What psychology says about Covid non-compliers | Hacker News Reader

What psychology says about Covid non-compliers

sydney.edu.au

9 pointsrualca36 comments

We're living in different times because of the way we receive and curate data as an individual.

Before social media, you'd watch the news, radio etc with your family, people in your community and workplace, as a group it probably made sense to agree to getting vaccinated.

In 2021 its "my choice", to not do x and to y.

In 2021 people come primed to a discussion or a decision with a huge artillery of "facts" they've spent time being recommended by algorithms.

This seems to be unique and unparalleled in history.

Huh. Why didn't social media step up and feed a huge artillery of "facts" to encourage people to do the "right" thing and get the vaccine jab?

> Why didn't social media step up and feed a huge artillery of "facts" to encourage people to do the "right" thing and get the vaccine jab?

Would that have been profitable for them in all cases? If it wasn't, then they didn't.

it's not just the effort of "step up", which I have seen on social media. It's the effort to suppress disinformation, which although we have seen some, a lot more gets through. I haven't seen much antivax stuff, but that's because the algorithms know me. You have to understand how much of the "on social media" experience is tailored to you, and how much YMMV. And how it's driven by engagement for profit, not by "stepping up" to do the right thing.

e.g. Youtube radicalisation:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/08/technology/yo...

https://theconversation.com/youtubes-algorithms-might-radica...

For some people it did, and for some people it didn't ?

Likely based on their past browsing experience ?

echo "Alarmingly, the non-compliant group were more likely than the compliant group to […] exercise their right to freedom" >> ~/zeitgeist.txt

How it would've worked in the 1930's: Mandatory vaccines by social forces. No vaccine, get shunned and shut-out of stores, social gatherings, and commerce. No comfort animals or religious dodges. Do what's right, not because of a Rand Paul grandstanding tantrum or tribal conspiracy theories about freedumbs, but because of common sense and scientific evidence.

"They're less open to new ideas, and more extroverted and driven by self-interests." This is something like Karl Marx describing capitalism and entrepreneurs. It's wrong.

I'm against mandatory vaccination and I am open to new ideas, I'm introvert and I'm not driven by self-interests in fact I'm driven by interests of all stakeholders.

So the article's statement is completely wrong.

Edit: Endless lockdowns are more devastating for poor and lower class people. Middle class and rich people will always find their way around.

Funny enough while ago when I watched a documentary about Italian Mafia researchers said that even criminals understand that so called FUD (Fear, uncertainty, and doubt) is only hurting their business because society can't function like that and they decided to end endless wars, conflicts and violence in order to minimize civil unrest and make people feel happy and safe again.

The article's statement is completely wrong because you, in your own self-perception, deviate from a demographic observation? Honestly your post gives me the impression the article is right.

Also as a side-note, while Marx diagnosis of capitalism is controversial, a lot of Communists were actual admirers of entrepreneurs, Stalin used to describe the essence of Leninism as "the combination of the Russian revolutionary sweep with American efficiency"

And how is "American efficiency" achieved? Through free market economy and entrepreneurship. Soviet Union had neither of those; they had corporations owned by state and forced collectivization of agricultural goods. 5 year plan was modus operandi of Soviet Union not market forces or as Adam Smith would say "invisible hand".

free markets arguably play a relatively minor role. What the Soviets were after, and what many Americans actually directly provided was scientific management and scaling operations to industrial size. Taylorism enjoyed particular popularity in the Soviet Union, and one of Taylor's chief disciples, Hugh Lincoln Cooper, was actually directly hired by the Soviet Union together with numerous American engineers and workers and General Electric to build the, at the time, largest Hydroelectric power station in the world in the Soviet Union[1].

This kind of expertise is what the Soviets were after and it is also what has made the US successful. The free market is overrated and you can see it if you go to any underdeveloped country. There's free-markets galore, some of the poorest countries on earth have nothing but free-markets.

