4 ms·

>Less appealing to authority and more appealing to observations Antivaxxers aren't exactly scientifically inclined skeptics who will change their minds if fed

by pydry 4y ago

>Less appealing to authority and more appealing to observations Antivaxxers aren't exactly scientifically inclined skeptics who will change their minds if fed more objective, impartial evidence. They probably can be reached but I'm certain this isnt the way.

dmix 4y ago
Every antivaxxer I know is skeptical because it ties into their existing beliefs of some hidden overarching power-system trying to control them. Censorship and hiding criticism (informed or not) ‘for the greater good’ is like throwing gasoline on the fire. I have a family member who was merely just a lightweight New Age/holistic type of…skeptic. But the whole COVID response made it way worse. She doesn’t watch videos about why vaccines are bad, 90% of them are how the virus government/billionaires/big tech did x shady thing, so therefore don’t trust the vacinnes. It’s really easy to spin that sort of thing into “they must have something to hide”. I highly doubt all of the effort Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc put into silencing dissent really did anything to promote better science or quell the fringes. I don’t think anyone even cares if it did or not after-the-fact.
- robocat 4y ago
  > Every antivaxxer I know is skeptical because I know a bunch of anti-vaxxers in New Zealand, and they notably each had a different stated reason for being antivax. Perhaps because we don’t have the same political partisanship in this country (although partisanship was still a factor: it was interesting hearing right leaning people here reproduce sound-bites that I thought were American Republican political cliches).
  - dmix 4y ago
    Political issues being global is not a new phenomenon. Hyper-partisans and fringe groups have always sought out a broader set of sources when they don't find it in their immediate local range. Which is why local censorship is becoming dumber than ever with a global internet, something I saw often here in Canada. Although I guess some people hope their views become a part of some global cohesive overton window. Maybe with some super-efficient global media/internet moderation system it will finally stop people like my conspiracy relatives. But so far they've only made it worse.
- asadotzler 4y ago
  Every anti-vaxxer I know has a totally different reason for ignoring their own self interest but they all seem to have one thing in common, they are absolutely not thinking for themselves. To the last one, they all regurgitated to me something they heard from one of the various celebrities they worship. They are all sheep following one or more of the dozens of victimization cults that have become so popular over the last two decades. "We're being repressed and misled and we're fed up. We're gonna stick it to the consensus by contracting preventable diseases!" I'd actually be OK with letting Darwin run his train on those populations, if they weren't also recklessly causing the illness, disability, and death of their innocent neighbors who for age, health, or other legitimate reasons cannot get a particular vaccine. Should a child that's allergic to the MMR vaccine experience encephalitis and face possible lifelong disability or even death because his schoolmate's mom or dad worships a blathering radio host or a washed up model peddling conspiracies for profit? I suspect most of you grew up in clean western neighborhoods. I grew up with a schoolmate and a member of my household, each severely disabled by polio. They drew a short straw and weren't lucky enough to have well functioning healthcare apparatuses in their birth countries. And for that crime, they were robbed of significant bodily mobility forever. That so many in the US would have us move toward that awful state of affairs instead of away from that is disappointing but I suppose not terribly surprising. When I was younger, I thought only the simple minded were so easily conned and steered by hacks and hucksters but the last 20 years or so have demonstrated that many intelligent and educated Americans are just acutely gullible.
