4 ms·

I would just like us all to stop pretending that any of one's fear of COVID or skepticism of vaccines or distrust of whoever or whatever is about rational calcu

I would just like us all to stop pretending that any of one's fear of COVID or skepticism of vaccines or distrust of whoever or whatever is about rational calculated risks. It's about how we feel, so let's talk about that. Look, everyone is scared of doing something until they're scared of not doing it. Everyone distrusts government until they trust it, and distrusts pharma until they trust it. Some people will wear their mask in the grocery store even though it's a cloth mask that's as good as doing nothing because now it feels weird not to. Some people won't take the COVID vaccine but they'll happily take remdesivir and ivermectin. (Who do you think makes remdesivir and ivermectin?) Some people will happily go to an indoor comic convention that's an hour's drive from them, but not to an outdoor wedding, because it would mean getting on a plane (this actually happened with a family member of mine and I am not over it). All of which is to say that what people are really doing is going with their gut. If your gut instinct is "COVID's not a big deal", then of course taking an emergency-use-authorized vaccine for it seems risky. If your gut instinct is "COVID is dangerous and deadly", you'll take anything you can get. Now that things are subsiding, and the fear is waning, I read an article like this and I think "hmm, that does seem bad, we should look into it, but also I am gonna keep doing what I'm doing and getting my COVID vaccine because it seems like it's helping." On the other hand, you have people who are literally dying of COVID who are still relieved they were able to dodge getting the vaccine because it felt scary to get a not-fully-tested drug. So I'm pro-vaccine because they seem like a good idea and my experiences with them (four shots so far) have been positive, in that my side effects were limited and I know there were situations where I could have gotten COVID and I didn't. (And when I did get COVID, it was extremely mild.) Who's to say how I'd have felt if I were one of the few cases of myocarditis out there? Who's to say how I would've felt if I'd had mild COVID and recovered from it pre-vaccine? What if I'd been hospitalized with COVID pre-vaccine? Can we just admit this isn't about logic or statistics, and never was? It was always a persuasion game either way.