American efficiency is the result of producing firms that can organize themselves and implement huge projects at scale effectively. No markets within a firm and usually they're not very free either.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dnieper_Hydroelectric_Station

I was speaking about Economy of the Soviet Union not about particular industrial projects or particular state firms. Free market forces are supply and demand coupled with private ownership and private entrepreneurship.

Honest question, do you think you're about average in the population of those who are against mandatory vaccination?

Probably I'm not but all the people that I know who are not willing to vaccinate do not fear COVID and all the people that I know who are vaccinated fear COVID.

I think just like UK government said it is your personal responsibility to protect yourself, your family and your friends, government is here after all to step in and help you with health care and legal protection and assistance if necessary.

> robably I'm not but all the people that I know who are not willing to vaccinate do not fear COVID and all the people that I know who are vaccinated fear COVID.

I suppose this is a post-facto rationalisation. If I fear the vaccine more, I would rationalise my decision to avoid it by mentally diminishing the risks of COVID.

Anti-vaccination movement is decades old it has nothing to do with COVID particularity while I do not consider myself "Anti-vaxxer" I think that it is not necessary to take every vaccine that is recommended to you.

I meant to say in my earlier post that people who are fearless approach problems in life with ease and calm but people who fear are bounded by their fear and they start thinking irrational or in another words they are driven by fear not by solidarity or patriotism. That's why I said fearless people do not vaccinate and people in fear vaccinate.

It all comes down to death rate of this pandemic being 0.1% which is not extremely high and if there is a vaccine people with underlying conditions and people with impaired immune system should probably take vaccine and everybody else are free to decide whether or not they are going to take it.

It's a nice sounding etiology. I can only speak for myself, but I've not been afraid of covid since day. This non-fear did not magically arise seven months ago because I don't want the vaccine.

Thanks for responding. It's helpful to understand exactly the argument some people are making. Would it be fair to characterize your rebuttal as "Because I'm a counter example, the article's conclusions are wrong"?

No I meant because I'm a counter example my point of view is that article's conclusions are wrong that's just my opinion.

I think they are using stereotypes in order to mark some people as Covid non-compliers.

I'm not a psychiatrist or a scientist therefore I'm not qualified to review and assert this article(paper) which is referring to scientific research study in psychology.

This could be a good opportunity to dig into what statistical reasoning is and how it works. Having additional ways to examine and critique arguments is a powerful tool.

Covid non-compliers....

If you are going to force vaccinate the entire planet with an experimental vaccine, against people's will, you bet that people will not comply. They shouldn't.

Go read r/CovidVaccinated for hundreds, if not thousands of people who has extreme side effects from that vaccine.

We have no information about the long term effects of it either. Could be infertility, could be cancer, anything. Will take years to find out.

Us non-compliers will wait.

> We have no information about the long term effects of it either. Could be infertility, could be cancer, anything. Will take years to find out.

So... what are the long term effects of Covid? Could be infertility, could be cancer.

Do any of the other coronaviruses we've known about for a long time do such things?

Ooh, so you rely on research? Huh, so has any vaccine caused cancer? Or do you think the scientists have ruled that possibility out, just like they've ruled out the possibility of coronaviruses to cause cancer?

There's even info on what the vaccine actually does: https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/reverse-engineering-source...

We've been looking at coronaviruses for a long, long time. Meanwhile, mRNA vaccines have been deployed for less than 12 months. So I believe our understanding of mRNA vaccines is likely to be substantially less accurate and complete.

> If you are going to force vaccinate the entire planet with an experimental vaccine (...)

Which vaccine do you believe is experimental?

If you familiarize yourselft with a vaccine's standard clinical trials and approval process, you'll learn that all major vaccines being rolled out finished all their clinical trials last year.

Recommended reading:

* https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/basics/test-approve.html

* https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-deta...

* https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid-19-vaccine-dev...

I don’t think that’s true? I work in biotech and I’ve seen presentations that mention ongoing DART testing in passing. I don’t know the actual status.

I found this trial as well: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04754594

When stupid people willfully do stupid stuff, it's a fun parlor game to question their psychological health. In other words, it's typically not cool to pose that question. But w.r.t. vaccination it's beyond fair to do so.

