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Anecdotes and all, but in my experience anti-vaxxers and the like often have a nearly religious zeal about their beliefs that makes them extremely difficult to

Anecdotes and all, but in my experience anti-vaxxers and the like often have a nearly religious zeal about their beliefs that makes them extremely difficult to have a productive conversation with. I’ve tried the sort of level headed, patient approach you mention and it practically never works — they don’t want to be convinced, or even hear anything that opposes what they think. And oddly, it’s not just the ones who are arguing in bad faith who are like this. It seems to affect anybody who’s went to do “research” and stumbled upon the mountains of disinformation. The handful of people who are uncertain and haven’t been taken in by disinformation are somewhat reasonable to talk with, but they’re a vanishingly small group. The mind closing aspect of the conspiracy stuff is wildly infectious.

User23 5y ago
Given that most people are idiots, you can expect to find plenty of idiot anti-vaxxers. I've met quite a few who are far from being idiots though. For example the infamous Marin county anti-vaxxers were defecting in a prisoner's dilemma type game. They got all the benefits of vaccination since herd immunity existed in the school system and none of the risks that pharmaceutical intervention carries. So as a selfish risk minimization and benefit maximization strategy that anti-vaxxing behavior was entirely rational and indeed locally optimal. Other anti-vaxxers are capable of distinguishing between a therapy that's been used widely in the general public for decades, and thus has decades of data supporting that the intervention carries less risk than the disease, and a therapy for a disease that was rushed out in under a year and still hasn't been approved by the FDA for a disease that's known to carry minimal risk to those under the age of 40 without comorbidities. Now you can smugly say well I know the risks better and these people are religious fanatics, but really, you don't. Nobody knows the long term risks and benefits of the mRNA interventions because they have never been used in the long term. Vaccine development has historically taken about 10-15 years, so it's far from irrational to have doubts when it was done in under a year. Edit: If any of the above is logically fallacious or based on misinformation please reply. I am willing to have my mind changed by dialectic.

User23 5y ago

Given that most people are idiots, you can expect to find plenty of idiot anti-vaxxers. I've met quite a few who are far from being idiots though. For example the infamous Marin county anti-vaxxers were defecting in a prisoner's dilemma type game. They got all the benefits of vaccination since herd immunity existed in the school system and none of the risks that pharmaceutical intervention carries. So as a selfish risk minimization and benefit maximization strategy that anti-vaxxing behavior was entirely rational and indeed locally optimal. Other anti-vaxxers are capable of distinguishing between a therapy that's been used widely in the general public for decades, and thus has decades of data supporting that the intervention carries less risk than the disease, and a therapy for a disease that was rushed out in under a year and still hasn't been approved by the FDA for a disease that's known to carry minimal risk to those under the age of 40 without comorbidities. Now you can smugly say well I know the risks better and these people are religious fanatics, but really, you don't. Nobody knows the long term risks and benefits of the mRNA interventions because they have never been used in the long term. Vaccine development has historically taken about 10-15 years, so it's far from irrational to have doubts when it was done in under a year. Edit: If any of the above is logically fallacious or based on misinformation please reply. I am willing to have my mind changed by dialectic.