7 ms·

You seem to be coming from a very 'us vs them' place, and misunderstanding why people do or do not want a vaccine. From my circles, the vaccine/mask defiance i

You seem to be coming from a very 'us vs them' place, and misunderstanding why people do or do not want a vaccine. From my circles, the vaccine/mask defiance is mostly about what is perceived (wrongly in my opinion, but still) as an overreach from the state, and as a risky bet that they might not want to take. While I agree with you that this thinking is most probably coming from disinformation/propaganda, by countering it with condescension ('If we could do it, so can you!', 'brought together the stupid people') is the most definite way to have those people become defensive and stick to their opinion. Maybe you don't care about changing people mind and just want to score internet points from people already convinced, but be aware that it is what you're doing.

0xdeadb00f 5y ago
Fair enough. What do you suggest "we" (anti-anti-maskers and anti-anti-vaxers) say to these people in order to try and sway them to more factual information and keep them along with the rest of our communities safe? Most if not all of what I have said to such people is often met with responses like "No", "fake news", "watch this video by Dr. So-and-so". Or them flat out talking down to me thinking I'm a dumb person on the fence about it when in reality I'm far from on the fence about it.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Nothing you can say. We feel how we feel. Covid is endemic it continues to mutate and evolve, we are all going to get it. Your health is and always has been your best defense. And smiling in public is not a biohazard.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    The big problem with a pandemic like COVID-19 is when it's presented in terms of personal risk. The reality remains that any given individual's chance of becoming seriously ill, let alone dying, from COVID-19 is extremely small. The problem is not this risk, but instead the risk that large numbers of people will be sick enough to require health care, particularly hospitalization and even more particularly ICU facilities, all within a very short period of time, causing overload of health care systems and many more unnecessary deaths from things other than COVID-19 due to the impairment of the health care system. But instead, huge chunks of the media/culture discuss COVID-19 in terms of personal risk. The personal responsibility that we have to each other in a pandemic like this is not a question of "I should do X because I might die of it", but rather "I should do X to reduce the risk that others will die of it and other illness". And no, "your health is and always has been your best defense" is a ludicrous position. It's abundantly clear that none of our socially-understood markers for "good health" are guarantoors of "covid will not kill you".
- shmel 5y ago
  I think the main problem with hesitancy is enormous mistrust to the government and to the state. The very same problem that led to Trump's victory. For decades people in power fuck the working class over, poor people repeatedly watch the government going against their interest and getting in bed with rich corporations all while lying through their teeth how they totally care about everyone. Now the government comes back and says: "please take this vaccine, it is really for your own sake, trust us, this time for real we truly care about you". What do you expect them to do? People on here laugh at those drinking bleach to "own the libs", oh those stupid conservatives. Have you ever considered how much you have to antagonize and anger people to push them to do this?! This is not about the virus, as they say. This is not about the vaccine either. Many people across the world feel angry, ignored for years and powerless to change the status quo. They are miserable and see absolute contempt from the politicians. The same ones who now call for them to end the pandemic ASAP and go back to how things were before. The whole antivax fake news stuff taps directly into people's mistrust. When you live for years with the feeling "omg, these people are definitely lying to me", it takes just a few videos to confirm this: "oh yeah, they are _definitely_ lying to me and I am not alone to realize this". Go figure this out first.
  - watwut 5y ago
    But, Trump voters are not primary poor. If it is mistrust toward the state, how come it comes from the same groups that treat calls for police accountability as attack on police, support both military and police in pretty much any situation? That pushes for having cops as armed as possible? The same groups that right now managed to make abortion fully impossible in Texas? Whose primary approach to social issues is to make punishments higher? If it is against corporations, why is it coming from the same party that is actively and systematically working to make corporations stronger? > People on here laugh at those drinking bleach to "own the libs", oh those stupid conservatives. Have you ever considered how much you have to antagonize and anger people to push them to do this?! Have you considered that the whole "own the libs" and "trigger the libs" is conscious attempt to make your opponents angry? And that those opponents do react to it too? That is the whole point, antagonize people you are owning or triggering. And that is somehow fault of people who you go out of way to antagonize?
