Politics and Advertising

This one will be short because it's not a fully formed thought. I've been on YouTube quite a bit over the past month or so, and the number of U.S. presidential campaign ads on videos is very high. You could watch a 10-minute video and see four ads, often two from each candidate. I'm unsure if the content creators can control which ads appear; I've seen right-leaning ads on left-leaning content and vice versa.

According to EMARKETER, 9% of political spending (national, regional, local) will occur on Meta and Google in 2024.

There's nothing like supporting your favorite candidate with a donation, and nearly 10% of it ends up in the pockets of two large American corporations. To be fair, the YouTube content creators also get their cut.

References

1. https://www.emarketer.com/press-releases/2024-political-ad-spending-will-jump-nearly-30-vs-2020/

The Dog and the Truck

 

There is a version of me who would love to own an old Ford Ranger and take it to the grocery store while my dog waits for me. The only problem with this version of the Ranger is that it does not have airbags. The truck didn't see airbags until 1995.

 

 

Self Vs Others

Per the script, I'm writing about something bothering me. People with a particular family structure have expressed their displeasure with how we run our own. This debate is as old as human thought, with the elderly matriarch voicing displeasure with how the younger generations live. With any system, a popular one arises, and it becomes the norm. This can be subject to bias when someone growing up in a particular system feels like it is the right one for everyone else involved. Else they can use their experience to reason why a particular system can still work.

And you know which system is correct? All and none of them.

But the problem here happens when a group living in one system disapproves of a group living in a different one. They can say such hurtful things but forget to take a long look in the mirror.

Covid—for better and worse—has altered the rules many people live by. A social gathering in 2019 is no longer precisely the same as one in 2023. I've found that many people quickly forget that a person is a human, and humans have more going on with them than just their opinions about Covid. I've discussed this with people and heard stories of anxiety that manifested and continued long after the heart of the pandemic had passed. For some, it is new; for others, it has been there forever and not noticed until now.

I've long been introverted. I prefer to avoid crowds and groups. At many gatherings over my career in physical spaces, I would often slip away and disappear from the group. If walking with a group of six, lagging behind in the back, turning the corner of a city block meant a chance to change direction and escape before the group would notice. As the pandemic winds down, I'm comfortable with my tendencies. People that strive for "normal" can be hiding from their own problems, unseen through mental walls erected over a lifetime of being told to "toughen up" or to "deal with it."

Again, as the years pass by, I've learned the lesson of empathy. Just because I dislike groups and situate my social group in a particular way, that does not mean others should live as I do. This goes for my social group, this goes for work habits, and this goes for my attitudes about Covid. Yet, the disapproval still seems to come. Sometimes fast, sometimes harsh, and never seemingly from someone who has given it the proper thought it deserves.

It is easy to lash out at these people in private. They all have complex attributes that make up their own system, and when they don't match your own, sometimes you question them. But why openly question them? Of course, there are valid reasons to do so. Is someone drinking too much? Are they putting themselves or others in real danger? Then go right ahead. Make the call. But don't do it for someone who wants to arrange their social system in a particular way, assuming those involved are not toxic people.

Long live the ignorant.

Flight

 

Sharing Is Not Always Caring

Note: The No War Ukrainian banner that has appeared as part of the background on this blog was not something I added. I guess whoever created this template updated it to include the banner. I do support Ukraine and hope that the conflict will end and that they will remain their own country, but I'm not so quick to share political opinions or statements like that.

And, that leads us right into today's blog post. Sharing is an action on the internet that is everywhere. Most consumable content has share buttons. Even software user interfaces, such as the toolbar on iPhone's Safari browser have sharing built-in. It goes the same with phone apps, where photos, content, etc are all sharable to other phones using email, text messaging, Bluetooth, or using social apps such as Facebook and Twitter.

