I'm listening to Schubert Fantasie for 4 hands now and it updated instantly. It's all classical music now. Much better than anime. But bloody fickle.

Dude, I read everything.

Edit: why else do you think I noticed dead links and links to non-peer reviewed papers? Because I didn't read it?

Already sounds more interesting than my current youtube feed.

Of course you are. You can't even muster the respect to actually read what's shared with you.

It's not about the conspiracy theory per se. It's that if I look at a video of Mario Brothers, the next video suggested will be about Mario Brothers II and Mario Kart. Or if I look at a cute cat, I get another cat or perhaps a dog. etc. etc. It's the "targeted offering of information based on a persons behaviour" that I want to prohibit. So if I look at a cat the next video offered could be a documentary of war crimes in Vietnam in the 1960s instead another cat.

How have I lost an argument if there are several studies with conflicting conclusions? I've looked into why they conflicted and gave you my view based upon my reading of them, including the ones you shared. You can playfully call that "study wars", In consider that getting informed. I'm not the one so entrenched in his own opinion that I refuse to actually read the papers.

You have to be very careful how to do this, because more censorship likely isn't the answer as likely many politicians aren't so inept as Trump, who hasn't been able to communicate so well as once off Twitter (as he of course has minimal leadership or organizational skills). It will likely just irritate people more. — ssu

How is this censorship? I'm just prohibiting Google from offering you another conspiracy theory video in Youtube just because you looked at one a second ago. You know, force people to get information how they did in the 90s.

What's tendentious is submitting papers and not reading or understanding them.

Are they? — AJJ

Yes. You're welcome to actually read the research and the caveats they offer if you don't believe me. This includes some of the stuff you shared by the way.

If these orders entail those things you say are “definitely effective” then why aren’t they associated with reduced mortality? — AJJ

If you have a country that goes from "open" to stay at home orders, such a lock down will be effective as the gatherings and limited movement will be a consequence of the stay at home order. If you have a country that already prohibits gatherings and with a lot of working remotely prior to the stay at home order, that stay at home order is not going to really help. This has been the case in most European countries.

That's why it's important to qualify what a "lock down" is.

Moreover, even with that caveat there are still papers that find a positive effect following stay at home orders so I'd say there's no definitive effect established but that's enough for me to assume it won't have a major effect.

I dived in a few of the different papers to get a better understanding of the different conclusions. So what does the research tell me? Comparing different papers it seems to have a lot to do with "what is a lock down?" and what previous measures were taken in a particular country. Definitely effective are: flight bans, prohibiting gatherings and limiting movement.

Not effective are: stay at home orders in and of themselves, unless they cause less gatherings and limit movement.

Often, stay at home orders were last, while gatherings were already prohibited and commute movements at a much lower rate due to working remotely. Those countries that could support the latter and had a high voluntary uptake for working at home and who had prohibitions against gatherings in place saw little to no benefit for stay at home orders. So in that situation, stay at home orders were (close to) ineffective.

To the extent stay at home orders were necessary to avoid gatherings and limiting movements, they were effective.

Finally, some of the data was skewed due to protests against lock down measures, resulting in (super) spreading events.

Anything in here you think you can agree with it?

If the US would be, as Kagan writes, "is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War", election technicalities aren't the answer. To do something about the polarization of politics is the problem. The political discourse is just spiraling out of control. It's like people are just waiting for the next clash to ensue. Who would want to join politics in this kind of political environment? Basically seeing part of the voting public as the problem won't help: it's a way to advance the polarization, encourage alienation and separation of the voting blocks. And naturally the right in the US has already for years has been on this path: the other side simply hasn't lousy policies, it's a mortal threat. And this drumbeat just continues. — ssu

I seriously think that large part of this problem can be solved by prohibiting any type of targeted advertisement, news, videos, links etc. and break the bubbles. I suspect that as a result most narratives will become more centrist, more "the average" etc. and people will be more readily confronted with opposing views, learn to deal with those views and talk about it with unlike minded individuals. You know, actually have a conversation with a neo-Marxist, paedophilic fascist or a right-wing, racist, dungeree-wearing-pitchfork-wielding, fascist only to find out those caricatures have nothing to do with who your fellow citizens are.

