13 ms·

> I’m wondering what the odds are that people will pivot from “it’s experimental” to “it was rushed due to politics/greed”. No doubt this will be the case for

> I’m wondering what the odds are that people will pivot from “it’s experimental” to “it was rushed due to politics/greed”. No doubt this will be the case for some. So, you've found a logical flaw in people's stated reasons for not wanting a vaccine. How does that help anything? In these kinds of debates, the actual goals or beliefs of both sides often differ from what they say. For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. People end up locking in to trivialities like approval or some study, but they just obscure the real debate. Doing more to get the tradeoffs we are making into the open, and talk plainly about what people are being asked to do, why, and what their rights and options are, is much more valuable IMO than trying to find clever flaws in the reasoning of either side. Flaws are there, and obvious, but generally not central to anyone's core thesis, and almost certainly not going to sway anybody. They just let people score cheap shots against their opponents and pump up their own supporters.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
sharken 5y ago
These cheap shots or trench war between both sides does nobody any good, it divides people instead of unite them. For me the major issue with the vaccine is the extremely fast track from inventing it to getting it out the door. An FDA approval will not change my mind on the safety of the vaccine, only time can do that. By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate.
- nojito 5y ago
  >By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate. We are way past the time frame for long-term effects to manifest themselves for a corona-like vaccine.
  - peakaboo 5y ago
    This is not true. There could be birth defects or lower iq in babies born from vaccinated mothers.
    - acdha 5y ago
      There are an infinite number of things which could happen but there’s no mechanism or evidence making this likely. The vaccine doesn’t rewrite your DNA and it strengthens your normal immune response, which does none of those things.
      - oblio 5y ago
        Pluuuuuusssss... we don't know the long term impact of Covid itself. People who argue against vaccines don't seem to think enough about that aspect.
        Izkata 5y ago
        Or maybe they're just arguing for the third group: people who already were infected and recovered. No need to double up on the unknown risks of you already have immunity.
        oblio 5y ago
        Based on our current information, that's at best 33% of the population. Realistically in most countries it's about 15-20%.
    - wombatpm 5y ago
      Or in unvaccinated mothers exposed to COVID-19.
    - lern_too_spel 5y ago
      Birth defects would have been observed already if they were a side effect of the vaccine.
    - 5y ago
- auslegung 5y ago
  I wonder would you have felt the same way when the chickenpox vaccine, or MMR vaccines, or any of the other common vaccines we get today, were new.
  - odessacubbage 5y ago
    yes actually.
    - auslegung 5y ago
      It's an impossible question for me to answer b/c I don't have any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on at the time. But I think the question is worth pondering for people because it may help people realize if they have politics clouding their thinking here. Not saying everyone with your opinion has their thinking clouded because of politics, but I think many do.
- evan_ 5y ago
  > we need more time to assess the long-term effects You seem to be saying that the only issue is a question of time. Be specific: how much time? Will you say a specific number? “I will accept an mRNA-based vaccine if it has been around, and proven safe, for x years.”
  - sharken 5y ago
    Something similar to the Rubella vaccine that took about four years to be licensed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella_vaccine
    - oblio 5y ago
      My problem with this "we just have to wait N units of time" approach is: what do we do instead meanwhile? What's the alternative?
      - sharken 5y ago
        That's the hard part, I'm all for giving the vaccine to all who wants it. And at the same time not forcing everyone to take the vaccine. As an example Denmark will reach about 75% vaccinated without any mandates, though a Corona passport will be in effect until October 2021. That is one of the better ways of handling it in my opinion.
        oblio 5y ago
        The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports". And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.
        ghaff 5y ago
        While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lern_too_spel 5y ago
  No vaccine has ever had a long term effect that isn't visible soon after it is administered. Vaccines are one and done and eliminate quickly from the body, unlike other medications, which can be administered daily or weekly for years and can accumulate in organs. https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-what-are-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines-3-things-to-know https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-... "This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. You wouldn't expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine."
  - valenterry 5y ago
    How about the cases of narcolepsy that were caused by the swine-flu vaccine Pandremix? As far as I understand it took around 2 years before it was officially stated that the vaccine was/is the cause for these cases. Until 2015 the numbers grew even higher because of the delay between vaccination and the first symptoms. I wouldn't really call that "soon after it is administered". And the same is also true for covid's long term effects. I'm still reading new articles/conclusions about those effects.
    - briffle 5y ago
      I have never heard of that, can you share a link? I would like to read more.
      - valenterry 5y ago
        Here's a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy
        dbrueck 5y ago
        That link says "symptoms occurred one to two months after vaccination" or am I misreading it?
michaelbuckbee 5y ago
I recent came across a technique for having a more substantial discussion and it was to ask: "Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?" Not that this is a silver bullet that automatically leads to peace and harmony, but it's a step in the right direction.
- mlang23 5y ago
  Why does this technique change anything? You are still assuming the supposed superior position, since you imply that the stance of your discussion partner is wrong and needs to be changed. Dont you see how patronising this is?
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    I think you misunderstood the technique, e.g. you can simply apply it to yourself. If there is nothing that will change one's position, it's not worth engaging because the outcome is set.
