How should we counter coordinated unauthentic or disingenuous skepticism? I think everyone welcomes authentic concern, but what we're seeing with anti-vax/anti-mask/anti-science itself is something else completely.
It opens up for these fringe movements is to present themselves as scientific, since they too have papers they can point to, and arguments that mirror the form of the scientific establishment.
The way to beat them is to be very clear about the limitations of science, and stop trying to misrepresent it as having a larger degree of certainty than it has. Science is demonstrably wrong sometimes, especially early research like the stuff that was circulating in the beginning of the C19-pandemic, and to make matters worse, a large part of science is dedicated to identifying instances where science is wrong.
That clashes with the official message is "trust the science" and makes devastating ammunition for undermining its credibility, especially nowadays when it is very easy to go back and check what claims were made in the past against which claims are made today.
Look, I didn't get vaccinated because I was told to by pharmaceutical companies. Those shady bastards are on TV all the time selling stuff that seems super sketchy.
ALSO, I didn't get vaccinated because I was told to by doctors; I've had enough experiences with them getting things wrong in what they tell you to do.
I got vaccinated because doctors and health professionals THEMSELVES got vaccinated without hesitation. Was lucky enough to see a good friend, a quasi-famous black doctor, get the jab on TV, which sealed it pretty quickly for me.
AFAICT, there aren't. Very small numbers have left (permanently or temporarily) jobs for that reason, whether fired, quit, or suspended. On the order of hundreds out of ~17 million health care workers covered by mandates.
Lots of political opponents have pointed to mass firings as hypothetical future consequences of mandate policies, and then reacted as if these hypothetical future outcomes were present reality.
There are 17 million employees in the healthcare industry as a whole, but so far it's a handful of healthcare systems that have announced this firing policy, primarily (but not exclusively) in NY and California, and an even smaller subset has actually gone through with firing people. Of course, even 1% of 17 million healthcare workers is 170,000 people, and even if 95% are vaccinated, that's still 8,500 people to be fired. And 95% is optimistic.
As to the claim that only hundreds have been fired, I'm not sure where you are getting your data. One healthcare provider in NY fired 1400 people[1]. 87% of New York's hospital workers are vaccinated and 64% of New York's general population are vaccinated.
So if the providers in extremely blue areas are faced with firing 13% of their healthcare workers, I'm a little skeptical that only hundreds will be fired, or that this is even a workable plan. But who knows, I don't think anyone has the full count for the nation at the moment. If you didn't just make it up, then please do share your source. More facts and less speculation are needed when discussing this issue.
[1] https://www.axios.com/new-york-northwell-health-vaccine-mand...
As of Sep. 28, CBN could find only 843. And, oh, look, they linked to https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/hospitals/how-many-employee...
Kaiser Permanente and Northwell Health were the largest with 1-2% of their workforces, although Kaiser's are on "administrative leave".
But right now you must be in one of the two fields: you are either an anti-vaxxer or you believe in science and will do everything your government says. There are no room for rational discussion about important issues anymore. You just choose your team and fight for it till death.
Also, some of these stats include nurses that are still registered but not currently working anywhere so it's unclear that their vaccination status is correctly recorded.
The scientific method is practiced by imperfect people with biases and external motivators. That is why thorough peer review is required (and sadly lacking).
If we allow politicians to turn science into a dogma instead of an investigative process, progress will come to a grinding halt.
For flat earthers in particular this video sheds some light on why their way of thinking is harmful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
To be extremely reductive, allowing false beliefs into one's web of beliefs corrupts it. This typically gives rise to a multitude of other false beliefs. Flat earthers almost never only believe one obviously false conspiracy theory. They become epistemically susceptible, and worse still, they tend to spread these awful ways of thinking with great zeal.
In the more general case, I recommend you learn about the ethics of belief. The Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy page on the topic is a good starting point: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-belief/
Maybe someone can come along and answer your question in a more succinct yet equally (or ideally more) convincing way. This request that you commit several hours to educating yourself is the best I can do at this time.
