Huge link between Vaccines and infectious diseases, though. Watch out!
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Even if vaccines sometimes caused autism, the immense good they've been bringing for many decades to the human species would largely outweigh the risk.
What the anti-vaxxers are doing is akin to trying to convince people to give up electricity because some people get electrocuted sometimes.
It's good that this is studied, but I wonder if it will ever change anyone's mind. Certainly not the true believers, but maybe people that just haven't considered it deeply?
It won't change anyone's mind. Even if their dear leader tells them to, they won't do it. Mulish behavior is extremely hard to break with only, reason.
You're probably right. There's ways to change people's minds, but for most people most of the time, that's stuff like social consensus instead of reason. Social consensus can be changed by pushing narratives (i.e. propaganda), but is that ethical to do, even if the science is clear on an issue? Once you create a lever of power like that, it tends to get used for things beyond its original purpose.
Most likely, yeah. The "True Believers" are never going to be moved like you say. But most regular people that end up getting sucked down that radicalization pipeline are regular parents that just have anxiety about making the right choices for their kids.
They don't really understand how vaccines work or how they're made, they just look at the vaccine schedule and are like "Measles, Mumps, and Rubella? Are you sure that's safe?" They're maybe already primed to distrust drug manufacturers because just... The World we live in. Then they end up falling prey to the propaganda that says no it's not safe. That the anxiety you feel is completely justified because of all this information they don't want you to know.
We'll never really know how many people a study like this might keep from falling into that pipeline. Debates like this are very rarely, if ever about directly convincing your opponent. They're almost always about convincing the audience. So the more good data we can get out and the more good communicators we can find to stop those worries before they fester into conspiracism the better.
It's a good thing to have more data about, because the research is never just about one question, but we already have an overwhelming amount of data that says it's not only safe, but more safe than not getting them. Getting the vaccine is the cautious tactic.
We want to believe differently because ego, but we're regular people (unless you're a doctor. Playing the odds that you're not). It's really difficult to hold people who are functionally identical to me in a particular sphere of knowledge to a lower standard, which means the people who get sucked in aren't regular people. Regular people know that vaccines work by teaching your body how to recognize and fight a virus. They know that doctors all recommend them. They know there's a difference between the vaccines every doctor and grocery store offers you and the weird goiter/ED treatment they keep trying to sell you on TV.
Falling down that pipeline is a sign of at least one, but probably more, failures of critical thinking.
We're all closer than we like to acknowledge to falling into those mental traps by having those failures, but it's not regular people having normal regular people thoughts that do. Regular people are "believed they talked the car dealership into breaking even" stupid, not "disregarded all evidence and gambled their children's lives" stupid.
No. No I reject this framing entirely. The way you're talking about this makes it sound like no one should ever fall for propaganda and any one that does is simply a Bad Person™ and they don't matter. I'm sick and tired of this kind of virtue signaling and failure of imagination to even try to understand why someone might get sucked in by bad actors.
The average person has no earthly idea the sheer volume of data there is on this. At most they know that it has been studied in an abstract sense. They also know that they're worried about this tiny life that is suddenly their responsibility. They know that one time a few years ago they got a flu shot and they felt like crap for days afterwards. They know babies are fragile. Intuition tells them that if ONE vaccine did that to them, what could giving multiple at once do to an infant? For much more serious diseases in fact. They also perhaps know that they don't trust the drug companies. Maybe a relative gets regularly gouged for lifesaving medication, or maybe they themselves had a bad experience with the medical system. It's very easy for them to intuitively concoct a world where those drug companies buy a bunch of studies and trick the broader medical community to repeat it as gospel.
But nobody takes their concern seriously. People laugh them off because "Of course vaccines work you idiot. Who would ever question it?" and so they go looking for someone who won't just dismiss them out of hand. Who will listen to their concerns and actually speak to them rather than deliver talking points. And just who do they end up finding? The local Mom's group full of vaccine skeptics swearing up and down that vaccines are secretly dangerous. Random influencers pushing that same narrative. Official looking but bogus studies that support that narrative that the so-called "authority figures" dismiss just like those authority figures did to them.
You're not going to keep people from getting sucked down those pipelines by shaming them for being capable of falling for it to begin with.
First, I'm really struggling to see how saying that we're regular people like everyone else is virtue signaling.
Second, did you miss the part where I said "we're all closer to falling into these pipelines than we like to think"? How are you reading that much value judgement and dismissal in what I wrote?
You're quite openly condescending to view the world through the eyes of the "regular person", who you imagine to be a simpleton with a much more limited worldview than yours.
You are a regular person. So am I. So is my wife, and so are my relatives.
Acknowledging that you're a regular person like most other people is important for recognizing that it's not "people" who are susceptible to those traps, but you and everyone you know.
You're lowering your standards for other people. I'm recognizing that if I fell into that rabbit hole, it would be because of at least one failure of critical thinking.
I expect people to be generally informed and aware of the world, just like I am. It's not shaming to recognize that someone made a mistake or failed to live up to expectations. People make mistakes.
Do you think it's okay for people with access to every piece of information you have, who are just as intelligent and capable as you to fall into the antivax hole? If you made a critical error in judgement, would you want someone to tell you you made a mistake, or would you want them to argue that "it's okay, they didn't know any better, so it only makes sense that someone like that would do that? Poor things probably scared and confused"?
You're immediately ascribing malice and poor character to these people with no regard for how they got there. By which you signal your virtue at having not done that thing. You call it a "failure" when in reality more often than not people get radicalized by being vulnerable and being taken advantage of by bad actors. You pay lip service to the reach of propaganda and how easy it is to fall victim to saying things like "People make mistakes" in the same breath you call them failures. You overestimate your own ability to resist propaganda along with how much knowledge and information the "average person" has. People with knowledge on a subject consistently overestimate how common their knowledge is. Even when they try to account for it. It's such a well documented phenomenon that XKCD jokes about it. Do you honestly think that people living paycheck to paycheck, many of which work multiple jobs really have the time to do extensive research on a topic like vaccination?