    - kazinator 5y ago
      If a position is held based on rational evidence, then there is always something which can change it: a flaw being found in the evidence.
  - rfrey 5y ago
    In any debate outside of clubs you assume you're right and the other person is wrong - otherwise you'd change your mind. What the question your parent poses can do is get to the root of the objection your conversation partner has. "What would make you change your mind" forces the conversation in the direction of uncovering the true source of the disagreement. It helps to avoid talking about "symptoms" or issues that you might find important but are not important to your partner. It helps avoid talking past each other. It helps identify what issues are important to the other person.
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    This kind of fragility is hostile to rational discussions. There's no patronisation to asking somebody a question about their beliefs; it's literally just a question. If somebody asked me that, I would take it as an opportunity to really explore my beliefs, and think about what conditions would cause me to change my beliefs. It has nothing to do with the other person or their beliefs. We shouldn't encourage this kind of fragility and victim complex that has become so common lately.
criticaltinker 5y ago
Up-voted because you called out GP's comment for the subtle flame-bait that it is, and avoided feeding into it. There's a lot of emotional discussion here appealing to the ignorance of one group or another, and very little thoughtful discussion of nuances and tradeoffs.
acdha 5y ago
> No doubt this will be the case for some. So, you've found a logical flaw in people's stated reasons for not wanting a vaccine. How does that help anything? In these kinds of debates, the actual goals or beliefs of both sides often differ from what they say. This line of thought leads to the sentence immediately following the one you quoted: if there are a large percentage of people who were hesitant due to sincere safety concerns, the mountain of data showing that the vaccines are low-risk will translate into more of them getting vaccinated but if they're motivated by factors which are not affected by scientific data then the primary mechanism for ending the pandemic will be the kinds of requirements which are made possible by full approval. That either gets people vaccinated or removes them from many contexts where they pose risk to everyone else. Right now there are a lot of concerns raised about vaccine safety on political and social media. Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are.
- tw04 5y ago
  >Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are. I have a friend in this group. There was no logical reason to not get vaccinated, her parents just kept regurgitating all the blatantly false conspiracy theories they were reading on the internet. The amount of times I heard "I'd get it if Bill Gates weren't involved, he's trying to track us" made my head spin. Now work is requiring it to stay employed, so she's getting it. I'm both sad that's what it took, and happy that it was enough to overcome irrational fear mongering on the world wide web.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I think you can also be glad that someone changed their mind and got vaccinated, however reluctantly, and simultaneously be uncomfortable with that sort of coercion. Telling someone you'll fire them if they don't get a shot isn't quite holding them down and jabbing them but it's not really a free personal choice either. Many people aren't in a position to just hop down the street into a new job.
newacct583 5y ago
> For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. People end up locking in to trivialities like approval or some study, but they just obscure the real debate. Is government regulatory authority really the "real debate"? That too seems like an projected excuse, trivially proven by the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals. I'm not saying that's what you think. Maybe you're a pure libertarian. But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach.
- mindcrime 5y ago
  the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals. FWIW, that's not even close to true among the Libertarians I know. And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few. The set of people who "believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals" may include a few actual Libertarians, but I would posit that most of the so-called "Libertarians" in that group have only the thinnest grasp on what the Libertarian perspective is about, probably haven't read/studied Libertarian ideology extensively (or anything else for that matter), and are merely repeating a few superficial talking points they heard somewhere that may - by happenstance - align with Libertarian perspectives. But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach. Those people sound more like the fringe of the "Tea Party" movement... populist, anti-establishment and perhaps "anti government" only in the sense that they don't like the current government. But these aren't, by and large, people who have rational, well-reasoned, comprehensive arguments for the need to reduce the size and scope of government across the board. YMMV, of course.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    > And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few. Yes, but obviously that's not a representative sample. My point was that the population of genuine libertarians for whom this seems like a first principles argument is dwarfed by the general population of Q-adjacent social conservatives who are happy to adopt libertarian framing but really just want the government to do what they want.
clipradiowallet 5y ago
> For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. This. One hundred times, this. I realize in many regards they already tell us what to do, and that does not make the next time more palatable.
bob33212 5y ago
On average, humans have a need to feel safe and part of a tribe. If you can convince yourself that your tribe is correct and that it is best to eat boiled eggs from the big end first and that the people who eat boiled eggs from the small end first are wrong, you will feel better about your place in the world. If you don't know if the big end or the little end is best you will feel uneasy with the world. Obviously there are exceptions. Some people can objectively look at the situation and come to the conclusion that there are good reasons to start on both sides, and it really depends on your priorities. But those people are not part of the noise, it is the people who are desperate to feel part of a group who are the loudest.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