sokoloff 4y ago
Having some uncertainty around novel things seems reasonable. We were all uncertain around COVID and around new vaccines using a novel mechanism. People balanced those uncertainties differently. I took the course of asking people I generally trusted for their opinion and concluded that taking the vaccines (3 for me so far, plus a bout of naturally-acquired resistance via infection) was indicated. There were other doctors whom I knew before COVID was a thing who were recommending ivermectin. If that was your doctor, why wouldn't you believe them just like I believed the doctors that I had more association with? My gut tells me "be skeptical of novel things, but balance that skepticism a bit by asking people whom you trust to have greater knowledge on the topic, ultimately making the best decision you can".
- phtrivier 4y ago
  Except when the only thing that can inform a good decision is _time_ ; and when you can ask every trustworthy people you know, and they will simply not have a clue _yet_, because no one does and we're in the middle of the fog of war. But I suppose we all preferred pretending we knew _somethings_. How about we get some empathy for the people who just ended up on the many bad sides of the many bets ?
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    I'm not sure where the lack of empathy is above. I have/wrote about empathy for people whose doctors gave them advice that when followed will turn out, in retrospect, to be wrong. Maybe that will be mine; maybe that will be the others.
    - phtrivier 4y ago
      It was nowhere in your writing, sorry if that got confused. I meant basically: "maybe give the few young people who suffered from some unforeseen side effects a break, and the right to keep their job without a next round of jabs" ? As far as I can tell, "having suffered side effects from the first 1/2/3 injection" is still not a valid exemption cause for vaccine mandates.
- dpedu 4y ago
  Sure there was and still is uncertainty, but we need to talk about the other side of that coin. You used the term novel, which means: "new and not resembling something formerly known or used" and that's just not the case here. We didn't just invent a completely new vaccine mechanism for covid, the mRNA technology has been known and in development for half a century. This is just the first time it was effective. Likewise with the disease itself, we know that it shares a significant portion of its DNA with the disease behind the 2002 SARS-CoV pandemic and has many other similar parameters. https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-does-SARS-CoV-2-Compare-to-SARS-CoV.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-does-SARS-CoV-2-Comp...
  - 4y ago
jzb 4y ago
"Can we just admit this isn't about logic or statistics, and never was? It was always a persuasion game either way." Kind of? The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease. If "the left" is for vaccines, masking, social distancing, etc. then "the right" has to immediately be against it. I don't recall any of my friends or family needing persuasion at all. They believed in the science and were willing to adapt as we learned new things about COVID (e.g. around masking and social distancing). When vaccines were becoming available I know my circle spent time looking over what information we could find about which ones were better, side effects, etc., but were onboard with vaccine risk being better than COVID. The FOX crowd, OTOH, went looking to scare people off vaccines and made not masking a point of pride. It was tribalism, pure and simple. If it were a persuasion game you might have seen a lot more diversity in who was for/against the vaccines. 30 years ago if we'd faced COVID (at least in the U.S.) and had the vaccines available, I think we'd have fared far better. People who couldn't agree on much else could've come together in the face of a deadly disease. Persuasion, and logic, are out the window.
- TurkishPoptart 4y ago
  I'm against social distancing because there is no scientific basis or justification for it. Scientists just went on TV and talked about an idea they pulled out from their behinds. I guess that makes me on the right for not believing everything that was presented to me on television, unlike my family, who are on the left.
  - ivraatiems 4y ago
    If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." Not advocating for social distancing as a policy at this point in time, just saying, it made a lot of sense from a risk-prevention perspective at the time. But again, this is my point. It's trivially easy for me to provide a logical explanation for why social distancing was a sensible tactic. You are (probably) not going to be persuaded. You (probably) like your evidence because it matches how you feel, and I like mine because it matches how I feel. To be clear, I don't mean this in an aggressive way - I don't think it is bad that you don't agree with me on this in some kind of a moral way, at this point. I just don't think any sort of evidence-based argumentation will bridge the gap between us.
linuxftw 4y ago
So, people losing their jobs for not taking an experimental medical product was just a persuasion game? What?
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  Yes, "do this or you're fired" is a coercive tactic. People who are pro-vaccine want everyone to get the vaccine. They believe it is a matter of life or death (frankly, I agree with them, but I am trying to present this neutrally). So that level of coercion, "fear losing your job if you don't do this" is exactly what I'm talking about. If people could be persuaded to do things that are in their interest via rational discourse, and evidence favored vaccines, it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion. (Nor would it be necessary to so strenuously resist getting them, you'd just say "here is the evidence I don't need to get this," and everyone would accept it and let you live your life.) That's my whole point.
  - linuxftw 4y ago
    > it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion This is Marxist-level thinking.
    - WookieRushing 4y ago
      When risk to society becomes high enough then it becomes necessary. See paying taxes, conscription, jury duty Though judging the level of risk is very hard and there is often not a clear line of when force is needed.
  - fluoridation 4y ago
    >If people could be persuaded to do things that are in their interest via rational discourse, and evidence favored vaccines, it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion. Interesting. Of course, in this particular case that coercion happens to coincide with a position you agree with, but not in every instance that apparently justifiable coercion will agree with you. I assume, for the sake of consistency, you'll defend them in that case too.

sokoloff 4y ago

Having some uncertainty around novel things seems reasonable. We were all uncertain around COVID and around new vaccines using a novel mechanism. People balanced those uncertainties differently. I took the course of asking people I generally trusted for their opinion and concluded that taking the vaccines (3 for me so far, plus a bout of naturally-acquired resistance via infection) was indicated. There were other doctors whom I knew before COVID was a thing who were recommending ivermectin. If that was your doctor, why wouldn't you believe them just like I believed the doctors that I had more association with? My gut tells me "be skeptical of novel things, but balance that skepticism a bit by asking people whom you trust to have greater knowledge on the topic, ultimately making the best decision you can".

