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It doesn't help that there are many out there who are cocksure (they did the research and found all the blogs supporting their theories) that Covid is spread by

It doesn't help that there are many out there who are cocksure (they did the research and found all the blogs supporting their theories) that Covid is spread by Bill Gates and his 5G antennas, that Biden stole the election with the help of China, the earth is flat, steel beams, etc, etc. And of course these blogs teach "critical thinking" by telling them anyone saying otherwise is in the grand conspiracy. I tried to fix a Covid-"truther", her mind was so warped she doesn't even believe in germ theory, she started by reading blogs about nutrition, when some of these got banned by Google for spreading misinformation, the blogs claim Google is involved with big pharma/big agriculture trying to keep humanity from eating healthy. She told me to use DuckDuckGo, I told her "you know they use results from Bing, which is from Microsoft?" (Although in reality BG isn't involved with Microsoft any more). She basically dismissed this bit of information, because hello confirmation bias! So I don't think telling people to use their brains is enough...

throwawayboise 5y ago
You can't force people to think the way you want them to think or believe the things you want them to believe. Not ethically, anyway.
- bellyfullofbac 5y ago
  So if their way of thinking is flawed (e.g. if their cognitive dissonance makes them refuse to accept actual facts, like the fact the world is a sphere), I should just leave it at that? Geez, at the end of the day that's what I mostly do anyway, but what a way to a fractured society.
tux1968 5y ago
Your caricature of a typical (or at least prevalent) person who has objections to the dominant Covid narratives suggests your depth of inquiry into the subject is limited to a few sources as well. In fairness, it may be that a lot of the more "out-there" people are more willing to discuss their views; since rational people will see it's pretty much a losing proposition to be open about such things in the current climate. Personally it's the only climate-change i'm hoping for.

throwawayboise 5y ago

You can't force people to think the way you want them to think or believe the things you want them to believe. Not ethically, anyway.

bellyfullofbac 5y ago
So if their way of thinking is flawed (e.g. if their cognitive dissonance makes them refuse to accept actual facts, like the fact the world is a sphere), I should just leave it at that? Geez, at the end of the day that's what I mostly do anyway, but what a way to a fractured society.

tux1968 5y ago

Your caricature of a typical (or at least prevalent) person who has objections to the dominant Covid narratives suggests your depth of inquiry into the subject is limited to a few sources as well. In fairness, it may be that a lot of the more "out-there" people are more willing to discuss their views; since rational people will see it's pretty much a losing proposition to be open about such things in the current climate. Personally it's the only climate-change i'm hoping for.