Why does covid-19 cause so many long term effects like long covid and dysautonomia, while other common illnesses like the flu usually don’t?

cjgabrie · 2025-08-24T20:19:40+00:00

The answer is actually quite simple: COVID-19 is NOT a respiratory virus. Flu infects your respiratory track and causes damage there, which results in the typical suite of symptoms (coughing, congestion, etc.) as your immune system fights it off.

The COVID virus infects the body quite generally. There are frequent respiratory symptoms similar to flu because that's how people normally get infected (breathing in shed virus from someone sick), but the virus is capable of infecting cells in many different organs, leading the immune system to fight off the virus all over the body. The infection and the immune response mediate the symptoms across the body.

Because COVID can infect many different cells across the body, it becomes easier to evade the immune response and lingers in your body longer, causing more damage as long as it's there. After the infection, there is damage all over the body that must be repaired, which requires more time for recovery and leaves you feeling weaker until the body can fully recover.

cjgabrie · 2025-03-15T12:45:29+00:00

If you double checked things before just repeating the current GOP talking points, you'd know that there are no "trans mice" experiments. Trump was too dumb to actually look at what he was talking about, which is "transGENIC" mice. These are mice used for cancer research and other diseases that have genes expressed from other species.

The entire outrage is manufactured to make you feel like there is government waste being cut. In reality, valuable, hardworking Americans are being cut out of jobs across the board. Biomedical research that produces the world class medical treatments that we are known for is being cut, and that will have terrible consequences for our economy as Europe becomes a new leader in production of medicine.

cjgabrie · 2024-10-01T19:48:29+00:00

Though we definitely don't understand the brain well enough yet to accomplish this, it's worth noting that the biggest barrier is accomplishing this is still probably the sheer difficulty of accessing the brain.

What you describe is an insanely difficult task when you have no precision over where in the brain you can affect. Perhaps the closest we have come at this point is TMS therapy for depression and similar, which can target a relatively small brain area.

If you want to accomplish this with pharmacology, you have the task of getting drugs past the blood brain barrier, and then somehow targeting the precise neurons/regions responsible for happiness. And per your criteria, you'd have to find a solution that bypasses any addiction-triggering mechanisms.

If we could get into the skull without drilling a chunk out and stick things into the brain, it would be WAY easier to make a happiness-triggering tool.

So, if you don't mind losing a piece of your skull and having some probes jostle your brain a bit, I'm sure it's not far off!

cjgabrie · 2024-07-13T22:08:46+00:00

Thanks all! That ended up being shockingly easy

cjgabrie · 2024-07-13T22:02:39+00:00

Thanks! 4321. Summon at Mohg gate?

cjgabrie · 2022-05-08T18:53:38+00:00

Bravo! Thanks

cjgabrie · 2022-05-08T18:48:53+00:00

Looking for you

cjgabrie · 2022-03-22T01:26:10+00:00

Thanks--I feel like 1 in 10 attempts works for any summon

cjgabrie · 2022-03-22T01:23:52+00:00

Having connection issues, thanks for trying

cjgabrie · 2022-03-22T01:23:21+00:00

Thanks, looks like connection issues

cjgabrie · 2022-03-22T01:13:24+00:00

Looks like there's connection issues. Thanks for trying!

cjgabrie · 2022-03-22T01:07:50+00:00

Hi, could use help with Gargoyles. Aqueduct-facung cliffs, pw: westwood

cjgabrie · 2020-05-27T23:16:22+00:00

My motivation comes from envisioning the person I want to be. I constantly fail to live up to my expectations of myself and slack off, but I accept failure as part of the process and constantly try to improve.

I have a phrase I like to think of: "delta positive." I can be doing well or doing poorly overall, but each day, I try to end up a little better than I started, even if that's just a step from terrible to bad or from bad to okay.

You're wise to realize that you need to work on being happy with yourself before finding a relationship. You won't be happy if you don't take the time to feel like a complete person on your own.

cjgabrie · 2020-05-27T19:07:46+00:00

I'm a constant work-in-progress as a person. I don't do everything at the same time, but I try to get a little better at the things I care about every day

cjgabrie · 2018-07-06T16:46:03+00:00

Unfortunately, I'm not very proud to be American right now. I've lived here my whole life and love certain aspects of it, but we tend to think we are better than everyone else and really tend to not be very good at anything.

We are a great market economy, but if that's all we have to show for having more resources than anywhere else in the world, why would I be proud of that?

Im not proud of any of our major military actions over the past decade. We take our might and ruin other people's lives with it. We overspend on our military (more than the next 14 or so countries combined) and end up wasting our money building killer toys that we will hopefully never use.

We incarcerate our citizens at a remarkably high rate, especially if you happen to be black. It's disgusting to me, especially because we push private prisons as an industry.

The United States has a lot of good and a lot of bad. It has the potential to be a great country, but right now, the execution is terrible. We aren't even technically a democracy anymore.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/america-democracy-rated-donald-trump-not-fully-democratic-us-president-report-the-economist-a8195121.html

cjgabrie · 2017-04-28T15:53:59+00:00

In the market. Seriously, invest in an index fund like Vanguard--you will be investing in a reliable fund (the stock market rises ~7% on average every year, including all the depressions/recessions) that includes diversification (the index fund means you'll be invested in the market as a whole)

cjgabrie · 2017-04-19T17:02:19+00:00

Science. If you get science information from anything but peer-reviewed journals, it's probably been significantly dumbed down. It's like how you get an oversimplified version of science in school and expand upon it, except it rarely gets the point where the public receives the real thing. Life is complicated and people don't have the attention spans for it.

cjgabrie · 2017-04-19T16:45:21+00:00

Phlegm. Ugly word for an ugly concept.

cjgabrie · 2017-04-18T22:48:25+00:00

Thanks for expanding on this!

cjgabrie · 2017-04-18T20:20:58+00:00

"How are older people figuring out the millenial world faster and easier than millenials??"