  - deleted 5y ago
- dgfitz 5y ago
  Why do you feel the need to say anything at all? You feel How you feel, they feel how they feel, telling them “you need to feel how I feel” isn’t going to do much except make people angry. I got my 2 shots, I wear a mask when required. I don’t care even a tiny little bit what everyone else does. I can’t control them nor do I care to try.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    > I don’t care even a tiny little bit what everyone else does. I can’t control them nor do I care to try. This is not a recipe for solid public health policy. Maybe it's fine as an individual life choice, but COVID-19 is a public health condition, not a private one, and requires public health responses, not private ones.
    - dgfitz 5y ago
      Hard disagree. The people that are going to get vaccinated either have or will at some point. The people who aren’t, won’t unless somehow forced. Policy won’t do anything except make people even more angry. Fuck policy. It really drives me nuts when people take the attitude “I know what’s best for you, you’re too stupid to be able to make your own decisions. I’m really smart and I’ll decide for you.”
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        No, absolutely no. None of this is about "what's best for you". As I said above, one of the biggest category errors with COVID-19 is to treat it as a personal risk issue. The personal risk is almost inconsequential, the real problem is with public health, and the decisions there have very little to do with "what's best for you" as an individual, and everything to do with "what's best for our health systems".
        dgfitz 5y ago
        What I’m saying is, policy won’t do bupkis. People are going to do what they want. This ideological idea that “policy will fix covid” is willful ignorance at this point.
watwut 5y ago
I would be more open to this point of view, if the "don't be condescending or insulting" expectation applied to both sides equally. I have yet to see it deployed toward those who try to emasculate guys who were masks, insist on framing choice to do as cowardly fear and so on. Btw, "nanny state" expression is exactly that. Or against those who exaggerate restrictions that exist in order to paint opposite side as super unreasonable. Sometimes in the future, if that applied to people who brag about triggering liberal snowflakes and such. As of now, to the extend there are sides, the "be nice dont offend" expectation is put on exactly one side, usually in order to make them shut up.
Layke1123 5y ago
No, you are normalizing amd validating behavior that is not tolerable for a rational society. These people have no basis for not wanting to take the vaccine that could very well save their lives, but more importantly, not affect my rights to live in a healthy society. Their rights ended when they demonstrated a complete lack of awareness of how not to spread a disease to others.
hanniabu 5y ago
> From my circles, the vaccine/mask defiance is mostly about what is perceived (wrongly in my opinion, but still) as an overreach from the state, and as a risky bet that they might not want to take. Then why is it typically those same people that want to remove women's ability to have an abortion?
- CapricornNoble 5y ago
  Who are "those same people"? I'm going to assume you mean conservative white people in flyover states? Do you understand that black and hispanic vaccination rates lag other ethnicities? [1][2] A couple of my group chats that are exclusively other black male expats, with origins ranging from Canada to the US to Kenya, are full of shared meme images and videos about the risks/dangers of COVID vaccination. Vehement opposition includes our one ER nurse-turned-millionaire-day-trader, and an aerospace engineer in the UK....We're definitely not a demographic screaming against abortion....hell, abortion saves a bunch of us from child support payments. (I'm only being slightly facetious). Long story short, I would suggest broadening your information exposure if you think only "those people" are hesitant/opposed to rushed COVID-19 vaccines being rammed down our throats by the same governments who approved of prescription opioids and the Tuskegee Experiment. [1]https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-... [2]https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/vaccine-equity-black-americans-biden-491973 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/vaccine-equity-blac...
  - silicon2401 5y ago
    Many people only care about minorities who are convenient to the point being made, while ignoring the other minorities. I've spoken to people who excuse this as saying that we have to be practical and consider the majority of the minority group opinions (wasn't the point to help minorities?). For example, you never see liberals who virtue signal about giving minorities a platform trying to give a platform to trans people and Hispanics who supported Trump, conservative and anti-immigration or anti-abortion minorities, Hispanics offended by the word "latinx", blacks who disagree with renaming "master" branches in git, and your example of black and hispanic people who don't vaccinate.
moksly 5y ago
