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> She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts and win arguments instead of stopping

> She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other side is too stupid to make their own decisions. The problem I see here is that the (I hesitate to call it this) anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1. If you've ever talked to someone who's shifted goalposts you'll see it's essentially an impossible situation; you can't convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced. If I'm remembering the timeline correctly, it started with the vaccine being rushed and that we were essentially being experimented on. It's been six months since I – and many others – have had their first dose and we're completely fine. Some claimed to be concerned about the long term effects; do you think they know what the long term effects of a serious covid case is? (hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath") Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be trusted, that's a given. At some point it was too hard to get- yes, that's true. However, now you can walk into a Target and decide to get the shot in the middle of a shopping trip! I did that with a Flu shot a few weeks ago and it took about five minutes. In short, you cannot argue in good faith with someone who does not. I don't have a good answer to this – I really wish I did – but that's the reality of the situation.

eric_b 5y ago
Eh, everyone has been moving goalposts. First it was "flatten the curve" to prevent hospital overrun. Then at some point it became "no one can ever get covid again" and we did wild things like close schools even if a person so much as got near a person with COVID. I don't think one side has a monopoly on losing trust, behaving badly, or making anti-science decisions.
- lovich 5y ago
  When did it ever get to no one can ever get Covid again? We tried to “flatten the curve” and still had large spikes. After we got some semblance of control we only kept infections down with lockdowns and other measures. This is a tech based forum, surely everyone here has experience with a boss who complains that he’s paying you when the system never breaks, not knowing that it’s not breaking because of active measures being taken to prevent it
- hairofadog 5y ago
  > Then at some point it became "no one can ever get covid again" and we did wild things like close schools even if a person so much as got near a person with COVID. Anecdotally, I have never heard anyone make the argument "no one can ever get covid again" nor heard of a school being closed because "a person got near a person with COVID".
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Anectodally, last school year all in-person schools were closed in WA state. https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-school-closures-rest-2019-20-school-year https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-school...
    - hairofadog 5y ago
      Sorry, yeah, I should have been more clear: I have heard of schools being closed, just not for the reason that "someone got near someone with covid". Inslee's statement says the reason is due to "increasing rates of COVID-19 related infections, hospitalizations and death", but maybe you have additional information about the real reason.
- betterunix2 5y ago
  Closing schools and so forth was part of the flatten-the-curve effort. Really though, the CDC has been driven by the available science and by the reality of the pandemic, and when the CDC's guidance has changed it has invariably been in response to new data on COVID or to changing conditions (e.g. community spread, N95 mask availability, new variants). It is overly generous to speak of "one side" as if there is another equally valid side to compare with. The CDC is not a political institution and they always cite published research in their guidance and public statements about COVID-19. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd are going around spreading one fantasy after another, coming up with new and ever more outrageous conspiracy theories and excuses for refusing to cooperate; none of their claims have ever been based in reality, and that is why the story changes on a daily basis and why there are so many contradictory claims being made. To put this in perspective, the high-level direction of the CDC's guidance has, since the very beginning of the pandemic, been to reduce the rate at which COVID spreads; the changes in their guidance have been about the details. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd has gone from denying that there is a virus to saying that the virus is no worse than the flu to claiming that masks would suffocate them to whining about how mask mandates violate to their freedom and that they would rather die of COVID than comply with a mask mandate. They went from heaping praise on the last President simply because he was in office when the vaccines were first becoming available to complaining that the current President was being given too much credit for the vaccination effort to claiming that the vaccine is made from aborted fetuses, that the vaccine alters DNA, that Bill Gates inserted microchips into the vaccine, that the vaccine causes people to become magnetized, and that vaccine mandates are proof that the vaccine is the "mark of the beast."
  - angelzen 5y ago
    Frankly, I am getting tired of labels. I one side of the debate is anti-mask / anti-vax crowd, then the other side is anti-living-life / pro-cower-in-the-basement-forever crowd.
    - crooked-v 5y ago
      No "cowering" would be necessary if people would just get vaccinated.
- xg15 5y ago
  I don't know, I never had an issue with that point. "Flatten the curve" is alright, but then what? It would be stupid to "flatten the curve" for a while, then call "mission accomplished" and pretend covid is over if that causes the situation to immediately go critical again. So far the playbook seems to have been: 1) Flatten the curve: Use lockdowns, masks and social distancing measures to maintain a situation where hospitals can still cope. This is not a one-time goal, it's an ongoing effort: As long as there was no vaccine, "no significant transmission right now" does not mean everything is back to normal - because if measures are lifted, transmission can quickly increase and become critical again. 2) Because the situation in 1) seriously sucks for everyone, try to come up with solutions to end the pandemic permanently (or at least make it permanently nonthreatening for the health system so we can leave "pandemic mode" and treat it as an ordinary disease). So far the most obvious strategy for this is vaccination - hence the increasing push to get everyone vaccinated. 3) Evolutionary pressures on the virus might cause the vaccines to become less effective. This unfortunately calls into question whether 2) is really able to bring an end to the pandemic. If this is really the case, then new plans are needed, such as boosters, new vaccines, I don't know. This stuff is currently being figured out. 1) and 2) does not seem like "moving the goalposts" to me. The goals were the same since the beginning of the pandemic, though of course the situation and circumstances were changing (you can only keep up a lockdown for so long, vaccines changed from "vague hope" to "viable strategy", etc) 3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected (I remember the virus was being talked about as relatively mutation resistant, which evidently wasn't the case.) - but this was simply new knowledge and new developments that might require a change in strategy - the overall goal to get out of this mess (by either eradicating covid or make it nonthreatening) did not change IMO. Of course if this goal turns out to be permanently unarchievable, the goalpost shifting might start...
  - angelzen 5y ago
    There is no scientific proof, e.g. RCT, that lockdowns work. When did 'stay at home if sick, live life otherwise' become obsoleted? Edit: "3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected". That evolutionary pressures on the virus might^H^H^H will cause the vaccines to become less effective was and is the #1 concern of the critics of mass mRNA vaccination campaigns.
- bamboozled 5y ago
  The curve did need to be flattened though?
  - ozfive 5y ago
    Yes so that bottom line our healthcare system wouldn't collapse along with you know saving lives that otherwise you have been lost.
    - bamboozled 5y ago
      That's what I'm saying? Bit trigger happy there? :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- barbazoo 5y ago
  The messaging now at least here in BC is all about increasing vaccination coverage. To a degree that I'm reminded of Goodhart's law "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". Who cares how many people are vaccinated, what the goal should be is reducing hospitalizations, deaths and long-Covid for the good of people (don't die) and that of the health care system (ICUs not overrun). If there's a community who doesn't want to get vaccinated, who cares as long as the overall goal is still reached. We're focusing too much on cases and vaccinations to reduce cases at the moment in my view. We've lost touch with what's important, at least our messaging doesn't reflect that.
  - avhon1 5y ago