And it's quick. You can share something with someone else in as little as 5 seconds, faster than that if you are a skilled user. Many things that get shared online are done so without much thought. For example, you see a news article with a headline proclaiming that someone recently stole half a million dollars from an organization, the sensational headline may prompt you to share it to a social timeline or feed. Yet once you read the article, you may learn that it was a hoax, that the news source was unreliable, or that it was very different than your initial assumption. It may even be an article written by The Onion, a news website that specializes in fake news content.

Content such as shared on social media can be controversial. Often individuals who are on one side of an issue will share any content that supports their belief, even if the content is non-factual. Fact-checking warnings have become popular on social media websites over the past three years, with misleading content having a flagged overlay. Some users continue to call the fact-checkers wrong and will continue to share that sort of content.

So-called fake news is a problem in today's society. It used to be common knowledge that anything coming from the Internet has a high probability to be false. A child under the age of ten is capable of creating and sharing such content without adult supervision if so desired, so who is to say that user John Smith on Twitter has checked the information he shared. Yet, people take and repost shared content without much thought.

For example, we can dive right into US politics. One side may say that Joe Biden is causing gas prices to rise. The other side will say that it is not true. Regardless of who is correct in this situation, many users will repost any sort of content that supports their particular belief. They may even have doubts about their own belief but will continue to share content to reinforce their own beliefs. 

S. Talwar et al. (2019) researched metrics on Online Trust, Self-disclosure, Social Comparison, Fear of Missing Out, and Social Media Fatigue as it pertains to outright sharing of fake news or self-authenticating news before sharing. They found that social media fatigue causes users to share fake news (Talwar 2019). The research also tests all other metrics and assigns values to each.

An article by Shannon Gupta (2016) tells the story of Pepsi's CEO, Indra Nooyi, who was the target of fake news stories shared where he wanted supporters of president-elect Donald Trump to "take their business elsewhere". This started a boycott of the brand, which was premature, as he never said those words at all. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, defended critics, saying that it was a "small amount of content". He said this in a statement also proclaiming that it did not influence the presidential election at the time, to be clear.

And what I am getting at is this. If you want to share or post content on a social media platform, it is wise to figure out if it is true, and it is also wise to make sure that your statements are not an insult to others who may not share your belief. It is one thing to post something true and insulting, but it is much more damaging to post something that is only an opinion and insulting, especially if it is someone you should care about. With how quickly users can share in 2022, it is a good idea to think before sending off that piece of content to your social feed.

References

• Gupta, S., 2016, Trump supporters call to boycott Pepsi over comments the CEO never made, CNN Business, https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/16/news/companies/pepsi-fake-news-boycott-trump
• Talwar, S., Dhir A., Kaur, P., Zafar, N., Alrasheedy, M., 2019, Why do people share fake news? Associations between the dark side of social media use and fake news sharing behavior, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, V. 51, p. 72-82

The Measles

Having recently posted about vaccines, I went down a much deeper read about the immune system over the past month. It is incredible how many different ways your immune system works in order to keep you safe. However, it's also the same about the many different ways bacteria and viruses can take over your body.

Your immune system has two parts. It has an innate system and it has an adaptive system. The innate system is always there, protecting you from primary infection. Bacteria that might somehow get through your skin, or perhaps some smoke you breathed in. Macrophages, the garbage trucks of your innate system constantly roam your body, picking up things that shouldn't be there, pulling them inside, and dousing them with chemicals to break them down. Have a tattoo? Your macrophages tried their best to pull in the metallic ink particles and clean your body of the foreign mass. That is why those sharp tattoo lines get fuzzy over time.

Did you happen to inhale some smoke? Those smoke particles get pulled in within your lungs and broken down. Your lungs are very exposed compared to much of your body, so special varieties exist there. So in short, these are very important for your immune system and your body. As other types of immune cells destroy invaders, the body parts from battle get absorbed by these.

What does that have to do with the Measles? Measles is a virus that infects people via airborne water droplets from your breathing. This is the same as the common cold, the flu, and Covid-19. It is considered very infectious, meaning your body produces a lot of the virus when infected, and it takes less of the virus landing in a host's nose, throat, lung mucus in order to cause an infection. There is a vaccine for this, and the vaccine has been administered to the majority of the US population.