It was extremely easy to change peoples minds though. You simply have to make them pay to get tested. Then suddenly the vaccine was preferable. I’m not American, I don’t share your sentiments about letting people be people. A society is you and me and everyone else in it, working together. If you chose to work against the wider us for no good reason, then you’re no longer part of our society. Being anti-science is not a good enough reason for anyone to defend you around here.
- tejohnso 5y ago
  > extremely easy to change peoples minds though. If a serious enough pandemic arises, you won't have to change minds. Real fear of the pandemic will be enough. I don't know anybody, who knows anybody who died or was even hospitalized due to covid. All the fear and alarm has to be manufactured.
  - bumby 5y ago
    >I don't know anybody...All the fear" You seem to be extrapolating an n=1 scenario to the population as a whole ("I" --> "All"). Are you then implying anyone who does know somebody sick or hospitalized has warranted fear?
    - tejohnso 5y ago
      > Are you then implying anyone who does know somebody sick or hospitalized has warranted fear? I'm not talking about whether it is warranted or not, but if you know somebody sick or hospitalized, the fear you experience from that is likely to be very impactful, and you will be more inclined to get a vaccine based on that.
      - bumby 5y ago
        I agree. But I also acknowledge that type of heuristic probably isn't optimal.
  - bserge 5y ago
blululu 5y ago
I’ve heard this line of reasoning a lot but I’ve never seen anyone back it up with much of evidence beyond the usual platitudes of liberal parenting. (Note that I also find modern American child rearing techniques to be a set of failures where children act as little dictators and their gentle, caring parents desperately try to convince their kids to behave). I can’t help but see the same patterns at work here. Personally I’ll stick with a firm insistence that Covid presents serious risks, vaccines are safe and effective, and the inability to comprehend a scientific paper or even copy off the homework of the smart kids is a shameful embarrassment. If that doesn’t vibe with someone’s AYSO participation trophy mindset, though luck, we have a global pandemic to deal with so man up and take one for the team. If you think babying people with gentle appeals is working, take a cold look at the results of polite messaging campaigns.
- Majestic121 5y ago
  My point of view is closer to yours than you might think : I'm definitely pro-vaccination, and I do believe at least some categories of population should have mandatory vaccine (teachers, medical, etc...). My point was mainly about the self-congratulatory tone of the message above, whose main effect is to : - create tension with people that disagree - gain approval from people that already agree And in the end make the subject more tense than it has to be. No one bats an eye for other mandatory vaccine, this one creates tension because of propaganda campaigns and some valid concerns (like mrna vaccine being pretty new), but the answer to those tensions is not exacerbating an "us vs them" mentality
  - odessacubbage 5y ago
    at some point we all learned instinctively that the best way to farm internet points is not to extend olive branches but to set them on fire.
  - blululu 5y ago
    I noticed in your previous point that you are not opposed to the widespread use of vaccines and that you are in favor of taking action to stop the danger posed by covid. The question I am asking is about tactics for getting everyone working together to put an end to this. I keep hearing people suggest that we can’t be condescending because we shouldn’t offend anyone or make anybody feel bad and I am not seeing it do much good. Shame is a powerful social mechanism and I don’t see why we shouldn’t use it. What are you actually proposing? A clear statement of facts is a good start, but what do you recommend after that?
rsynnott 5y ago
This idea that idiots are extremely sensitive and will deepen their belief in nonsense _out of spite_ if confronted seems to have become very widespread, but is there any reason to think it's true? If anything, their nonsense is being taken too seriously; a lot of media both-sides it to some extent in a way that it wouldn't with, say, flat-earthers. And, while there are a lot of confounding factors, of course, there seem to be fewer people buying all the horse drugs in countries where the media was dismissive of them, vs in countries where parts of the media both-side-ed it.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  We've learnt from past medical adventures that things in this domain are frequently not as straightforward as many would like them to be, or as they are portrayed to be. The poster child for this for my generation (I'm 57) would be thalidomide, but there are lots of other less catastrophic examples of "proven" medical technology and treatments that turned out to be not quite as safe and side-effect-free as was initially claimed. For some communities too, there are clear cut cases of the medical establishment and/or the state deliberately and knowingly experimenting on people with unstated/hidden agendas. This makes media handling of some of these claims in comparison to flat-earthers a bit more understandable, whether or not time eventually shows it to be justified or not.