We talked about this last night with my family, and found out that most people that don't want to get vaccinated that we know were people not affected by the second lockdown (in France) because they didn't follow the rules. I understand why some people don't want to get vaccinated, but on the other hand I feel like they're just exploiting the part of the population that's compliant. I wish there was a way to easily divided everyone, like "this city is for non-compliers, and this one is for compliers". I'm starting a new job soon and I'd like to be able to go to work normally. I don't want to be under a lockdown again because some people can't stop themselves from partying, don't want to get the vaccine and don't want to follow the rules. I guess this is just another prisonner's dilemma.

For me it'd not about partying. It's about keeping my body healthy and not injecting it with chemicals and risking long term damage for the rest of my life. I don't believe the vaccine is better than my natural antibodies at fighting covid. I also believe most of us already had covid and we have antibodies already.

Also, you are saying that you value avoiding a lockdown more than letting people on the planet decide what goes into their bodies. I can't agree with that. If we don't have freedom to decide that, we are nothing. Just resources to be exploited.

You know the vaccine trains you to make antibodies against COVID so they’re there when you need them, right? This should keep you out of hospital and hopefully reduce the risk of long COVID. It helps society as a whole by removing a naive host from the environment - remove enough hosts and the virus declines. Coupled with masking, it will reduce the chance of spreading COVID if infected, although delta might require a few days of isolation as well. It’s far safer than getting the virus into your system.

If you still do not wish to be vaccinated then at least follow the masking and other steps required to protect others. Get tested if you think you’re infected and isolate until it passes. Otherwise, if this too is something you’re not interested in doing, then you’re just a narcissist or worse. Too many people have suffered from COVID to fool around any more.

Obligatory xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2425/

> Also, you are saying that you value avoiding a lockdown more than letting people on the planet decide what goes into their bodies.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I value avoiding a lockdown more than personally not getting a vaccine. I wish people that think like me could go our own way, and people that think like you could go their own way.

I don't like how every discussion about the vaccine is turning into a "us vs them". You're free to decide whatever you do with the vaccine, I think that's a fundamental right. On the other hand, I'd like the situation to return to normal one day. But not bad enough to force people to vaccinate.

Thanks for clearing that up. I agree that it would be great if we wouldn't fight eachother over this. It just feels extreamly invasive to have someone support the government forcing chemicals into people's bodies. That's a horrible world to live in. What's why i get so triggered by it. But I reacted badly to your post. Sorry. :)

And it feels extremely anti-social to me for people allowing the pandemic to continue for much longer than it needs to, with consequent loss of life and health for many, by selfishly refusing to do their part and get vaccinated. That's a horrible world to create by their actions.

What they're hoping to be is freeloaders on the precautions that the rest of us have taken, the steps that we are taking to end the pandemic. What they get in the worst case is COVID, and then spread it to the vulnerable. And that is just awful; callous, selfish and irresponsible.

I am not expecting _you_ to agree, after all you operate from different starting "facts", but I hope that you and others can understand the validity of this perspective.

Don't worry, I can understand why you would react like that. Lots of people are really unfair to people that don't want the vaccine. Have a nice day!

> I don't believe the vaccine is better than my natural antibodies at fighting covid.

For the benefit of people reading this, this view is _not_ supported by evidence. The fact is that vaccines give you stronger protection than a bout of COVID, and against more variants.

"Vaccination offers longer, stronger immunity"

https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/why-covid-19-vaccine...

"Why a vaccine can provide better immunity than an actual infection"

https://theconversation.com/why-a-vaccine-can-provide-better...

"The evidence shows that protective antibodies generated in response to an mRNA vaccine will target a broader range of SARS-CoV-2 variants ... compared to antibodies acquired from an infection."

https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2021/06/22/how-immunity-genera...

>not injecting it with chemicals and risking long term damage

Straight bullshit.

https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...

>I also believe most of us already had covid and we have antibodies already.

Your beliefs mean nothing without evidence.

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