    > the goal should be is reducing hospitalizations, deaths and long-Covid for the good of people (don't die) and that of the health care system (ICUs not overrun). I agree, that's an excellent goal! Universal vaccination seems to be an excellent means of achieving it. Besides that, what other thrusts would you like to see?
    - barbazoo 5y ago
      Well, see, universal vaccination I would say is sufficient to achieve this goal but not required. I wonder if it would be better to focus on vaccination coverage in hotspots where we do have issues with hospitalizations. What triggered me to wrote this is articles like this one [0] that, in my opinion, don't do anything to convince anybody to get vaccinated. All they do is shame people or groups of people. And what's missing from this article? While it talks about case numbers > Manitoba's Southern Health region, which encompasses the RM of Stanley, made up roughly half of the province's new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, but is only home to around 15 per cent of the population. it completely leaves out what's actually going on in the hospitals in that particular region. Case numbers aren't meaningful. Especially with vaccines that are great at preventing serious symptoms but only good at preventing spread. Don't get me wrong, I'm vaccinated and I believe everybody should be. But the vaccines aren't gonna protect us from ever getting the virus. We all will get it. What matters is to strategically focus on vulnerable groups and difficult geographical areas. But unfortunately we seem to be looking for a one size fits all approach. But maybe people in rural Manitoba need to be taken care of differently than people in urban Toronto. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-stanley-winkler-morden-southern-health-wfpcbc-cbc-1.6192673 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-st...
kichimi 5y ago
No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're stupid. It's why the liberal political parties keep losing elections around the world.
- outworlder 5y ago
  > No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're stupid They may not be, but they are certainly acting that way. Which is even more infuriating. People with perfectly functioning brains that refuse to use them.
bronzeage 5y ago
I'm from Israel. I got the vaccine. The goalposts here shifted to a third booster shot. They already admit the first two doses become ineffective very fast, contradicting the early research that actually got me to trust and take the vaccine in the first place. The stated effectiveness of the vaccine also went downhill. I also had some unusual vaccine side effects that I will not discuss here because I prefer my privacy and nobody believes random internet anecdotes anyway, I'm only going to get criticized for sharing. I'm not going to get any booster, even tho they are heavy handedly mandating it here, with absolutely zero data. They don't even allow you to confirm a healthy antibody count, strengthening the suspicion that this isn't about "waning antibodies count" at all. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had my suspicions that this medical tyranny would keep on going on even when the medical data is non-existent, and that most people will not even notice the difference. That suspicion was fully confirmed. I personally apologized to my anti vaccine friend that he was right. It's going to take a detailed research on why the original Pfizer trial was wrong on the effectiveness, what is the amount of antibodies required to be safe, and then I would see if I meet the criteria, if being recently vaccinated meets the criteria, if they understand the causes of the effects, if the booster actually gives reasonable advantage. And maybe then I'll consider it. If they don't put the side effects and the errors of the phase 3 trials under investigation I might not even vaccinate me or my future kids against other diseases as my trust of this industry was broken by the Pfizer experience.
- hhw 5y ago
  1) It's impractical to test everyone for antibodies. There's enough empirical data to suggest that immunity wanes over time for most people that it makes sense to just give everyone a 3rd, booster shot. 2) It was always expected that vaccine immunity would wane over time. Nobody (of any relevant repute) ever suggested otherwise. 3) I don't doubt that you had side effects from the vaccine. But there's a strong probability that the side effects of an actual infection would have been much, much worse for you. You may potentially have an undiagnosed health issue that could have potentially been a comorbodity in an actual infection.
  - Kretinsky 5y ago
curun1r 5y ago
> do you think they know what the long term effects of a serious covid case is? (hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath") This is a dangerous message to push. The reality is that there are many lasting consequences of COVID that fall short of death but are, never the less, quite serious. The so called “long COVID” really needs to be part of the vaccine calculus because the health consequences are very much worse than the purported side effects from the vaccine. I’ve seen this kind of phenomenon first hand when it comes to drugs. As a teenager, there was lots of anti-drug messaging trying to convince us that ecstasy was dangerous. And all of it focused on scaring kids by exaggerating the risk of death. But we could see people taking it regularly and none of them were dying. And so it undercut the message. But decades later, I know a few people who’ve had depressive episodes potentially linked to heavy ecstasy use. And that consequence was never a part of the decision-making process because the authorities discredited themselves by being unnecessarily and obviously hyperbolic. We need better messaging that provides people with the full range of consequences for their choices. The “you’re going to die!!!” hysteria ends up being counterproductive. Even as deadly as COVID is, the truth is that unvaccinated people probably won’t die from their case…the vast majority survive. But if people understood how many recoveries included long-term health consequences that significantly affected their quality of life, they might be better able to weigh that against the potential side effects of a vaccine.
- ay 5y ago
  It is strange to me how many think that “you are going to die” is a harsher threat than “you will live a long life that will be severely crippled”. If I die, I cease to exist. So, while from the standpoint of the pre-death me, it is very unfortunate, the post-death me is either a null or an ephemeral entity in a different dimension (depending on which of the belief systems works) Remaining in the same spatial domain but set back into oblivion by my own choices is about as close to the definition of hell as it can get.
  - AussieWog93 5y ago
    Do you have kids? The thought of my daughter growing up without her daddy around scares me more than the thought of chronic pain or weakness.
gorgilo 5y ago
"(hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath")" You sound like a socially retarded child.
batch12 5y ago
> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be trusted, that's a given. I believe that the FDA has only approved one of the vaccines so far. When I got mine, I didn't have a choice.
dude4you 5y ago
For me, the other side is shifting goalposts. I could not get vaccinated in Germany. Every illegal immigrant could get vaccinated but I as a German citizen, since I was not registered with the police, (some countries have this, for a US citizen this sounds weird) could not. Ok, caught corona in south America in the Andes mountains and had serious breathing problems but survived. I have a biotech background and I am sorry to break the news to you. Vaccinations won't make corona go away. I fact it may force it to adapt faster. So why should I get vaccinated now? I dislike all the government pressure that is put on citizens in this regard. An the parties in Sao Paulo are back on. No masks. Germany is not considering Brazil even as a high risk country anymore. So why the force for vaccinations? Freedom won't come back except if the Citizens demand it.
- frankzinger 5y ago
  > I have a biotech background So you're not a virologist or epidemiologist then? Got it. > and I am sorry to break the news to you. Vaccinations won't make corona go away. I fact it may force it to adapt faster. The virus spreads more rapidly among and lives for longer inside the unvaccinated, as a result getting much more exposure to human immune systems, and thus giving it more opportunity to evolve.
  - raxxorrax 5y ago
    Don't kid yourself. We all are virologists and epidemiologists.
b7bfcdeaab33 5y ago
> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. FDA's announcement https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download Point to the sentence that says the vaccine got approved.
- endual 5y ago
  It might help if you posted a link to where the FDA approval was announced: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine"
  - b7bfcdeaab33 5y ago
