Consider Vaccination

Starting Questions

What are the risks of covid? How likely are those risks? What are the risks of the covid vaccine? How likely are those risks? What's the evidence?

Main Idea

The sars-cov-2 (covid) virus is substantially more dangerous and deadly than the covid vaccines.

Disclaimer

It would take a book or many posts to address all the issues, so here is a brief attempt to tackle the main factors.

My Case

I read this article on herd immunity since writing this post. I would recommend reading this over my blog post. The article predates the covid pandemic! So it isn't politically charged like the information today.

Vaccines are one of the greatest discoveries in health and or science. Smallpox was eradicated because of vaccines. Many other diseases have severely decreased or practically disappeared in developed nations due to vaccines. The United States recoups its smallpox costs every 26 days." Vaccines are one of the best investment a nation can make. The economic benefits of vaccines go on and on. The costs to develop and distribute vaccines are a small fraction of the costs to treat the illnesses vaccines prevent.

Vaccines have risks, but they are extremely low and rare risks. From Wiki, "Just like any medication or procedure, no vaccine can be 100% safe or effective for everyone because each person's body can react differently.[32][33] While minor side effects, such as soreness or low grade fever, are relatively common, serious side effects are very rare and occur in about 1 out of every 100,000 vaccinations and typically involve allergic reactions that can cause hives or difficulty breathing.[34][35]"

mRNA vaccines developed and popularized for many reasons. One of the main reasons was/is safety. mRNA vaccines are safer! They do not give infection, or any agent that causes disease. They give you a molecule that produces desired antibodies. Here is a 2018 explanation that is more accurate and detailed than my summary. The key points at the top of the page are an easy summary. The article also gives a nice history of vaccines. There are plenty of pre pandemic information on the benefits of mRNA vaccines.

The covid vaccine trials were expedited, but since the FDA approval, there have been over 350,000,000 doses of the covid vaccine given in the US. Minor side effects are likely as your immune system works hard to produce the antibodies that will help you fight off a future covid sickness. But those minor side effects cannot give you covid. Initially, the Johnson vaccine was pulled after 6 women in about 6 million developed blood clots, only 1 of those women died. As of May 2021, "28 out of about 8.7 million" people vaccinated with the Johnson vaccine developed a blood clot. It only took 6 blood clots and 1 death to pull Johnson for further investigations.

I can't find current data breakdowns for specific ages and health conditions, but the most at risk population is old and unhealthy people. Considering my intended audience, I estimate you both have about a 1% chance of dying from covid if you get it, about 2% if either of you have high blood pressure (based on early pandemic data, source). Considering how much you both travel, I would say you both have a high chance of getting covid at some point.

Here is a great source for understanding some of the data terms, like Case Fatality Rate. The current case fatality rate in the US is 1.7%. That means almost 2 people die for every 100 cases confirmed. For vaccinated people the risk is a lot lower, click here to see the full table of all states. The numbers vary, but in every single state, vaccinated people are hospitalized a lot less and die a lot less than unvaccinated people. Current stats for effectiveness of the vaccine are falling towards 80%, but 80% effective is a lot better than 0%. Not getting the vaccine is 0%.

Unfortunately, it is hard to find specific, useful, and accurate data for individuals, without being a data scientist. The data is openly available, but I don't have the skills to work with it. Below are visuals and my conclusion.

Visuals

Below are visuals I found while writing. Unfortunately, I cannot find current case fatality rates by age and health conditions which would provide you with the most accurate risk of death from covid.

Here is a look at deaths in the US. This graphs alone are not that useful because they are missing the context of the population sizes and cases confirmed, but the tables allow you to pinpoint specific age groups.



Here is the same table above but highlighting the 2020 data. Compare the difference in pneumonia deaths. In 2018 and 2019 the flu and pneumonia killed 60,000 and 50,000 people. In 2020, pneumonia killed over 350,000 people.



Here is a look at the top 10 causes of death prior to Covid in 2018 and 2019.