And what's wrong with arguments against democracy? We are in a thread explicitly discussing questioning anything and everything and talking about the virtues of being averse to dogma. What if democracy is not as good as it gets? What if there's an alternative that is not authoritarianism?
I've tried this (by sharing data) with friends and family members - it doesn't work/matter. They simply dismiss the data as "fake news" and shift to a new argument. This is why I classify it as "disingenuous skepticism".
Their actions (anecdotally) are driven by culture and politics, not data.
You are right, simply presenting people with data doesn't work. If it did, you would never see a fat nurse, or a doctor who smokes, or... the list is endless.
pumaontheprowl's suggestion is to design a (thought) experiment that involves the skeptic. There are various ways to do this, but history is literally built on this exact phenomena. Getting people to change their mind on an issue requires that you have a real conversation with them. You can't just shove data in their face and see "See, look dummy you're wrong I'm right!" There are all sorts of people that do this for a living: helping people leave cults/white supremacy groups/etc.
And remember, the way most people are finding out about this "shared data" is via the media that just got done spending 4 years accusing trump of being a russian agent. So, they're biased or they're liars. Hence the skepticism.
I'd argue 40% of societies response to this pandemic is culture and politics. 30% is media fear mongering. 20% is intellectual error and 10% is actually disease mitigation.
Requiring fully vaccinated individuals to wear masks is culture & politics.
Shutting down outdoor restaurants is culture and politics
Casting moral shame on people who get covid is culture and politics
Saying it is totally okay to go to a BLM rally while not being able to attend a football game is culture and politics.
Closing the birthday card isle in the grocery store is culture and politics.
The list goes on and on...
In fact the very core of lockdowns is premised in culture and politics and not science. Science doesn't create policy. Human values do. For example places that place more emphasis on living life instead of protecting life were probably the first to drop restrictions.... a perfectly valid stance.
Science doesn't tell us what to do. It is merely a process for testing hypothesis in an attempt to get to the "truth" of something. That's all it does. Science didn't tell us to lockdown, it doesn't tell us to require vaccinated individuals to wear a mask, it doesn't tell us to shut down our borders, or any of that. All those decisions were driven by culture and politics.
We stop trying to ascribe malicious motives to their actions and try to have genuine conversation with them. If they aren't convinced after that then we have more work to do.
It's interesting how much time and effort is spent trying to win people over to another way of thinking or opinion.
People tend to assume that if they cannot prove P and cannot prove ¬P, then ¬P must be assumed to be true. This is of course not correct at all, and most propositions can be rephrased so that Q=¬P and ¬Q=P.
If there is no evidence either way, then neither P nor ¬P is supported, and we should remain uncertain.
We're not discussing skepticism of nematode behavior, but of the politicization of a pandemic, which makes it opinion. You can't reason with someone out of an opinion who didn't reason themselves into it to begin with.
Rational bad actors abuse this notion that they have the right to play, to be heard, to have a discourse; when in reality they're repeating the same disinformation ad nausea to profit for themselves.
I find it easy to imagine and indeed can pinpoint many observed instances. A lot of "I'm not saying anything, I'm just asking questions" ARE in fact saying something, quite strongly, with minds made up and no curiosity or eagerness to learn, but are being disingenuous. It's not skepticism: they are not awaiting or hoping for data or facts or claims, rational discourse or healthy discussion; their mind is not open to change; they have an objective, they are aiming to persuade and recruit, or sow doubt. To the point that when a user made an innocuous comment in this thread and ended it with "not a criticism, just an observation:)" we all assumed he was in fact disingenuous and was criticizing, because that's the current (unfortunate!) norm for that form of statement.
