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Comment by jokoon | Hacker News Reader

Nihilism makes me believe that Trump was not such abnormal occurrence.

Human minds have a innate desire for virtue and truth, and since objectivity doesn't exist, it becomes difficult to admit that voters would end up create an alternative truth, or at least not at this scale.

I think it always came from the fact that truth doesn't really exist. Humans can really believe anything. There is no good and no evil.

In a way, nobody should have been surprised that Trump would get elected. I don't think "misinformation" really exists, it's just unsettled disagreements about what information and truth is. What happened in 2016 was an anomaly, but it was never impossible.

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Claiming truth doesn't exist as fact is a truthy statement. Claiming objectivity doesn't exist is a contradiction.

Pure objectivity doesn't really exist.

Objectively or subjectively?

But, curiously, even though something is impossible to obtain we are much better of occasionally listening to the people who are striving with futility to gain it.

People cannot be purely objective.

That does not mean there is no objective truth.

> I think it always came from the fact that truth doesn't really exist. Humans can really believe anything. There is no good and no evil.

It's not binary: While there's no source of truth and much uncertainty about what is true, it doesn't mean that there's no truth at all and that humans can believe anything. While there's uncertainty about good and evil, that doesn't mean there's none of either.

It's not simple, but we do have powerful abilities of critical thinking and judgment, and while they won't yield perfect results, they can be very effective. Compare how we live to how humans lived a century or centuries ago; our ancestors built a much more good world - with unprecedented freedom, prosperity, and safety - using the humans capabilities they had. We can do the same.

This is a great comment. People can believe anything.

As a current example, in the United States the Republican party has been against vaccines. And have been telling their base to doubt them or not get them. Fox news has lead the way along with lots of other media channels.

But for some reason they changed this week and started claiming everyone needs a vaccine. So the complete opposite story. And no one batted an eye.

It is like living in 1984 to a degree. So weird.

> And no one batted an eye.

Citation needed! Pretty sure you do not have an accurate bead on how "everyone" reacted.

My guess? When people read their trusted news source, and it disagrees with a previous assertion that they've bought into? "Ugh stupid opponents are infiltrating our news. No way I'm buying into this government bullshit trying to force vaccines on us!"

(But I hope that what you say is right - that conservative news is finally encouraging vaccines... and maybe in a few weeks/months their audience will subconsciously flip to "oh yeah vaccines are good. I've always been planning to get them but I needed some assurance they are safe, which we're finally getting just now.")

Eyes have certainly been batted, e.g.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/07/whats-behind-fox-new...

I don't know the reaction among Fox News' viewers. It'll be interesting to see if vaccination rates tick up markedly in red districts.

I know a lot of conservative folks. I think people on the left dramatically overestimate how much control and influence Fox News has on the average conservative. Do they have influence? Certainly. But Fox News has been the trendy go-to explanation on the left for why conservatives think or behave a certain way. I also think a lot of people on the left don't yet grasp just how many conservatives are enraged at Fox for 'betraying' Donald Trump. I don't want to ramble, but all-in-all, I don't think the change of tone at Fox will have a significant impact on vaccine hesitancy/intransigence.

This is an interesting instance in which to measure that. It's hard to tease out the cause-and-effect here. You get the same thing with politicians: are they saying something to convince their constituents, or are they saying it because their constituents are already saying it and they know it's what they want to hear?

My suspicion is that it's some of each, and I'd bet that the numbers in red districts will rise some, but not a lot. Proportional to the ~2 million Fox News viewers, out of ~80 million people who voted Republican last time. Not that all Fox News viewers will rush out to be vaccinated, but that [say] 25% of them will and influence an equivalent number of non-viewers.

Pulling those numbers out of my ass, of course.

During the run-up to the November elections, it was the democrat candidates who were against vaccines. Back then they were the "Trump vaccines", still under development. It's not unreasonable to assume that should Trump have won the elections it would be the democrats who would today (still) be against the "Trump vaccines". With his loss they became simply 'vaccines' and a great idea of the Biden administration with great plans for their distribution. I see no "batting of eyes" for this change of story. This provides an example of history being written by the victors.

Untrue, and I see this as a common talking point. They were against a vaccine that Trump would release before the election for political gain, as has admitted to trying to do multiple times.

That's not the same as being anti-vax if the vaccine was allowed to follow the original timeframe for development and testing (which it eventually was).

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