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>If you're unwilling to see the people who disagree with you as equally intelligent, and equally capable of reasoned decisions, then what can I possibly say to

>If you're unwilling to see the people who disagree with you as equally intelligent, and equally capable of reasoned decisions, then what can I possibly say to change your mind? Up until this point, you haven't even tried. Within the context of misinformation I don't believe that opponents of the vaccine are making them in good faith, which is why they reach for dubious arguments. When someone says, like I've seen mainly on the blue site, that vaccines are tools of the wealthy to keep us at home and to be tracked, I don't think that person is making a reasoned decision on well researched information; I see someone who is probably being misled by someone else for some other person (ex. downplaying the need to take COVID precautions). However, your reasoning for not taking the vaccine is perfectly valid and reasoned and is something I've discussed with others - mRNA vaccines are a new technology and we don't know the side-effects. At the very least I can assume you are willing to accept that COVID is real and are making arguments with empirical data. Circling back to my original argument however, there's a difference between "the COVID vaccine may not be fully tested yet" and "the COVID vaccine is going to be used to track you". Anyone can do the calculus and understand, that while the COVID vaccine may not 100% safe at this moment, that doesn't mean that the government, or the scientific community at large, is completely untrustworthy, or trying to deceive you; they are simply trying to make the appropriate trade offs. In other words, your argument implies a lack of certainty, and the other, and arguably more popular one, implies malice. Our institutions aren't acting on complete malice, so given that they will be wrong sometimes, I think it's unreasonable to abandon our intuitions just because they weren't 100% correct.

generalizations 6y ago
It's nice we seem to be on the same page re: mRNA vaccine. However, I don't think you're totally reasonable in how you're dealing with people who are skeptical of it. It seems like you've drawn a line where people who are too skeptical, or skeptical for the wrong reasons, are suddenly -- definitely -- misled by others for some nefarious reason. And no longer rational. That's nice, when there's an overload of information and it's not worth the time to evaluate everything; but blanket statements like the ones you made aren't reasonable. From what I've seen, most skepticism of that sort has a pretty simple source: they are far less trusting of their government, and of people in power (political or monetary). I notice you won't definitely claim there is no malice, or that the people in power are definitely trustworthy. The less trust you express, the more might not be copacetic. I saw the same thing happen over the last 15 years with Google: the folks who don't trust Gates overlap by a large margin with the ones who didn't trust Google when they had their "Don't be evil" slogan. Pessimists are rarely disappointed. > Up until this point, you haven't even tried. Like I noted before, I wasn't trying. I don't like it when people do not acknowledge the mental capacity of those who disagree with them. It's not up to me to prove to you that I or anyone else is rational; it's up to you to have the intellectual honesty to admit that someone who disagrees with you could be rational. As I asked you already: how can you claim, among intellectual equals, to be the one who is uninfluenced by misinformation? - Because most people think the way you do? Bandwagon Fallacy. - Because the experts say so? Appeal to Authority. - Because it's just so strange? Personal Incredulity.

generalizations 6y ago

It's nice we seem to be on the same page re: mRNA vaccine. However, I don't think you're totally reasonable in how you're dealing with people who are skeptical of it. It seems like you've drawn a line where people who are too skeptical, or skeptical for the wrong reasons, are suddenly -- definitely -- misled by others for some nefarious reason. And no longer rational. That's nice, when there's an overload of information and it's not worth the time to evaluate everything; but blanket statements like the ones you made aren't reasonable. From what I've seen, most skepticism of that sort has a pretty simple source: they are far less trusting of their government, and of people in power (political or monetary). I notice you won't definitely claim there is no malice, or that the people in power are definitely trustworthy. The less trust you express, the more might not be copacetic. I saw the same thing happen over the last 15 years with Google: the folks who don't trust Gates overlap by a large margin with the ones who didn't trust Google when they had their "Don't be evil" slogan. Pessimists are rarely disappointed. > Up until this point, you haven't even tried. Like I noted before, I wasn't trying. I don't like it when people do not acknowledge the mental capacity of those who disagree with them. It's not up to me to prove to you that I or anyone else is rational; it's up to you to have the intellectual honesty to admit that someone who disagrees with you could be rational. As I asked you already: how can you claim, among intellectual equals, to be the one who is uninfluenced by misinformation? - Because most people think the way you do? Bandwagon Fallacy. - Because the experts say so? Appeal to Authority. - Because it's just so strange? Personal Incredulity.