  - raspberry1337 4y ago
    Comparing polio to a flu virus is such a bad straw man. Almost as bad as forcing kids to take a covid vaccine with secret ingredients.
- yonaguska 4y ago
  You're exactly right, and all the propaganda efforts just made it worse. Now I'm even more convinced that it's all about people seeking to exert more control over others. I do however, consume lot's of media on how the vaccines are bad, and I'm skeptical of media that glosses over the science aspect and focuses on far fetched control conspiracies only. Limited hangouts and poisoning the well are misinformation tactics fwiw.
- TexanFeller 4y ago
  I'm a relatively well educated and informed person about STEM topics, but I grew up in a family full of modern medicine skeptics, and living in TX am surrounded by many more. You have it exactly right, trying to censor the COVID misinformation(problem: do you trust who defines that) made it these people FAR more paranoid than they were before. I've actually had quite a bit of success listening to these people and addressing their concerns point by point with citations to studies. They may be less educated and informed, but they're not blithering idiots and will come around if you engage in a good faith discussion with them. The other problem is resorting to force. If you mandate something to a Texan, you better believe they're resist the hell out of it, even if they know it's in their best interest otherwise. I have several friends that knew it was in their best interest to get the vaccine, but their libertarian values/morals drove them to take a stand against their companies who tried to compel them to take it. Medical freedom, which I largely agree with, but I was first in line to get the shot voluntarily.
  - pydry 4y ago
    >I've actually had quite a bit of success listening to these people and addressing their concerns point by point with citations to studies. They may be less educated and informed, but they're not blithering idiots and will come around if you engage in a good faith discussion with them Would they have been so receptive if it was a stranger rather than a family member feeding them the same information? The example I was thinking of wasn't a blithering idiot. He was an engineer who was afraid of needles. That kind of turned him into an idiot with respect to vaccines.
    - TexanFeller 4y ago
      Friends, family, and acquaintances, basically anyone with some basis for trust, it works. With strangers there is much less success, but Socratic questioning often leads them closer than they were. It's a much longet long whittling down process in the latter case.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    > The other problem is resorting to force. If you mandate something to a Texan, you better believe they're resist the hell out of it, even if they know it's in their best interest otherwise. I have several friends that knew it was in their best interest to get the vaccine, but their libertarian values/morals drove them to take a stand against their companies who tried to compel them to take it. It is immensely satisfying to see people finally, finally saying this on here. Somewhere around a year ago in one of the covid vaccine posts, the top post was something along the lines of "Fine, I don't care anymore, I'm done trying to help these people" in reference to mandating/coercing people to take the shots. I responded with "And their response will be 'Finally! That's all we've wanted this entire time!'. People on here [HN] don't seem to realize just how much 'these people' value freedom over safety." My comment did get a lot of upvotes, but the large thread that generated had so many people who just didn't understand the sentiment at all, it was an amazing demonstration of the bubble HN exists in.