A lot of cult-like institutions or groups understand, consciously or subconsciously, that their views are not agreed upon and appreciated. So they have devised disingenuous ways of promoting them. From naming ("Discovery Institute" is hard-core creationists, "National Vaccine Information Center" is hard-core anti-vaxx group etc), to appearances (websites are full of stock photos of people in white lab coats and charts, to appear science-y), to discourse (again, the frequent, "I'm not SAYING anything, I'm just ASKING"; "I'm not AGAINST vaccines, I just have QUESTIONS on the timing" - all pulled from distributed talking points),disingenuous skepticism has become the norm, I'm sad to say... and thus trivial to imagine.
edit: All forms of discussion like this ultimately converge to definitions; so to be explicit and hopefully drive us to point of mutual understanding, to me, skepticism implies seeking facts, data, truth; openness to change your mind; genuine looking for mutual objective truth and agreement. As such, there's disingenuous skepticism aplenty in this world of ours :-/
Their _skepticism_ is likely genuine and sincere, but their _engagement_ is not in good faith and is disingenuous.
One problem, I think, is that it the communities are self selecting. Skeptics who engage in good faith on well understood topics become converts; all who remain over time in the community of skeptics are those who do not engage in good faith.
It's a worthwhile question to ask why they don't engage in good faith, which I think has a more complicated answer than either straightforward ignorance or malice.
It is like fighting a squid. The moment you've caught it by one of the tentacles it slaps at you with the other 7 while the first 1 slips away.
And what do you do if the answer is "No amount of evidence"?
We asked her to take a pic of her oximeter reading and send it to us - it read 91. We told her she should get to a hospital where they could give her some oxygen, but she refuses (doesn't want to be in "the system"). She is the poster child for disingenuous skepticism and it's impossible to have a "genuine conversation" with her because she's so infected with conspiracy theories (including the Q conspiracy).
She doesn't seem at all disingenuous to me, what actions make you doubt her genuinity? To me it sounds like she may have some mental health issues to work out and that is an entirely different beast than this conversation.
Why are we so upset when people decide to refuse treatment?
The anecdotal evidence you gave (hospital abuse) is an outlier, not a norm.
A better question is, why wouldn't you be upset when a family member refuses life saving treatment, rationalized by disinformation?
Because unless I'm the parents of a minor child, it's ultimately not my decision.
I'd like to define what these terms mean. Right now, I think the mainstream technique is anyone who questions vax/mask/science gets the anti- prefix.
I hate to invoke Godwin's law, but business people loved Hitler all around the world right up until his propaganda machine shut out their influence and he started invading the other half of their markets and supply chains. If the people running our country have learned anything from history they will quit encouraging irrationality and gullibility some time before the curtains close, so to speak.
it seems to be a reliable indicator that the person expressing it is a US citizen or at least resident in the US.
Isn't it debilitating to live in a place suffused with this opinion? Does it become self-fulfilling?
And to answer the question: the government is composed of people like you; critical thinking helps the government see how to improve society just as it helps you to improve your own life and prevent you from falling for scams.
It's universal knowledge; you will hear it whether you are talking to a conservative christian or a communist, although the particular culturally appropriate way of phrasing it will change. You will even hear it from comfortable urban professionals, although couched in a way that makes it look like they're not excessively upset about it.
I have heard a lot of opinions, some of them bonkers, but there is one I have never heard; I challenge you to find one single American who believes that Iraq was invaded due to popular demand.
I seem to recall it being fairly popular among the public back when it was proposed and first carried out, because there was a pretty widespread belief that Saddam did still have WMDs, and that he was somehow linked to 9/11. Those were both wrong, and there were certainly people who were skeptical, but it did have somewhat popular support at the time.
"Days before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Maines told a London audience the band did not endorse the war and were "ashamed" of US President George W. Bush being from Texas. The remarks triggered boycotts in the US and backlash from fans." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicks)
I wouldn't expect either to be part of the Overton window, and both to be rather unhappy with current society. As for upper civil servants, corporations and the media, one has to suppose their interests are all aligned, as opposed to being in disagreement over various matters. Sounds like something you'd hear conservative christian or communist say. Someone unhappy with the current form of government who supposes there is a grand conspiracy preventing their ideal conservative or communist society from being realized. Instead of a majority of people not wanting such a society.