    I wasn't aware of this link. From FDA's letter (instead of the link): "I am authorizing the emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, as described in the Scope of Authorization section of this letter (Section II) and subject to the terms of this authorization. Additionally, as specified in subsection III.BB, I am authorizing use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine and of COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) under this EUA when used to provide: a two-dose regimen for individuals aged 12 through 15 years; a third dose to individuals 12 years of age or older who have undergone solid organ transplantation or who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise; or a single booster dose at least 6 months after completing the primary series to individuals: 65 years of age and older; 18 through 64 years of age at high risk of severe COVID-19; and 18 through 64 years of age whose frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of serious complications of COVID-19 including severe COVID-19." If I'm interpreting this right: - the existing vaccine is still available under emergency use authorization. - a different vaccine called COMIRNATY was approved. I didn't understand from FDA's letter if COMIRNATY exists. The inventor of mRNA vaccines, Dr. Robert Malone, claims FDA approved a vaccine that doesn't exist. https://www.bitchute.com/video/DZQFYRGDkB6s/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/DZQFYRGDkB6s/
Natsu 5y ago
> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be trusted, that's a given. Actually, there was a big shift in the numbers about then. People are just divided over whether it was due to shaming people or the certification. I believe Matthew Yglasias posted about that, though he seemed to think it was from shaming people. It's true that some people moved on to other arguments after that, but if someone has multiple independent reasons for not wanting something, you do kinda have to shoot them all down. From my experience in trying to explain the benefits of the vaccine to the hesitant, there are more than a few who just won't listen, but there are quite a lot of people who will listen when you calmly explain things. Trying to be forceful will basically always backfire. Many of them were previously meming about how Covid is not very dangerous, with only a 1-2% mortality rate. So I like to point out that the risk of vaccine injury is several orders of magnitude lower. You need thousands of people dying per day for months to convince anyone that the vaccine is anywhere near as dangerous as the virus, not the odd death of someone the day after they vaccinated here and there. Once you get people into a direct comparison even if they push back on the numbers being fudged, you can point that every country in the world would have to be in on some conspiracy. I feel like this is the most effective way to defuse the vastly over-hyped danger of the vaccine. Even if they try to quibble the numbers with the best and worst numbers possible, you don't get to risks that are even the same order of magnitude. Saying that it's all not in good faith quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, I find that most people are willing to have an honest discussion with someone who respects them and who will listen and address their concerns. Those conditions are hard, though, because a lot of people seem to quickly throw human empathy out the window and start yelling. That... doesn't work at all. Anyhow, that's my experience from talking to people. I've gotten several of the hesitant to vaccinate by trying to be as honest as possible about the risks and why worrying about the vaccine but not Covid doesn't make sense. But if you don't listen to or understand where the people arguing are coming from--which is often hard with internet strangers--you probably won't get very far, so I do understand why it's frustrating.
- sephamorr 5y ago
  Where do you see that vaccinations increased after FDA approval (Aug 23)? I'm looking at the NYTimes vaccine dashboard and don't see any meaningful spike after that date. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine...
fsckboy 5y ago
> anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1. (claimer/disclaimer: I'm a hard-science type (famous university or rather, institute) and got vaccinated as soon as I could; I am from a very healthy family that does not suffer from outlier symptoms (like flu, but eh it's not bad, no allergies, no side effects etc.) so overall I just didn't worry about it, but I didn't worry about Covid before I got vaccinated either.) but the biggest goalpost that got moved was, we have government regulations and protocols that concern drug approvals to make sure that the general population is not exposed to unnecessary risks. The Covid vaccines were fast tracked and unleashed untested: that's a huge goalpost shifted a huge distance. And nor was the administering of the vaccine accompanied by a notification of the major risks inherent in this approach, like for example, perhaps the viral spike protein was causing all the tissues' damage and the vaccine included the spike protein. so, in my book the pro vax side has behaved reprehensibly and is doing even deeper damage to the body politic by normalizing censorship. I'd still urge everybody to get vaccinated.
- Denvercoder9 5y ago
  > The Covid vaccines were fast tracked and unleashed untested: Can you name one test that was mandatory for other vaccines, but skipped for the COVID vaccines?
  - fsckboy 5y ago
    yes, trials that take time.
    - Denvercoder9 5y ago
      That's a very big step from "the trials didn't run as long as I'd like" to "untested".
      - fsckboy 5y ago
        it's not a big step at all. you're doing the reprehensible thing, "nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see". Just be honest in a forthright way.
ALittleLight 5y ago
You pretty obviously can argue with people who don't argue in good faith. When they shift the goal posts call attention to it, explain it, and then meet them where they are at. People watching will see the other party being duplicitous. I'm imagining YouTube or the government or whoever hiring some informed experts and inviting the vaccine hesitant on for debates. Let them make whatever arguments they want and when they are absurd or move the goalposts point it out. Are medical doctors X, Y, and Z, selected for being informed and skilled orators going to be outdebated by the likes of Alex Jones? Why can't we have some experts who just engage with the conspiracy theory stuff, not sneeringly but just dispassionately. I don't think this would convince everyone. I don't think convincing everyone should be the goal. I do think it would convince more people than the current approach though and it would be more in keeping with free speech ideals.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  I would pay a lot to watch this and other content like it. Exhaustive rebuttals that painstakingly enumerate over the minute, and ultimately unimportant, arguments fully refuting the hair brained arguments we’ve all seen shouted without an a drop of critical analysis behind them. Good luck getting an anti vaxxer to agree to an argument that’ll have to take place over months to allow time for proper research and production to occur.
- chrischen 5y ago
  People do regularly debate, debunk, and directly answer the conspiracy theory stuff. Plus, if there's a statement made that an invisible unicorn is controlling the world, how am I supposed to debunk that? The debunking stuff just isn't content interesting these people who are not seeking it out.
- etchalon 5y ago
  People argue with anti-vaxxers every day on social media. It doesn't change any minds.
- Jenda_ 5y ago
  I feel there are enough debates with flat-earthers, climate change deniers, covid-deniers, anti-vaxers etc. and it leads to nowhere. (at least in .cz) The same applies to other topics, for example some time ago there was Internet censorship in .cz widely discussed (a topic where I can be, given my education and job, absolutely sure what things are nonsense from the technical point of view), and I think the problem is arguments from the "objectively correct" side are indistinguishable to a layperson from the "crafted nonsense". For a layperson to make sense of such arguments, at least a several hours long lecture explaining the concepts would be needed (in case of vaccines: DNA replication, proteosynthesis, folding, antigens and immune reactions…; in the case of internet censorship: routing, DNS, HTTPS, SNI…), which is impossible to do in a "debate", we have "lectures" for this. Otherwise, they simply cannot get the arguments and why the other side is wrong, by other means than faith. And yes, of course there are many websites, free online textbooks and recorded lectures explaining such concepts available to anyone willing to spend some time on it. Even in Czech, so no language barrier.
belorn 5y ago
Depending on which country you look at you got different goals. Some tried isolation. Others tried herd immunity. We are currently trying those 2 dose vaccines and are already planning for a third before the winter has even started, and I suspect we will see talk about a forth dose by early spring. Then we have nations like Norway addressing covid as a new aspect of the seasonal flue with no end date. The idea that we just take two doses and are done is clearly no longer the goalpost.
alex_munroe 5y ago
> you cannot argue in good faith with someone who does not. But the solution shouldn't be to shut down the discussion by banning the other side, because then you just have two sides who fight dirty. One side refuses to see reason and understand arguments, the other uses shaming, coercion, and censorship in place of the arguments. If the truth is on your side, you shouldn't resort to that.
