To know what I am talking about, let me give you an example. I have this friend who went crazy over the vaccine issue. She’s done so much research into it that I feel like I can’t talk to her about her vaccine skepticism. Whenever I start to talk about something, she would drown me with a ton of articles and youtube videos and most of the times from the actual websites of UN health and stuff. It would have taken me a day to just go through that stuff. So I gave up on convincing her about vaccines. Might seem cruel but even I lost my certainty about vaccines after I met her. There’s just too much to know and I don’t completely trust the institutions either, but I do trust the institutions enough to vaccinate myself and my kids but not enough to you know, hold a debate about it with someone who has spent days researching this stuff.
You can take any topic which is divisive, which basically looms over the media all day and you can find a ton of articles to either support it or “debunk” it. I think 9/11 wasn’t caused by Bush, I am almost certain, but I won’t bet my house on it. I mean, this is almost a certainty, but yeah.
On other issues which are not this much of a certainty I fail to see how to convince a person who thinks something that they are wrong.
Stuff like earth is round or not, I can prove. But was the virus from Chinese market or from a lab, I can’t.
Have aliens visited earth? I don’t know. It would be wicked if we make first contact, but as awesome as this is, I am not motivated to search about this on the internet. I don’t think I would search anything about the not so cool topics of life. I don’t know enough to hold an informed debate about capitalism vs socialism or any other hot button issue for that moment.
What do you do in these situations?
I can sense that this is poorly written, but I hope you get the gist of what I am trying to say.
Since when are vaccines controversial? I’ve had tons of them in my life just like everybody else.
You must have been living under a rock for the last decade. Is there any more space available down there? 'Cause I’d love to live somewhere where I don’t have to hear antivax nonsense.
I meant in the sense that the earth being round is not controversial or that climate change is not controversial. I have met people who thought the earth was flat but that’s not serious to me.
If people bother you with their view then that’s just rude regardless of the view itself.
I also want in on this rock. Mine isn’t nearly big enough.
What’s the situation like for you? Is it a common belief where you are?
Climate change denial is too common here. Our third (nearly second) largest political party is neofascist and “sceptical” of climate change. Lot’s of conspiracy theories and “alternative truths” floating around in that demographic.
Well I should tell you that I meet plenty of people who think like that, but I just can’t take it seriously. Plenty of people are simply nuts.
There’s also lots of people who aren’t crazy but just haven’t learned to think critically. For example my neighbor makes mixed statements about climate change. It is clear he hasn’t talked with anybody about it or thought about it deeply on his own, but just parrots the sensational news he comes across. For example he states that when he was young he was virtually a vegetarian, and that everyone was back then, and that people eat more meat now. At the same time he states that the nr of cows hasn’t increased in the nl since 1950. Clearly something makes no sense but he just hasn’t spent time on it.
Personally I feel the best approach in such situations is to focus on solidarity, rather than on the actual issue.
So sure, it’s controversial in a certain sense, but I meant more like that it isn’t genuinely controversial.
Since a debunked scientist tied them to autism, if not before. At the time it seemed like many anti-vaxers were more “granola”, like the types who might avoid milk due to fear of hormones and think most doctors are paid by big pharma, than any specific political ideology.
It went into high gear with covid, and also became a part of right wing ideology for many people. The combination also pulled some people who were more progressive towards the right.
I think there was a mistake when there was never any good, public information about vaccine injuries, which are incredibly rare but can happen. Instead of an obviously worthwhile calculated risk they became a bogeyman.
Oh ya I met someone who mentioned the hormone milk thing to me. It really caught me off guard and I thought it was weird and he came across as rather condescending.
I know the vaccine I took had a small risk for heart problems, iirc the doctor even told me.