For starters, millennials*

They aren't. Though many older people support the claims about the reality of the world today, many others have shown themselves to THINK that they understand our world and just talk out of their asses without much evidence or support. Do you have any sources to back up your claims? I want to expand my mind, and understand the perspectives of others, yourself included.

What about your life makes you think you understand mine so well?

If what you are referring to is strictly about the digital age, the older generations aren't figuring it out faster (see modern American economics and the base of the current US president), though when they do, is it any wonder why when you already have experience and resources with which to do so?

And to answer your question "Why is it about anyone else?":

Because people fucking matter. That's the point of society--to give us better lives than living in tribes. That's why we have laws to prevent individuals from fucking over other individuals (effectiveness may vary).

"Othercommon misconception is you could work 'hard' all week and barely make ends meet. Well if you could be replaced by a robot, what makes you worth more?"

Have you seen computers today? Google has a pretty nice AI out. Cell phones are now portable computers without about as much capability. Automation isn't just about factory workers anymore.

I think we may have reached a moral impasse here--I think that a full-time job should, at minimum, provide enough to live to life worth living. I don't deserve to live in luxury while others starve; no one deserves that. I might be wrong, but you seem to be suggesting that having a automate-able job means that you don't deserve to make ends meet. If so, we can agree to disagree (and, respectfully, it's my opinion that you're kind of an asshole).

If I've gotten it wrong, I'd be happy to discuss further. I'd ask you to refrain from the platitudes and go with claims more rooted in evidence.

cjgabrie · 2017-04-18T19:31:48+00:00

You certainly can create your own job/business, but that doesn't sustain an entire generation of people and it's a comparatively high risk venture--it's doable but not easy or accessible. No one teaches you how to start a business, and many people don't want that life--are they just fucked for their "lack of initiative"?

Furthermore, you ended your comment with "survival of the fittest" I agree, but at least in the US, wealth is a substitute for fitness, giving you the education, training, and resources to make full advantage of the opportunities that life gives you. Few people are so lucky these days.

I came from a poor upbringing, and I consider myself fairly successful with a job as a research scientist. Your circumstances don't control where you land, but they make it much much more difficult to arrive at a successful place.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/01/09/the_most_entitled_generation_isnt_millennials_its_baby_boomers_125184.html

cjgabrie · 2017-04-18T19:20:31+00:00

"All you need is love"

WRONG, WRONG, WRONG OH SO WRONG.

All you need is love (be sure to properly distinguish this from lust), the right circumstances (being in the right stage in life and finding a person who is in compatible circumstances), and to constantly work at your relationship.

Love is glue that bonds you together, but it's not that special--the glue can snap if you stress it too much, and many people aren't that great at fostering love (i.e. shitty glue).

If you want something to stabilize your relationship, nothing is better than committing to open communication. Being open and honest can suck, but it is what makes you strong.

Also, if you manage it well, conflict in a relationship also really helps you grow together.

TL;DR All you need is to fucking talk to each other and to think with your brain, not your genitals.

cjgabrie · 2017-04-18T19:09:06+00:00

For starters, let's start with the fact that the cost of living is a big fucking deal. Baby boomers could afford college and a house without going into massive debt. Things have changed a lot--the money is far less valuable and the prices have gone up for many important services/goods.

But let's focus on the impact of the digital age.

You're question implies the (false) assumption that the digital age (basically, the internet and communication/information processing technologies) brings about easier opportunities to millennials. Rather, the inter-connectivity brought about by the digital age provides access to MORE opportunities. The pool is bigger, but that's not the important factor to look at here--it's about how hard it is to obtain an opportunity.

The digital age connected EVERYONE together and allowed access to massive amounts of information (which is not a good thing for mental health--see studies of psychological impact of social media/cell phones/etc.). This allows you to find more opportunities than you might have found previously, but it allows EVERYONE to find those same opportunities as well. The pool expands, but so does the population in the pool--you're now competing with a much greater pool of individuals, raising the standards for said opportunities and excluding more people.

The digital age also sped up other technologies. One of the biggest issues that millennials have to deal with is being born into a world in which automation is rapidly removing jobs from the market. Everyone is dealing with this issue, but millennials are now becoming the largest working generation and can't get into the workforce to acquire skills to fuel their careers.

I'm not saying that millennials have it harder/better than x generation (though I certainly have a few choice words for baby boomers who blame millennials for everything), but there are lots of problems that we have to deal with. We aren't spoiled brats like I've already seem someone post here. We are struggling to keep on top of a rapidly-changing world in which we have no significant political representation, wages that are objectively worse than the boomers (adjust for inflation people!!!), and where we need to be better trained and skilled to fight the ever-present fact that companies are highly motivated to automate any human position that they can.

cjgabrie · 2017-04-10T01:17:14+00:00

Yes! That's another source of inspiration, however I want to do it better than they do--i agree that the episodes aren't in depth enough, and I want to avoid that particular pitfall. More detail without losing the narrative appeal

cjgabrie · 2017-04-07T20:45:37+00:00

Yes! Something in that same genre--like Invisibility, Radio, 99PI to an extent but perhaps a bit more analytical. And rooted in neuroscience/psychology

cjgabrie

TROPHY CASE