671–680 of 837 posts
There is a large segment of the population - and I'm assuming the size can vary by country - who do not deal well with uncertainty and will latch onto a person giving a clear and uncertain message, even if factually incorrect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you rely on reliable public health authorities for pandemic-related advice, you're in the clear, logically speaking. If you rely on unreliable public health authorities, you might feel OK about your choice, but you're not in the clear, logically.
How did you get informed enough to decide which public health authorities were the right ones to trust?
The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> no matter what the government told people to do, there was going to be a contingent of people that would do the exact opposite because we are a stubborn and distrustful people. Americans are this way because the government continually gives them a reason to. The lying through the pandemic, the Iraq war, it just goes on.
America is like that from foundation! Distrust in the government is in this nation’s DNA! Right now Gov. Abbott is taking a major stand against Biden’s vaccine mandates.
I've heard this, but I don't understand it. Can I trouble you to express why you think this is the case?
> Gov. Abbott is taking a major stand against Biden’s vaccine mandates.
Isn't that also the government?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Censorship is not what causes large numbers of US citizens to refuse this vaccine. If the Republicans in leadership positions took this seriously from the start and did not go around casting doubt on vaccination far more people would get the vaccine. If the previous president had not politicized the response to COVID and had simply told his followers to do what the CDC says we would have many millions more people get…
The previous president was and is extremely pro-vaccine. People claim there is a large republican cohort of anti-vax politicians, but there is not. There is a large GOP cohort of anti-vax-mandate politicians, but being against a mandate does not mean being anti vax, unless you're changing the meaning. > If the previous president had not politicized the response to COVID and had simply told his followers to do what th…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my opinion the biggest example of this was the poor mask guidance early on in the pandemic that was subsequently reversed. Zeynep Tufekci had a very good piece in the NYT on this: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-... The real fear was that there would be a run on masks by the public, making them unavailable for hospital use. Also, at the time, there wasn't clear evidence of the effective…
Telling people they didn't need to wear masks was a horrible idea. The worst decision by the public health apparatus (as opposed to the political leadership, which made a lot of blunders at various levels) in 2020 and probably the entire past 100 years. I don't know anyone who defended that at the time or now. On the other hand, I don't know anyone who thought masks wouldn't work well either. Everyone I knew ignored…
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> people who would be for interment of a minority they distrust If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor? I've certainly seen plenty of comments on the internet that would suggest it's not zero.
> If the government announced tomorrow that they would be putting all unvaccinated people in internment camps for everyone's safety, how many people do you think would be in favor? If messaged properly (eg: getting “the experts” to hint at it, getting NYT to push for it, etc) I bet a shockingly high amount of people in blue regions would cheer it on. I’m convinced that all that kept this from escalating to violence i…
It's one thing to try to be objective and look at both sides. It's another to purposefully present a political issue as independent from political views. Anti-vax and anti-mask attitudes, conspiracy theories and tendency to violence are positively correlated with right-wing political views. That's just how it is.
> I’m convinced that all that kept this from escalating to violence is the fact that the media and “the experts” haven’t given permission.
Well, duh, if mainstream goes crazy then everything goes crazy. We know that since at least WW2.
The problem with alt-right is exactly that - their media and their experts give permission for violence, because anything that doesn't go their way is "treason" and "conspiracy". Compare what happened after Trump won with what happened after Biden did. One side did an investigation and protested. The other occupied the Congress.
[1] https://www.9news.com.au/national/sydney-cafe-targeted-by-an...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/italian-police-arrest-f...
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-02/poland-on...
[4] https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/violence-erup...
[5] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/08/13/northern-california-t...
The article is discussing the media and government being intentionally vague or even misinformative because they don't trust the public, but it backfires and causes more distrust. The flip side that wasn't discussed is the belittling and censoring of voices that were skeptical of the narratives, which engendered even more distrust. Their strategy of information control backfired, and they doubled down. Now we've got…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think a lot more people would be convinced by images of these ICUs and seeing the impact of not being vaccinated as well. However, let's not pretend that the whole point of that subreddit is to "encourage people to get vaccinated". It's to feel good about people (who disagree with you) dying. Maybe if we remembered that some of these unfortunates had more to their lives than being anti-vax, we could be a bit more c…
> Maybe if we remembered that some of these unfortunates had more to their lives than being anti-vax, we could be a bit more compassionate Schadenfreude plays a big part for sure! From what I can tell though the fact that these people have families that love them and children that depend on them isn't lost on the subreddit. It just makes people more angry at them for not taking the simple steps that would have saved…
Those feelings are being used to justify behavior I truly find abhorrent on the HCA subreddit. While the feelings in and of themselves may have some basis, they don't excuse that the whole purpose of that subreddit is to "piss on the graves" of the antivaxxers who died.
> I don't know how to do that while still respecting the privacy of the people suffering though
The privacy of the people suffering was never a concern, and the website administration only stepped in [0] once some bad press [1] came about, partially due to those privacy violations.
I really sympathize with your position. I do see a lot of "aggressive anti government" sentiment and I disagree with a lot of their points. However, I also disagreed with the Chinese "Human Flesh Search" [2] and find it deeply troubling that our society has developed one of our own especially against people I disagree with.
[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/comments/pwo28t/rhe...
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/reddit-s-herman-cain-c...
[2] https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/sites/default/files/downlo...
How about the biggest dishonesty - lack of admission that not everyone is at the same risk and that lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk individuals and for society? Young children are not getting critical development years back. Healthy 20 somethings only have limited time to date, party and have fun before being saddled with adult responsibilities forever. Most of shattered local businesses ar…
> lockdowns have significant irreversible costs for low risk individuals and for society Sure, but let's keep in mind what they can do when they are effective. China averted the deaths of 2.5-3 million people with an effective lockdown program. That's incredible. I'm not confident I can really think of any policy proposition that would save more lives off of the top of my head. The fact that we failed to do the same…