0xdeadb00f 5y ago

Fair enough. What do you suggest "we" (anti-anti-maskers and anti-anti-vaxers) say to these people in order to try and sway them to more factual information and keep them along with the rest of our communities safe? Most if not all of what I have said to such people is often met with responses like "No", "fake news", "watch this video by Dr. So-and-so". Or them flat out talking down to me thinking I'm a dumb person on the fence about it when in reality I'm far from on the fence about it.

chrisco255 5y ago
Nothing you can say. We feel how we feel. Covid is endemic it continues to mutate and evolve, we are all going to get it. Your health is and always has been your best defense. And smiling in public is not a biohazard.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  The big problem with a pandemic like COVID-19 is when it's presented in terms of personal risk. The reality remains that any given individual's chance of becoming seriously ill, let alone dying, from COVID-19 is extremely small. The problem is not this risk, but instead the risk that large numbers of people will be sick enough to require health care, particularly hospitalization and even more particularly ICU facilities, all within a very short period of time, causing overload of health care systems and many more unnecessary deaths from things other than COVID-19 due to the impairment of the health care system. But instead, huge chunks of the media/culture discuss COVID-19 in terms of personal risk. The personal responsibility that we have to each other in a pandemic like this is not a question of "I should do X because I might die of it", but rather "I should do X to reduce the risk that others will die of it and other illness". And no, "your health is and always has been your best defense" is a ludicrous position. It's abundantly clear that none of our socially-understood markers for "good health" are guarantoors of "covid will not kill you".
shmel 5y ago
I think the main problem with hesitancy is enormous mistrust to the government and to the state. The very same problem that led to Trump's victory. For decades people in power fuck the working class over, poor people repeatedly watch the government going against their interest and getting in bed with rich corporations all while lying through their teeth how they totally care about everyone. Now the government comes back and says: "please take this vaccine, it is really for your own sake, trust us, this time for real we truly care about you". What do you expect them to do? People on here laugh at those drinking bleach to "own the libs", oh those stupid conservatives. Have you ever considered how much you have to antagonize and anger people to push them to do this?! This is not about the virus, as they say. This is not about the vaccine either. Many people across the world feel angry, ignored for years and powerless to change the status quo. They are miserable and see absolute contempt from the politicians. The same ones who now call for them to end the pandemic ASAP and go back to how things were before. The whole antivax fake news stuff taps directly into people's mistrust. When you live for years with the feeling "omg, these people are definitely lying to me", it takes just a few videos to confirm this: "oh yeah, they are _definitely_ lying to me and I am not alone to realize this". Go figure this out first.
- watwut 5y ago
  But, Trump voters are not primary poor. If it is mistrust toward the state, how come it comes from the same groups that treat calls for police accountability as attack on police, support both military and police in pretty much any situation? That pushes for having cops as armed as possible? The same groups that right now managed to make abortion fully impossible in Texas? Whose primary approach to social issues is to make punishments higher? If it is against corporations, why is it coming from the same party that is actively and systematically working to make corporations stronger? > People on here laugh at those drinking bleach to "own the libs", oh those stupid conservatives. Have you ever considered how much you have to antagonize and anger people to push them to do this?! Have you considered that the whole "own the libs" and "trigger the libs" is conscious attempt to make your opponents angry? And that those opponents do react to it too? That is the whole point, antagonize people you are owning or triggering. And that is somehow fault of people who you go out of way to antagonize?
- deleted 5y ago
dgfitz 5y ago
Why do you feel the need to say anything at all? You feel How you feel, they feel how they feel, telling them “you need to feel how I feel” isn’t going to do much except make people angry. I got my 2 shots, I wear a mask when required. I don’t care even a tiny little bit what everyone else does. I can’t control them nor do I care to try.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  > I don’t care even a tiny little bit what everyone else does. I can’t control them nor do I care to try. This is not a recipe for solid public health policy. Maybe it's fine as an individual life choice, but COVID-19 is a public health condition, not a private one, and requires public health responses, not private ones.
  - dgfitz 5y ago
    Hard disagree. The people that are going to get vaccinated either have or will at some point. The people who aren’t, won’t unless somehow forced. Policy won’t do anything except make people even more angry. Fuck policy. It really drives me nuts when people take the attitude “I know what’s best for you, you’re too stupid to be able to make your own decisions. I’m really smart and I’ll decide for you.”
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      No, absolutely no. None of this is about "what's best for you". As I said above, one of the biggest category errors with COVID-19 is to treat it as a personal risk issue. The personal risk is almost inconsequential, the real problem is with public health, and the decisions there have very little to do with "what's best for you" as an individual, and everything to do with "what's best for our health systems".
      - dgfitz 5y ago
        What I’m saying is, policy won’t do bupkis. People are going to do what they want. This ideological idea that “policy will fix covid” is willful ignorance at this point.