Conclusion

Think of a cost to risk analysis. Your costs are very low for getting the vaccine. It's literally free where I live; it took me longer to drive there than to get shot; and the health risks are extremely low.

Think of the benefits: your risk of dying from covid will be close to 0%; you will make others feel safer; the US will be 1 person closer to herd immunity; and US will get 1 person closer to the end of liberals crying about covid vaccines which is secretly my real agenda.

To me it's a simple choice. I'll love you regardless of your choice.

Attention and Parenting from Alice Munro

Alice Munro won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2013. I've read one or two of her short story collections. I like her. I started another one of her books last week. I keep thinking about the first story. The title is To Reach Japan, you can read it online for free if you create an account here. 

One section especially spoke to me. And after a week, I'm realizing how good the story is. I wouldn't say the story is about parenting, but is it about a parent. And that parent captures one of my largest struggles as a parent. I would call it a tragedy of parenting, Munro's narrator calls it a sin.

I can relate so much to her quote below. I'm so often preoccupied and giving my attention "to something other than the child." Munro has 4 children, so I'm sure she's very familiar with the sin she describes. Even when you put your child in daycare for 7-9 hours a day, it is so easy to commit this sin.

Minimal spoiler warning! and brief context. The protagonist, Greta, left her child unattended on a train ride across Canada. The child was napping and when she woke up she wandered off crying looking for her mom. Here is the quote.

"All of her waking time for these hundreds of miles had been devoted to Katy. She knew that such devotion on her part had never shown itself before. It was true that she had cared for the child, dressed her, fed her, talked to her, during those hours when they were together and Peter was at work. But Greta had other things to do around the house then, and her attention had been spasmodic, her tenderness often tactical. 

And not just because of the housework. Other thoughts had crowded the child out. Even before the useless, exhausting, idiotic preoccupation with the man in Toronto, there was the other work, the work of poetry that it seemed she had been doing in her head for most of her life. That struck her now as another traitorous business—to Katy, to Peter, to life. And now, because of the picture in her head of Katy alone, Katy sitting there amid the metal clatter between the cars—that was something else she, Katy’s mother, was going to have to give up. 

A sin. She had given her attention elsewhere. Determined, foraging attention to something other than the child. A sin."

Defining Religion

Thinking exercise: without using any resources or searches, define religion in 1-3 sentences. Here is mine:

    Religion is a system of beliefs shared and traditions and rituals practiced by a group of people.

I've looked up definitions for religion before to argue with friends, so I might have a more dictionary definition. But I like my answer. 

I'm listening to a course called Cultural Literacy for Religion. The course presented this exercise after identifying how terrible Americans' knowledge of religion is. Unfortunately the course doesn't give a clear definition. It presents common definitions and identifies the limitations and problems with each definition.

Share your definition in the comments!

Advice for Expecting Parents/Fathers

A January 2026 Update here. Read first!

A Brief Lesson in Parenting: All You Need Is Love Minus Chronic Stress

There are only three things people need to know about parenting:

1. Love your child.
   
2. Avoid abuse.
3. Avoid poverty.

Give your child lots of love. They won't overdose. Loving your child will have different meanings as they get older, but don't worry about holding or showing a baby/toddler too much love.

Parents have a lot of control over their offsprings' environment. Most of those choices won't be very consequential. If you look at what messes kids up, it's the effects and stresses of abuse and poverty. As a parent you need to love your children; prevent them from suffering abuse; and do your best to avoid the stressors of poverty.

Fuck Parenting Advice

In case you couldn't tell, I don't value parenting advice, especially unsolicited parenting advice, especially especially unsolicited parenting advice from people without children. Parenting is not a science. There were some real experiments with raising children prior to modern ethics in research, spoiler warning, they're tragically depressing. So if and when someone suggests or gives you a parenting book, just smile, say thank you, and feel free to ignore. Parenting books are either theory based or anecdotal. Both may or may not apply to you and or your family. What worked for someone else may or not work for others.