The vaccine produces a fake infection of Measles. A broken-down version of the virus's pieces is injected along with other chemicals that produce an immune response in your body. This tells your body that things are going bad right now, and they need to call in the adaptive immune system to solve this. Your body has a dozen or so cells for every type of antigen that could possibly exist. This in itself is insane, but that is a core piece of the immune system.

When you get an infection, be it bacterial or viral, the macrophages and neutrophil cells are the primary means of attack. Macrophages are pulling things in and destroying them. Neutrophils are either grabbing onto the attackers to do the same or expelling their toxic insides to simply destroy everything and anything around them. If you've ever had a bad toothache, chances are that the neutrophils are trying to destroy the infection along with your bone, leading to intense pain.

If the infection can't be beaten, the adaptive immune system requires information so that it can create a proper response to your infection. Dendritic cells come to the site of the infection and start to pick up pieces of the invader. The next step is to take these pieces to your lymph nodes, through your lymphatic system.

When your body takes the pieces back to your lymph nodes, it is trying to find the matching immune cell for this infection. Once it does, the cell starts to multiply quickly and is off to fight the infection. These are the T and B cells that are spoken about so often. There are many varieties of these, and sub-varieties, and specialty cells, but in short, your body has figured out the cure and is sending an army.

These usually do the trick. For example, B cells create antibodies, which completely cover up any free-floating viruses. The T cells will tell infected cells that they are compromised and that they need to kill themselves in a way that also wraps up any virus particles within.

When a virus first takes hold, it has the advantage. It can reproduce and hide faster than your body can handle it. It's this adaptive response that helps win the war. When the war is won, many of the cells turn into memory cells and constantly produce antibodies and attack cells that may become infected with the virus.

However, Measles isn't just a common virus. It infects macrophages and several other types of immune system cells. Once you are cured of a virus, it's those memory cells that grant you what is known as immunity. But, Measles infects and kills those cells. If you get a severe enough infection of the Measles, years and years of immunity can be wiped by one infection. All of those colds that you had and beat, are now back on the table. And depending on the infection, you might never be able to self-cure that infection again. Your body only produces about a dozen of each type of response cell combination, so if Measles kills them, you get the picture.

So, people invented vaccines. This creates the memory cell army for a known pathogen early so that you can be ready for an attack. As more and more people get a vaccine, the fewer people the virus can infect and the fewer people that will transmit the virus to others. Your immune system can handle a great number of challenges, but here is a simple analogy that may help.

Imagine yourself at home one night, and someone attacks your house. They arrive by surprise and were able to knock down your door. So a countermeasure against an invader may be having a gun or other weapon in the house. If you have 0 weapons in the house, you have less of a chance of surviving the attack. If you have weapons everywhere, you have a great chance of getting rid of the attacker. Getting a vaccine is quite the same as going out and buying guns. You have anticipated an invader and you are ready. 

The whole process of your adaptive immune system finding the right immune cells takes days. It's sort of the same as you being run out of your house and coming back with an army. In the meantime, your house gets looted, or worse, burned down. Had you been vaccinated (had the weapons), the attacker wouldn't get a chance to even get through the front door. Most of the time, your house might be ok. You get looted, it takes time to replace the lost furniture. But sometimes, the looters are very organized and your house is gone.

The Drop

 

It's an older image, but a good one. With all of the fancy camera upgrades throughout the years, this was taken using a Nikon D70, a camera that made its debut in 2004, 17 years ago. The D70 had a 1/500 flash sync, whereas many newer cameras only went to 1/250. This enables the flashed image to be captured at a high speed. If you attempt a 1/500 photo on a 1/250 capable camera, the scene will likely not be properly lit.

