MrGrim wrote:How long do you think the studies of the over the counter medications or supplements you all take lasted? Just curious. Guarantee your taking something right now that is less studied and has more risks of side effects than the vaccines.
Two wrongs don't make one right. Yes, we're also eating all sorts of processed foods with ingredients that might be very bad for our health. That doesn't mean we should just stop caring and start injecting anything into our bodies just because.
If one honestly wants to understand the skepticism, and not just reinforce the idea that skeptics are idiots, then one must understand the lack of caution that the governments and health agencies are displaying in their communications and (now coercive) measures. You have a virus which is not entirely clear if it's natural or man made, so
that is the first pause. Anyone who claims to know it's definitely natural or man made is wrong. We just don't know one way or the other.
Then you have several rushed vaccines which skipped or sped over ordinary protocols, made by companies that were given complete freedom from liability should anything go wrong. T
hat should give us the second pause. One can think that's the only way to get the vaccines fast enough, but then we should ask ourselves what does that imply. And that implies that if the pharmaceutical companies financial wellbeing were at stake, they would take way more precautions to make sure they won't be facing massive repercussions. Well I just don't see how their financial wellbeing merits more precautions than the entire world's population wellbeing. The same precautions should be taken in both cases. If companies can't risk bankruptcy, then we can't transfer that risk into people's health.
Then there's what's happening with the alternative medications. From the start the media has ridiculed all alternative treatments that have been suggested, sometimes outright lying and willfully misinforming, like with the case of Ivermectin, by saying it's only a horse dewormer and not fit for human consumption. That's not only false, but it's also ignoring to report all the cases in which Ivermectin was succesfully used to treat covid, like in India and Argentina. We can discuss the specifics of the science and such, but there's no denying that the media, government and health agencies acted in bad faith.
That right there is a massive third pause.
Now think about all those factors keeping in mind that kids as young as 12 are targeted for vaccination, and that efforts are being made for the public to accept an even lower age. Reading this forum you can see some posters believe the next step if all else fails is mass vaccination of kids.
Beariing all this in mind, go and see how HARD governments (of law and thought) are oushing for the people to get vaccinated. It's no longer presented as a choice, but as a threat. If you don't get vaccinated you won't be able to work, simple as that. Try living in a society while not having a job. Just a hint, Covid will be the least of your problems...
If you take all this things into account and really think them through, analyze their implications and what it means, and you still think skeptic people are just plain dumb, then I really don't know what to say. We can discuss science and details ad nauseam, but the truth is that 99.99% of people are not remotely qualified to asses the information they're given and we have no choice but to trust "experts". The problem is we see "experts" from different agencies outright lie (like with Ivermectin) or get things wrong over and over while the narrative keeps changing to adapt to whatever the government's next step is. And on top of that, the "experts" that don't agree with the official narrative (which exist, and are also qualified in their fields) get marginalized and ridiculed.
If all this isn't enough for a person to become suspicious or at least exercise caution, then I don't know what is. Narratives keep changing (we needed 75% vaccinated, now that we're at or close to that number we need everyone it seems), people keep being divided and blamed for all the problems (the unvaxxed are already preemptively labelled as the cause for the new episodes that are yet to happen).
I'm not advocating for anyone to do anything they don't want to do. I'm not telling no one how to live their lives and how to behave with others. There's no "correct thinking" that I'm advocating for people to endorse. I'm just defending everyone's right to think for themselves and to decide for themselves. This is not about people taking a certain action that's affecting others, no matter which way you spin it. This is about people RESUMING their normal existance, which equates to INACTION.
If someone decides my inaction is dangerous to society, then it's up to society to exclude me or eliminate me. If that's what the
majority of society wants then so be it. We will have to either re-write our most fundamental laws or decide to ignore them all together. Either way we'll be opening the door to something quite unsavory.
All I'm asking is for everyone to understand where the skepticism comes from to see if we can all understand each other and avoid coming to segregation or direct confrontation, which, alas, benefits no one but those in power.