If you personally want a certain structure, I would amend my advice. Parenting books can be useful for giving ideas. Big surprise, I found parenting books to be a waste of time.

For evidence based parenting choices, Emily Oster. I subscribe to her parenting newsletter, Parent Data. She has at least a couple books and I would recommend her if you must have a parenting book. Or if you want to learn about choices parents need to make, like drinking coffee/alcohol while pregnant/beast feeding, using formula, babies sleeping with parents. Oster is all about risk analysis and encouraging people to make the best choices for their families. Oster is an economist, so she analyzes the available data and studies it like an economist.

Feelings

Any feelings or lack of feelings are normal and fine. It's okay to not like being a parent, just love your offspring, don't abuse them, and, if possible, don't be poor.

I have a theory, untested and solely based on my experiences with myself and other fathers, that fatherhood being the greatest experience know to man is a false consensus. I'd bet many men would confide in privacy that fatherhood is less desirable than they publicly announce.

I'll admit that my opinions could very likely change. But to make a financial analogy, I'm still waiting for the return on my investment.

I could make this into a long rant itself, but whatever you're feeling or not feeling is fine. You'll love your kids and be a great parent.

The First Few Months

The first weeks were a blur. One of the only things I remember was how amazing going back to work was. I felt bad because my wife didn't have a work to go back to, but the break away from home was incredible.

Take all the help you can. We had my in-laws within an hour drive and my mother came to spend 2-3 weeks with us a couple times. Having help was the best. Even little things like cleaning the house or cooking a pot of food made everything else easier.

If you don't have family helping and or you can afford it, hire help. Help helps. If the stress is building and there are things you can outsource, hire someone to help.

Be Prepared

For the most part, babies only cry for a couple reasons. You'll figure that out real quick. But sometimes the baby will cry and nothing you do will help. That's normal and depending of the baby it will vary in frequency and duration.

I would have avoided some terrible experiences if I was mentally prepared for times when I was stressed, tired, hungry, upset about something else, etc and my daughter was having a bad fit. This will happen. It's frustrating. And frustration can easily rub off and extend the episode. Be prepared for how to handle these moments calmly and patiently. Think about how you would like to respond. Think about how you might naturally respond. Think about how you can trick yourself into doing your preferred response instead of your natural response.

The crying fits got worse for me as my daughter got older. After 2 years old, I lost my cool a few times. I do a lot better now because I'm learning from my mistakes and thinking about triggers and indicators to look for and expect. Not surprisingly, all of my worst parenting performances occurred when I was watching my child alone. Anticipate and prepare for unideal circumstances and practice handling the situations smoothly. Unideal circumstances will become a lot more regular with a child.

One morning your kid will ask for something unexpected for breakfast and you'll say no. You'll probably be running a little late for work, the dog will need to go to the bathroom, and you'll be in the middle of sending a message. Next thing you'll know, the the kid will freak out like someone is sawing their leg off with a butter knife. What do you do? That is one of many situations you can practice preparing to encounter. Another spoiler, yelling and getting visibly frustrated doesn't help the situation.

Your Parents Are The Default Parents.

Continuing with being prepared, most people learn how to parent from their parents and close relatives. I find myself parenting like my parents more than I'd prefer, not a compliment.

I find myself losing my patients like my dad, and I find myself antagonizing my whining daughter like my mom. I know both of these are poor strategies. But in the moment, I just default to my parents too often. Consider what your parents did well and poorly. You might find yourself being more like them than you expected.

Conclusion

I've already far surpassed my advice rule. Nothing ground breaking. You're going to be fine. Parenting is more exhausting than hard. I focus on the negative because the positives don't need advice. It's easy to enjoy the positives. If you want to wash my recommendations down with positives, test out my theory and ask some father in public! But the negatives can create more negativity. The negatives compound more than the positives, and many negative experiences could be minimized or prevented with mindfulness.