Pretty damning and in a way still missing the point. His solutions are still technocratic, a tweak here and there, but the problem seems now fundamental to me.

Probably had to do with my firewall settings at home because I managed to open the first now as well. It's also a trustworthy source so let's dive into that one shall we?

So what your original link did is not understand the paper. It quotes the paper thinking it supports the conclusions that lockdowns don't work: "“[F]ull lockdowns and wide-spread COVID-19 testing were not associated with reductions in the number of critical cases or overall mortality.”

But the same paper writes the following as well:

There are important limitations with our data, including the fact that
at or prior to May 1, 2020, many countries included in our dataset were
not yet in the “plateau” or downslope phase of their individual epidemiologic
curves, with border restrictions having been introduced only very
recently. In the context of COVID-19, it is thought that public health
interventions typically require from 2 to 3 weeks to affect outcomes,
hence the impact of widespread border restrictions may not have yet
been detected in our dataset. Additionally, the relative difference
in the number of cases in neighboring countries is likely to have a significant
impact on whether border closures are effective. Two countries
with similar epidemiologic curves and effective social distancing policies
may not see a major impact from border closures, whereas two countries
with very disparate epidemiologic curves may be more likely to
see a significant impact from travel restrictions. In the case of full lockdowns,
such a government policy may only be effective in those countries
where it can be easily implemented and enforced. For example, the
United States has had challenges enforcing lockdowns, with citizens in
several states publicly protesting public health measures to limit viral
transmission, and encouraging open revolt.

At the same time full lockdowns were significantly associated with increased patient recovery rates.

Here's the same journal with a more recent paper specifically looking into the effectiveness of lock-downs.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00315-1/fulltext

It's conclusion:

Lockdowns are an effective way of reducing the reproduction number of COVID-19 and controlling the spread of disease in local communities. However, there is no consensus on when governments should take this action. Here, we found that communities, which implemented the lockdown at or prior to the inflection point (defined as 7 days before the date on which at least 5 cumulative cases were first reported in the community) experienced a slower rise in COVID-19 rates over the first 50 days and a lower cumulative count consistently across all time points during follow-up compared with counties that implemented lockdowns after the inflection point (Fig. 1). In our models, the timing of the lockdown at the county level explained nearly 50% of the total in COVID-19 case counts across US counties, highlighting the importance of early lockdown implementation in controlling the pandemic at the county level.

you know what's annoying? People who just randomly link shit because it agrees with their view without actually reading them. So I dived in the footnotes of your "research".

First link, doesn't work.
Second link isn't peer reviewed even after a year.
Third link, doesn't work.
4th link, not peer reviewed after a year.
5th link, not peer reviewed after a year.
6th link, doesn't work.
7th link, not peer reviewed after a year.
8th link, not peer reviewed after a year.

I assume it doesn't get better and I have better things to do than follow all these rabbit holes.

All the pre-prints are old so probably data at the beginning of the pandemic wasn't very good allowing for differing interpretations.

If quarantaines work then obviously lock downs do too. It's really... Logical. If quarantaine of sick people works to avoid having a disease spread then effectively putting all family units in quarantaine works too. Lock downs were imposed during the plague as well.

Your inability to understand the research papers is noted as is your inability to share research papers that argue the opposite. I guess we're done?

I can say because the effects of lock downs in the Netherlands lead to reduced hospital admissions.

At a glance the studies you’ve shared are models/guesswork. — AJJ

Wrong. Try actually reading what they did. They tried to make models that fit the available data, which data shows lock downs worked. Which is useful for future reference for policy decisions. And they build a counter factual scenario for Sweden using actual data from other countries. But the underlying data is real.

Also note that you have not managed to submit information that's researched and peer reviewed. So my heuristic is to not spend time on reading it. Send a paper how lock downs don't work.

It’s also worth pointing out that infection numbers are a product how much testing you do. An alarming figure can be created out of thousands of people who test positive but who aren’t actually ill. — AJJ

Hospital admittance was and is real.

The histrionics surrounding and inspiring these measures have had their own consequences for peoples’ freedom, happiness, livelihoods and by extension their health. On this basis I don’t accept the choice not to participate in the parade is irrational. — AJJ

It's irrational not to reduce risk, just as it's irrational to eat crap when you know it's bad for you. Perfectly human but irrational nonetheless.

