has shown itself more than once to be incapable of learning from the past. I would love to be wrong about that.

Good News of the Week

Venezuela is not giving up. It is wonderful to see how the people are fighting for democracy, no longer wanting to put up with the corruption of their “elites” and finally wanting to have a perspective worth living in. Just under a month ago, elections were held in the Latin American country, which could actually live in prosperity and peace but is suffering from dramatic economic decline, inflation and poverty since years. Or as investigative journalist Sebastiana Barráez says in the news magazine Der Spiegel: “Maduro has couped!”

Initially, the state electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro Moro, who has been clinging to power since 2013, the winner without providing any evidence - as is actually required by the constitution. The opposition has now had access to more than 80 percent of the printed protocols of the individual polling stations and has made them public. According to these, their candidate Edmundo González won with around 67 percent of the vote - compared to 30 percent for the incumbent head of government. So did Maduro commit electoral fraud? It looks like it.

The United Nations and the Carter Center had sent election observers to Venezuela. They have now criticized the election authority's actions and declared that the official result was not achieved democratically. The panel of experts speaks of an “unprecedented process in recent electoral history”. No wonder that most Latin American countries as well as the USA and Europe did not recognize the “official result”. And Maduro? He doesn't give a damn. The despot has further intensified the repression against the population with the help of the military, the National Guard and other state organs loyal to him. According to the independent rights organization Foro Penal, over 2,000 people have been arrested since the election. These include opposition politicians. And journalists. That speaks a clear language.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the US government has now offered Maduro and close associates of the regime an amnesty if they relinquish power. I wish the Venezuelans would keep up the pressure. And the international stage too. Until Madura and his clan really abdicate. Because then the country, which has already been abandoned by 20% of its population in recent years, could return to better times. In a survey conducted by the Gallup polling institute in December 2012, the country's inhabitants were among the happiest people on earth. It would be nice if this vague memory could become reality again.

Personal happy moment of the week

“Your application for an Electronic Travel Authorization (eTA) has been approved. You are now authorized to travel to Canada by air.” Nothing more to add here. Taking off this sunday. Boy am I excited...

I couldn't care less...

...about the discussion that Germany “only” came 10th in the medal table at the Summer Olympics in Paris - behind hosts France and Great Britain, even though their populations are smaller. “What does it take for more medals?” asks the Tagesschau news channel. That is of little interest to me. Much more important is the charisma of athletes as figures of identification for a nation, the role model function for children, the motivation to surpass oneself. After all, it's not for nothing that the Olympic motto is “Taking part is everything”. In that sense, Eddie the Eagle really did fly.

It's fine with me...

...that the Democrats' party conference is now turning into a coronation mass. Because the most important decisions have been made: Presidential candidate and his (better in this case “her”) running mate. Normally, I would now say that political program content should not be completely secondary. But I don't care about that at the moment. The main thing is momentum. The main thing is optimism. The main thing is not to go back. The main thing is that Donald Jessica Trump doesn't triumph in November. Harris Walz!

As I write this...

...we're trying to catch a mouse. Apparently it was raining too hard outside and it wanted to get out into the dry. Now she's hiding behind a bookshelf and is afraid of us - even though we want to rescue her and set her free. Update: we've got her and she's fine. Second update: there seems to be another one...

Post Scriptum

It's good when someone doesn't look away but points. Even if it's about Israel committing an injustice. After all, you are then almost reflexively vilified as an Anti-Semite. In this respect, I am pleased that the European Union is showing more and more backbone in this regard. In this case, I am not referring to the maltreated Gaza Strip, but to the West Bank, where the Palestinian population is suffering more and more from brutal attacks by militant Israeli settlers - who can be sure of the backing of Benjamin Netanyahu's increasingly right-wing extremist government.