karaterobot 5y ago
The thing to keep in mind is that when we say "the other side", we just mean people who don't intend to get vaccinated. This hides the fact that there is no actual "side" in the sense of a unified group of people who collectively agree to a set of principles, and goalposts that can even be moved. It's just a bunch of people who have their own brains, and reasons. They aren't all the same, or believe the same things, or make the same claims. This is trivially obvious, but I see it ignored most of the time. People get accused of things they don't actually believe, and didn't say, or do. That makes them defensive and makes it impossible to have a good-faith discussion, and that's part of the mess we're in.
m0zg 5y ago
Before Jan 20 the democrats too were the "anti-vax" side. Do you want me to dig up videos of Joe and Kamala telling everyone they'd be insane to take the "rushed" vaccine? I don't think such overt politicization of this issue is helping with "hesitancy". And neither does the incessant lying about "stopping covid". Vaccine is not going to stop covid. It'll just make people 10x less likely to die once they get it. Notice the choice of the word - we'll all get it eventually. This is a less "satisfying" message, but I'd argue it's a more persuasive one, simply because it's true.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- chrononaut 5y ago
  > Before Jan 20 the democrats too were the "anti-vax" side. Do you want me to dig up videos of Joe and Kamala telling everyone they'd be insane to take the "rushed" vaccine? The only infamous videos I am aware of have been misrepresented, in such the same way you are implying now. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-posts/biden-harris-doubted-trump-covid-19-vaccines-not-v/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...
  - edbob 5y ago
    Disclaimer: I got two shots of Moderna some time ago. Your source shows just how strongly anti-vax Biden was, making the case that the vaccine can't be trusted because of political influence. Since Biden can't give us any credible assurances that politics aren't involved in FDA approval or CDC recommendations, nor can he address his own concerns about the vaccine's development being politicized, then, by his argument, the American people should not have confidence. > The following week, Biden restated his concern about politics intervening in vaccine development: > "Americans have had to endure President Trump’s incompetence and dishonesty, when it comes to testing and personal protective equipment. We can’t afford to repeat those fiascos when it comes to a vaccine. … Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can’t either. Last week, Senator Harris and I laid out three questions this administration’s going to have to answer to assure the American people that politics will not play a role whatsoever in the vaccine process. If Donald Trump can’t give answers and the administration can’t give answers to these three questions, the American people should not have confidence." PolitiFact is one of the most biased outlets I've seen.
hncurious 5y ago
If it was called the Trump Vaccine and he was mandating it, this whole thing would be flipped. It's that simple. It has been tribal from the start and still is. We all know this is how things work at this point. It's not as based in science or rational arguments as it is based on motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.
garyfirestorm 5y ago
Shifting goal posts? They said the mRNA vaccines were not safe even before the first trial began. You just can’t have a rational argument with folks who irrationally arrived at a viewpoint.
- Kretinsky 5y ago
  Who is "they"? All of them? Please do not take Alex Jones for the whole.
Lochleg 5y ago
Some people think that the chance of death from a vaccine is not worth it, however slight that chance is. For the young and healthy, risking catching the vaccine shouldn't be that big of a deal despite all the hype about "long covid". With the virus having been around for two years now, there's a strong argument to be made about natural immunity. I think they knew that they had a lot of ways to make a better vaccine, and they will work on that, but I don't think it's going to be done quickly enough. So, I guess we all just have to go along with the booster shots until they "get it right". The government got heavily involved in the process, so it was bound to end up half-assed. There were people that said they would never let the government force them to take Trump's rushed vaccine. They wanted to create a disruption and a huge resistance to his efforts. Biden came along and "changed" it, and now they sing the praises of the vaccine and the unbelievable science behind it endlessly. You have an enormous pressure to take the vaccine by the behemoth government and the people that write the paychecks. If people use one of the only avenues they have to not get forced into something they have their own reasons for not buying into, I don't really blame them. The people you argued with about the vaccine have nothing to do with ordinary people and their decisions. If I was a lowly worker, I would probably just take it because I guess I would have bigger problems. There may not be much weight behind the anti-vaccine argument, but there's a lot to be said about better governance that probably would have involved doing things that actually work instead of having to point to things that didn't happen, especially with the angst about not enough people having complied with the emergency measures. Of course, the skeptics believe we mostly did the wrong things in a bout of panic and the need for post-hoc justification grew alongside the mass hysteria. There was the option of focused protection, yet it seems we neglected many people in care homes while the government got busy fighting windmills. We also seriously tampered with natural processes and normal lifestyles. That may have been counterproductive. We are now in a situation where there is no herd immunity, high-risk people are finding it impossible to avoid the infection forever, and we lost a lot of opportunities as the world was on pause that it everyone's life may objectively be worse than should be expected even after all this time.
- xcjs 5y ago
  I registered an account just to respond to this: "So, I guess we all just have to go along with the booster shots until they 'get it right'." The Pfizer and especially Moderna vaccines were as close as we could get to an ideal vaccine and had a high efficacy rate - for the Alpha variant. We did get it right. Additionally, the risk of death from the vaccine is effectively zero outside of extremely rare and very specific circumstances that are much less common than death or long term to permanent side effects of COVID-19. The target is a moving one, especially when a substantial part of the population allows (or can do nothing to stop) the virus to mutate unchecked. The Delta variant has a slightly different spike protein, and we are very lucky the vaccines remain effective at all against it.
throwawaycities 5y ago
I understand being pro Covid-19 vaccine and wanting to get it to minimize your chances at a negative health outcome if you get infected. Also mandating certain vaccines (like MMR) makes sense because they fully inoculate a person and eradicate these diseases. But when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines I don’t understand the insistence others get the vaccine because it doesn’t fully inoculate against the virus nor does it prevent carrying/spreading the virus. Perhaps there is an argument that hospitals are overloaded and 100% vaccination would relieve that burden, but I’m not in favor of mandatory vaccines that don’t fully inoculate and eradicate something on the basis it might help our overburdened healthcare system. It becomes a slippery slope, and opens the door to asking why we don’t then mandate diets, supplements and lifestyles that promote healthy immune systems in the name of minimizing chronic conditions that are a financial burden to tax funded Medicare and the healthcare system generally.
throwaway292939 5y ago
The moving goalpost argument goes both ways. I'm vaccinated but here's what I hear. - just get vaccinated - we need booster shots - we need booster shots every 8 months - we need booster shots every 5 months And you know there will be something next, it never moves in the other direction.
account42 5y ago
If you don't take no for an answer and won't accept anything besides people agreeing to your goals then it is you who is not arguing in good faith. Correct misunderstandings, refute falsehoods, but ultimately you need to let people make their own decisions. Accusing someone (or worse, groups) of "shifting goalpoasts" is a lame excuse to write of discussion. People can an do have multiple concerns where some of those take a backseat until others are resolved. People can be afraid to state their true concerns, often rightfully so considering how quick they can be grouped with all the other wrongthinkers and summarily condemned and ridiculed. And when it comes to groups - especially such nebolous ones as "the anti-vax side: - the apparent (ie loudest) argument can shift just by the group composition changing.