I also don’t accept that lockdowns are necessary; I believe we could have had normalised social rules (that included hand washing and taking care around the vulnerable) from the beginning without the consequences suspect characters like Neil Ferguson convinced so many of. — AJJ

You don't accept it because you believe what?

We had "1.5 meters, hand washing and taking care around the vulnerable, no more parties and congregations" in the Netherlands before we went into lock down because infections just kept rising exponentially and overwhelming the healthcare system. So much for lock downs not being necessary. Here's some research into the efficacy of lock downs.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0254403

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249732

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-82873-2

This is the typical response (not in a bad way, just useful to summarise). The common themes are

1. It doesn't matter how little the risk is reduced, it makes sense to reduce any risk that one can.
2. It's not about you it's about
2a - the hospital bed you might take up putting pressure on the health service, and
2b - the vulnerable others you might infect if you remain unvaccinated, and
2c - the return to normal that's being postponed by lack of vaccine uptake.

The counter arguments have already been presented, but

1. Low risk reduction means that only small preferences are sufficient to outweigh it, like coffee, bacon, sugar, skipping gym... Just not trusting (or even not liking) the corporations who produce these medicines is clearly in the same category of minor preference as coffee, bacon and gym avoidance. If you do trust the vaccine, then I admit a jab in the arm might be too small a preference, but it depends how much you hate jabs in the arms, it's down to personal preferences at this point. Taking a small increased risk for personal preference is quite normal behaviour. — Isaac

It is normal behaviour and I don't deny this - it is, however, irrational. One important difference as well is that many of the choices you give as an example do not also entail increased risks to others.

2a. The actual risk is relevant again here though, otherwise the same pressure would apply to a huge swathe of acceptable activities which increase your risk of needing a hospital bed. A moral imperative has to be at least vaguely consistent to have any normative force. Insisting that a very low risk of hospitalisation is reduced even further would apply to dozens of other activities normally considered acceptable. As with personal risk, a small increase in risk to others is still considered part of a normal social compromise made to allow a diversity of personal preferences, so the actual relative figures matter.

Every policy in the Netherlands was about flattening the curve including vaccination. And the problem is that small personal risks and small risks to others add up. If 25 year olds only die once in 125,000 years, then 125,000 of them not getting a vaccine means , with an R0 of .9 (currently in NL) over 1 million other people will be infected by them. That results in about 100,000 hospital admissions, 30,000 ICU admissions and around 200 deaths. With only 1500 ICU beds available you can see the problem.

What makes sense at the personal level doesn't necessarily translate in sensible approaches from a systemic point of view.

2b. The data on how vaccines might reduce transmission is limited and if they do reduce transmission it will vary by cohort. The transmission argument is often wheeled out alongside the symptom reduction argument as if to share in its authority - the two have very different degrees of confidence in their risk reduction. In any case, the person living in rural Wales with a small social group and good hygiene habits is extremely unlikely to have their rate of transmission reduced by any significant amount (and again, as above, there's no normative force behind the argument that all reduction in risk must be taken no matter how small, it's simply not a normal requirement).

The proof is more or less in the pudding that numbers escalate far less now than a year ago despite almost all rules having been relaxed in those countries where vaccination uptake has been significant. In the US there are clear differences at state levels as well.

Often ignored, but relevant to all these arguments is the fact that immunity drops over time after vaccination. The effects touted for the first 28 days can't be used to assume long-term risk reduction as we know for a fact they they drop off by four months and we don't have any robust data at all on how effective they are after that. Again, if you don't mind the vaccine, and trust the suppliers, then this is all irrelevant because you might as well reduce the risk if you can, but if you don't like the vaccine or don't trust the suppliers, then the risk reduction has to be considerably higher to outweigh the costs and we just don't have the data on that for the long term.

Granted.

2c. Again, scientific opinion is now largely that vaccination will not bring about an end to the pandemic. The UK's chief adviser recently called the idea "a myth". The sole focus is on preventing the health services from being overwhelmed whilst the virus slowly becomes endemic.

I don't think I argued for ending the pandemic but ending lock downs.