sharken 5y ago

These cheap shots or trench war between both sides does nobody any good, it divides people instead of unite them. For me the major issue with the vaccine is the extremely fast track from inventing it to getting it out the door. An FDA approval will not change my mind on the safety of the vaccine, only time can do that. By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate.

nojito 5y ago
>By that i mean that we need more time to assess the long-term effects, something that many pro-vaccine people seem unwilling to accept. That is unfortunate. We are way past the time frame for long-term effects to manifest themselves for a corona-like vaccine.
- peakaboo 5y ago
  This is not true. There could be birth defects or lower iq in babies born from vaccinated mothers.
  - acdha 5y ago
    There are an infinite number of things which could happen but there’s no mechanism or evidence making this likely. The vaccine doesn’t rewrite your DNA and it strengthens your normal immune response, which does none of those things.
    - oblio 5y ago
      Pluuuuuusssss... we don't know the long term impact of Covid itself. People who argue against vaccines don't seem to think enough about that aspect.
      - Izkata 5y ago
        Or maybe they're just arguing for the third group: people who already were infected and recovered. No need to double up on the unknown risks of you already have immunity.
        oblio 5y ago
        Based on our current information, that's at best 33% of the population. Realistically in most countries it's about 15-20%.
  - wombatpm 5y ago
    Or in unvaccinated mothers exposed to COVID-19.
  - lern_too_spel 5y ago
    Birth defects would have been observed already if they were a side effect of the vaccine.
  - 5y ago
auslegung 5y ago
I wonder would you have felt the same way when the chickenpox vaccine, or MMR vaccines, or any of the other common vaccines we get today, were new.
- odessacubbage 5y ago
  yes actually.
  - auslegung 5y ago
    It's an impossible question for me to answer b/c I don't have any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on at the time. But I think the question is worth pondering for people because it may help people realize if they have politics clouding their thinking here. Not saying everyone with your opinion has their thinking clouded because of politics, but I think many do.
evan_ 5y ago
> we need more time to assess the long-term effects You seem to be saying that the only issue is a question of time. Be specific: how much time? Will you say a specific number? “I will accept an mRNA-based vaccine if it has been around, and proven safe, for x years.”
- sharken 5y ago
  Something similar to the Rubella vaccine that took about four years to be licensed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella_vaccine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella_vaccine
  - oblio 5y ago
    My problem with this "we just have to wait N units of time" approach is: what do we do instead meanwhile? What's the alternative?
    - sharken 5y ago
      That's the hard part, I'm all for giving the vaccine to all who wants it. And at the same time not forcing everyone to take the vaccine. As an example Denmark will reach about 75% vaccinated without any mandates, though a Corona passport will be in effect until October 2021. That is one of the better ways of handling it in my opinion.
      - oblio 5y ago
        The thing is, I don't think there's any democratic country where there's an actual "vaccine mandate". Nobody there is forcing anyone to get vaccinated. It's done through "Corona passports". And on top of that, countries like Denmark have much higher levels of social trust than countries like the US.
        ghaff 5y ago
        While at least generally true, requiring to go into many workplaces (and therefore stay employed) and many other indoor locations is pretty close to a mandate if widely implemented. I'm not saying I disagree with doing this, but it gets close to forcing people in all but name.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lern_too_spel 5y ago