phtrivier 4y ago
Except when the only thing that can inform a good decision is _time_ ; and when you can ask every trustworthy people you know, and they will simply not have a clue _yet_, because no one does and we're in the middle of the fog of war. But I suppose we all preferred pretending we knew _somethings_. How about we get some empathy for the people who just ended up on the many bad sides of the many bets ?
- sokoloff 4y ago
  I'm not sure where the lack of empathy is above. I have/wrote about empathy for people whose doctors gave them advice that when followed will turn out, in retrospect, to be wrong. Maybe that will be mine; maybe that will be the others.
  - phtrivier 4y ago
    It was nowhere in your writing, sorry if that got confused. I meant basically: "maybe give the few young people who suffered from some unforeseen side effects a break, and the right to keep their job without a next round of jabs" ? As far as I can tell, "having suffered side effects from the first 1/2/3 injection" is still not a valid exemption cause for vaccine mandates.
dpedu 4y ago
Sure there was and still is uncertainty, but we need to talk about the other side of that coin. You used the term novel, which means: "new and not resembling something formerly known or used" and that's just not the case here. We didn't just invent a completely new vaccine mechanism for covid, the mRNA technology has been known and in development for half a century. This is just the first time it was effective. Likewise with the disease itself, we know that it shares a significant portion of its DNA with the disease behind the 2002 SARS-CoV pandemic and has many other similar parameters. https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-does-SARS-CoV-2-Compare-to-SARS-CoV.aspx https://www.news-medical.net/health/How-does-SARS-CoV-2-Comp...
- 4y ago

jzb 4y ago

"Can we just admit this isn't about logic or statistics, and never was? It was always a persuasion game either way." Kind of? The fact is that we've turned into a society where we can't even be unified in trying to prevent disease. If "the left" is for vaccines, masking, social distancing, etc. then "the right" has to immediately be against it. I don't recall any of my friends or family needing persuasion at all. They believed in the science and were willing to adapt as we learned new things about COVID (e.g. around masking and social distancing). When vaccines were becoming available I know my circle spent time looking over what information we could find about which ones were better, side effects, etc., but were onboard with vaccine risk being better than COVID. The FOX crowd, OTOH, went looking to scare people off vaccines and made not masking a point of pride. It was tribalism, pure and simple. If it were a persuasion game you might have seen a lot more diversity in who was for/against the vaccines. 30 years ago if we'd faced COVID (at least in the U.S.) and had the vaccines available, I think we'd have fared far better. People who couldn't agree on much else could've come together in the face of a deadly disease. Persuasion, and logic, are out the window.

TurkishPoptart 4y ago
I'm against social distancing because there is no scientific basis or justification for it. Scientists just went on TV and talked about an idea they pulled out from their behinds. I guess that makes me on the right for not believing everything that was presented to me on television, unlike my family, who are on the left.
- ivraatiems 4y ago
  If "stay away from people who might be sick" is an idea you think scientists made up just now, I'm not sure what to tell you. It's not that big a stretch to "anyone could be sick because we don't know how this disease works yet, so stay away from everyone." Not advocating for social distancing as a policy at this point in time, just saying, it made a lot of sense from a risk-prevention perspective at the time. But again, this is my point. It's trivially easy for me to provide a logical explanation for why social distancing was a sensible tactic. You are (probably) not going to be persuaded. You (probably) like your evidence because it matches how you feel, and I like mine because it matches how I feel. To be clear, I don't mean this in an aggressive way - I don't think it is bad that you don't agree with me on this in some kind of a moral way, at this point. I just don't think any sort of evidence-based argumentation will bridge the gap between us.

linuxftw 4y ago

So, people losing their jobs for not taking an experimental medical product was just a persuasion game? What?

ivraatiems 4y ago
Yes, "do this or you're fired" is a coercive tactic. People who are pro-vaccine want everyone to get the vaccine. They believe it is a matter of life or death (frankly, I agree with them, but I am trying to present this neutrally). So that level of coercion, "fear losing your job if you don't do this" is exactly what I'm talking about. If people could be persuaded to do things that are in their interest via rational discourse, and evidence favored vaccines, it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion. (Nor would it be necessary to so strenuously resist getting them, you'd just say "here is the evidence I don't need to get this," and everyone would accept it and let you live your life.) That's my whole point.
- linuxftw 4y ago
  > it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion This is Marxist-level thinking.
  - WookieRushing 4y ago
    When risk to society becomes high enough then it becomes necessary. See paying taxes, conscription, jury duty Though judging the level of risk is very hard and there is often not a clear line of when force is needed.
- fluoridation 4y ago
  >If people could be persuaded to do things that are in their interest via rational discourse, and evidence favored vaccines, it wouldn't be necessary to do that kind of coercion. Interesting. Of course, in this particular case that coercion happens to coincide with a position you agree with, but not in every instance that apparently justifiable coercion will agree with you. I assume, for the sake of consistency, you'll defend them in that case too.