To meet this effect, it's only necessary that people at real risk of hospitalisation (or at real risk of spreading the virus to such people) take the vaccine. That's a very large majority of the population, particularly in America, but it's not everyone. Public health mandates have never tried to account for a minority to whom they don't apply as it waters down the message to very little gain (see 'potatoes are not a vegetable', and 'every unit of alcohol increases your chances of heart disease' as examples - both false, both aimed at a majority who would have taken the truth out of context and missed the important message), so using to public health messages as evidence to contradict this is not appropriate. A public health message is a tool, not a statement of fact.

Agree.

The public health message on this should be exactly as it is - take the vaccine, mask, distance, clean. But this is not a public health forum and we can afford a little more subtlety here, surely.

Yes.

What's curious though that you insist on making the riskier choice. If you have a risk of something happening for sure and you can cut that risk in half or even by ten, the decision is obvious. How about cutting a 25% risk by a factor 10? 10%? My point is that it's arbitrary to choose the higher risk just because you think the risks are low enough.

If you look at car accidents, there's only a 1 in 35,000 years risk of being in a fatal accident (in the UK). How about not wearing a seat belt then? You'll only die once every 17,500 years!

As with most vaccination it's not only about the person getting the vaccine which is how you continue to portray it. And it's, as I already said not just the hospitalisation, but also transmission (which thankfully the vaccine also had an effect on).

Finally, in addition to my previous points, it's also inconsiderate because while you might feel it's acceptable to accept the higher risk many of those around you don't. And these small risks, if a lot of people make the irrational choice, add up to significant risks for wider society.

Some of those people have compromised immune systems or can't get a vaccine for personal reasons and the likelihood of getting infected and transmitting it to another or being in a causal chain that results in an infection of someone who dies from it are high. After about a year, it's estimated that over 25% of Dutch people have had an infection. And that's "low" thanks to lock downs and other measures.

Thanks to vaccinations we can almost do everything we want again without restrictions but only because the uptake for the vaccine is sufficient. Without that, we'd still be in lock down. So, if enough people are anti vaxxers... then you cannot normalise social rules because too many people will get sick.

She's not in the statistics. https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales

But I'll grant you that one. The risk is still way lower, considering the number of vaccines given.

So my previous comment stands. A higher risk and inconsiderate.

Based on the UK ONS numbers that's an infinitely higher risk than dying of a vaccination since exactly zero people, regardless of age and BMI, have died of a Covid vaccination. So the risk of vaccination is lower, even for him, than contracting COVID.

And then there's the important other considerations like avoiding having to go to the hospital and take up healthcare resources others need (which is significantly more likely as dying from it) and diminishing spread thereby avoiding people who are weaker getting the vaccine.

He's free to think 1 in 500,000 is a low enough risk but it's an unnecessary risk and it's also inconsiderate with respect to the other considerations.

Can you do the same for the vaccine?

You said it was safe based on a claim some doctors had made. But on that basis I’m not willing to dismiss or downplay the accounts of injuries and deaths so easily. — AJJ

I explained why, I didn't say you should believe it because a doctor said it. But without explaining the causal mechanism between vaccination and injuries and death I really have nothing to go on, do I?

And side-effects certainly happen. Nobody has ever claimed this wasn't the case so that's not really a counter argument. What has been argued is that the risks of the vaccine outweigh the risk of contracting the virus. And even if vaccinations have caused deaths or severe injuries then that still doesn't tell us how those risks compare to the risks of contracting the virus.

Good to know, since I already had moral misgivings about getting booster shots when poorer countries can't vaccinate at all.

What works and what constitutes an argument are two different things. Persuasion obviously isn't all about arguments.

No, I've indicated my source of information was the explanation of a doctor. I haven't said it's safe because doctors say so. I've said it's safe based on my understanding of the mechanism of mRNA. mRNA is unstable and is broken down by the body within hours. Furthermore, the proteins the cells create in these cases are not toxic - although I can imagine theoretically you could have cells create venom through mRNA.

Nevertheless, people seem to also forget the technique has been around for 30 years. It started with treatment against cancer. So 30 years of testing available for mRNA drugs already exists.