Both have a narrative of the world as being controlled by dark forces brainwashing people, instead of it being a complex, emergent structure from a messy history with nobody in control.
One of the 2 major political parties in the USA has pushed this opinion for as long as I’ve been alive. They deny federal government any opportunity to improve then point at government as an example of why it doesn’t improve peoples’ lives.
I hope other still-functioning governments learn from the institutional failures of the USA in the 1970s and 1980s so as to avoid following the same path.
Descartes was excommunicated.
Semmelweis was mocked.
How you should approach anti-vax/anti-mask people is to consider that they may have a point.
But your FAITH in the science of your narrative precludes you.
Isn't this really asking "how do you have ideas that stand up to the Socratic method?"
Coordinated inauthentic ideas are not intended to withstand rigorous review. They are intended to tickle the limbic system and to get retweeted before the reader’s cognitive mind has a chance to weigh in. The author will shed that idea or identity and move to another. For this reason, they are also called a “disinformation firehouse”.
Seems strange to be called "anti-vax" and, presumably, "anti-science" for questioning the logic in mass vaccinating with an experimental vaccine, built with experimental technologies, which since its deployment has been demonstrated through various data to be a spectacular failure in terms of safety and efficacy.
What about just questioning the policies themselves?
What about the fact that from where I'm sitting there's zero "science" supporting the use of cloth masks, yet they're attack vector numero uno when it comes to bifurcating the populace into angels and demons?
Back to basics: The government doesn't care about you. Any interventions are likely to sacrifice long term success for short term success.
Many scientists and doctors out there are obviously either completely uninterested in the truth or just toadies for the elite, if what you're describing is correct.
If so, they don't deserve our respect, our trust, or even our attention.
As an example, take covid antibody studies. It is interesting and useful to learn how covid vaccines elicit antibody production. OTOH, the immune system is not limited to antibodies. Extrapolating long-term immunity conclusions from an antibody study is unwarranted. Alas, the scientists performing antibody studies don't have the resources to perform long term studies. This creates an over-abundence of antibody studies, which are cheap and likely to produce measurable results. These studies are then used as incontrovertible evidence that 'science says' there is no such thing as natural immunity, and even if it were, vaccines are much better.
Probably true. But “scientists who seek political power” is a different set. See, Fauci
Totally agree. What's the number one rule of crisis management? Keep people calm. I cannot name a single "expert" who has attempted to calm people at all. In fact most have done the exact opposite. They have intentionally provoked fear.
If these people wanted respect, trust and attention they'd go out of their way to clearly articulate the risks of covid for each population group. Instead they act as if covid is a death sentence for anybody. They would actively stamp out misinformation like "4% kill rate" and "25% of people get long covid". They'd clearly frame "hospitals full" with the context of how busy an ICU is during normal times. They'd spend large chunks of their time calming parents who are fearful for their children.
More important, they'd offer hope and work to instill courage and bravery in people. They'd tell people what they can do to minimize symptoms. They'd remind people virtually everybody recovers and many don't even know they had it. They'd give people ways to meaningfully contribute "to the cause" within their communities.
Instead they've done nothing but crank up the fear factor and freaked the absolute shit out of people. They'd literally knocked screws loose from people I used to regard as level headed, rational people. And they keep at it. Never offering positive messaging. Never offering hope. Never communicating good news. Never calming people down.
Of course if they did any of what I described, I'd imagine most people wouldn't have accepted any of these mitigation measures at all. Because I believe a rational individual looking at the data would see almost none of what we've done over the past year and a half makes a single ounce of sense at all. The cynic in me says that is exactly why they don't do what I describe... cranking up the fear is the only way to sell lockdowns, masks, vaccine mandates, border closures, and whatever other human rights crushing crap these people want to shove down our mouths.
These "experts" are some of the most vile individuals I can think of. They don't deserve an ounce of respect, trust or attention.
That's odd, because here are some excerpts from President Biden's remarks on covid [1].
"THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, my fellow Americans. I want to talk to you about where we are in the battle against COVID-19, the progress we’ve made, and the work we have left to do.
