Cartuse wrote:lots
I actually have 0 problems with contrarians. I like it, even. The problem is there is good faith contrarianism, and bad faith. The majority is bad faith here, as you can see - the same things debunked every several pages, false claims about credentials, pushing debunked or unrepeatable studies, and saying things that are blatantly untrue.
From a skeptic standpoint, you'd see me these past months as someone in-line with the majority. Early on in this, February/March of 2020, I was on the other side, yelling about how masks were absolutely necessary, that these officials were downplaying the severity, hell - I got screamed at on the CA board about how more ventilators would make minimal difference because 4 out of 5 (in CA) people who started on a ventilator never came back. Contrarianism with data to back it up - and a willingness to pivot if data changes - isnt bad, it's the backbone of science, frankly
That said, of course its political. And you havent seen me on this thread smack away someone pushing for the vaccine with ignorance, because it just hasnt happened here. But it has happened elsewhere, because they, as youve surely seen, blindly and strongly push for something they don't understand either. Most politicians - I dont like hardly any of them, but I havent seen any acting too out of line, and their methods are typically pushed by scientific minds who are trying to minimize the efficacy of COVID. Politicians have to balance that out with social issues, which is an insanely thin line to walk, but that they are favoring science isn't bad. And just because they are in general scum-sucking lawyers who weren't good enough to open their own firms, doesn't mean that everything they do is bad.
But as I've said many times previously: if someone wants to be unvaccinated, I'm not even gonna debate that 1 on 1. They do have a choice, although it does limit access in other ways. But what I do have a problem with is trying to encourage others to do the same using bunk ass reasoning. When someone says that vaccines kill people more than COVID, or that we dont know the long-term effects of mRNA, or that the flu is more dangerous than COVID.. etc etc.. I'm going to aggressively correct that. Because that is someone who is willfully pushing false things.
As for being a skeptic, sure, anyone can. I'm obviously very skeptical about what the govt tells us after the mask thing early on. But after going through the data for a long time, I can outright promise you that there is no viable, evidence-based reason to be a skeptic right now, unless you've been 100% antivaxx from the start and refused to get all other vaccines as well - in which case.. not really worth the effort there. I'd be more than happy if this was a conspiracy and we could take all politicians down a few pegs. Its not the case. Getting vaccinated is the absolute smart thing to do, its the safest course of action, and its one of the pillars to ending this as soon as we possibly can. We have elongated the process numerous times by being anti-mask, anti-distancing, and now anti-vax, and its circular reasoning is "proving" that masks/distancing/vaxxes don't work.
So all that to say.. skeptics are not skeptical because of facts. They are skeptical because of faith at this point. And if there are skeptics who currently believe that they are skeptical because of facts, then they have not done enough earnest research. To me its that simple. And if they want to believe that, that's absolutely fine, but put that into a public forum and I hope its swiftly taken down every time. We dont need to convince more people to be skeptical on something that has undergone more scrutiny and disinformation than any medication in our lifetime.
And on a personal note, thank you for being one person on the opposite side who actually seems grounded in reality. It's a super rare thing unfortunately, and hopefully you'll get enough info to put yourself on the side of vaccines being much more positive than negative
: the ones who clip data, zoom in to get the answer they prefer, and present it as if its actual scientific theory.