ƒ/8 1/500 50mm ISO200

A Note About Vaccines

Being nearly forty years of age, I have lived through a very steady age of vaccination. As I grew up, I was given a large number of vaccinations that were required to attend public school. There were a few sicknesses out there that vaccines didn't touch yet, such as chickenpox (varicella). I was fearful of getting chickenpox, but I never managed to catch the virus.

Vaccination meant immunity to me. You got the shots and you never had to worry about getting the disease. As 2021 is coming to a close, I am finally understanding that this isn't the case. A vaccination is sort of like getting a bulletproof vest. If you go into a firefight wearing one, your chances of catching a stray bullet to your body are reduced. But they don't go away.

Public education has tried over and over again to show the importance of vaccines. They are very correct in doing so. While a single individual being vaccinated helps the individual, the individual gains greater protection by also having everyone around them protected. This is why vaccines in the United States have felt like they grant immunity. As public schools require them, the majority of people my age in 2021 are fully vaccinated against a large number of diseases.

The measles vaccine in the United States is a great case study. From 1938 to 1958, the number of people infected with the measles virus fluctuated year to year. With peaks of over 800,000 citizens before 1940 (133M people in the US then compared to 330M in 2020), the measles was infecting a lot of people. In 1963, vaccines were licensed for use and in 1968 the reported cases dropped below 100,000 for the first time in over 30 years, and have stayed there. Through 1988 about 60% of the population was covered. In the late 1990s, this increased to above 90%.

Since 1989, people have felt safe from measles in the US. Cases have been very low, with as little as 13 cases reported in 2020. This followed a decade high of 1,282 cases in 2019. 

The recent anti-vaccination movement that has been helped by the existence of the Internet has started to peel back on that feeling of immunity. The internet allows individuals who don't want to take the chance of getting a vaccine to push their ideas to the general public. With the ability for stories to become viral (oh the irony), they can get spread to a large group of people quickly. Those who don't want to be vaccinated can upvote or reshare these stories, much like a virus makes copies of itself using your own cells to reproduce.

The stories can also introduce fiction into a land of facts. Billionaires sneaking microchips into your bloodstream, vaccines themselves somehow changing your DNA, vaccines inhibiting your ability to reproduce, and incorrect numbers on mishaps or other failures. The opposition does this as well, with the pro-vaccine crowd putting a magnifying glass on anti-vaccine deaths, showcasing their social media posts that are resharing the fiction before they eventually catch Covid-19 and pass away.

There are legitimate stories of people becoming ill while getting vaccinated. There are two instances in my social circle where people have gotten the vaccine and odd things have happened. Surprisingly enough, they both still supported the vaccine afterward. It is always safer by simple mathematics getting a vaccine vs getting the disease itself. There will forever be fringe cases where the opposite is true, but these are extremely rare and are also studied and scientists attempt to fix these things.

The Covid-19 vaccine has been polarizing because people are afraid of becoming ill from getting it. Another large group just doesn't like being told what they must do. This is a completely understandable human behavior, that is why we like to highlight the US as the land of the free. But nobody is completely free who lives in a structured society. We still must wear our seatbelts, or send our children to public school. But there are alternatives, such as paying a fine (limited with points in some states), or paying for private schooling.

Some would rather have a chance to get the disease than take a chance of getting the shot. This makes sense in logic, as getting the shot means you 100% have to take the chance vs attempting to dodge the disease. The numbers don't lie, however. The chance of death from the disease has consistently been greater than the chance of death from getting vaccinated. It's worth noting that the chance of death from the disease has decreased as the treatments have improved.

This is of course if you consider each variant its own disease. The more contagious delta variant has become the dominant strain. And you don't become the dominant strain by being less effective at spreading. While I can't cite the numbers, I would imagine the chances of death with the delta variant are at least a bit increased over the original.

So this whole discussion comes down to two things. 

One, a vaccine is not and has never been immunity to a disease. You can still get any disease you are vaccinated against.

Two, vaccines work better as a higher percentage of a population gets them.

References

• https://www.cdc.gov/measles/cases-outbreaks.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measles