Once again, there have been attacks by extremist Israeli settlers on the population of the West Bank. And now EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has had enough. He will “present a proposal for EU sanctions against the supporters of the violent settlers, including some members of the Israeli government”. Including the government! That's a bombshell. I very much hope that he finds the necessary support for this. Because this massive problem is currently all too easily overlooked in the great shadow of Gaza.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Oliver Darcy at CNN:

Vladimir Putin’s information war in U.S. media paid off this weekend with a key victory halfway around the world. [...] As a Republican, Johnson is in a tough spot, politically speaking. While the Republican Party was once vehemently hawkish toward Russia, viewing the post-Soviet country as its chief adversary on the international stage, it has softened considerably in recent years and much of the party actively opposes sending additional dollars to Ukraine to continue fighting Russia. It was little more than a decade ago when Mitt Romney, then the party’s standard-bearer, famously declared Russia to be “our number one geopolitical foe.” In the years since, the party has dramatically changed its tune on Russia. A CNN poll conducted last summer found that a staggering 71% of Republicans do not support additional aid to thwart Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Much of the GOP’s softening toward Russia is owed to a near-total reversal in rhetoric from right-wing media personalities and outlets, prompted in large part by Donald Trump’s ascension to power in GOP politics. While the biggest players in right-wing media once fervently championed the foreign policy doctrines of the neo-conservatives, they now follow in the footsteps of Trump and vehemently reject the views once held by the George W. Bush administration. This transition is perhaps best exemplified by Tucker Carlson. The former Fox News host was once sharply critical of Putin, characterizing him in no uncertain terms as a cruel “dictator.” But in recent years, Carlson has reversed his stance, flooding the right-wing information space — which he once reigned as king over — with pro-Putin rhetoric that effectively amounts to Russian propaganda. Carlson’s stance was put on display in stark fashion recently when he traveled to Moscow to conduct a widely denounced softball chat with Putin and then proceeded to record a series of propaganda videos touting Russia’s supposed greatness.

While figures like Carlson have promoted Russia and Putin, they have simultaneously trashed Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelensky, promoting conspiracy theories that the country interfered in the 2016 election and was hiding biological weapons labs. Carlson, for example, has likened Zelensky to vermin and vigorously spoken out against U.S. support for Ukraine. Right-wing commentators like Carlson have questioned why taxpayer dollars are being spent to help Ukraine defend its borders when the U.S. struggles to secure its own southern border (though a recent bipartisan bill intended to tackle both issues was rejected by hardline Republicans.)

[...] “The GOP’s shift away from support for Ukraine shows how in the Republican Party, everything flows downstream from the obsessions and priorities of right-wing propagandists,” Matt Gertz, a senior fellow at the progressive watchdog Media Matters, told me Tuesday. “Tucker Carlson and his ilk wanted to back Putin’s invasion, their relentless lies won over the party’s base, and ultimately its elected officials have adopted their position.” “We’ve seen this same pattern time and again: Fox News and the like take basic concepts like ‘it’s a good idea to get vaccinated against the coronavirus’ and ‘the January 6 insurrection was bad’ and turn them on their heads — and Republican elites inevitably follow,” Gertz added. “Governing based on what gets ratings for B.S. artists is no way to run a country.”

CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote in the Reliable Sources newsletter that the right-wing media's anti-Ukraine/pro-Putin disinformation campaign has had fatal consequences in the fight against Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Republican Party and much of the right-wing commentariat were once resolutely anti-Russia; however, beginning in the 2010s that began with Vladimir Putin's enactment of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and then Russian asset Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and eventual "Presidency", the GOP shifted from anti-Russia to pro-Russia (and consequently anti-Ukraine).

[cognitivejustice]

Meet Valdirene Militão: An Urban Farmer and Creative Recycler Fighting for the Self-Reliance of Favela Women

Valdirene Oliveira Militão, affectionately known as Val in the Roquete Pinto favela in Complexo da Maré, located in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, where she has lived for 52 years, embodies the possibility of everyday sustainable practices accessible to favela residents.

Agroecology and sustainability, which increasingly gain space in public debate, are knowledge passed down in the favela in an affectionate and local manner by elders.

Yet, these grassroots insights are made invisible and delegitimized for being practical, conceived through lived experience and need, through “pretagogias” [Black pedagogical practices]. Such values only become accepted and seen as a solution when they are whitewashed and transformed into commodities, into tools of control.

In this sense, reusing waste and (re)creating from scrap materials Val resignifies life and her community with her hands. This fusion of perspectives encapsulates Valdirene Militão’s initiatives toward sustainability and the economic empowerment of women. Through workshops, she teaches other women how to repurpose leftover materials to transform and market them, generating income.

In the area surrounding her home studio, where she carries out recycling activities, Val gathers milk cartons to craft protective blankets for animals. Additionally, the visual artist collects coffee capsules, costume jewelry, and PET bottles to fashion decorative objects and clothing. Notably, she gathered 204 coffee capsules to create a futuristic-style garment worn by digital influencer Yá Burihan at the 2024 Vogue Magazine Carnival Ball.