So the mRNA itself is harmless - it only tells a cell to do something. The cell might create something that's unhealthy to us - in this case it creates a protein that only looks like a virus to our immune system. Our understanding of viruses is sufficient to know that no viral reproduction can occur without viral polymerase which needs another gene. If that gene isn't part of the mRNA what you're left with is harmless capsid.

https://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2020/04/02/whats-a-virus-anyway-part-1-the-bare-bones-basics/

Of course, I trust these sources but you don't have to. However, without alternative facts or explanations why the above descriptions are wrong I have no reason to believe otherwise. Your distrust of the source wouldn't be an argument though; I don't trust Fox News but that doesn't mean everything they say is false.

Give me an actual argument where you appeal to common decency without it being a rational argument.

My imagination must be failing me because this seems obvious to you but I cannot think of something still being an argument without it also following either a deductive or inductive structure. If that's absent I think you have a command or a statement but not an argument.

But the covid vaccines are not actually being made mandatory, in the actual legal sense of the word.

On principle, a medication that legally has the status of merely an experimental medication cannot be made mandatory. A medication has to pass a long vetting process before it can move up from being merely an experimental medication, and again there is a vetting process before it can be made mandatory by law. — baker

I'm not sure whether they are experimental. What makes you say that? They passed regular approval processes in the EU as far as I know; at an unprecedented speed sure, but their approval is legally no different than that for other vaccinations. mRNA vaccines are, as I understood from an explanation from doctors in the Netherlands, inherently safer than previous vaccines because the injected substance quickly decomposes in the body.

Or is it the case that in those countries, covid vaccinations are demanded by government decree (which is less than a law), or they found a roundabout way to enforce covid vaccinations? — baker

Decrees are laws too. Just because some authority has been delegated does not make it any less the law. Otherwise a policeman wouldn't have the authority to require you to stop, for instance. And while the US is inflicted with paralysis in its legislative body resulting from its polarised two-party system, there is definitely a worrying degree of "rule by decree". I guess that's what you get if you push a unitary theory of executive power for decades. It seems to me the GOP is quite happy with a tyrant as a President as long as its their tyrant. But all this is, I think, a different discussion than for this

You can distrust your negotiation partner because you have a trusted social world. Start with global social distrust and you will see that you are deprived of language entirely. This too is a lie, or might (as) well be. — unenlightened

Not what I have disagreed with though. Trust is irrational - that doesn't mean trust is indispensable to a functioning of society at large. My point is and has been that quite a few posters think they are offering an argument when in fact they are not offering one. If my heuristic results in a conclusion then that's all well and good but if it isn't shared by my interlocutor it means little to them. If I just repeat the heuristic rule "trust the scientific consensus" then it doesn't have any argumentative force. It's of course immediately persuasive to those that have the same heuristic.

So if you want to convince the other party, you need to understand their heuristic. If that's "I don't trust the government and big pharma" you'll have to figure out why. And when you have the why, you can perhaps explore whether that distrust is appropriate in this particular case, and if so whether that distrust, which avoids a certain risk, outweighs the risk of following up on that distrust. At the very least we'll have a conversation instead of how we're talking at cross purposes now.

I'm suggesting that it is a moral imperative. I'm suggesting that rationality cannot exist without trust. I'm suggesting that we are social beings before there can be any question of our being rational or irrational beings. I'm suggesting that reason is and ought to be only the slave of passion. — unenlightened

I disagree. There are plenty of situations where mutual trust is absent and we're still possible to navigate out of those situations. Almost every negotiation starts without trust. Your negotiation partner can lie about all sorts of things like pricing, lead times, capabilities, quality etc., and magically we still manage.

So I think you go too far, and not far enough. If trust isn't ever rational, then nothing is ever rational but what one sees with one's own eyes. Perhaps I can adapt Wittgenstein a little and suggest that distrust and trust are on a par, and equally need some, but not absolute, justification. There is, alas, good reason to distrust governments and medical companies, in the record of lies and bullshit that they have promulgated over the years. It is clear that the truth is not as high on their priorities list as their self-interest.

