4 ms·
This is too pat. Treating people like children is exactly what many political leaders do to shepherd their own partisans into continuing to support them and it
by majormajor 3y ago
This is too pat.
Treating people like children is exactly what many political leaders do to shepherd their own partisans into continuing to support them and it often works. Fearmongering, lies, emotions. Telling them they need you to protect them.
And are we pretending that the anti-vax movement is now perfectly transparent with information and acts like it's an adult debate where they simply make reasonable points? That this cause wasn't driven people who came into it already convinced, who never took the hypothesis of "this could be an effective way to vaccines" seriously at all?
Not every vaccine skeptic is spouting "it's going to rewrite your dna" or "they're tracking you with microchips" and "it's the mark of the beast" but the nutjobs are a quite significant fraction and none of them ended up there because they went looking for data on clinical trials and didn't find as much as they wanted to.
- mistermann 3y agoWhy did they end up where they are? Some things that I often wonder: - why are the fundamentals of philosophy not taught as part of standard curriculum? - why do the fundamentals of philosophy not play a bigger role in journalism and mainstream/official discourse? - why do few people wonder about this and other obvious(?) things? Might that be related to the preceding points? - will this ever change, enough to carry the day considering our load of problems (known, unknown, mistaken, etc)?
- gepiti 3y agoThe son of a friend has an autoimmune syndrome. She also has one as has her mother. The son got his autoimmune from vaccines of course and doctors who say otherwise are paid by the establishment. If I want to end our friendship all I have to do is point out these facts to her. Foundmentals of philosophy will not help at all.
- mistermann 3y ago> Foundmentals of philosophy will not help at all. It may(!) not help her, but it could help you realize that "the future" you are describing is not what you think it is, and if you can realize that maybe you would be better equipped to help your friend. Rationality and optimism are very useful skills to have in one's kit.