Reader Responses To My Viral Debate With Mark Cuban

Hi everyone,

As most of you know, a couple of weeks ago I got into a heated debate with Mark Cuban about the dangers of mass-vaccinating young, healthy men and the corruption in the CDC and FDA. In case you missed it, you can catch up here:

Shoutout again to Joe Rogan for the rewarding mention — that was a highlight of the summer TBH (head over to my personal Substack to read me fanboy about it in an upcoming summer wrap-up post):

In this post, I have serialized noteworthy reader responses to my debate with Cuban. This is just a short selection of the many insightful, interesting, and irreverent (!) responses, but they are well worth highlighting.

Thank you again to my readers for your attentiveness and steadfast pursuit of the truth! If you appreciate the work I (and Dr. Jay!) am doing, please consider supporting The Illusion of Consensus Substack by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy an end-of-summer 15% off discount for yearly subscriptions on us:

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Reader Responses

Featuring Dr. Vinay Prasad, David Zweig, Dr. Anish Koka, and others.

Unacceptable Risk

(Bernard Gallo): on how trusting CDC officials as one’s chosen experts means following their advice all the way to the end in getting a continued round of booster shots:

He’s captured and sounds like all the rest. The mandates came out even after the CDC admitted in late July the efficacy wanes and started recommending boosters. A real vaccine doesn’t require 5 or more shots. You should ask him if he’s up to date on all his shots, because if not, he’s not fully vaccinated according to his own logic.

I am suing my former employer for firing me for refusing the jab. Declined my religious exemption, showed proof I recovered from Covid, advised by a doctor it wasn’t necessary, none of it mattered. Another major league sports team. Of course I’m not a player who belongs to a union, so I didn’t have any protection there. Of course, they didn’t mandate any boosters, only the initial jabs. Practically advised to take the Pfizer jab since it was “approved”, the other shell game. I appreciate your articles, and Dr Jay is one keeping my spirits up. Been a tough road, but I’m glad I’m not jabbed.

Dr. Retsef Levi on the crime of sports organizations mandating experimental shots for young, healthy male athletes:

Respectfully, organizations like the NBA and NFL mandated young athletes with 0 risk from COVID, even recovered ones, to take a leaky vaccine with a real risk to harm their heart and future career. Will they ever be willing to admit it may have harmed some of them? And yes, several countries stopped Moderna for under 30 because of myocarditis risk. The argument why Moderna and not Pfizer which is essentially identical is very weak to say the least..

Dragonfly0303

on elites’ inability to recognize the validity of those who engage in “do your own research” and the new battle between team reality and “narcissistic windbags” (well-said!):

Cuban’s arguments sound like the rest of the self-proclaimed “experts” who can’t believe that any given person, during the ridiculous lockdowns and various mandates, could actually delve into available data/information and develop a reasonable opinion of his/her own; contrary to that heralded by the bastions of “science” and their MSM talking heads.

I no longer see these standoffs as conservative vs liberal, but pompous, narcissistic windbags vs us “little people.”

Ruth H on Cuban’s regurgitated balderdash:

Your responses were fact-based whereas Mark Cuban just regurgitates the same idiotic nonsense void of facts but based on propaganda. Mark Cuban has always been an elitist snob who would rather push fear-mongering dangerous ideas than admit he was wrong and fell for all the hype. Deep down he must know his wrong he is. His ego is too big to admit his mistake.

Dan McDunn drops a very personal note on developing forgiveness

Thanks for this! Sounds like more or less every conversation I’ve had since April 2021 after my wife’s best friend passed away from the Pfizer shot. There really is not much one can do besides pray for the vaccinated and for the souls of those that supported the authoritarian mandates. Just like we can’t unsee what’s going on they literally can never see it. Waking up to the truth, after injection and showing themselves as the monsters they are, is simply too much to handle for people.

That’s where I’m at for now. Working on forgiveness to preserve my own mental well being, but not letting go of embracing opportunities to enlighten. 2+ years of seeking vengeance has taken too large a toll on me already.

Sirka’s Substack

hyperbolically (hope not!) calls me Superman:

Wow, Rav you are an intellectual Superman. Seriously, your ability to state the facts and debate clearly, factually is so impressive. It must be a kick in the nuts for a guy like Cuban to be put in his place by a young whippersnapper such as yourself. You have a great road ahead, once again I gotta say, your parentsmust be so proud! Ps. You still living in their basement? My kids are and I wouldn’t want it any other way😉

PS. Here’s my Dave Rubin interview from last year where I talk about living in the basement ;-)

Karl Harrison on an actually serious passage of a New York Times article on vaccine myocarditis (the article gets worst after with garbage data on long Covid and child hospitalizations) :

Anish Koka MD (Cardiology)

asks Mark an important question:

Mark, even if death post vaccine is rare (as I believe it to be) there’s more than just death as an important endpoint. Developing vaccine myocarditis for an active NBA player is potentially career ending. Given that it’s august 2023, and the risk of severe COVID seems very very low, would u endorse current NBA players being boosted?

I’m hard pressed to understand what data Mark’s / the NBAs insurance folks were reviewing that apparently lead them to think it made sense to vaccinate professional athletes at any point (after vaccines became available) in the pandemic.

David Zweig

and

Vinay Prasad

on the fallacy of resting one’s argument in insurance companies’ behaviors:

David: Mark, using insurance companies' inaction as a proxy for evidence of a favorable cost-benefit for young men may seem reasonable, but it's an appeal to authority fallacy. A review of the evidence itself suggests a net harm for boosting most young adults

https://jme.bmj.com/content/early/2022/12/05/jme-2022-108449

Vinay: I agree with David. Insurance companies are full of the same group think that plagues failing federal agencies. No doubt about it. Young men are worse off with repeat shots. Particularly after COVID

Peter Schlott on the clear narrative Mark supports instead of the hard data:

Looks more like Mark doesn't want to go on a show where he'll be made out to look like a fool. He does ask some decent questions, but it's pretty obvious that he more wants to believe that the shots work and did no harm when all evidence seems to show they did not work and caused much more harm than vaccines did in the past. If we had any other new shot that caused this much damage, it would be pulled.

As for insurance - it's still a little too early to show what will happen there, but as more facts come out I wonder how many will push back on clotting/myocarditis treatments? I think the Life Insurance businesses have already noted an uptick in payouts, but that would be better checked by someone who really follows that industry.

Dr Kay

perceptively analyzes my debate with Cuban:

Rav, thanks for sharing the debate. Mark Cuban's responses reflect his thinking, which is devoid of attention to details. You provide actual facts, and the evidence which backs them up. He counters with the classic consensus argument (everyone is doing it so it must be right) and unsubstantiated assumptions of ethics as primary motivation for behaviors, rather than financial, which is the reality of nearly every system in this world today, unfortunately. Assigning the same morality that you may have automatically upon everyone else, and cognitive dissonance with any arguments and proof to the contrary is the tragedy of liberalism, as is lack of detail-orientation.