In addition to her career as a visual artist, Val promotes other sustainable initiatives. She was one of the founders of the Ricardo Barriga Project, which emerged during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 to generate income for Maré residents and promote food security. The initiative was named in honor of Ricardo Barriga, Val’s former brother-in-law, who died of Covid-19.

The activities aim to promote a culture of sustainability, such as workshops on making soap from used cooking oil, distribution of baskets of basic foodstuffs, face masks, and eco-friendly soap.

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

On poverty:

Starting from nothing

How To Start at Rock Bottom: Welfare Programs and the Social Safety Net 

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: “Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?“

Understanding why people are poor

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Why Are Poor People Poor and Rich People Rich?

On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows

Bitchtastic Book Review: Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado

Is Gentrification Just Artisanal, Small-Batch Displacement of the Poor?

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights

Developing compassion for poor people

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Stop Myself from Judging Homeless People?“

The Subjectivity of Wealth, Or: Don’t Tell Me What’s Expensive

A Little Princess: Intersectional Feminist Masterpiece?

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford to Dine Out

Correcting income inequality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap

One Reason Women Make Less Money? They’re Afraid of Being Raped and Killed.

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make All Our Lives Better

Are Unions Good or Bad?

On intersectional social issues:

Reproductive rights

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

How To Get an Abortion 

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

You Don’t Have to Have Kids

Gender equality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap 

The Pink Tax, Or: How I Learned to Love Smelling Like “Bearglove”

Our Single Best Piece of Advice for Women (and Men) on International Women’s Day

Bitchtastic Book Review: The Feminist Financial Handbook by Brynne Conroy

Sexual Harassment: How to Identify and Fight It in the Workplace 

Queer issues

Queer Finance 101: Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Racial justice

The Financial Advantages of Being White

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander: A Bitchtastic Book Review

Something Is Wrong in Personal Finance. Here’s How To Make It More Inclusive.

The Biggest Threat to Black Wealth Is White Terrorism

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

10 Rad Black Money Experts to Follow Right the Hell Now 

Youth issues

What We Talk About When We Talk About Student Loans

The Ugly Truth About Unpaid Internships

Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”

Identifying and combatting abuse

When Money is the Weapon: Understanding Intimate Partner Financial Abuse

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Say ‘No’ When a Loved One Asks for Money… Again?”

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

On mental health:

Understanding mental health issues

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Bitchtastic Book Review: Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Coping with mental health issues

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics 

On saving the planet:

Changing the system

Don’t Boo, Vote: If You Don’t Vote, No One Can Hear You Scream

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

Season 1, Episode 4: “Capitalism Is Working for Me. So How Could I Hate It?”

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights 

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

Shopping smarter

You Deserve Cheap Toilet Paper, You Beautiful Fucking Moon Goddess

You Are above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid

Fast Fashion: Why It’s Fucking up the World and How To Avoid It

You Deserve Cheap, Fake Jewelry… Just Like Coco Chanel

6 Proven Tactics for Avoiding Emotional Impulse Spending

Join the Bitches on Patreon

[female-malice]

(archive)

For Sander Van der Linden, misinformation is personal.

As a child in the Netherlands, the University of Cambridge social psychologist discovered that almost all of his mother’s family had been executed by the Nazis during the Second World War. He became absorbed by the question of how so many people came to support the ideas of someone like Adolf Hitler, and how they might be taught to resist such influence.

While studying psychology at graduate school in the mid-2010s, van der Linden came across the work of American researcher William McGuire. In the 1960s, stories of brainwashed prisoners-of-war during the Korean War had captured the zeitgeist, and McGuire developed a theory of how such indoctrination might be prevented. He wondered whether exposing soldiers to a weaker form of propaganda might have equipped them to fight off a full attack once they’d been captured. In the same way that army drills prepared them for combat, a pre-exposure to an attack on their beliefs could have prepared them against mind control. It would work, McGuire argued, as a cognitive immunizing agent against propaganda—a vaccine against brainwashing.

Traditional vaccines protect us by feeding us a weaker dose of pathogen, enabling our bodies’ immune defenses to take note of its appearance so we’re better equipped to fight the real thing when we encounter it. A psychological vaccine works much the same way: Give the brain a weakened hit of a misinformation-shaped virus, and the next time it encounters it in fully-fledged form, its “mental antibodies” remember it and can launch a defense.

