5 ms·

I do some work with HIV prevention. Sometimes I give talks where I'm very blunt about the realities of HIV among men who have sex with men. I've watched peopl

by retrac 6y ago

I do some work with HIV prevention. Sometimes I give talks where I'm very blunt about the realities of HIV among men who have sex with men. I've watched people immediately shift from mild hostility and discomfort to wholehearted acceptance of what I am saying, when I tell them I'm gay myself. In that circumstance, I think it is clear that my sexual orientation is the basis by which they are judging the authoritativeness I have to speak on the topic. Never mind the formal qualifications, or the logic or veracity of what I am actually saying. Like, I know we all have little unconscious checklists like that for judging whether someone is credible, but it is uncomfortable to see the effect live.

duckfang 6y ago
As a bisexual male, I think a good part of disdain about connecting HIV and gay goes to the older naming of the disease: GRID. gay-related immune deficiency It also dates me, but I had a blood transfusion in 1982. At that time, it was a Russian Roulette if I ended up with HIV blood or not. I didn't. Had I been innfected, I would have ended up like Ryan White.
- randallsquared 6y ago
  Even knowing the term GRID dates you. :) Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80%931982:_From_GRID_to_AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80... , the "GRID" moniker was only used for under two years, forty years ago. I think it's unlikely that the name is to blame.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - benatkin 6y ago
    I was born in 1982 and I knew about it. I don't think it's unlikely. It was early in the chain of events, so even if it was six months it could have had a big impact.
DenisM 6y ago
Quite illustrative. People have referential groups, that’s human nature. One could work with the framework to achieve desired result and hopefully minimize externalities, or one can lament biases and lambast the biased people for extra whatever points. This is not a dig at you, btw, it seems clear that you’re making the best of the situation.
setpatchaddress 6y ago
This suggests that a possible answer to TFA could be to find a trusted female peer to carry the message.
- foobiekr 6y ago
  You'd think so, but I have seen this specific idea play out and in one case the "trusted female peer" accused the person doing the asking of expecting her to do his emotional labor.
mensetmanusman 6y ago
Interesting, can you give an example of a fact that is initially resisted but is then accepted when you provide additional personal experience.
- retrac 6y ago
  It's the most obvious one. According to Public Health Canada, men who have sex with men are 71x more likely to become HIV+ during their lives than men who have sex with women. Based on the infection rate modelling of the early 2010s for which we have data, a young gay man in Toronto has about 30% odds of becoming HIV+ in his lifetime. Wide eyes. Disbelief. That can't possibly be right. With all the people I have watched become HIV+ over the years, it is of course very believable to me. But the data from PHAC is reliable enough, and it speaks for itself. I shouldn't need to make it believable. But of course people are not emotionless abstract rational machines, and that's why I'm doing these sort of talks rather than emailing out memos with charts. (The good news at least is those numbers are almost certainly coming down with new medical interventions like PrEP, earlier treatment and routine testing, which are my main points these days. I might actually get to be happy with the numbers in the national HIV tracking data when it's compiled for 2021.)
fastball 6y ago
You see this on Reddit all the time, every day. Someone wants to disagree with whatever nonsense the hivemind is raving about in the moment, but in order to do so they have to prostrate themselves and make it clear whose side they're on before they make their (often very valid) point. e.g. "I hate Trump just has much as the rest of you but..." or "Look we need to be super supportive of X group and my dad is actually X but..."
- kodah 6y ago
  That happens all the time here too, which is an interesting note.
  - Shugarl 6y ago
    Doesn't this happen in pretty much any group ? The more what you say goes against the consensus, the more the group will reject it.
    - kodah 6y ago
      No, I don't think so. It certainly wasn't a thing that I was aware of prior to roughly two years ago. Maybe it's "normal" now but that's probably because certain people made you show your identity card in order to dissent. I've noticed this trend where people started to accuse each other of psychological trickery a lot. I think it descends as a "defense" from that. I was never really sure of how many psychological games were really being played and how much people just reached for the terms to use as dismissal from criticism.
      - fastball 6y ago
        Yeah, if you believe the internet, "gaslighting" is something that people are trying to do to you all the time.
- retsibsi 6y ago
  That definitely happens, but sometimes the motivation is a bit more nuanced than just crawling to the mob. With everything so tribalised, and most people unwilling to stick their neck out and call their ingroup on its bullshit, we end up in situations where anyone expressing a dissenting opinion is quite likely to be an extremist of some kind -- or at least solidly on the 'other side' -- because they are the ones most likely to be motivated to speak up. So if I preface an opinion with 'X, but', it may not be all about begging for the right to dissent; I may have good reason to think that, without the preface, what I say will signal some beliefs or values that I don't hold. If those things are genuinely hurtful to a vulnerable group, or simply reprehensible to me, then I have good reason to disavow them, regardless of whether I need to do so in order to be heard.
mcguire 6y ago
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-messenger-is-the-message/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-messe... The Messenger Is the Message: Science Talk podcast, June 2020.