No vaccine has ever had a long term effect that isn't visible soon after it is administered. Vaccines are one and done and eliminate quickly from the body, unlike other medications, which can be administered daily or weekly for years and can accumulate in organs. https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-what-are-the-long-term-side-effects-of-covid-vaccines-3-things-to-know https://www.uab.edu/reporter/resources/be-healthy/item/9544-... "This is particularly true of the mRNA vaccines. mRNA degrades incredibly rapidly. You wouldn't expect any of these vaccines to have any long-term side effects. And in fact, this has never occurred with any vaccine."
- valenterry 5y ago
  How about the cases of narcolepsy that were caused by the swine-flu vaccine Pandremix? As far as I understand it took around 2 years before it was officially stated that the vaccine was/is the cause for these cases. Until 2015 the numbers grew even higher because of the delay between vaccination and the first symptoms. I wouldn't really call that "soon after it is administered". And the same is also true for covid's long term effects. I'm still reading new articles/conclusions about those effects.
  - briffle 5y ago
    I have never heard of that, can you share a link? I would like to read more.
    - valenterry 5y ago
      Here's a starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandemrix#Narcolepsy
      - dbrueck 5y ago
        That link says "symptoms occurred one to two months after vaccination" or am I misreading it?

michaelbuckbee 5y ago

I recent came across a technique for having a more substantial discussion and it was to ask: "Well, what would it take for you to change your mind?" Not that this is a silver bullet that automatically leads to peace and harmony, but it's a step in the right direction.

mlang23 5y ago
Why does this technique change anything? You are still assuming the supposed superior position, since you imply that the stance of your discussion partner is wrong and needs to be changed. Dont you see how patronising this is?
- Pyramus 5y ago
  I think you misunderstood the technique, e.g. you can simply apply it to yourself. If there is nothing that will change one's position, it's not worth engaging because the outcome is set.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    If a position is held based on rational evidence, then there is always something which can change it: a flaw being found in the evidence.
- rfrey 5y ago
  In any debate outside of clubs you assume you're right and the other person is wrong - otherwise you'd change your mind. What the question your parent poses can do is get to the root of the objection your conversation partner has. "What would make you change your mind" forces the conversation in the direction of uncovering the true source of the disagreement. It helps to avoid talking about "symptoms" or issues that you might find important but are not important to your partner. It helps avoid talking past each other. It helps identify what issues are important to the other person.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  This kind of fragility is hostile to rational discussions. There's no patronisation to asking somebody a question about their beliefs; it's literally just a question. If somebody asked me that, I would take it as an opportunity to really explore my beliefs, and think about what conditions would cause me to change my beliefs. It has nothing to do with the other person or their beliefs. We shouldn't encourage this kind of fragility and victim complex that has become so common lately.

criticaltinker 5y ago

Up-voted because you called out GP's comment for the subtle flame-bait that it is, and avoided feeding into it. There's a lot of emotional discussion here appealing to the ignorance of one group or another, and very little thoughtful discussion of nuances and tradeoffs.