by pydry 4y ago

dmix 4y ago

Every antivaxxer I know is skeptical because it ties into their existing beliefs of some hidden overarching power-system trying to control them. Censorship and hiding criticism (informed or not) ‘for the greater good’ is like throwing gasoline on the fire. I have a family member who was merely just a lightweight New Age/holistic type of…skeptic. But the whole COVID response made it way worse. She doesn’t watch videos about why vaccines are bad, 90% of them are how the virus government/billionaires/big tech did x shady thing, so therefore don’t trust the vacinnes. It’s really easy to spin that sort of thing into “they must have something to hide”. I highly doubt all of the effort Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc put into silencing dissent really did anything to promote better science or quell the fringes. I don’t think anyone even cares if it did or not after-the-fact.

robocat 4y ago
> Every antivaxxer I know is skeptical because I know a bunch of anti-vaxxers in New Zealand, and they notably each had a different stated reason for being antivax. Perhaps because we don’t have the same political partisanship in this country (although partisanship was still a factor: it was interesting hearing right leaning people here reproduce sound-bites that I thought were American Republican political cliches).
- dmix 4y ago
  Political issues being global is not a new phenomenon. Hyper-partisans and fringe groups have always sought out a broader set of sources when they don't find it in their immediate local range. Which is why local censorship is becoming dumber than ever with a global internet, something I saw often here in Canada. Although I guess some people hope their views become a part of some global cohesive overton window. Maybe with some super-efficient global media/internet moderation system it will finally stop people like my conspiracy relatives. But so far they've only made it worse.
asadotzler 4y ago
Every anti-vaxxer I know has a totally different reason for ignoring their own self interest but they all seem to have one thing in common, they are absolutely not thinking for themselves. To the last one, they all regurgitated to me something they heard from one of the various celebrities they worship. They are all sheep following one or more of the dozens of victimization cults that have become so popular over the last two decades. "We're being repressed and misled and we're fed up. We're gonna stick it to the consensus by contracting preventable diseases!" I'd actually be OK with letting Darwin run his train on those populations, if they weren't also recklessly causing the illness, disability, and death of their innocent neighbors who for age, health, or other legitimate reasons cannot get a particular vaccine. Should a child that's allergic to the MMR vaccine experience encephalitis and face possible lifelong disability or even death because his schoolmate's mom or dad worships a blathering radio host or a washed up model peddling conspiracies for profit? I suspect most of you grew up in clean western neighborhoods. I grew up with a schoolmate and a member of my household, each severely disabled by polio. They drew a short straw and weren't lucky enough to have well functioning healthcare apparatuses in their birth countries. And for that crime, they were robbed of significant bodily mobility forever. That so many in the US would have us move toward that awful state of affairs instead of away from that is disappointing but I suppose not terribly surprising. When I was younger, I thought only the simple minded were so easily conned and steered by hacks and hucksters but the last 20 years or so have demonstrated that many intelligent and educated Americans are just acutely gullible.
- raspberry1337 4y ago
  Comparing polio to a flu virus is such a bad straw man. Almost as bad as forcing kids to take a covid vaccine with secret ingredients.
yonaguska 4y ago
You're exactly right, and all the propaganda efforts just made it worse. Now I'm even more convinced that it's all about people seeking to exert more control over others. I do however, consume lot's of media on how the vaccines are bad, and I'm skeptical of media that glosses over the science aspect and focuses on far fetched control conspiracies only. Limited hangouts and poisoning the well are misinformation tactics fwiw.
TexanFeller 4y ago
I'm a relatively well educated and informed person about STEM topics, but I grew up in a family full of modern medicine skeptics, and living in TX am surrounded by many more. You have it exactly right, trying to censor the COVID misinformation(problem: do you trust who defines that) made it these people FAR more paranoid than they were before. I've actually had quite a bit of success listening to these people and addressing their concerns point by point with citations to studies. They may be less educated and informed, but they're not blithering idiots and will come around if you engage in a good faith discussion with them. The other problem is resorting to force. If you mandate something to a Texan, you better believe they're resist the hell out of it, even if they know it's in their best interest otherwise. I have several friends that knew it was in their best interest to get the vaccine, but their libertarian values/morals drove them to take a stand against their companies who tried to compel them to take it. Medical freedom, which I largely agree with, but I was first in line to get the shot voluntarily.
- pydry 4y ago
  >I've actually had quite a bit of success listening to these people and addressing their concerns point by point with citations to studies. They may be less educated and informed, but they're not blithering idiots and will come around if you engage in a good faith discussion with them Would they have been so receptive if it was a stranger rather than a family member feeding them the same information? The example I was thinking of wasn't a blithering idiot. He was an engineer who was afraid of needles. That kind of turned him into an idiot with respect to vaccines.
  - TexanFeller 4y ago
    Friends, family, and acquaintances, basically anyone with some basis for trust, it works. With strangers there is much less success, but Socratic questioning often leads them closer than they were. It's a much longet long whittling down process in the latter case.
- Izkata 4y ago
  > The other problem is resorting to force. If you mandate something to a Texan, you better believe they're resist the hell out of it, even if they know it's in their best interest otherwise. I have several friends that knew it was in their best interest to get the vaccine, but their libertarian values/morals drove them to take a stand against their companies who tried to compel them to take it. It is immensely satisfying to see people finally, finally saying this on here. Somewhere around a year ago in one of the covid vaccine posts, the top post was something along the lines of "Fine, I don't care anymore, I'm done trying to help these people" in reference to mandating/coercing people to take the shots. I responded with "And their response will be 'Finally! That's all we've wanted this entire time!'. People on here [HN] don't seem to realize just how much 'these people' value freedom over safety." My comment did get a lot of upvotes, but the large thread that generated had so many people who just didn't understand the sentiment at all, it was an amazing demonstration of the bubble HN exists in.