You're still doing it by making a value judgment on my statement rather than taking it for what it actually is being a statement of how people get radicalized by these types of movements. Asking "if I think it's okay" for people to make that failure in judgment? I understand the fear of a new parent and how bad actors can twist that fear to evil ends. How do you expect to reach anyone if you won't make even the slightest bit of effort to understand them? I get it, why should you have to make the effort to understand anything? It's not your job to teach them.They're the ones that failed, so they need to "do better" and that's it. You're a good person. You didn't fail in critical thinking and tumble down the alt-right rabbit hole. You want to hold everyone else to a higher standard because it absolves you of responsibility. Bad things happen because other people failed. It's not your fault.
While I want to make the effort to make sure that people have the same information I do. Because I recognize that I cannot know what information they have access to. And wouldn't ya know it? This is exactly the same stuff the people who STUDY VACCINE SKEPTICISM say works best.
You're immediately ascribing malice and poor character to these people
Where are you seeing me ascribe malice or poor character? You thinking that having a failure or making a mistake makes someone a failure is projection on your part. I don't view making a mistake as a character flaw.
You overestimate your own ability to resist propaganda along with how much knowledge and information the "average person" has.
I don't even know what to do with this statement. How are you getting to that from what I said? Is it the part where I said the opposite?
I'm honestly taken aback that you're doubling down on "people are uneducated". You have a skewed view of the state of the average person. 5% of people work multiple jobs. You're condescending to view the average person as poorer, less educated and less able to become educated than they are.
People don't like being talked down to. Yes, I think if you become an antivaxer you've made a mistake. That's not a judgement on them, but on their beliefs. It has nothing to do with listening to them or how I might address their concerns. You're the one whose not really understanding people, because the people you're "understanding" are a caricature of what you believe antivax people to be like.
No, I don't think someone with two jobs working paycheck to paycheck and still underwater has time to research them. I don't think the level of knowledge I shared above (vaccines teach your immune system) requires that. I also don't think that most antivaxxers are in that position, and certainly the average person isn't.
How do you expect to reach anyone if you won't make even the slightest bit of effort to understand them?
What makes you think I think that? Do you think empathy precludes acknowledging a mistake? Or the other way around? I honestly don't understand the mindset you've expressed. Addressing mistakes is the heart of teaching someone. It's not an attack, or a value judgement, and it's not incompatible with understanding why the mistake was made. That understanding actually helps quite a bit.
You need to step back and think about why you perceive someone being described as making an error or having a failure of reasoning as a value judgement.
The entire premise of that article is how to effectively guide people towards getting vaccinated. The only reason you would do that would be if you thought it was a mistake to not get vaccinated.
Also...
It’s wrong to assume that people are ignorant, irrational or have naively swallowed online misinformation.
I agree with the article, and also that point. You don't need to talk down to the person expressing the concern. They have just as much agency and information access as we do. Everyone makes mistakes or gets something wrong.
It's not your job to teach them.They're the ones that failed, so they need to "do better" and that's it. You're a good person. You didn't fail in critical thinking and tumble down the alt-right rabbit hole. You want to hold everyone else to a higher standard because it absolves you of responsibility. Bad things happen because other people failed. It's not your fault.
That's a lot to unpack. What responsibilities do you think I'm trying to be absolved of? You seem to be implying that it's my job or responsibility to teach people about vaccines. I try when it comes up to advocate for them, but I'm not actually a public health professional, like I said before. My knowledge on the subject is superficially better at best. It's no more my job to teach them than it is theirs to teach me.
I'm not even sure what you're getting at with the "bad things", and "it's not my fault" part. That's a lot more mysterious backstory than I actually have.
Bloody hell you are exhausting. You're still doing it. You're "just pointing out that they made a mistake, not saying it is bad." But by making it solely "their mistake" you are pushing all of the responsibility off on them. I get that you don't want to "condescend" to people, but even if it's not your intent the clear implication of how you talk about this is that they are the problem. It's their fault for being ignorant of all the data. It's their fault for not doing the "bare minimum" to engage on the topic. They lacked the critical thinking to see through the propaganda. They could have easily answered their own questions if they just applied themselves. So what does it mean if they haven't? Oh but it's not a value judgment. Everyone makes mistakes. I mean, I didn't make this one. What does that say about you?
But I'm the one who is condescending? It's "condescending" to acknowledge the concerns that these people have because I don't assume they have all the information I do. They're smart, they know this stuff already. Or if they don't they could easily learn it. Well Bud if they knew it already, why would they be scared about it in the first place? Oh that's right. They failed to resist the propaganda. It couldn't possibly be anything else.
I'm not doing this anymore. You win. You're far more virtuous than I. You're the Best Leftist. Have a nice day.
Here's are my primary rebuttals to vaccine skeptics:
"Vaccines cause autism" - so you'd rather have a dead kid than an autistic one.
"Don't trust the science behind them" - then you probably shouldn't trust the science behind anaesthesia either.
"I have an immune system, I don't need a vaccine" - You have legs, you don't need a car.
"We did okay for thousands of years without them" - We as a species didn't spend the majority of our existence crammed into cities incubating disease. Even then, we had things like the plague which killed a third of Europe.
Those are good rebuttals. I'd even go further with the immune system one and say "You have feet, you don't need shoes". The vaccines just help your immune system out, they don't replace it
[Shocked Pikachu Face]