I’m not anti-vax,
Vaccines don’t stop transmission;
I am misinformed.
Here’s the real problem which gets missed with the focus on anti-vaxxers or non-anti-vaxxers: misinformation and lack of education. People who consider themselves as anti-vaxxers or are considered as anti-vaxxers are the most extreme and specific of examples. As I said before, the concept of an ‘anti-vaxxer’ doesn’t even make sense as a bad ideaβ the arbitrary focus on vaccines in particular rather than medicine or science as a whole. It is a misdirection.
There is a plague of information being misunderstood then that interpretation repeated, over and over and over again. And a plague of binary thinkingβ thinking for example that vaccines must 100% stop transmission or make no difference at all, rather than realising the simple truth that vaccines reduce the chance of transmission. This problem occurs with all topics. I’ve seen it in interactions with most people.
Arguments based on false information and false assumptions. That’s all it is. It’s really sad and it’s hard to see how to improve that, because both education and critical thinking are necessary. It is extremely hard or maybe impossible to teach critical thinking to everyone. Historically, more absolute trust was put into the experts and people felt less of a need to have opinions on everything. Communication was more expensive so people were more scrupulous with what they communicated to each other.
Experts aren’t the same as people with absolute authority. Absolute authority is the sort of thing which people really hate and should be scrutinised and which has historically misled people. Science is the best system humanity has come up with for describing reality, for finding the truth. It is extremely democratic. If you could do better than science you could be sure that the person who came up with such a system would overnight become more famous than Einstein. Why? Because such a system would be incredibly valuable.
Yet I know that if you’re not intimately familiar with the process of science, that is an empty statement. Thus the problem. It takes education and understanding to learn what science is and how it works, as with anything else like vaccines. There’s a lack of familiarity with science and people don’t want to explicitly put absolute trust into science, or more generally into critical thinking, though they implicitly do this all the time in daily life, trusting that their house won’t collapse or that a seat belt when worn will help to save their life.
This will be my last post on this topic as now all of my thoughts are summarised!
πͺ
π»πππππ
π πΆπ πͺππππ πͺ 
The problem is, everyone is so driven by ideological agendas that you can’t trust anyone anywhere. I just wanna hide.
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I hear you. People are getting used to the idea of wanting to control everything. Judgement is increasing and modΓ©ration and open-mindedness decreasing. The best response is not to harden to others.
I’ve been so socially isolated the last 5 years I don’t actually know what most people are like on this in person now and I don’t use social media. I don’t have enough interaction either way, so I try not to take too many perspectives from what I see online I guess. So what you’re saying is worrying me given I know how much interaction you have! Where’s it gunna lead?
Guess we’ve got to make our own pockets of sanity by meeting the right people.
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Thankfully, I don’t encounter this stuff too much “offline.” I hate confrontation so I tend to be very non-committal and neutral unless I’m with people who know me well. It’s reading stuff on the Internet that scares the hell out of me. I too stay off social media. WordPress is really the only thing I do socially.
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Absolutely, 90% of people aren’t worth sharing opinions with because they’re not receptive π. Just got to nod and smile. Those whom you can really discuss things with are truly valuable.
That’s (relatively) good to hear. But yeah, totally get you, what IS online isβ¦beyond terrifying. The ones which get me the most are the opinions which were intended as being ‘moderate’ or ‘reasonable’ in comparison to an extreme viewpoint. But the baseline level of even those isβ¦ already absurd. The latest one I saw was some person distancing themselves from influencer trashiness, whilst arguing that at least some influencers can be positive, before listing typical attributes which make influencers toxic and narcissistic π.
And yeah, of course, back when I was on social media that was revealing clearly that the even everyday folk you interact with areβ¦becoming a lost cause π€¦ββοΈ. Yep, WordPress is the ONLY healthy online communication tool I’ve used, and a great counterbalance.
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I agree with you 100%
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That’s awful you have the feeling of needing to hide. That hurts.
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It’s okay, I am a homebody so if I was put under house arrest, I would be happy as a clam.
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I agree Robin, it takes time and energy to study facts and all sides of argument so we are able to make informed decisions. The sad reality is that we sometimes want to skip the work and just absorb what was fed to us and think it is facts. “The devil is in the details.” =)
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