eric_b 5y ago

Eh, everyone has been moving goalposts. First it was "flatten the curve" to prevent hospital overrun. Then at some point it became "no one can ever get covid again" and we did wild things like close schools even if a person so much as got near a person with COVID. I don't think one side has a monopoly on losing trust, behaving badly, or making anti-science decisions.

lovich 5y ago
When did it ever get to no one can ever get Covid again? We tried to “flatten the curve” and still had large spikes. After we got some semblance of control we only kept infections down with lockdowns and other measures. This is a tech based forum, surely everyone here has experience with a boss who complains that he’s paying you when the system never breaks, not knowing that it’s not breaking because of active measures being taken to prevent it
hairofadog 5y ago
> Then at some point it became "no one can ever get covid again" and we did wild things like close schools even if a person so much as got near a person with COVID. Anecdotally, I have never heard anyone make the argument "no one can ever get covid again" nor heard of a school being closed because "a person got near a person with COVID".
- angelzen 5y ago
  Anectodally, last school year all in-person schools were closed in WA state. https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-school-closures-rest-2019-20-school-year https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-school...
  - hairofadog 5y ago
    Sorry, yeah, I should have been more clear: I have heard of schools being closed, just not for the reason that "someone got near someone with covid". Inslee's statement says the reason is due to "increasing rates of COVID-19 related infections, hospitalizations and death", but maybe you have additional information about the real reason.
betterunix2 5y ago
Closing schools and so forth was part of the flatten-the-curve effort. Really though, the CDC has been driven by the available science and by the reality of the pandemic, and when the CDC's guidance has changed it has invariably been in response to new data on COVID or to changing conditions (e.g. community spread, N95 mask availability, new variants). It is overly generous to speak of "one side" as if there is another equally valid side to compare with. The CDC is not a political institution and they always cite published research in their guidance and public statements about COVID-19. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd are going around spreading one fantasy after another, coming up with new and ever more outrageous conspiracy theories and excuses for refusing to cooperate; none of their claims have ever been based in reality, and that is why the story changes on a daily basis and why there are so many contradictory claims being made. To put this in perspective, the high-level direction of the CDC's guidance has, since the very beginning of the pandemic, been to reduce the rate at which COVID spreads; the changes in their guidance have been about the details. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd has gone from denying that there is a virus to saying that the virus is no worse than the flu to claiming that masks would suffocate them to whining about how mask mandates violate to their freedom and that they would rather die of COVID than comply with a mask mandate. They went from heaping praise on the last President simply because he was in office when the vaccines were first becoming available to complaining that the current President was being given too much credit for the vaccination effort to claiming that the vaccine is made from aborted fetuses, that the vaccine alters DNA, that Bill Gates inserted microchips into the vaccine, that the vaccine causes people to become magnetized, and that vaccine mandates are proof that the vaccine is the "mark of the beast."
- angelzen 5y ago
  Frankly, I am getting tired of labels. I one side of the debate is anti-mask / anti-vax crowd, then the other side is anti-living-life / pro-cower-in-the-basement-forever crowd.
  - crooked-v 5y ago
    No "cowering" would be necessary if people would just get vaccinated.
xg15 5y ago
I don't know, I never had an issue with that point. "Flatten the curve" is alright, but then what? It would be stupid to "flatten the curve" for a while, then call "mission accomplished" and pretend covid is over if that causes the situation to immediately go critical again. So far the playbook seems to have been: 1) Flatten the curve: Use lockdowns, masks and social distancing measures to maintain a situation where hospitals can still cope. This is not a one-time goal, it's an ongoing effort: As long as there was no vaccine, "no significant transmission right now" does not mean everything is back to normal - because if measures are lifted, transmission can quickly increase and become critical again. 2) Because the situation in 1) seriously sucks for everyone, try to come up with solutions to end the pandemic permanently (or at least make it permanently nonthreatening for the health system so we can leave "pandemic mode" and treat it as an ordinary disease). So far the most obvious strategy for this is vaccination - hence the increasing push to get everyone vaccinated. 3) Evolutionary pressures on the virus might cause the vaccines to become less effective. This unfortunately calls into question whether 2) is really able to bring an end to the pandemic. If this is really the case, then new plans are needed, such as boosters, new vaccines, I don't know. This stuff is currently being figured out. 1) and 2) does not seem like "moving the goalposts" to me. The goals were the same since the beginning of the pandemic, though of course the situation and circumstances were changing (you can only keep up a lockdown for so long, vaccines changed from "vague hope" to "viable strategy", etc) 3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected (I remember the virus was being talked about as relatively mutation resistant, which evidently wasn't the case.) - but this was simply new knowledge and new developments that might require a change in strategy - the overall goal to get out of this mess (by either eradicating covid or make it nonthreatening) did not change IMO. Of course if this goal turns out to be permanently unarchievable, the goalpost shifting might start...
- angelzen 5y ago
  There is no scientific proof, e.g. RCT, that lockdowns work. When did 'stay at home if sick, live life otherwise' become obsoleted? Edit: "3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat unexpected". That evolutionary pressures on the virus might^H^H^H will cause the vaccines to become less effective was and is the #1 concern of the critics of mass mRNA vaccination campaigns.
bamboozled 5y ago
The curve did need to be flattened though?
- ozfive 5y ago
  Yes so that bottom line our healthcare system wouldn't collapse along with you know saving lives that otherwise you have been lost.
  - bamboozled 5y ago
    That's what I'm saying? Bit trigger happy there? :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
barbazoo 5y ago
The messaging now at least here in BC is all about increasing vaccination coverage. To a degree that I'm reminded of Goodhart's law "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". Who cares how many people are vaccinated, what the goal should be is reducing hospitalizations, deaths and long-Covid for the good of people (don't die) and that of the health care system (ICUs not overrun). If there's a community who doesn't want to get vaccinated, who cares as long as the overall goal is still reached. We're focusing too much on cases and vaccinations to reduce cases at the moment in my view. We've lost touch with what's important, at least our messaging doesn't reflect that.
- avhon1 5y ago
  > the goal should be is reducing hospitalizations, deaths and long-Covid for the good of people (don't die) and that of the health care system (ICUs not overrun). I agree, that's an excellent goal! Universal vaccination seems to be an excellent means of achieving it. Besides that, what other thrusts would you like to see?
  - barbazoo 5y ago
    Well, see, universal vaccination I would say is sufficient to achieve this goal but not required. I wonder if it would be better to focus on vaccination coverage in hotspots where we do have issues with hospitalizations. What triggered me to wrote this is articles like this one [0] that, in my opinion, don't do anything to convince anybody to get vaccinated. All they do is shame people or groups of people. And what's missing from this article? While it talks about case numbers > Manitoba's Southern Health region, which encompasses the RM of Stanley, made up roughly half of the province's new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, but is only home to around 15 per cent of the population. it completely leaves out what's actually going on in the hospitals in that particular region. Case numbers aren't meaningful. Especially with vaccines that are great at preventing serious symptoms but only good at preventing spread. Don't get me wrong, I'm vaccinated and I believe everybody should be. But the vaccines aren't gonna protect us from ever getting the virus. We all will get it. What matters is to strategically focus on vulnerable groups and difficult geographical areas. But unfortunately we seem to be looking for a one size fits all approach. But maybe people in rural Manitoba need to be taken care of differently than people in urban Toronto. [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-stanley-winkler-morden-southern-health-wfpcbc-cbc-1.6192673 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-covid-19-st...

