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Where am I pushing mandates? I think there are valid policy positions on both sides of the issue, and that you’re misrepresenting the logic of those who still a

by rsfern 5y ago

Where am I pushing mandates? I think there are valid policy positions on both sides of the issue, and that you’re misrepresenting the logic of those who still are in favor of vaccine mandates. You also haven’t offered any substantive counterpoint to my main point, which is that the widely accepted definition of vaccines is broadly consistent with the current coronavirus vaccines. The scare quotes aren’t necessary and detract from a reasonable discussion of their actual utility and tradeoffs

anamax 5y ago
They're not scare quotes. I'm writing about word choice, so it's appropriate to use delimiters to make it clear exactly what word I'm writing about. Most people think that "vaccine" has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.
- rsfern 5y ago
  Ok, sorry if I misinterpreted your punctuation, the last instance is what read like scare quotes to me; maybe `backtick` is a better delimiter for this case > Most people think that `vaccine` has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people. I disagree that it’s dishonest, it’s the correct term. I agree that if most people have a misunderstanding of what constitutes a vaccine, then failing to address that is going to lead to suboptimal public health communication.
  - anamax 5y ago
    It's not the "correct" term if you know that the recipient thinks that it means something else. (All communications happens at the receiver.) It's dishonest because they think that you're promising something that they're not going to get AND you know it.
    - rsfern 5y ago
      I take your point, but by correct I meant “consistent with the established definition,” which was the original context we started in Like I said, maybe it’s not the optimal term to use in public health communications, and that could be because of dishonesty, but it could also be due to ineptitude or just failure to appreciate a widespread misunderstanding
      - anamax 5y ago
        It's not the "established" definition with the target audience. Your argument is basically "I don't speak Spanish, so I'll talk louder and add a long 'o" at the end of words when talking to someone who only speaks Spanish." It's hard to find a public health organization that doesn't say that communicating with the public is a key goal and core competency. So, are they: [1] Incompetent [2] Using a different definition of "goal", "communicating", "core competency", etc? [3] ???? Note that communications isn't the only problem. One of the arguments for [1] is that the public health folk have long said "hey, we're necessary to avoid a repeat of the Spanish Flu." yet they were largely unprepared. (Then again, flu kills 30-80k Americans every year and most of the good transmission research was done in the late 40s...)

by rsfern 5y ago

anamax 5y ago

They're not scare quotes. I'm writing about word choice, so it's appropriate to use delimiters to make it clear exactly what word I'm writing about. Most people think that "vaccine" has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people.

rsfern 5y ago
Ok, sorry if I misinterpreted your punctuation, the last instance is what read like scare quotes to me; maybe `backtick` is a better delimiter for this case > Most people think that `vaccine` has a specific meaning. It is dishonest to use that label for something that doesn't conform to that meaning when communicating with those people. I disagree that it’s dishonest, it’s the correct term. I agree that if most people have a misunderstanding of what constitutes a vaccine, then failing to address that is going to lead to suboptimal public health communication.
- anamax 5y ago
  It's not the "correct" term if you know that the recipient thinks that it means something else. (All communications happens at the receiver.) It's dishonest because they think that you're promising something that they're not going to get AND you know it.
  - rsfern 5y ago
    I take your point, but by correct I meant “consistent with the established definition,” which was the original context we started in Like I said, maybe it’s not the optimal term to use in public health communications, and that could be because of dishonesty, but it could also be due to ineptitude or just failure to appreciate a widespread misunderstanding
    - anamax 5y ago
      It's not the "established" definition with the target audience. Your argument is basically "I don't speak Spanish, so I'll talk louder and add a long 'o" at the end of words when talking to someone who only speaks Spanish." It's hard to find a public health organization that doesn't say that communicating with the public is a key goal and core competency. So, are they: [1] Incompetent [2] Using a different definition of "goal", "communicating", "core competency", etc? [3] ???? Note that communications isn't the only problem. One of the arguments for [1] is that the public health folk have long said "hey, we're necessary to avoid a repeat of the Spanish Flu." yet they were largely unprepared. (Then again, flu kills 30-80k Americans every year and most of the good transmission research was done in the late 40s...)