And it starts with understanding this: Even as the Delta variant 19 [sic] has — COVID-19 — has been hitting this country hard, we have the tools to combat the virus, if we can come together as a country and use those tools.
If we raise our vaccination rate, protect ourselves and others with masking and expanded testing, and identify people who are infected, we can and we will turn the tide on COVID-19.
...
So, let me speak to you directly. Let me speak to you directly to help ease some of your worries.
...
We know that if schools follow the science and implement the safety measures — like testing, masking, adequate ventilation systems that we provided the money for, social distancing, and vaccinations — then children can be safe from COVID-19 in schools."
And here are some from a recent press briefing [2] by the COVID response team:
"MR. ZIENTS: Good afternoon. Thanks for joining us. In a moment, I’ll turn to Drs. Walensky, Fauci, and Murthy.
I’ll start by discussing the progress we’re making on testing, vaccination, and boosters — three critical parts of the President’s six-point plan to accelerate our path out of the pandemic.
First, testing: In the past few months, testing has increased, particularly at-home testing — a convenient option that came to market earlier this year.
To meet this increased demand, the President’s plan ramps up both the availability of tests and access to free testing. In just a matter of weeks, we’ve made significant progress on both fronts.
...
I’ll close with this: We’ve made tremendous progress over the past eight months, and we are executing well against the President’s six-point plan. We’re on the right track, but we need everyone to do their part."
The experts are saying "stay strong and we'll get through this". Meanwhile you are talking about how wearing a piece of cloth on your face is "human rights crushing crap" like we're one step away from the death camps. How is that calming anyone down? And who exactly do you mean when you say "them" anyway? It's a really worrying sign when "they" are always doing all these nefarious things just to frighten and control people. Do you know many in your life who acts that way? If not, why do you imagine that "they" are any different from the people you know? Where do you think "they" live? What do "they" want to do when "they" get home from work today? Do you think "they" read to their children before "they" tuck them in at night?
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/20...
[2] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/202...
It doesn’t highlight anything. It’s just doomsday nonsense and is yet another example of exactly what I’m talking about.
Covid isn’t space aids. It’s a damn respiratory virus. The vast majority who get it recover. It’s a non event for kids. These are facts backed by solid data. President didn’t state that at all.
And gaslighting about a “piece of cloth” is another example. It’s a “piece of cloth” that doesn’t do a damn thing besides divide people. Masks should never have been raised to the pedestal they were raised to. It’s people acting like they have some kind of moral high ground when they occupy anything but.
No
If you've ever been pregnant or had a pregnant wife, you'd know that the list of medications which they can avail themselves of during pregnancy is tiny. This is because due to ethical concerns, testing pharmaceuticals on pregnant women is almost never done. So doctors tell pregnant women to never take most things while pregnant.
The studies for the covid vaccines intentionally excluded pregnant women from their cohorts, for the same reason.
Therefore, by the definition of unsafe that we've used for generations of medical advice, the vaccines are unsafe for pregnant women. No study on pregnancy? Not safe.
And yet, pregnant women are recommended the vaccine every day.
That's just one among many.
As for failure, that's blindingly obvious at this point. If you disagree, please let me know how your view changes as you prepare for your fourth booster.
You are ignoring the difference between a disease which is highly contagious (therefore difficult to avoid) versus pregnancy complications that are easy to avoid because they aren’t contagious diseases.
You are also projecting typical ethical concerns around medical research on pregnant women and the mounting body of evidence that COVID vaccines are safe for women who get pregnant after vaccination. It turns out it is easy to study this after billions of doses are administered. The CDC is currently studying the effects of these vaccines on pregnancy: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommend...
“That’s just one among many”
Perhaps some of the “many” might stand up to scrutiny…
No, I am not. I am using the same definition of "safe" as doctors have for pregnant women for several generations, at least 60 years. Untested on pregnant women == unsafe for pregnant women and their babies. Period.