acdha 5y ago

> No doubt this will be the case for some. So, you've found a logical flaw in people's stated reasons for not wanting a vaccine. How does that help anything? In these kinds of debates, the actual goals or beliefs of both sides often differ from what they say. This line of thought leads to the sentence immediately following the one you quoted: if there are a large percentage of people who were hesitant due to sincere safety concerns, the mountain of data showing that the vaccines are low-risk will translate into more of them getting vaccinated but if they're motivated by factors which are not affected by scientific data then the primary mechanism for ending the pandemic will be the kinds of requirements which are made possible by full approval. That either gets people vaccinated or removes them from many contexts where they pose risk to everyone else. Right now there are a lot of concerns raised about vaccine safety on political and social media. Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are.

tw04 5y ago
>Some of those are devout anti-vaccination activists but I believe that they are still a relatively small fraction of the hesitant. When not being vaccinated comes with a direct personal cost we'll see how sincere those beliefs are. I have a friend in this group. There was no logical reason to not get vaccinated, her parents just kept regurgitating all the blatantly false conspiracy theories they were reading on the internet. The amount of times I heard "I'd get it if Bill Gates weren't involved, he's trying to track us" made my head spin. Now work is requiring it to stay employed, so she's getting it. I'm both sad that's what it took, and happy that it was enough to overcome irrational fear mongering on the world wide web.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I think you can also be glad that someone changed their mind and got vaccinated, however reluctantly, and simultaneously be uncomfortable with that sort of coercion. Telling someone you'll fire them if they don't get a shot isn't quite holding them down and jabbing them but it's not really a free personal choice either. Many people aren't in a position to just hop down the street into a new job.

newacct583 5y ago

> For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. People end up locking in to trivialities like approval or some study, but they just obscure the real debate. Is government regulatory authority really the "real debate"? That too seems like an projected excuse, trivially proven by the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals. I'm not saying that's what you think. Maybe you're a pure libertarian. But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach.

mindcrime 5y ago
the fact that the same people who are most invested in the libertarian framing are the ones who believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals. FWIW, that's not even close to true among the Libertarians I know. And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few. The set of people who "believe a secret government agent has been working for the last four and a half years to extrajudiciously round up pedophiles and liberals" may include a few actual Libertarians, but I would posit that most of the so-called "Libertarians" in that group have only the thinnest grasp on what the Libertarian perspective is about, probably haven't read/studied Libertarian ideology extensively (or anything else for that matter), and are merely repeating a few superficial talking points they heard somewhere that may - by happenstance - align with Libertarian perspectives. But a whole ton of people on "your side" of this debate are quite clearly not serious about regulatory overreach. Those people sound more like the fringe of the "Tea Party" movement... populist, anti-establishment and perhaps "anti government" only in the sense that they don't like the current government. But these aren't, by and large, people who have rational, well-reasoned, comprehensive arguments for the need to reduce the size and scope of government across the board. YMMV, of course.
- newacct583 5y ago
  > And as a Libertarian myself, I know quite a few. Yes, but obviously that's not a representative sample. My point was that the population of genuine libertarians for whom this seems like a first principles argument is dwarfed by the general population of Q-adjacent social conservatives who are happy to adopt libertarian framing but really just want the government to do what they want.

clipradiowallet 5y ago

> For example, the government being able to tell you what to do, vs. it not. This. One hundred times, this. I realize in many regards they already tell us what to do, and that does not make the next time more palatable.

bob33212 5y ago

On average, humans have a need to feel safe and part of a tribe. If you can convince yourself that your tribe is correct and that it is best to eat boiled eggs from the big end first and that the people who eat boiled eggs from the small end first are wrong, you will feel better about your place in the world. If you don't know if the big end or the little end is best you will feel uneasy with the world. Obviously there are exceptions. Some people can objectively look at the situation and come to the conclusion that there are good reasons to start on both sides, and it really depends on your priorities. But those people are not part of the noise, it is the people who are desperate to feel part of a group who are the loudest.