I took the vaccine knowing the risks, I don't know why someone should be humiliated as a "crackpot" for voicing those concerns.
The problem is voicing concerns in a way that deliberately sidesteps the efforts and explanations of the, if you like, mainstream scientific community regarding why those concerns are misplaced, wrong or simply exaggerated. You voice concerns, concerns are addressed in various way, someone else or you revoices the concerns.
Now, of course, you can argue that your concerns have not been addressed. But that requires a new "voicing", one that takes into consideration the way that others sought to address your concerns. If you simply restate your concerns, you're not behaving in good faith, and after some point, "being humiliated as a crackpot" starts to look appropriate.
It is true, for example, that an asteroid could hit earth at any time, and quite easily wipe out most life on the planet. That is an absolutely true statement. It is probably even worth doing a little bit to try to reduce or mitigate the risks associated.
But continuing to insist that everyone needs to rearrange their way of thinking about life, the universe and everything based on this true statement, that this is the only way to think about asteroids and the risks of collision, that everyone who points out the demonstrable interval between planetary-scale asteroid collisions is hiding the truth - that's all pretty problematic.
I've never met an irrational person that acts the way you describe. They'll usually go quiet (if you engage in debate and address all their points), shut down and then subsequently repeat the same affirmations.
My reaction to someone being humiliated is to listen to them a lot more carefully than I would otherwise, because more often than not in history these are the people that could drive our morality in the future.
And yes, many humiliations are unjustified and counter-productive. But so is a refusal to engage with an actual argument and/or a refusal to engage in falsification.
Otherwise you're creating martyrs. Everyone has a valid point, even flat earthers.
That is, they have no point at all, but they do have curiosity, and we should welcome and nurture that.
I don't think it's productive to assume someone is irrational and stupid by association.
Lottery tickets are an accepted fact of life despite being just as stupid.
That's not true. In the context of these discussions, the risks are almost always brought up as evidence that you shouldn't get vaccinated, or at least that we should seriously question the vaccines.
To see why it's irrational, we just have to compare the probability of dying from the vaccine to the probability of dying from COVID unvaccinated. The data overwhelmingly support getting vaccinated.
>I don't think it's productive to assume someone is irrational and stupid by association.
I never called anyone stupid. Smart people are irrational all the time. Irrationality means having beliefs that aren't in your own interest or that contradict your other beliefs.
Concerned Parent: Then why do you need immunity from product liability laws to sell them?