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So, here's the challenge. A doctor is promoting vaccinating your child from COVID?. Should that also be taken with a grain of salt? What about measles? How d

So, here's the challenge. A doctor is promoting vaccinating your child from COVID?. Should that also be taken with a grain of salt? What about measles? How do you draw the line? How do you help others - suspicious of authority, and being actively manipulated in a culture war to distrust anything a "progressive" tells them - to draw the line? I think it's impossible. The only way is to say that "Doctors are experts. They have been wrong before and they will be wrong again. Experts doesn't mean getting things 100% right. But it definitely means getting things more right than you, most of the time. So trust them, even if as new information develops, the advice will shift". By the way both sides in the culture war believe this. FOX News finds their own experts. They find the 0.1% scientists that don't believe in climate change and give them 60% of the airtime. But they still appeal to experts.

rajin444 5y ago
> But it definitely means getting things more right than you, most of the time. So trust them, even if as new information develops, the advice will shift You're advocating giving up all agency and placing 100% trust in a person. There are endless examples in human history as to why this is dangerous. There are very few as to why this is good. "Just trust me" is generally regarded as something said by a person you should not trust, and for good reason. > How do you draw the line? You do your best to evaluate the information on your own and find sources you trust. The latter is nearly impossible when an issue becomes political.
- sutuplesu 5y ago
  > find sources you trust And those sources will consist of...who? Perhaps, people who have spent time and effort learning about the topic, a.k.a. "the experts"?
  - rajin444 5y ago
    Spending a lot of time on one thing does not inherently make you trustworthy. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      It makes you knowledgeable. You should pick knowledgeble people to trust on complicated topics and you shouldn't base that trust on if those people tell you what you want yo hear but on their ability to acknowledge nuance and change their minds when they see new data.
      - rajin444 5y ago
        You’re starting to get it with your last points. There’s a lot of factors that go in to determining trustworthiness. Being knowledgeable is a prerequisite for trusting somebody.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > You're advocating giving up all agency and placing 100% trust in a person. Not at all. Placing provisional trust in am expert about a specific opinion you are aware may change in the future is completely different from "giving up all agency" or "placing 100% trust in a person. Nothing in that advice tells you not to check the opinions of a few different experts to be sure you aren't being misled. > The latter is nearly impossible when an issue becomes political. It's not that hard. You find experts who seem to do a good job of acknowledging nuance and don't seem to be trying to make their facts fit a narrative. What you don't do is trust someone because what they say on completely different topics matches what you believe or trust someone because they consistently give you the answers you want to hear. Doing either of those is worse than just blindly trusting experts.
umvi 5y ago
> How do you draw the line? Again, maturity of the thing the expertise revolves around is important here. Since covid has been around less than 2 years and child-approved covid vaccines have been around for less than 1 year, I'd take a recommendation to vaccinate my kid against covid with a grain of salt. Especially since covid itself does not appear to impact children the same way it does adults (<0.03% of covid deaths have been children, etc.). Since covid is a highly politicized topic at the moment it's hard to tell if the doctor is recommending the vaccine because he actually feels it's beneficial vs. recommending the vaccine because despite feeling like it's not terribly beneficial, he's feeling pressure from governments to push the vaccine because they want to get kids back into schools. Measles vaccines have been around over 50 years, have a proven utility and track record, and are not currently politicized. Plus measles is way more deadly to kids than covid, so in that case it's more cut and dry. So my philosophy is to take covid-related advice with a grain of salt until the expertise around it is more mature. I think in 5 years we will have a much better idea of how necessary child covid vaccines really are (as well as how necessary cloth masks really are, etc.). By the way, when I say "take with a grain of salt", I don't mean "don't give your kid the covid vaccine". I mean "Probably still give the kid covid vaccine but reserve the right to harbor doubts that it's actually necessary and quietly suspect the current political climate is putting pressure on hospitals to push the vaccine regardless of the actual merits of the vaccine"
jstanley 5y ago
> being actively manipulated in a culture war People you disagree with aren't the only ones being manipulated.
- deanCommie 5y ago
  Not every subject needs to be "both sided". In the modern progressive/conservative divide, there is no pure synchronicity between how people of different political persuasions approach their support of ideas. Namely: One group stays pretty consistent with their preferences; The other shifts position depending on who's proposing it. The Data: https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7hjdap/the_last_president_to_vilify_the_fbi_was_nixon/dqrjlun/?sh=96611e68&st=JASTCW7M https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7hjdap/the_last_pr...