Van der Linden wanted to build on McGuire’s theories and test the idea of psychological inoculation in the real world. His first study looked at how to combat climate change misinformation. At the time, a bogus petition was circulating on Facebook claiming there wasn’t enough scientific evidence to conclude that global warming was human-made, and boasting the signatures of 30,000 American scientists (on closer inspection, fake signatories included Geri Halliwell and the cast of M*A*S*H).

Van der Linden and his team took a group of participants and warned them that there were politically motivated actors trying to deceive them—the phony petition in this case. Then they gave them a detailed takedown of the claims of the petition; they pointed out, for example, Geri Halliwell’s appearance on the list. When the participants were later exposed to the petition, van der Linden and his group found that people knew not to believe it.

The approach hinges on the idea that by the time we’ve been exposed to misinformation, it’s too late for debunking and fact-checking to have any meaningful effect, so you have to prepare people in advance—what van der Linden calls “prebunking.” An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

When he published the findings in 2016, van der Linden hadn’t anticipated that his work would be landing in the era of Donald Trump’s election, fake news, and post-truth; attention on his research from the media and governments exploded. Everyone wanted to know, how do you scale this up?

Van der Linden worked with game developers to create an online choose-your-own-adventure game called Bad News, where players can try their hand at writing and spreading misinformation. Much like a broadly protective vaccine, if you show people the tactics used to spread fake news, it fortifies their inbuilt bullshit detectors.

But social media companies were still hesitant to get on board; correcting misinformation and being the arbiters of truth is not part of their core business model. Then people in China started getting sick with a mysterious flulike illness.

The coronavirus pandemic propelled the threat of misinformation to dizzying new heights. Van der Linden began working with the British government and bodies like the World Health Organization and the United Nations to create a more streamlined version of the game specifically revolving around Covid, which they called GoViral! They created more versions, including one for the 2020 US presidential election, and another to prevent extremist recruitment in the Middle East. Slowly, Silicon Valley came around.

A collaboration with Google has resulted in a campaign on YouTube in which the platform plays clips in the ad section before the video starts, warning viewers about misinformation tropes like scapegoating and false dichotomies and drawing examples from Family Guy and Star Wars. A study with 20,000 participants found that people who viewed the ads were better able to spot manipulation tactics; the feature is now being rolled out to hundreds of millions of people in Europe.

Van der Linden understands that working with social media companies, who have historically been reluctant to censor disinformation, is a double-edged sword. But, at the same time, they’re the de facto guardians of the online flow of information, he says, “and so if we’re going to scale the solution, we need their cooperation.” (A downside is that they often work in unpredictable ways. Elon Musk fired the entire team who was working on pre-bunking at Twitter when he became CEO, for instance.)

This year, van der Linden wrote a book on his research, titled Foolproof: Why We Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity. Ultimately, he hopes this isn’t a tool that stays under the thumb of third-party companies; his dream is for people to inoculate one another. It could go like this: You see a false narrative gaining traction on social media, you then warn your parents or your neighbor about it, and they’ll be pre-bunked when they encounter it. “This should be a tool that’s for the people, by the people,” van der Linden says.

–

Everyone needs to play this game.

[ralphlanyon]

i was going through my notes and found an old write-up from 2020 of modern au headcanons for "the charioteer" characters during covid-19 quarantine (back when "how would fandom X characters handle quarantine?" was a tumblr trend). apparently this was how i was coping with the stress of peak corona times, lol. anyway finally publishing this, three years later!

laurie: his introverted homebody ass is THRIVING in social isolation and wfh. no more awkwardly dodging party invites from people he hates, being dragged to nightclubs, or having to see his stepfather. he gets to stay home all day with ralph and their dog and finish all the books he meant to read, and he is LOVING it. receives a lot of requests to show off his dog during his work zoom meetings.

ralph: is Doing His Duty by staying home on furlough but also going completely stir-crazy. tries to stay sane by feverishly working on dozens of home improvement projects and cleaning the house several times. basically the epitome of that ben wyatt “do you think a depressed person could do THIS???” meme. has gotten into numerous arguments with people at the supermarket who refuse to wear masks or are hoarding enormous supplies of toilet paper (one of these ends up going viral).

andrew: is very sad about being separated from the rest of his religious community now that the churches are closed, but tries to keep a positive outlook on things. shares a lot of resources online about how to help out and staying in touch with one’s faith during “unprecedented times.”