Of course, it's possible that the covid vaccines are safe for pregnant women and their babies. It's also possible that all the various pharmaceuticals that women are told not to take are safe too! The risk is unknown, as you state, but where you're mistaken is that the precautionary principle for pregnant women is taken much more extremely, for good reason. So to medical doctors, unknown is equivalent to unsafe, for pregnant women.
Sure, CDC is studying the effects now--they're studying it unethically on human experimental subjects in the general population, who have been mislead into thinking that the vaccines are safe for pregnant women--a total lie.
What do you mean by "spectacular failure"? I live in Romania, one of the least vaccinated countries in the EU (together with Bulgaria) and we're now in the middle of a very, very bad Covid wave because of the low vaccination rates. The other EU countries don't go through the same thing as us. I don't call the vaccine a "spectacular failure" in terms of safety and efficacy, quite the contrary, it demonstrates that it has been doing its job pretty well.
Meanwhile, the most vocal vaccine skeptics are catching and dying from the virus with such frequency that there are multiple subreddits devoted to their stories.
The 3 vaccines authorized / approved in the USA all significantly reduce the probability of severe disease, the duration of contagiousness, and the magnitude of contagiousness.
I would agree that severe disease is already exceedingly rare among that population, but the contagiousness issue is more of a trade off of multiple factors.
Children have a very low risk of COVID complications, but the risk of vaccine complications is even lower.
> Conclusions
> Myocarditis (or pericarditis or myopericarditis) from primary COVID19 infection occurred at a rate as high as 450 per million in young males. Young males infected with the virus are up 6 times more likely to develop myocarditis as those who have received the vaccine.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.23.21260998v...
I sorta caught COVID from my kid and stuff. She sat in a class for 3 days with another infected child whose parents knew the child was infected but who also did not have an adequate plan in place to care for him during the day. It was a complete shitshow, and I permanently lost most of my sense of smell.
But thanks for your information.
Wat.
There are 6 major vaccines which are approved for use in most countries. Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, J&J, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm, Sputnik. Most are extremely safe (obviously risks are non-zero, but those risks are orders of magnitudes better than the effects of the disease). Some are extremely effective (at reducing severe disease and/or reducing the spread of disease), at least for the first several months. Some are even very effective against a variant that didn’t present until after development and testing were done. Only 2 are mRNA based, which I presume is what you mean by “experimental”. These vaccines have been administered in billions of doses and side effects have been monitored for over a year. Your statements completely overstate the facts as observed.
Who is calling you these things? Are they government epidemiologists or just randos on the internet? If the latter, then why do you care what they call you? Opinions are like models: they are all imperfect and only some are useful.
Questioning policies is fine, but you have to recognize that you aren’t the only person espousing your position. There is a seemingly endless stream of opinions about how policies should be changed, so your voice is grouped together with other voices (some louder, some uninformed, some come with death threats, some come with violence).
And it doesn’t help your case when you discount the actual scientific evidence that masks (even some cloth masks) do a non-zero amount of intervention. Never mind the fact that cloth masks are available, cheap, safe, and visible. You may not agree with these qualities, but you aren’t (I’m going out on a limb here) a government official charged with maintaining public health. Policy makers have to factor in things like effectiveness, cost, ubiquity, ease of implementation, effectiveness, and how it affects public order. If you aren’t applying all of these in your calculus, then you are just complaining without suggesting a viable solution.
Well yeah, that is hilariously bad anti-science. There's nothing scientific to support any of that.
There is certainly some of this happening as with every issue, but echo chambers can easily emerge and sustain themselves without the need for coordinated bad actors. I believe the larger issue is simply lack of education rather than bad guys doing bad things.
All these studies conducted around masks are being done in the heat of the moment in a highly politically charged environment. Releasing a study that says masks don't work will get the authors labeled as "anti-science" and probably destroy their careers. All the studies performed prior to this mess were inconclusive, at best.
Just because you disagree with somebody doesn't make that person anti-science and doesn't make them dangerous, "disingenuous" or "unauthentic". People have plenty of good reasons to call BS on almost all of our mitigations.