rajin444 5y ago

> But it definitely means getting things more right than you, most of the time. So trust them, even if as new information develops, the advice will shift You're advocating giving up all agency and placing 100% trust in a person. There are endless examples in human history as to why this is dangerous. There are very few as to why this is good. "Just trust me" is generally regarded as something said by a person you should not trust, and for good reason. > How do you draw the line? You do your best to evaluate the information on your own and find sources you trust. The latter is nearly impossible when an issue becomes political.

sutuplesu 5y ago
> find sources you trust And those sources will consist of...who? Perhaps, people who have spent time and effort learning about the topic, a.k.a. "the experts"?
- rajin444 5y ago
  Spending a lot of time on one thing does not inherently make you trustworthy. I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    It makes you knowledgeable. You should pick knowledgeble people to trust on complicated topics and you shouldn't base that trust on if those people tell you what you want yo hear but on their ability to acknowledge nuance and change their minds when they see new data.
    - rajin444 5y ago
      You’re starting to get it with your last points. There’s a lot of factors that go in to determining trustworthiness. Being knowledgeable is a prerequisite for trusting somebody.
shkkmo 5y ago
> You're advocating giving up all agency and placing 100% trust in a person. Not at all. Placing provisional trust in am expert about a specific opinion you are aware may change in the future is completely different from "giving up all agency" or "placing 100% trust in a person. Nothing in that advice tells you not to check the opinions of a few different experts to be sure you aren't being misled. > The latter is nearly impossible when an issue becomes political. It's not that hard. You find experts who seem to do a good job of acknowledging nuance and don't seem to be trying to make their facts fit a narrative. What you don't do is trust someone because what they say on completely different topics matches what you believe or trust someone because they consistently give you the answers you want to hear. Doing either of those is worse than just blindly trusting experts.

umvi 5y ago

> How do you draw the line? Again, maturity of the thing the expertise revolves around is important here. Since covid has been around less than 2 years and child-approved covid vaccines have been around for less than 1 year, I'd take a recommendation to vaccinate my kid against covid with a grain of salt. Especially since covid itself does not appear to impact children the same way it does adults (<0.03% of covid deaths have been children, etc.). Since covid is a highly politicized topic at the moment it's hard to tell if the doctor is recommending the vaccine because he actually feels it's beneficial vs. recommending the vaccine because despite feeling like it's not terribly beneficial, he's feeling pressure from governments to push the vaccine because they want to get kids back into schools. Measles vaccines have been around over 50 years, have a proven utility and track record, and are not currently politicized. Plus measles is way more deadly to kids than covid, so in that case it's more cut and dry. So my philosophy is to take covid-related advice with a grain of salt until the expertise around it is more mature. I think in 5 years we will have a much better idea of how necessary child covid vaccines really are (as well as how necessary cloth masks really are, etc.). By the way, when I say "take with a grain of salt", I don't mean "don't give your kid the covid vaccine". I mean "Probably still give the kid covid vaccine but reserve the right to harbor doubts that it's actually necessary and quietly suspect the current political climate is putting pressure on hospitals to push the vaccine regardless of the actual merits of the vaccine"

jstanley 5y ago

> being actively manipulated in a culture war People you disagree with aren't the only ones being manipulated.

deanCommie 5y ago
Not every subject needs to be "both sided". In the modern progressive/conservative divide, there is no pure synchronicity between how people of different political persuasions approach their support of ideas. Namely: One group stays pretty consistent with their preferences; The other shifts position depending on who's proposing it. The Data: https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7hjdap/the_last_president_to_vilify_the_fbi_was_nixon/dqrjlun/?sh=96611e68&st=JASTCW7M https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/7hjdap/the_last_pr...