kichimi 5y ago

No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're stupid. It's why the liberal political parties keep losing elections around the world.

outworlder 5y ago
> No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're stupid They may not be, but they are certainly acting that way. Which is even more infuriating. People with perfectly functioning brains that refuse to use them.

bronzeage 5y ago

I'm from Israel. I got the vaccine. The goalposts here shifted to a third booster shot. They already admit the first two doses become ineffective very fast, contradicting the early research that actually got me to trust and take the vaccine in the first place. The stated effectiveness of the vaccine also went downhill. I also had some unusual vaccine side effects that I will not discuss here because I prefer my privacy and nobody believes random internet anecdotes anyway, I'm only going to get criticized for sharing. I'm not going to get any booster, even tho they are heavy handedly mandating it here, with absolutely zero data. They don't even allow you to confirm a healthy antibody count, strengthening the suspicion that this isn't about "waning antibodies count" at all. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had my suspicions that this medical tyranny would keep on going on even when the medical data is non-existent, and that most people will not even notice the difference. That suspicion was fully confirmed. I personally apologized to my anti vaccine friend that he was right. It's going to take a detailed research on why the original Pfizer trial was wrong on the effectiveness, what is the amount of antibodies required to be safe, and then I would see if I meet the criteria, if being recently vaccinated meets the criteria, if they understand the causes of the effects, if the booster actually gives reasonable advantage. And maybe then I'll consider it. If they don't put the side effects and the errors of the phase 3 trials under investigation I might not even vaccinate me or my future kids against other diseases as my trust of this industry was broken by the Pfizer experience.

hhw 5y ago
1) It's impractical to test everyone for antibodies. There's enough empirical data to suggest that immunity wanes over time for most people that it makes sense to just give everyone a 3rd, booster shot. 2) It was always expected that vaccine immunity would wane over time. Nobody (of any relevant repute) ever suggested otherwise. 3) I don't doubt that you had side effects from the vaccine. But there's a strong probability that the side effects of an actual infection would have been much, much worse for you. You may potentially have an undiagnosed health issue that could have potentially been a comorbodity in an actual infection.
- Kretinsky 5y ago

curun1r 5y ago

> do you think they know what the long term effects of a serious covid case is? (hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath") This is a dangerous message to push. The reality is that there are many lasting consequences of COVID that fall short of death but are, never the less, quite serious. The so called “long COVID” really needs to be part of the vaccine calculus because the health consequences are very much worse than the purported side effects from the vaccine. I’ve seen this kind of phenomenon first hand when it comes to drugs. As a teenager, there was lots of anti-drug messaging trying to convince us that ecstasy was dangerous. And all of it focused on scaring kids by exaggerating the risk of death. But we could see people taking it regularly and none of them were dying. And so it undercut the message. But decades later, I know a few people who’ve had depressive episodes potentially linked to heavy ecstasy use. And that consequence was never a part of the decision-making process because the authorities discredited themselves by being unnecessarily and obviously hyperbolic. We need better messaging that provides people with the full range of consequences for their choices. The “you’re going to die!!!” hysteria ends up being counterproductive. Even as deadly as COVID is, the truth is that unvaccinated people probably won’t die from their case…the vast majority survive. But if people understood how many recoveries included long-term health consequences that significantly affected their quality of life, they might be better able to weigh that against the potential side effects of a vaccine.

ay 5y ago
It is strange to me how many think that “you are going to die” is a harsher threat than “you will live a long life that will be severely crippled”. If I die, I cease to exist. So, while from the standpoint of the pre-death me, it is very unfortunate, the post-death me is either a null or an ephemeral entity in a different dimension (depending on which of the belief systems works) Remaining in the same spatial domain but set back into oblivion by my own choices is about as close to the definition of hell as it can get.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  Do you have kids? The thought of my daughter growing up without her daddy around scares me more than the thought of chronic pain or weakness.

gorgilo 5y ago

"(hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath")" You sound like a socially retarded child.

batch12 5y ago

dude4you 5y ago

For me, the other side is shifting goalposts. I could not get vaccinated in Germany. Every illegal immigrant could get vaccinated but I as a German citizen, since I was not registered with the police, (some countries have this, for a US citizen this sounds weird) could not. Ok, caught corona in south America in the Andes mountains and had serious breathing problems but survived. I have a biotech background and I am sorry to break the news to you. Vaccinations won't make corona go away. I fact it may force it to adapt faster. So why should I get vaccinated now? I dislike all the government pressure that is put on citizens in this regard. An the parties in Sao Paulo are back on. No masks. Germany is not considering Brazil even as a high risk country anymore. So why the force for vaccinations? Freedom won't come back except if the Citizens demand it.

frankzinger 5y ago
> I have a biotech background So you're not a virologist or epidemiologist then? Got it. > and I am sorry to break the news to you. Vaccinations won't make corona go away. I fact it may force it to adapt faster. The virus spreads more rapidly among and lives for longer inside the unvaccinated, as a result getting much more exposure to human immune systems, and thus giving it more opportunity to evolve.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Don't kid yourself. We all are virologists and epidemiologists.

b7bfcdeaab33 5y ago

> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. FDA's announcement https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download Point to the sentence that says the vaccine got approved.

endual 5y ago
It might help if you posted a link to where the FDA approval was announced: https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-approves-first-covid-19-vaccine https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-appr... "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine"
- b7bfcdeaab33 5y ago
  I wasn't aware of this link. From FDA's letter (instead of the link): "I am authorizing the emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine for the prevention of COVID-19, as described in the Scope of Authorization section of this letter (Section II) and subject to the terms of this authorization. Additionally, as specified in subsection III.BB, I am authorizing use of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID‑19 Vaccine and of COMIRNATY (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) under this EUA when used to provide: a two-dose regimen for individuals aged 12 through 15 years; a third dose to individuals 12 years of age or older who have undergone solid organ transplantation or who are diagnosed with conditions that are considered to have an equivalent level of immunocompromise; or a single booster dose at least 6 months after completing the primary series to individuals: 65 years of age and older; 18 through 64 years of age at high risk of severe COVID-19; and 18 through 64 years of age whose frequent institutional or occupational exposure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of serious complications of COVID-19 including severe COVID-19." If I'm interpreting this right: - the existing vaccine is still available under emergency use authorization. - a different vaccine called COMIRNATY was approved. I didn't understand from FDA's letter if COMIRNATY exists. The inventor of mRNA vaccines, Dr. Robert Malone, claims FDA approved a vaccine that doesn't exist. https://www.bitchute.com/video/DZQFYRGDkB6s/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/DZQFYRGDkB6s/