Top Resources

• The Data-Driven Guide to Sane Parenting (interview)
  
• Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know (book, if you must)
  
• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool (book, if you must)
• Scientific Secrets for Raising Kids Who Thrive (college course lectures)
  
• The Coddling of the American Mind (book, but not on parenting)
  

CBT Reflection #1

I wrote this Feb 2021. I planned to complete this and use it as a form of self help therapy. I never formally followed through with my plan outlined in my original post. A couple days ago, I saw a friend's facebook post. I thought my friend might benefit from CBT, so I shared my original post with him. Now I realized I never followed through. So here I go.

CBT Reflection #1: What brought you here?

Chance and mild depression brought me to CBT. If it wasn't for a friend recommending me a book, I might not have thought or considered my sagging mental health. So awareness was a key. Since my depression was mild, I may have not noticed or connected my symptoms. I'm a person who tends to keep my feelings to myself. I love to argue, discuss, and talk, but when asked how I'm doing I naturally say good or okay regardless of how I actually feel. Now as i get older, better educated, and more aware, I see the mental health benefits from being open and more expressive. This is another way for me to have an expressive outlet.

So chance or luck initially brought me here.

After studying CBT, I see cognitive distortions everywhere. My friends, books and media I ingest, especially weekly to hourly news, social media are all flooding with cognitive distortions. I typically keep them to myself and speculate the amount of suffering and damage caused by negative thinking that doesn't have to be negative.

This is a weak reflection, but it's good enough. It's also past midnight now and a little girl will be waking me up in a few hours.

“The Man Devoured by Ogres”

I love this story! I just referenced it for a friend. So I figured I'd post here for easier access to share in the future. I may or may not of revised the text. I can't recall. I used it as a piece of literature teaching identity. Below is the text I'd shared.

I got the story and text from The Man Who Wasn't There by Anil Ananthaswamy. He is one of my favorite non-fiction authors, and I look forward to reading whatever he writes next.

An allegory about a man who was devoured by ogres first appears in an ancient Indian Buddhist text of the Madhyamika (the middle-way) tradition. It dates from sometime between 150 and 250 CE and is a somewhat gruesome illustration of the Buddhist notion of the true nature of the self.

“The Man Devoured by Ogres”

A man on a long journey to a distant land finds a deserted house and decides to rest there for the night. At midnight, an ogre enters carrying a corpse. He sets the corpse down next to the man. Soon, another ogre in pursuit of the first arrives at the deserted house. The two ogres begin bickering over the corpse. Each claims to have brought the dead man to the house and wants ownership of it. Unable to resolve their dispute, they turn to the man who saw them come in, and ask him to adjudicate. They want an answer. Who brought the corpse to the house?

The man, realizing the futility of lying to the ogres—for if one won’t kill him, the other one will—tells the truth: the first ogre came with the corpse, he says. The angry second ogre retaliates by ripping off the man’s arm. (What ensues gives the allegory its macabre twist.) The first ogre immediately detaches an arm from the corpse and attaches it to the man. And so it goes: the second ogre rips a body part off the man; the first ogre replaces it by taking the same body part from the corpse and attaching it to the man. They end up swapping everything—arms, legs, the torso, and even the head. Finally, the two ogres make a meal of the corpse, wipe their mouths clean, and leave.

The man, whom the ogres have left behind, is extremely disturbed. He is left pondering what he has witnessed. The body that he was born in has been eaten by the ogres. His body now is made up of body parts of someone else entirely. Does he now have a body or doesn’t he? If the answer is yes, is it his body or someone else’s? If the answer is no, then what is he to make of the body that he can see?

The next morning, the man sets off on the road, in a state of utter confusion. He finally meets a group of Buddhist monks. He has a burning question for them: does he exist or does he not? The monks throw the question back at him: who are you? The man is not sure how to answer the question. He’s not sure he’s even a person, he says—and tells the monks of his harrowing encounter with the ogres.