Talk:2515: Vaccine Research

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
Revision as of 22:03, 14 September 2021 by 172.69.34.183 (talk) (publish date)
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Too bad White Hat and Randall didn't bother to research the other half of the question. YES, vaccines work to save lives. But There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, and you need to research *both* sides of any question, not just the side you agree with.Seebert (talk) 12:52, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I really don't want this to turn into a long debate, but how do you know White Hat/Randall didn't find anything about the risks of vaccines? They never claim that and the fact that White Hat calls the vaccines "pretty good" instead of something like "perfect" would suggest he's aware of the downsides but considers the benefits to outweigh the risks. Bischoff (talk) 13:27, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Since that's left ambiguous (deliberately?), one possible reading of the comic is as a joke on how "my own research" just reinforces prior beliefs, whatever they were. This reading doesn't play as well with the understatement in the punchline, though. --172.69.71.157 21:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I don't trust the "scientists", so I decided to do my own research. Anyway, I need 5000 people for a double-blind clinical trial, so DM me if you know anyone interested. Svízel přítula (talk) 13:25, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

That's exactly where I thought this comic was going to go when I read the first panel. 172.68.133.217 18:07, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I'm unsure whether I'd call Cueball's response "nonchalant", nor that there's any indication as to his motives being deceptive. I read it more as US-style "irony", or UK-style "understatement as intensifier". --172.69.71.157 21:20, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

I read it as sarcastic, too. Perhaps the explanation should be updated. Sarcasm would also suggest that clearly White Hat doesn't know about the effort because they've spent so much time reading the already produced research on the "100s of Studies" Sem 1983 (talk) 21:26, 14 September 2021 (UTC)
Yeah, I did that. Hope my rework didn't suck. --108.162.221.193 21:47, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Should we tag this as a Tuesday comic, or as a Monday comic? This comic was published on the site on Tuesday, but the "official publication date" per https://xkcd.com/archive/ says it to be Monday 9/13. 172.69.34.183 22:03, 14 September 2021 (UTC)