Natsu 5y ago

> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be trusted, that's a given. Actually, there was a big shift in the numbers about then. People are just divided over whether it was due to shaming people or the certification. I believe Matthew Yglasias posted about that, though he seemed to think it was from shaming people. It's true that some people moved on to other arguments after that, but if someone has multiple independent reasons for not wanting something, you do kinda have to shoot them all down. From my experience in trying to explain the benefits of the vaccine to the hesitant, there are more than a few who just won't listen, but there are quite a lot of people who will listen when you calmly explain things. Trying to be forceful will basically always backfire. Many of them were previously meming about how Covid is not very dangerous, with only a 1-2% mortality rate. So I like to point out that the risk of vaccine injury is several orders of magnitude lower. You need thousands of people dying per day for months to convince anyone that the vaccine is anywhere near as dangerous as the virus, not the odd death of someone the day after they vaccinated here and there. Once you get people into a direct comparison even if they push back on the numbers being fudged, you can point that every country in the world would have to be in on some conspiracy. I feel like this is the most effective way to defuse the vastly over-hyped danger of the vaccine. Even if they try to quibble the numbers with the best and worst numbers possible, you don't get to risks that are even the same order of magnitude. Saying that it's all not in good faith quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, I find that most people are willing to have an honest discussion with someone who respects them and who will listen and address their concerns. Those conditions are hard, though, because a lot of people seem to quickly throw human empathy out the window and start yelling. That... doesn't work at all. Anyhow, that's my experience from talking to people. I've gotten several of the hesitant to vaccinate by trying to be as honest as possible about the risks and why worrying about the vaccine but not Covid doesn't make sense. But if you don't listen to or understand where the people arguing are coming from--which is often hard with internet strangers--you probably won't get very far, so I do understand why it's frustrating.

sephamorr 5y ago
Where do you see that vaccinations increased after FDA approval (Aug 23)? I'm looking at the NYTimes vaccine dashboard and don't see any meaningful spike after that date. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine...

fsckboy 5y ago

> anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1. (claimer/disclaimer: I'm a hard-science type (famous university or rather, institute) and got vaccinated as soon as I could; I am from a very healthy family that does not suffer from outlier symptoms (like flu, but eh it's not bad, no allergies, no side effects etc.) so overall I just didn't worry about it, but I didn't worry about Covid before I got vaccinated either.) but the biggest goalpost that got moved was, we have government regulations and protocols that concern drug approvals to make sure that the general population is not exposed to unnecessary risks. The Covid vaccines were fast tracked and unleashed untested: that's a huge goalpost shifted a huge distance. And nor was the administering of the vaccine accompanied by a notification of the major risks inherent in this approach, like for example, perhaps the viral spike protein was causing all the tissues' damage and the vaccine included the spike protein. so, in my book the pro vax side has behaved reprehensibly and is doing even deeper damage to the body politic by normalizing censorship. I'd still urge everybody to get vaccinated.

Denvercoder9 5y ago
> The Covid vaccines were fast tracked and unleashed untested: Can you name one test that was mandatory for other vaccines, but skipped for the COVID vaccines?
- fsckboy 5y ago
  yes, trials that take time.
  - Denvercoder9 5y ago
    That's a very big step from "the trials didn't run as long as I'd like" to "untested".
    - fsckboy 5y ago
      it's not a big step at all. you're doing the reprehensible thing, "nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see". Just be honest in a forthright way.

ALittleLight 5y ago

You pretty obviously can argue with people who don't argue in good faith. When they shift the goal posts call attention to it, explain it, and then meet them where they are at. People watching will see the other party being duplicitous. I'm imagining YouTube or the government or whoever hiring some informed experts and inviting the vaccine hesitant on for debates. Let them make whatever arguments they want and when they are absurd or move the goalposts point it out. Are medical doctors X, Y, and Z, selected for being informed and skilled orators going to be outdebated by the likes of Alex Jones? Why can't we have some experts who just engage with the conspiracy theory stuff, not sneeringly but just dispassionately. I don't think this would convince everyone. I don't think convincing everyone should be the goal. I do think it would convince more people than the current approach though and it would be more in keeping with free speech ideals.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
I would pay a lot to watch this and other content like it. Exhaustive rebuttals that painstakingly enumerate over the minute, and ultimately unimportant, arguments fully refuting the hair brained arguments we’ve all seen shouted without an a drop of critical analysis behind them. Good luck getting an anti vaxxer to agree to an argument that’ll have to take place over months to allow time for proper research and production to occur.
chrischen 5y ago
People do regularly debate, debunk, and directly answer the conspiracy theory stuff. Plus, if there's a statement made that an invisible unicorn is controlling the world, how am I supposed to debunk that? The debunking stuff just isn't content interesting these people who are not seeking it out.
etchalon 5y ago
People argue with anti-vaxxers every day on social media. It doesn't change any minds.
Jenda_ 5y ago
I feel there are enough debates with flat-earthers, climate change deniers, covid-deniers, anti-vaxers etc. and it leads to nowhere. (at least in .cz) The same applies to other topics, for example some time ago there was Internet censorship in .cz widely discussed (a topic where I can be, given my education and job, absolutely sure what things are nonsense from the technical point of view), and I think the problem is arguments from the "objectively correct" side are indistinguishable to a layperson from the "crafted nonsense". For a layperson to make sense of such arguments, at least a several hours long lecture explaining the concepts would be needed (in case of vaccines: DNA replication, proteosynthesis, folding, antigens and immune reactions…; in the case of internet censorship: routing, DNS, HTTPS, SNI…), which is impossible to do in a "debate", we have "lectures" for this. Otherwise, they simply cannot get the arguments and why the other side is wrong, by other means than faith. And yes, of course there are many websites, free online textbooks and recorded lectures explaining such concepts available to anyone willing to spend some time on it. Even in Czech, so no language barrier.

belorn 5y ago

Depending on which country you look at you got different goals. Some tried isolation. Others tried herd immunity. We are currently trying those 2 dose vaccines and are already planning for a third before the winter has even started, and I suspect we will see talk about a forth dose by early spring. Then we have nations like Norway addressing covid as a new aspect of the seasonal flue with no end date. The idea that we just take two doses and are done is clearly no longer the goalpost.

alex_munroe 5y ago

> you cannot argue in good faith with someone who does not. But the solution shouldn't be to shut down the discussion by banning the other side, because then you just have two sides who fight dirty. One side refuses to see reason and understand arguments, the other uses shaming, coercion, and censorship in place of the arguments. If the truth is on your side, you shouldn't resort to that.