watwut 5y ago

I would be more open to this point of view, if the "don't be condescending or insulting" expectation applied to both sides equally. I have yet to see it deployed toward those who try to emasculate guys who were masks, insist on framing choice to do as cowardly fear and so on. Btw, "nanny state" expression is exactly that. Or against those who exaggerate restrictions that exist in order to paint opposite side as super unreasonable. Sometimes in the future, if that applied to people who brag about triggering liberal snowflakes and such. As of now, to the extend there are sides, the "be nice dont offend" expectation is put on exactly one side, usually in order to make them shut up.

Layke1123 5y ago

No, you are normalizing amd validating behavior that is not tolerable for a rational society. These people have no basis for not wanting to take the vaccine that could very well save their lives, but more importantly, not affect my rights to live in a healthy society. Their rights ended when they demonstrated a complete lack of awareness of how not to spread a disease to others.

hanniabu 5y ago

> From my circles, the vaccine/mask defiance is mostly about what is perceived (wrongly in my opinion, but still) as an overreach from the state, and as a risky bet that they might not want to take. Then why is it typically those same people that want to remove women's ability to have an abortion?

CapricornNoble 5y ago
Who are "those same people"? I'm going to assume you mean conservative white people in flyover states? Do you understand that black and hispanic vaccination rates lag other ethnicities? [1][2] A couple of my group chats that are exclusively other black male expats, with origins ranging from Canada to the US to Kenya, are full of shared meme images and videos about the risks/dangers of COVID vaccination. Vehement opposition includes our one ER nurse-turned-millionaire-day-trader, and an aerospace engineer in the UK....We're definitely not a demographic screaming against abortion....hell, abortion saves a bunch of us from child support payments. (I'm only being slightly facetious). Long story short, I would suggest broadening your information exposure if you think only "those people" are hesitant/opposed to rushed COVID-19 vaccines being rammed down our throats by the same governments who approved of prescription opioids and the Tuskegee Experiment. [1]https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-race-ethnicity/ https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-... [2]https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/vaccine-equity-black-americans-biden-491973 https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/vaccine-equity-blac...
- silicon2401 5y ago
  Many people only care about minorities who are convenient to the point being made, while ignoring the other minorities. I've spoken to people who excuse this as saying that we have to be practical and consider the majority of the minority group opinions (wasn't the point to help minorities?). For example, you never see liberals who virtue signal about giving minorities a platform trying to give a platform to trans people and Hispanics who supported Trump, conservative and anti-immigration or anti-abortion minorities, Hispanics offended by the word "latinx", blacks who disagree with renaming "master" branches in git, and your example of black and hispanic people who don't vaccinate.

moksly 5y ago

It was extremely easy to change peoples minds though. You simply have to make them pay to get tested. Then suddenly the vaccine was preferable. I’m not American, I don’t share your sentiments about letting people be people. A society is you and me and everyone else in it, working together. If you chose to work against the wider us for no good reason, then you’re no longer part of our society. Being anti-science is not a good enough reason for anyone to defend you around here.

