The immediate reply is the accusational: "why are you trying to trying to prevent safety for kids".
It's a simple next step to accuse you of hiding your own child abuse ring.
This sounds like hype, but it's the normal path here in Australian.
You don't argue with these people. You summarily dismiss them. You recognize the game they are playing and you refuse to play it.
Call attention to their methods instead: they are exploiting and weaponizing children to push their big tech friendly surveillance agenda.
Whether individuals inside the system are true believers or cynical operators, the response to calling out their methods will be identical:
If they genuinely believe the rhetoric: They will simply double down and say, 'Yes, and protecting the children makes this absolutely necessary.'
If they know it is a manipulation tactic: They will still reply with, 'It is for the children,' because they know it is an impenetrable PR shield that gets them their way.
In either scenario, the bureaucracy is entirely immune to the criticism.
Exposing the game might help persuade third-party observers, but it does absolutely nothing to stop the bureaucratic machine from using that exact same line to steamroll the agenda forward.
Will you allow an argument against this?
I mean, I want to show an example where it is only a problem when someone else is not as convinced as yourself, one way or the other.
>so the way to refute is to ask for proof..
No use. The same proof will not be convincing for everyone. Let us take vaccine. The proof for a Vaccine for X saving Y lives is often the following.
"Before the vaccine there was Y deaths per year from X. But after vaccines there is zero deaths from X".
The implication is that vaccines saved X lives. This could convince most of the people. But someone can ask. Are those kids who are not dying of X (thanks to the vaccine), are dying of something else?
Now the picture is not so clear.
See, same data, different results depending on how deep you want to probe,
Why is it not so clear? If they are not dying of X then the vaccine did the job and technically saved the kid’s life from dying of X. Notice that it doesn’t mean that they can’t die of other things.
But that is one less death from X, and one death less that the vaccine can claim credit to, but in the larger picture, the vaccine did not save a life.
So the point being 1000 deaths from X to 0 deaths from X does not necessary mean X lives saved.
Yes, this statement is a non-sequitur. A vaccine preventing death from X does not prevent a death from other causes. That doesn’t mean X isn’t effective.
No one said it. Don't put words in my mouth.
> The implication is that vaccines saved X lives. This could convince most of the people. But someone can ask. Are those kids who are not dying of X (thanks to the vaccine), are dying of something else?
To me it assumes mutual exclusivity between not dying of X and dying of something else, but perhaps my bias is showing.
But it still shows up as a life saved by the vaccine (because it prevented a specific disease incidence). That is misleading.
This can be made very clear by taking a small example. Imagine there is an island with a population of 100. Among these 50 are very weak. And every year, these 50 die due to various illness. And among these 50 deaths, 30 are caused by X.
So in order to save these 30 deaths, the government started vaccinating against X. The next year there is zero deaths due to X. But there were still 50 deaths in total that year too. Only that the 30 lives that used to be claimed by X, is now claimed by A, B and C (they are so weak that they will succumb to any infection).
This is not an unrealistic scenario. If you have a weak immune system, any minor infection could end up fatal. The only unrealistic thing in this story is the occurance of constant 50 people who have weak immune system every year. But that does not void the point.
So while the vaccine prevented disease incidence, it did not prevent any deaths.