The problem is that questions about the vaccine are being labeled as anti-vaccine. Real data about the side effects of the vaccine constitutes science not anti-vax propaganda. It is distressing that supporters of informed consent are being lumped in with QAnon.
I'm starting to believe in the conspiracy theory that conspiracy theories are created by a conspiracy to make rational talking points easier to attack and silence. Rational dissidents can be easily silenced if they are connected to these propaganda movements.
When there's a flood of misinformation, then it's hard for anyone to get factual information out. It's a way to censor information by flooding it with adjacent misinformation to dilute and discredit the message.
"Truth decay" is the common term for this. Usually it's considered as an attack on expertise and authority, but associating a belief with a government conspiracy is no different than associating it with any other conspiracy. "Rational dissidents" is not redundant. Being a dissident doesn't make someone rational, and being conventional doesn't make someone irrational. All such assumptions or insinuations are forms of truth decay.
Are you making the argument that only people deemed credible should be able to discuss matters of science and the arbiters of credibility should be content moderators of a private company or worse the programmer of an algorithm? Respectfully, that sounds terrifying.
It’s a balance, but I personally do think so. You ever work for a boss who has no clue what they are doing but insist on micromanaging you, the person who is the subject matter expert?
What the web and social media has done is normalized everyone’s voice to 1. This is great for some things but not so great for issues where you truly need a subject matter expert. When an SME can be “refuted” by someone who not only knows less but also has incorrect and incomplete knowledge that’s a recipe for a dangerous situation.
Example: I don’t know nearly anything about water treatment plants. But literally nothing prevents me from starting a YouTube channel about how water treatment plans are insufficient and giving people recipes on how to use lead to kill bacteria in their drinking water. And let’s assume for the sake of the argument that I can sound quite convincing to those who don’t know me. Terrifying prospect, no?
I’m the before times the cost of publishing content was high and as a result only those who had something worthwhile to say were able to get their ideas out there. This all changed in the 1990s once the web “democratized” publication. But prior to that we somehow survived for millennia without everyone being able to express their uninformed or under informed opinion on technical matters.
I think having laypeople who don't understand what they are actually debating on engage in these unhelpful debates, rather than seek information from people who have put in the time required to be a domain expert, does a lot more net harm to society than good.
Imagine if people were so passionate about aircraft designs as they are vaccine delivery platforms. It's ridiculous when you lay it bare like this and replace vaccine with some other piece of uncontroversial technology. "I'm not flying in an airbus. I don't trust those engineers, and my cousin says there is weird radio signals that manipulate your mind and I trust that man with my life. Those engineers voted for Clinton" Nothing about the modern world would get done if we extended this unhelpful debateism to every piece of everything that requires a lot of hours of study to fully understand. We would be stuck in our tracks citing the same talking points everyone else in our cult of ignorance chants while bridges fail and crops go barren.
Yeah, and I think those threads are ridiculous personally, with all these people playing armchair engineer without access to any of boeing's data that an actual engineer would need to refer to in order to critically analyze a process.
No, I simply think that intelligence of a crowd is measured by the smartest person there, not the size of the crowd. YouTube gives equal voice to a subject matter expert as to any single one of 10,000 quacks. Given that it is a lot easier to be a quack than a SME, there will always be more quacks. As a result, when you see a crowd of 10,000 quacks arguing with a single SME, you might wrongly assume that the SME is wrong.
To me the solution is to not play the game: don’t get your opinions on matters that require a SME on YouTube. Or give the SME 10,001 the exposure than the quacks. Or teach science and critical thinking skills in public schools such that people are less likely to grow up such that they easily fall for bullshit sold to them by quacks.
Watching a discourse from 2 sides is not the same as having a discussion.
Besides (but not as much relevant), the idea that there are 2 sides for every issue and that they are both relevant (bothsideism?) is very wrong and usually harmful. "Bringing the 2 sides of an issue" is a common anti-information practice that hides that the issue has dozens or hundreds of different "sides", or that it's actually unanimous and the other side is morons and people with financial interest on you believing it.
The real data is that the common side effects are negligible and the serious side effects are exceedingly rare.
Over 6 billion doses have been administered since they were first given early this year. Even if you were waiting for the "guinea pigs" to experience side effects, that point has long passed. There is no massive die off. No massive set of complications. I work in a building where over 90% of the people have received two doses of Pfizer. In April. Everyone here has three arms, six toes, and a glorious horn, just like they're supposed to.
If you aren't convinced by now, you're not supporting "informed consent" you're conflating "being a contrarian" with "being concerned".
I agree with the sentiment, however it does not appear folks are putting actual science forward in their arguments. How do you rank people sticking spoons to their face and saying the vaccine magnetized them alongside serious discourse?
The "questions" that Tucker Carlson are not "questions" at all. "What if taking the vaccine turns you into a newt? I'm just asking questions here" (not an actual quote but along the lines of his questioning). People asking questions in good faith should definitely be discussed, it's the only way forward. People asking "questions" purely as a method to sow doubt and further their personal agenda is harmful.
> The problem is that questions about the vaccine are being labeled as anti-vaccine.
When is a question not a question? When - despite phrasing - it admits no possibility of a satisfactory answer. Then it is functionally a statement, and should be treated as such with associated burdens of proof etc.
> It is distressing that supporters of informed consent are being lumped in with QAnon.
And how is one supposed to tell the difference, when every outward appearance is the same?