tejohnso 5y ago
> extremely easy to change peoples minds though. If a serious enough pandemic arises, you won't have to change minds. Real fear of the pandemic will be enough. I don't know anybody, who knows anybody who died or was even hospitalized due to covid. All the fear and alarm has to be manufactured.
- bumby 5y ago
  >I don't know anybody...All the fear" You seem to be extrapolating an n=1 scenario to the population as a whole ("I" --> "All"). Are you then implying anyone who does know somebody sick or hospitalized has warranted fear?
  - tejohnso 5y ago
    > Are you then implying anyone who does know somebody sick or hospitalized has warranted fear? I'm not talking about whether it is warranted or not, but if you know somebody sick or hospitalized, the fear you experience from that is likely to be very impactful, and you will be more inclined to get a vaccine based on that.
    - bumby 5y ago
      I agree. But I also acknowledge that type of heuristic probably isn't optimal.
- bserge 5y ago

blululu 5y ago

I’ve heard this line of reasoning a lot but I’ve never seen anyone back it up with much of evidence beyond the usual platitudes of liberal parenting. (Note that I also find modern American child rearing techniques to be a set of failures where children act as little dictators and their gentle, caring parents desperately try to convince their kids to behave). I can’t help but see the same patterns at work here. Personally I’ll stick with a firm insistence that Covid presents serious risks, vaccines are safe and effective, and the inability to comprehend a scientific paper or even copy off the homework of the smart kids is a shameful embarrassment. If that doesn’t vibe with someone’s AYSO participation trophy mindset, though luck, we have a global pandemic to deal with so man up and take one for the team. If you think babying people with gentle appeals is working, take a cold look at the results of polite messaging campaigns.

Majestic121 5y ago
My point of view is closer to yours than you might think : I'm definitely pro-vaccination, and I do believe at least some categories of population should have mandatory vaccine (teachers, medical, etc...). My point was mainly about the self-congratulatory tone of the message above, whose main effect is to : - create tension with people that disagree - gain approval from people that already agree And in the end make the subject more tense than it has to be. No one bats an eye for other mandatory vaccine, this one creates tension because of propaganda campaigns and some valid concerns (like mrna vaccine being pretty new), but the answer to those tensions is not exacerbating an "us vs them" mentality
- odessacubbage 5y ago
  at some point we all learned instinctively that the best way to farm internet points is not to extend olive branches but to set them on fire.
- blululu 5y ago
  I noticed in your previous point that you are not opposed to the widespread use of vaccines and that you are in favor of taking action to stop the danger posed by covid. The question I am asking is about tactics for getting everyone working together to put an end to this. I keep hearing people suggest that we can’t be condescending because we shouldn’t offend anyone or make anybody feel bad and I am not seeing it do much good. Shame is a powerful social mechanism and I don’t see why we shouldn’t use it. What are you actually proposing? A clear statement of facts is a good start, but what do you recommend after that?

rsynnott 5y ago

This idea that idiots are extremely sensitive and will deepen their belief in nonsense _out of spite_ if confronted seems to have become very widespread, but is there any reason to think it's true? If anything, their nonsense is being taken too seriously; a lot of media both-sides it to some extent in a way that it wouldn't with, say, flat-earthers. And, while there are a lot of confounding factors, of course, there seem to be fewer people buying all the horse drugs in countries where the media was dismissive of them, vs in countries where parts of the media both-side-ed it.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
We've learnt from past medical adventures that things in this domain are frequently not as straightforward as many would like them to be, or as they are portrayed to be. The poster child for this for my generation (I'm 57) would be thalidomide, but there are lots of other less catastrophic examples of "proven" medical technology and treatments that turned out to be not quite as safe and side-effect-free as was initially claimed. For some communities too, there are clear cut cases of the medical establishment and/or the state deliberately and knowingly experimenting on people with unstated/hidden agendas. This makes media handling of some of these claims in comparison to flat-earthers a bit more understandable, whether or not time eventually shows it to be justified or not.