I sat with people who told me they were hesitant to vaccinate, that they heard different things left and right and didn't know what to do and would wait until i

I sat with people who told me they were hesitant to vaccinate, that they heard different things left and right and didn't know what to do and would wait until it was mandatory to decide if they would get the vaccine or not. This went on for months. I didn't push them to vaccinate or anything like that, I decided it was better to keep quiet about it and maintain the relationship. Then one day I realized they were gaslighting me, organizing protests against covid measures and to regain their right to party, circulating fake news among themselves about how our government head was running pedophile ring and how the deaths were fake. etc., when suddenly they shouted at me how the government was making their life hell on purpose. I cut them off. I realized there were strong parallels with the behavior of cult members I knew long ago. They lie. They lie to appear open-minded, hesitant. Like random Chinese posters discussing alternate interpretation of Tien An Men ("it was a western fabricated lie!" "ah thanks, I never thought about that and it's intriguing, thanks for offering a more reasonable interpretation". Now when I smell someone is using the same tactics I flip off. But on HN I am not even bothering anymore. Conversations about long covid looks like conversation with covid deniers from two years ago and it almost always end up in dictionary/akshually cherry-picking battle. All that to say that, yeah, I believe there's a lot of conspiracy theorists among people who aren't OK with Covid vaccine policies. /rant