alec: overworked and sleep-deprived nhs junior doctor directly taking care of covid-19 patients. hasn’t physically seen most of his friends or family in months. writes lengthy screeds on social media decrying the dearth of ppe for health care workers and ranting about politics. frequently gets into online fights with strangers who think coronavirus isn’t a big deal. sends ralph unsolicited articles about self-care and mental health tips during a pandemic that ralph pointedly ignores.

sandy: also overworked and sleep-deprived, but much better at concealing it online than alec. has a popular medical instagram where he posts selfies of him and alec with lots of hashtags. obsessively binge-watches cooking videos on youtube in his spare time.

bunny: an essential retail worker who brings this fact up constantly in conversation. secretly flouting social distancing guidelines on his off days to go to parties and hook-up with men on grindr. has the most aesthetically pleasing cloth masks but can’t bother to wear them properly.

[fallingrealms16]

Sterek Fic Recs PART1 <3

Sterek fics? Yes ofc, because I know we always need them to fill our sad little lonely souls..no just me? Buckle up because this is the list of all my favourite Sterek fics that have stolen my heart and live in my shower thoughts:

The Great Bi Awakening by HisBeloved

11.8K Words // Chapters: 34/? // Hits: 34K // UNCOMPLETED

//Explicit//

The Sterek social isolation quarantine room mates fic no one asked for, OR After Berkeley evicts the students because of coronavirus and Lydia breaks up with him, Stiles finds himself living with Derek Hale. Because they are almost best friends

2. We're caught in stone, you know we might not make it by LanaCanisLupus_22

29.7K Words // Chapters: 2/2 // Hits: 80K // COMPLETED

//Explicit//

The one where Derek and Stiles are childhood buddies who lost touch and reconnect by chance at college. Only they end up doing a lot more than just reconnecting.

3. I know that you love me, even when I lose my head by LanaCanisLupus_22

135.5K Words // Chapters: 13/13 // Hits: 464K // COMPLETED

//Explicit//

The one where Derek gets attacked by hunters, ends up with amnesia and forgets Stiles is his mate

4. Magic Words by Thomaddicted

188K Words // Chapters: 40/40 // Hits: 56K // COMPLETED

//Explicit//

Derek Hale is confused by Stiles Stilinski, or at least Derek's sexuality is confused. He knows that Stiles feels some kind of way toward him, but a discovery on Stiles' laptop leaves no question to HOW much Stiles likes him. This would be fine, if they weren't also fighting Big Bads, Bad Alphas, and age of consent laws. Add to it the pressures of learning magic, graduations, and a Sheriff for a potential father in law, things just aren't going to be easy. But they'll definitely be worth it.

5. Throw Me to the Wolves by skoosiepants

13.4K Words // Chapters: 1/1 // Hits: 165K // COMPLETED

//Teen and Up// He feels the physical embodiment of devastated, his already too strung-out mind struggling to wall up all the hurt, the rejection—he takes a deep shuddering breath and looks down at the shredded skin on his arms, at the sluggish way they’re weakly healing. There is nothing, nothing he wants more than to have Derek sweep in and make everything all better. He should have known, though, that something like that would never happen to him. OR - Stiles accidentally gets bitten, and everything goes to hell.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Health experts warn against COVID complacency in schools amid surge - Published Aug 25, 2024

Health experts are urging school staff and families to take active steps to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 amid rising infections as school districts stick to their previous plans to combat the virus similarly to how they would the flu or strep throat.

Weekly deaths from COVID-19 have steadily risen in the United States since mid-June, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID Data Tracker.

And wastewater viral activity for the disease — which is monitored as a means of detecting where a potential outbreak may occur — has gradually climbed since May, with the national level now “very high,” according to the CDC.

The rising rates are having little effect on the start of the school year, however. Schools have largely chosen to treat COVID-19 like RSV or the common flu, at the recommendation of health organizations like the CDC.

“COVID forever changed the landscape of education. As it stands now, in both districts (Meridian CUSD 223 and Oregon CUSD 220) I have the pleasure of leading we are moving forward full steam ahead and treating COVID in the same form and fashion we would treat influenza or strep throat,” said PJ Caposey, superintendent of Meridian School District in Illinois.

“The impact COVID has had on schools and on society cannot be understated, but currently it is not impacting how we operate and serve kids,” he added.

