>>Examples: climate change denial, anti-vax, religion... They're the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting They aren't, yo

>>Examples: climate change denial, anti-vax, religion... They're the intellectual equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting They aren't, you just don't understand it. Anti-vax people are often very well educated. Their position is that you can't trust the pharmaceutical corporation and the government to put health of the citizens above their profit. 99%+ of the population is in no position to make their own judgement about climate change or effectiveness of medical procedures. What most people do is choose who to believe. You choose to believe the government and the researches, some people don't. From purely incentive based analysis maybe those people are rational after all as they are very clearly not aligned in the interest of general population (the whole thing relies on assuming there would be enough whistleblowers among researchers and that they are in general ethical - both very shaky assumptions). >>It's worth noting that all these things are driven by fear of things people don't understand. No, they just don't believes the same authority figures as you do. >>Someone who understands how vaccinations work, why we do them, why they're made the way they are can't be afraid of them, and thus won't be against them. This comment is equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting rather than seeking to actually understand the position of others. Thinking like yours is a problem because it skips over actual problems: misaligned incentives, lack of transparency, history of corruption and politically motivated government policies (for example with anti-fat pro grain diet policy).