by retrac 6y ago

duckfang 6y ago

As a bisexual male, I think a good part of disdain about connecting HIV and gay goes to the older naming of the disease: GRID. gay-related immune deficiency It also dates me, but I had a blood transfusion in 1982. At that time, it was a Russian Roulette if I ended up with HIV blood or not. I didn't. Had I been innfected, I would have ended up like Ryan White.

randallsquared 6y ago
Even knowing the term GRID dates you. :) Per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80%931982:_From_GRID_to_AIDS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_HIV/AIDS#1981%E2%80... , the "GRID" moniker was only used for under two years, forty years ago. I think it's unlikely that the name is to blame.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- benatkin 6y ago
  I was born in 1982 and I knew about it. I don't think it's unlikely. It was early in the chain of events, so even if it was six months it could have had a big impact.

DenisM 6y ago

Quite illustrative. People have referential groups, that’s human nature. One could work with the framework to achieve desired result and hopefully minimize externalities, or one can lament biases and lambast the biased people for extra whatever points. This is not a dig at you, btw, it seems clear that you’re making the best of the situation.

setpatchaddress 6y ago

This suggests that a possible answer to TFA could be to find a trusted female peer to carry the message.

foobiekr 6y ago
You'd think so, but I have seen this specific idea play out and in one case the "trusted female peer" accused the person doing the asking of expecting her to do his emotional labor.

mensetmanusman 6y ago

Interesting, can you give an example of a fact that is initially resisted but is then accepted when you provide additional personal experience.

retrac 6y ago
It's the most obvious one. According to Public Health Canada, men who have sex with men are 71x more likely to become HIV+ during their lives than men who have sex with women. Based on the infection rate modelling of the early 2010s for which we have data, a young gay man in Toronto has about 30% odds of becoming HIV+ in his lifetime. Wide eyes. Disbelief. That can't possibly be right. With all the people I have watched become HIV+ over the years, it is of course very believable to me. But the data from PHAC is reliable enough, and it speaks for itself. I shouldn't need to make it believable. But of course people are not emotionless abstract rational machines, and that's why I'm doing these sort of talks rather than emailing out memos with charts. (The good news at least is those numbers are almost certainly coming down with new medical interventions like PrEP, earlier treatment and routine testing, which are my main points these days. I might actually get to be happy with the numbers in the national HIV tracking data when it's compiled for 2021.)

fastball 6y ago

You see this on Reddit all the time, every day. Someone wants to disagree with whatever nonsense the hivemind is raving about in the moment, but in order to do so they have to prostrate themselves and make it clear whose side they're on before they make their (often very valid) point. e.g. "I hate Trump just has much as the rest of you but..." or "Look we need to be super supportive of X group and my dad is actually X but..."

kodah 6y ago
That happens all the time here too, which is an interesting note.
- Shugarl 6y ago
  Doesn't this happen in pretty much any group ? The more what you say goes against the consensus, the more the group will reject it.
  - kodah 6y ago
    No, I don't think so. It certainly wasn't a thing that I was aware of prior to roughly two years ago. Maybe it's "normal" now but that's probably because certain people made you show your identity card in order to dissent. I've noticed this trend where people started to accuse each other of psychological trickery a lot. I think it descends as a "defense" from that. I was never really sure of how many psychological games were really being played and how much people just reached for the terms to use as dismissal from criticism.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Yeah, if you believe the internet, "gaslighting" is something that people are trying to do to you all the time.
retsibsi 6y ago
That definitely happens, but sometimes the motivation is a bit more nuanced than just crawling to the mob. With everything so tribalised, and most people unwilling to stick their neck out and call their ingroup on its bullshit, we end up in situations where anyone expressing a dissenting opinion is quite likely to be an extremist of some kind -- or at least solidly on the 'other side' -- because they are the ones most likely to be motivated to speak up. So if I preface an opinion with 'X, but', it may not be all about begging for the right to dissent; I may have good reason to think that, without the preface, what I say will signal some beliefs or values that I don't hold. If those things are genuinely hurtful to a vulnerable group, or simply reprehensible to me, then I have good reason to disavow them, regardless of whether I need to do so in order to be heard.

mcguire 6y ago

https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-messenger-is-the-message/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/the-messe... The Messenger Is the Message: Science Talk podcast, June 2020.