this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Confidently Incorrect
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When people are way too smug about their wrong answer.
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But honestly, how do you talk to those people? They're so caught up in their us-versus-them mentality and think they have the monopoly on truth, that I don't see any way of convincing them that they're not only making a potentially fatal mistake but are a danger to those around them.
I’m immunosuppressed so even though I’ve had 6 vaccines now, I still might not have built up enough antibodies to help me survive covid if I catch it. I don’t really go anywhere and wear a mask when I do so I’m as safe as I can be… Except I need a carer to help me out for about 8 hours a week and an unbelievable amount of self employed carers aren’t vaccinated. These are people who work with the elderly and vulnerable and they refuse to get vaccinated. It’s absolutely mind boggling to me.
I've heard this is a problem among nurses. Having just enough knowledge to be able to think you know what you're doing is dangerous. I suppose that's also a reason education shouldn't stop at the bare minimum to perform your work tasks. (obviously not all nurses, but statistically much more so than doctors)
I know several nurses who think they know more than doctors.
They all are wrong on stuff that's so easily verifiable that I can't believe these were in charge of whole nurse areas in important hospitals.
Knowing all this sucks.
It's so much worse than just the nurses. I work alongside a host of different first responder groups, and the vast majority of them are unvaxed conspiracy nuts. Many of these people are dear to me, and I can't tell you just how crushed I was to see these otherwise normally intelligent people I care about just.. lose their damn minds over covid. I think it permanently broke something in me to be surrounded by them and watch them spiral down that rabbit hole. The one I'm around the most is convinced the flu vaccine from just before covid hit turned her injection site magnetic. She actually had me take a magnet and hold it to the spot and when the magnet did not stick to her arm, just kept saying I wasn't getting the right spot. Didn't matter where I put it. Didn't stick, but it was because I was doing something wrong. Not because it's fucking ludicrous to claim a shot magnetizes you.
I am so goddamn bitter now.
Dunning-Kruger effect. Just enough knowledge to think they know everything and not enough to recognise they barely scratched the surface.
I know a girl that is one of those exact idiots. Bitch had the gall to complain that she got laid off during the covid crisis because she refused to be vaccinated as a caretaker and took it as undeniable truth that covid was a lie. If they truly needed so many hands, why would they fire her was her point...
Sadly, her toxic circle of friends supported her outrage and she still feels like she did nothing wrong.
I just don't bother TBH. Same with all these alt-right type people who keep trying to start pointless arguments online, I just ignore them. You can't combat nonsense with facts, they're not going to learn anything or change their views, I'm certainly not going to come around to whatever they're peddling, all they want to do is get their little dopamine hit by blasting bullshit at me until I give up because they think that's what winning is. It's a waste of time and energy as far as I'm concerned.
There are times when it’s useful to engage these people, though never for the purpose of convincing them. Sometimes, there’s an opportunity to provide a counterpoint for anyone who hasn’t yet been sucked into crazy-town, to help keep them away from that path.
I like to put it that “science education isn’t a cure, it’s a vaccine”; you can’t realistically change the mind of someone (especially of a stranger) who’s already bought in to a mindset like this; but in some cases, you can help prevent it from spreading.
That said, if you’re not particularly good at e.g. public speaking, or science outreach, or whatever, you can end up playing into a troll’s hands (assuming you’re interacting with an intentional troll and not just a deluded person). So it can be tricky, and personally I’m not very good at it.
While I mostly agree on the topic of fascists, with anti-vaxers just ignoring them basically means leaving them to die and potentially take a bunch of people with them, which seems rather cruel.
Even with fascists it boils down to hoping that whoever else they encounter is sufficiently immunised to not fall for their bullshit. Also less than ideal.
what's the alternative? if somebody can't be reasoned with should we just force-vaccinate them? then you're just providing them with much needed conspiracy confirmation from their perspective. if they're so far down the antivaccine rabbit hole, best thing to do is distance yourself (physically, too) and let nature play out. no sense trying to save them who don't want to be saved.
propaganda (where I am including fascists now) is also tricky due to the built in failsafe that 'if they disagree with us, we are right, there's the proof'. how do you even combat that? with vaccines, fence-sitters might be swayed by the potential risk to health if they don't take it and some survival instinct may kick in, but propaganda is free to take up with almost no risk to immediate survival.
We may not be allowed to forcibly vaccinate people, but I'd argue we could quarantine them. If someone has a history of attacking people we lock them away to protect the majority.
If someone refuses to get vaccinated without compelling medical reason, thus deliberately increasing their risk of an infection, and don't wear PPE, thus deliberately increasing the risk they pose to those around them, that is a very similar situation, albeit with less violence.
The failsafe in fascist reasoning only works if you have no understanding of logic, which obviously they don't. But yeah, it's like playing chess with a pigeon.
Well ideally they'd be the only ones to die, does solve the issue - and respects their wishes, they wanted that.
So I guess we just need to find ways to vaccinate the rest of us to such a degree that the idiots opting to die can't affect us. 🤔
Herd immunity, yes. And that's exactly why those page enthusiasts are so dangerous with their disinformation.
In my experience, telling them I got an organ transplant and got every vaccination available just makes them do the "well I'm just not sure about it is all" like they dont want to commit to it to my face.
You don't. Ignore em and walk away.
You don't. You shun them. You naturally do not tolerate the intolerant.
If someone makes a conscious decision to exit society, i shall respect their wishes.
If they actually exited society no one would complain. Trouble is, they don't. They still want to have all the conveniences of society, like supermarkets, cinemas and whatever else, while spreading their germs around.