School districts are still feeling tremendous impacts from the coronavirus and the widespread closures it drove earlier in the pandemic, such as students struggling to catch back up academically.

Recent data from nonprofit research group NWEA found that students going into high school are a full year behind academically.

Since the CDC has classified COVID-19 under the umbrella of respiratory illnesses, in the same category as the flu, schools have dropped precautions previously put in place to mitigate the spread of the virus such as masks or social distancing.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), for instance, previously had policies requiring students and faculty to stay out of school longer if they contract COVID-19 and to wear masks for a certain period when they came back.

LAUSD posted on social media in August that due to high vaccination rates, COVID-19 will be treated like RSV. The district stressed that those with COVID-19 need to stay home if they have symptoms or a fever and cannot come back until symptoms start improving and the fever is gone for 24 hours without medicine.

Amid the current rise in COVID-19 cases and with another likely surge looming during the fall or winter months ahead, health experts are urging school communities not to become complacent when fighting against the virus’s spread.

The most important thing families and school staff can do to protect themselves is to get vaccinated, according to Jodie Guest, senior vice chair of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

As of May, only about a quarter of U.S. adults and about 14 percent of children were reported to be up to date on a COVID-19 vaccination, according to CDC data.

The Food and Drug Administration approved updated Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines Thursday to more closely target the recent strains of the virus, as well as potential fall and winter variants.

Adults and children 6 months and older are eligible for the updated vaccines, according to the CDC. Children 5 years old and up will need one shot of an updated vaccine to remain current, while children between 6 months and 4 years old might need multiple shots.

The updated shots will likely be on pharmacy shelves within “the coming days.” Those who have recently been infected with COVID-19 can delay getting the updated vaccine for up to three months, per CDC guidelines.

On top of getting the shot, Guest encourages school staff and parents to regularly test themselves and children for COVID-19 infections because testing “still really matters.”

“If your kid comes home and is not feeling well and showing signs that might be COVID, might be something else, going ahead with at-home testing is an important way to stop spread in your family and to stop spread in schools,” she said.

Sick adults and children should test themselves multiple times at home to ensure they do not have the virus, Guest said. If a first at-home antigen test is negative, she recommends taking a second test 36 to 48 hours later “to make sure it’s a true negative.”

School staff members who think they are sick should stay home, health experts agree. Parents should also keep their children home from school if they are sick to reduce the chance of spreading COVID-19 to others.

“If you are sick, stay home. Don’t infect others,” said David Weber, epidemiologist and associate chief medical officer of UNC Health Care.

While COVID-19 infections are typically less severe in children, kids can still suffer complications from contracting the virus, like long COVID, which may appear differently in adolescents than in adults.

Children can also serve as vectors for the virus, potentially spreading it to more vulnerable people like older relatives.

“You really don’t want to bring this home particularly if you have grandparents living with you,” said Andrew Pekosz, a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies respiratory illnesses including COVID-19.

However, it appears unlikely that schools will change their standards to fight COVID-19 without official recommendations from the CDC.

“Schools put measures in place through the COVID-19 pandemic to mitigate the spread of infection including vaccination clinics, cleaning procedures, and mitigation protocols that should be followed just as with any other communicable diseases such as the seasonal flu,” said Jeanie Alter, executive director of the American School Health Association, a group that supports health professionals in schools and advocates for healthy school environments.

“It will be important for schools to review and update these practices and continue with best practice guidance from reputable science-based organizations such as CDC,” she said.

[didanawisgi]

Natural killer cell exhaustion in SARS-CoV-2 infection

Abstract

At the end of 2019, an outbreak of a severe respiratory disease occurred in Wuhan China, and an increase in cases of unknown pneumonia was alerted. In January 2020, a new coronavirus named SARS-CoV-2 was identified as the cause. The virus spreads primarily through the respiratory tract, and lymphopenia and cytokine storms have been observed in severely ill patients. This suggests the existence of an immune dysregulation as an accompanying event during a serious illness caused by this virus. Natural killer (NK) cells are innate immune responders, critical for virus shedding and immunomodulation. Despite its importance in viral infections, the contribution of NK cells in the fight against SARS-CoV-2 has yet to be deciphered. Different studies in patients with COVID-19 suggest a significant reduction in the number and function of NK cells due to their exhaustion. In this review, we summarize the current understanding of how NK cells respond to SARS-CoV-2 infection.