karaterobot 5y ago

The thing to keep in mind is that when we say "the other side", we just mean people who don't intend to get vaccinated. This hides the fact that there is no actual "side" in the sense of a unified group of people who collectively agree to a set of principles, and goalposts that can even be moved. It's just a bunch of people who have their own brains, and reasons. They aren't all the same, or believe the same things, or make the same claims. This is trivially obvious, but I see it ignored most of the time. People get accused of things they don't actually believe, and didn't say, or do. That makes them defensive and makes it impossible to have a good-faith discussion, and that's part of the mess we're in.

m0zg 5y ago

Before Jan 20 the democrats too were the "anti-vax" side. Do you want me to dig up videos of Joe and Kamala telling everyone they'd be insane to take the "rushed" vaccine? I don't think such overt politicization of this issue is helping with "hesitancy". And neither does the incessant lying about "stopping covid". Vaccine is not going to stop covid. It'll just make people 10x less likely to die once they get it. Notice the choice of the word - we'll all get it eventually. This is a less "satisfying" message, but I'd argue it's a more persuasive one, simply because it's true.

deleted 5y ago
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chrononaut 5y ago
> Before Jan 20 the democrats too were the "anti-vax" side. Do you want me to dig up videos of Joe and Kamala telling everyone they'd be insane to take the "rushed" vaccine? The only infamous videos I am aware of have been misrepresented, in such the same way you are implying now. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-posts/biden-harris-doubted-trump-covid-19-vaccines-not-v/ https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jul/23/tiktok-pos...
- edbob 5y ago
  Disclaimer: I got two shots of Moderna some time ago. Your source shows just how strongly anti-vax Biden was, making the case that the vaccine can't be trusted because of political influence. Since Biden can't give us any credible assurances that politics aren't involved in FDA approval or CDC recommendations, nor can he address his own concerns about the vaccine's development being politicized, then, by his argument, the American people should not have confidence. > The following week, Biden restated his concern about politics intervening in vaccine development: > "Americans have had to endure President Trump’s incompetence and dishonesty, when it comes to testing and personal protective equipment. We can’t afford to repeat those fiascos when it comes to a vaccine. … Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump, and at this moment, the American people can’t either. Last week, Senator Harris and I laid out three questions this administration’s going to have to answer to assure the American people that politics will not play a role whatsoever in the vaccine process. If Donald Trump can’t give answers and the administration can’t give answers to these three questions, the American people should not have confidence." PolitiFact is one of the most biased outlets I've seen.

hncurious 5y ago

If it was called the Trump Vaccine and he was mandating it, this whole thing would be flipped. It's that simple. It has been tribal from the start and still is. We all know this is how things work at this point. It's not as based in science or rational arguments as it is based on motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.

garyfirestorm 5y ago

Shifting goal posts? They said the mRNA vaccines were not safe even before the first trial began. You just can’t have a rational argument with folks who irrationally arrived at a viewpoint.

Kretinsky 5y ago
Who is "they"? All of them? Please do not take Alex Jones for the whole.

Lochleg 5y ago

Some people think that the chance of death from a vaccine is not worth it, however slight that chance is. For the young and healthy, risking catching the vaccine shouldn't be that big of a deal despite all the hype about "long covid". With the virus having been around for two years now, there's a strong argument to be made about natural immunity. I think they knew that they had a lot of ways to make a better vaccine, and they will work on that, but I don't think it's going to be done quickly enough. So, I guess we all just have to go along with the booster shots until they "get it right". The government got heavily involved in the process, so it was bound to end up half-assed. There were people that said they would never let the government force them to take Trump's rushed vaccine. They wanted to create a disruption and a huge resistance to his efforts. Biden came along and "changed" it, and now they sing the praises of the vaccine and the unbelievable science behind it endlessly. You have an enormous pressure to take the vaccine by the behemoth government and the people that write the paychecks. If people use one of the only avenues they have to not get forced into something they have their own reasons for not buying into, I don't really blame them. The people you argued with about the vaccine have nothing to do with ordinary people and their decisions. If I was a lowly worker, I would probably just take it because I guess I would have bigger problems. There may not be much weight behind the anti-vaccine argument, but there's a lot to be said about better governance that probably would have involved doing things that actually work instead of having to point to things that didn't happen, especially with the angst about not enough people having complied with the emergency measures. Of course, the skeptics believe we mostly did the wrong things in a bout of panic and the need for post-hoc justification grew alongside the mass hysteria. There was the option of focused protection, yet it seems we neglected many people in care homes while the government got busy fighting windmills. We also seriously tampered with natural processes and normal lifestyles. That may have been counterproductive. We are now in a situation where there is no herd immunity, high-risk people are finding it impossible to avoid the infection forever, and we lost a lot of opportunities as the world was on pause that it everyone's life may objectively be worse than should be expected even after all this time.

xcjs 5y ago
I registered an account just to respond to this: "So, I guess we all just have to go along with the booster shots until they 'get it right'." The Pfizer and especially Moderna vaccines were as close as we could get to an ideal vaccine and had a high efficacy rate - for the Alpha variant. We did get it right. Additionally, the risk of death from the vaccine is effectively zero outside of extremely rare and very specific circumstances that are much less common than death or long term to permanent side effects of COVID-19. The target is a moving one, especially when a substantial part of the population allows (or can do nothing to stop) the virus to mutate unchecked. The Delta variant has a slightly different spike protein, and we are very lucky the vaccines remain effective at all against it.

throwawaycities 5y ago

I understand being pro Covid-19 vaccine and wanting to get it to minimize your chances at a negative health outcome if you get infected. Also mandating certain vaccines (like MMR) makes sense because they fully inoculate a person and eradicate these diseases. But when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines I don’t understand the insistence others get the vaccine because it doesn’t fully inoculate against the virus nor does it prevent carrying/spreading the virus. Perhaps there is an argument that hospitals are overloaded and 100% vaccination would relieve that burden, but I’m not in favor of mandatory vaccines that don’t fully inoculate and eradicate something on the basis it might help our overburdened healthcare system. It becomes a slippery slope, and opens the door to asking why we don’t then mandate diets, supplements and lifestyles that promote healthy immune systems in the name of minimizing chronic conditions that are a financial burden to tax funded Medicare and the healthcare system generally.

throwaway292939 5y ago

The moving goalpost argument goes both ways. I'm vaccinated but here's what I hear. - just get vaccinated - we need booster shots - we need booster shots every 8 months - we need booster shots every 5 months And you know there will be something next, it never moves in the other direction.

account42 5y ago

If you don't take no for an answer and won't accept anything besides people agreeing to your goals then it is you who is not arguing in good faith. Correct misunderstandings, refute falsehoods, but ultimately you need to let people make their own decisions. Accusing someone (or worse, groups) of "shifting goalpoasts" is a lame excuse to write of discussion. People can an do have multiple concerns where some of those take a backseat until others are resolved. People can be afraid to state their true concerns, often rightfully so considering how quick they can be grouped with all the other wrongthinkers and summarily condemned and ridiculed. And when it comes to groups - especially such nebolous ones as "the anti-vax side: - the apparent (ie loudest) argument can shift just by the group composition changing.