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Comment by Aunche | Hacker News Reader

I think this article ironically overgeneralizes certain issues. For example, conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing. People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well. More conforming countries are handling the pandemic better. The difficult question is what heuristics can be applied to when it's fine to take a mental shortcut.

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> conformism is good when it comes to vaccination or social distancing

Not necessarily. Back in early March of this year, "conformism" with respect to social distancing and wearing masks would have meant not doing it, because practically nobody else was doing it and all of the public health authorities were still saying it wasn't necessary for the general population. Based on how the pandemic spread during that time period, that conformism was not a good idea. (And my wife and I did not conform; we started social distancing and wearing masks and gloves when making unavoidable trips to crowded places like the grocery store, at the end of February. Neither of us have had any health issues.)

>People are more comfortable with a stranger injecting a liquid into their bodies when they know everyone else let it happen as well.

>5. False associations, confusion of causation and correlation

I dont think they accept vaccinations because others do it.

The vast majority of people don't have the background to understand the mechanism of action of vaccines. 100 years ago the effects of vaccines were easily observable, but now these diseases are rare enough such that a regular person can't rely on observation alone to make a decision to get vaccinated. They need to trust that the doctors know what they're doing.

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