What would it take for antivaxxers and climate science deniers to ‘wake up’? | Hacker News Reader

What would it take for antivaxxers and climate science deniers to ‘wake up’?

theguardian.com

3 pointspseudolus6 comments

Sometimes we will meet people with whom we do not share beliefs. They are wrong and we still have to co-exist with them.

Is this really such an assault on our integrity? Is there no chance we have some error on our side? Is there no value in the opposing view? Even if only to re-assure us that we are indeed free of error?

Many things is modern human lives are social constructs. They are very important to the functioning of society, but they are propped up entirely by people believing in them. These are things like national borders, currencies, human rights, rules of etiquette, religions. They only exist in the minds of humans and they are only as strong as the number of people believing in them.

These concepts are so important to the functioning of societies that believers will automatically treat anyone daring to question their beliefs as an enemy and attack them. It doesn't matter if you simply raise doubts and don't attack the idea outright. You are still an enemy weakening the fortifications and need to be defeated.

Here's the kicker: our science is so advanced that most of us are lay people in most areas by definition. Neither you nor I actually have a deep understanding of how an mRNA a vaccine actually works. Sorry if you are a scientist working on this btw, just making a general assumption. Anyway, for most of us, due to lack of deep understanding, it all comes down to belief. Do I side with the crowd chanting Dr. Fauci's name or with the alt-right? Both choices are completely mindless and are based on social dynamics alone.

Therefore, because the belief is based on social dynamics you get the social dynamic type threat response. Anyone believing differently is an enemy.

Things most people understand don't tend to elicit this reaction. For example, few people will argue with the idea that a car is faster than a bike or that water is wet. You believing differently does not attack the foundation of their belief and so you can safely question.

The only thing that will work long term is education. It has to become as clear to people that vaccines work as "water is wet". Unfortunately, that is hard, and the media decided to take the social construct shortcut, with predictable consequences.

Education takes a long time to pay off though, it's like a 20 year investment. I think your blaming of the media is dead wrong. Vaccines are not a brand new thing; it was reasonable to think it would be OK to just put out the information in the form of a PSA.

Why are we blaming the media, and ignoring the people who deliberately spread false information, and have been doing it for years? Not people who are just wrong on the internet, but actively dishonest people who are working to lower confidence in public health measures.

It's not an mRNA issue. We were already having problems with a resurgence of measles which only a few years before was on the verge of being eradicated. It's an information warfare issue. Education is only as good as people's willingness to argue in good faith and commitment to searching for the truth. It's not an adequate response to propaganda.

Weaponized health communication: Twitter bots and Russian trolls amplify the vaccine debate (2018) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/

Anti-Vaccine decision-making and measles resurgence in the United States (2019) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6657116/

I cite these two papers to point out that we were having this problem before COVID came along, and that it is engineered.

Well said. I am deeply ignorant of how mRNA vaccines work, for the record. :)

A couple of points that I see people miss surprisingly often. I will pretend for the purposes of this post that I do not know how mRNA or DNA works and will not argue that until very recently we considered 75% of our DNA structure be junk.

What really surprises me is the fact that a lot of educated people trust 'science' blindly. So on to my first point. The original narrative regarding the current crisis is that we are dealing with an extremely trasmitable and deadly virus. As such we are facing the danger of collapsing the medicare system because intensive care units are simply not enough to handle the volume of cases. A disastrous situation, I agree. Fine! So let's have a vaccine. Let's combat 'future' (ie new) infections (cases) and completely disregard the 'present' situation at hand. Why should we bother with coming up with a treatment (medicine, antibodies or whatever) to keep people from entering intensive care? Our savior is only something that regards new cases alone. Until we come up with such a 'miracle' unfortunately people will die. This concludes the first point, the vaccine mania and the complete disregard for treatment. What sane person would see a 'conspiracy' here?

The second point. "The technology is so advanced that you noobs have no idea". Granted! Let's pretend I'm an ignorant noob. "The new mRNA and cDNA tech is effective and safe". How do you know? Let's entertain this idea for a while. Sure, we've got a tech that can produce a brand new vaccine in a matter of a couple of hours. All it takes is a gene-sequence typed on a keyboard which is then 'printed' in the bio-reactor and voila, the wonder is here! Ready to be injected into the human body, able to affect and modify sensitive cellular mechanics pretty much as you would type some code, compile it and load onto your chip, right? What a wonder! Who needs thorough testing after all? We have ruled over nature! No one will ever get sick by this 'curse' again or any of it's variations. One single recipe to rule over the 7.5Bn person diversity on this planet. Yes, because we have so advanced tech that we are standing at a point where we have a complete understanding to the very finest detail of cellular biology. Only if countries like Israel hadn't proven otherwise...

Trust the 'science', it IS safe. Not only we have a complete understanding to the very finest detail of cellular biology but we also have mastered time-travel. Yes, we have so advanced tech that allows us to time travel to the year 2030 A.D. and behold our wonder did not hurt anyone, ever! Who needs testing? We are so bright! What a time to be alive!

I guess we can now take our righteous seat right next to God! Hell, what am I saying we ARE Gods! Oh, sorry I forgot, we still gotta find that gene-sequence that beats death altogether. But worry not, our saviors are a few clicks away! But I digress... Forgive me.

What sane person would see a conspiracy in all the above? Hell, what 'educated' person with 'critical' thinking would dare to question the 'wonder'? We have so advanced tech, said the 'educated' Gods.

I'm confused, is it science we are talking about here or is it religion???

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