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Comment by strgcmc | Hacker News Reader

And your problem is going in circles and not listening to the person you're replying to. You are guilty of doing the exact same philosophical run-around that he's complaining about.

The fact is, this person is watching his close family commit a slow-motion trainwreck, and he's asking for ways to prevent it or mitigate it. If they do nothing, it's quite likely that his family or friends will suffer serious health consequences. Theoretical exercises about whether COVID this-or-that is really a lie or not, aren't of any help.

Imagine berating a someone who got lost in the woods and has been lost for days and is starving, for not having the right map or not following the trail, or debating the legitimacy of hiking for recreation at all, instead of feeding him or giving him water.

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> this person is watching his close family commit a slow-motion trainwreck, and he's asking for ways to prevent it or mitigate it

And my point is that talking about "lies" will not do that. In order to prevent or mitigate the trainwreck, he would have to convince his family to fundamentally change which sources of information they trust. That's a very, very hard thing to do, but telling people that their beliefs are "lies" doesn't help at all; in fact it makes it even harder.

> Imagine berating a someone who got lost in the woods and has been lost for days and is starving, for not having the right map or not following the trail, or debating the legitimacy of hiking for recreation at all, instead of feeding him or giving him water.

False analogy. The person who is lost for days and is starving knows he is starving and needs help; he doesn't have to be convinced to eat. So of course there's no need to change anything fundamental about his beliefs.

The family in question, however, does not know they have a problem. Imagine a person who has been lost for days and is starving, but says they are perfectly fine and refuses to accept food or water, no matter how hard you try, and won't even let you force food or water down their throat but violently attacks you when you try. Now what do you do?

> And my point is that talking about "lies" will not do that. In order to prevent or mitigate the trainwreck, he would have to convince his family to fundamentally change which sources of information they trust. That's a very, very hard thing to do, but telling people that their beliefs are "lies" doesn't help at all; in fact it makes it even harder.

Oh, I'm telling YOU GUYS that these lies are around. Because apparently, unless I bring it up, people forget what's going on in our lives.

I don't talk to my parents through the contexts of lies and misinformation. I'm not that stupid. But when I'm complaining about issues online, I think its more clear if I just point out the lies directly.

> I don't talk to my parents through the contexts of lies and misinformation. I'm not that stupid.

You might not say it directly, but if you're trying to convince them, for example, not to celebrate New Year's or not to go to Disney World, you're going to have to say things that amount to telling them that their beliefs are lies. If they were open to any gentler kind of persuasion, you would already have succeeded in talking them out of it. Even if they don't consciously realize that you're telling them their beliefs are lies, subconsciously they will. At least, that's been my experience in situations of this kind.

I mean, you've taken the analogy to mean something other than what I intended: in my mind, the lost hiker is equivalent to the person asking for help to save his family (i.e. he is starving for methods to convince them/save them). I understand what you mean though (i.e. that the hiker is the delirious family member who doesn't know they are in danger), and that's fine, it's a different and worthy analogy all the same.

But identifying what won't work is only marginally better than doing nothing, because we're still no closer to suggesting what will/might work.

> in my mind, the lost hiker is equivalent to the person asking for help to save his family (i.e. he is starving for methods to convince them/save them)

Ah, I see. Interesting that the same analogy could have two opposite interpretations!

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