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Comment by ohdannyboy | Hacker News Reader

    while believing anything Trump says without question.

Trump is pro vaccine... He still brags about his involvement with Operation Warp Speed. How does this work out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA306aNtvmk

I too have to deal with hard right wing Christians... I used to be one. The idea that they are too stupid or deluded to be talked to about anything just isn't true. Talking to people about emotionally charged issues is hard, and if your attitude is that they're all idiots you're not gonna do it productively. "Crushing" someone with facts will never, ever change their mind.

I've been able to have a lot of discussions with these types of people (albeit not everyone) because I understand them.

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Right and Trump got boo'ed for saying people should get vaccinated because he's reaping the consequences of speaking without thought. I didn't say they're stupid, I said they're fools for believing what is obvious a bunch of politically motivated lies, science is no place for emotion.

What these people do lack is the ability to think critically about the subject, examine their biases, and challenge their assumptions. If we can't change people's mind with the truth, what possibly could make them realize they have been duped?

> Right and Trump got boo'ed for saying people should get vaccinated because he's reaping the consequences of speaking without thought.

Trump saying that massively reduced Democrats opinion on vaccines and massively increased Republicans opinion on vaccines though. People shift their opinions really easy over tiny things, every little bit that makes one side more convincing helps pushing people to the correct realization and vice versa. So it is very possible to convince a lot of people, thinking otherwise just ensure those people wont get convinced. It is a spectrum, every tiny step helps a lot, there is never a point where being more convincing no longer helps.

https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/Pro...

I hate to be pedantic but the poll you reference was in 2020 and Trump said that in May of 2021. I don't think it had a measurable effect on either party.

You are right, this was due to another statement by Trump. But Trump saying something about a vaccine had that big of an effect. As soon as Trump started talking about getting a vaccine out to the people Democrats started to think that an FDA approved vaccine would be a bad thing while Republicans started thinking it was a good thing. As you see in the graph after that statement both groups were almost equally willing to get vaccinated.

> Democrats' reduced confidence follows President Donald Trump's Labor Day announcement that a coronavirus vaccine could be ready in October, as well as subsequent news reports stating that Trump is eager to see a vaccine delivered before the election. Trump's accelerated timeline does not align with that of many government health experts, and this disagreement has raised concerns as to whether a vaccine distributed that soon would be effective and safe.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/321839/readiness-covid-vaccine-...

I would treat Democrats that refused a vaccination because it was Trump's FDA with the same disdain. The fact that this issue is divisive along political lines is what is so damn infuriating. This is science people, one of the few things left on the planet that can conceivably be free of emotional discourse and we're actively killing it for financial gain.

I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, I'm a scientist.

Most people aren't able to dispassionately pursue the truth. You need to remove emotional barriers first before the facts can be heard by finding ideological and emotional common ground somewhere and then using that camaraderie as an attack vector to convince them that something else that they believe is wrong. I have done that somewhat successfully with a fairly far-right person, managing to bring them back on some of their more extreme views.

It's possible you weren't the right person for this specific job. I believe that some alignment on at least some views is necessary for this process, otherwise the barriers just immediately go up.

Having said that, it's true that for some people no amount of reasoning or persuasion will work. The amount of cognitive dissonance and the extent to which the belief is tied into their self-worth and identity precludes anything but a years-long process of deradicalization. People aren't designed to be rational.

    I didn't say they're stupid, I said their fools for believing what is obvious a bunch of politically motivated lies, science is no place for emotion.

No, you said "while believing anything Trump says without question."

    If we can't change people's mind with the truth, what possibly could make them realize they have been duped?

Packaging matters. People are emotional and make rarely make factual determinations in a vacuum. Your attitude in our conversation so far tells me that you have a near-zero opinion of their intellect and have no idea why they believe what they believe (ie you say that they believe 100% of what Trump says, but 10 seconds later acknowledge they'll boo him at his own rally). You most likely come across as smug and superior in these conversations so while you may just be explaining that mRNA therapies have been in development for decades they will see it as an attack on them... Logical? No, but it's how humans operate. Maybe you're perfectly logical but I kinda doubt it.

Lets use creationism as an example because it's what I have the most experience with. You can argue until you're blue in the face with facts and won't get anywhere most of the time -- there were certainly people who had that experience with me 15-20 years ago. Looking back I wasn't interested in the facts. The Adam and Eve story had to be literal to explain original sin, which had to be a thing to explain Jesus' sacrifice which was one of the most central things I believed in. So when you'd crush me with facts demonstrating that the earth cannot be 6,000 years old you'd actually be tugging at the single most central thing I believed. Good luck.

I was reasoned out of young earth creationism, but I had to be in a place where Jesus was also on the table to be discussed. It took about a year from "oh shit, that's how radiometric dating works" to "uh yeah, none of this makes sense." Open discourse was the only way that was possible -- the talk.origins archive, books like Why Evolution is True by Coyne, lectures by friendly scientists, ect.

That's a lot of assumptions about me and my behavior. You're right on one thing, I don't understand how pride and selfishness can be such a driving force behind people's views. I don't think your analogy with creationism holds water though, it doesn't cause a public health hazard. While I don't personally endorse creationism, I could care less what you believe and only have an opinion if you are trying to force me into the same mindset and while science has undeniably proven creationism false, there is no real detectable detriment to folks believing it.

COVID on the other hand is a massive public health problem and I view this unfounded resistance in the same vein as drunk driving and yelling fire in a crowded theatre. Your freedom ends when it begins to endanger other people. If there were any even remotely reasonable arguments, I could engender some empathy for these folks, however there is not, it is complete lies, fabrication, and fear mongering. 2000 year old ghosts, while useful for creating a system of morality to keep people in line, is not a basis for scientific discourse.

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