It should be. It comes down to this: if society does not value the truth it disintegrates. A century of moral nihilism has brought us here, to where the truth is simply unavailable, and talk has almost no value. Thus the thread does little but allow some emotional venting. If trust is irrational, then no one should rationally believe anything another says or posts, and we cannot talk at all. — unenlightened

The only thing I've argued for is that people understand that they are not being rational but employing a heuristic here on both sites. Hell, the assumption that we can trust each other is a heuristic itself. It works most of the time so it's fine until that trust is damaged. It's not rational to trust anyone but that doesn't mean it's a sensible starting point in most situations. That's why heuristics work but we shouldn't confuse the fact that they work with it being a rational decision making process.

And here we have two different heuristics resulting in opposing viewpoints with respect to vaccination: everything the government and Big pharma push cannot be trusted and we should trust the scientific consensus.

It's like interlocutors are arguing from within different paradigms. That the scientific consensus is that vaccination is safe is simply not a counterargument to "I don't trust the government". So people are speaking at cross purposes.

there isn't a need for one's arguments to be understood as rational anyway — Tzeentch

What's an argument that doesn't need to be understood rationally? How's that still an argument?

Indeed, because according to the constitutions of many countries, one's body is by default considered private and granted the right to exist. — baker

So bodily integrity is only a right that can be granted by governments? Interesting.

If you don't get caught, who can say that you didn't have the freedom to do those things? — baker

You're always free to break the law. But we generally agree it is opportunistic to do so as those breaking the law are only too happy to get all the protections a well organised state offers. This is why ndividuals generally cannot be the arbiter of law (only state sanctioned individuals, e.g. judges) even though there are extreme cases where norms ought to precede laws and therefore require civil disobedience.

In that respect I consider mandatory vaccinations for specific services/industries a curious hill to want to die on.

Do your own research before sticking crap into your body. — MondoR

I'm not immune to it myself especially with people I consider lost causes.

When making decisions about one's own body, there isn't a need for one's arguments to be understood as rational anyway. — Tzeentch

A non-rational argument is a contradiction in terms so I have no clue whatsoever what your point is.

Obviously decisions about your body need to be weighed against the interest of others if those decisions have consequences for others and once you reached a conclusion you'll have to argue for it. And your decisions can also have consequences. You're free to drink, but you don't get to drive. You're welcome to walk around naked, just not in public.

If a theory is predictive then it is presumed correct until it is falsified.
Scientists are trustworthy.
Therefore the theory is correct.

:chin:

Trust isn't rational at all. It's a rather obvious point really. I could be right 99 times, that's no reason at all to trust I'll be right the 100th time. Trusting scientific consensus generally works for a basis to make decisions but it's not a rational decision making process.

Edit: I'm not saying it's a bad heuristic and that you shouldn't employ it, I'm merely pointing out that it's not rational. And if you understand that, you can imagine that such a heuristic fundamentally cannot work fit someone who has general distrust. So repeating "but the scientific consensus" means absolutely nothing for those who think "but the government is evil". You trust the consensus, they distrust anything the government promotes. Nobody is talking about the same thing at that point.

Sure, we can say that these people are irrational, that they are jumping to conclusions, and so on. That they rely on the government too much, that they are even childish and "can't think for themselves". But right now, this is irrelevant. For these people, trust is the primary heuristic, and that's how they function. — baker

I totally agree that it makes little to no difference telling people they are irrational. I do think it helps, if you're intent on changing minds, to understand the "heuristic" isn't a rational decision making process. Rational arguments aren't going to convince many as is clear with respect to the entrenched positions even on a board like this where rational thinking is presumably above average.

And your plan takes too long for the issue at hand. And it's true for both sides in a way. Assuming pro-vaxxers are right, what's the best way to go about convincing anti-vaxxers? Assuming anti-vaxxers are right, what's the best way to go about convincing pro-vaxxers?

Pro-vaxxers have a heurestic too, where the most used one is "scientific consensus". Even that is posited as a rational decision making process but it really isn't. But since most people tend to agree with the fact it's a pretty good heurestic they don't get challenged on it.

A start to at least get a meaningful conversation going is that both sides realise they've not rationally arrived at their position, unless they're expert epidemiologists or virologists and some doctors, and stop assuming only the other is irrational.

A question could be, what makes a good heuristic decision making process and why? Maybe that can take the conversation further, I don't know.

The R-factor is much lower in Norway because it isn't densely populated. So a 68% vaccination rate is sufficient to reach that. Different regions require different approaches. 68% vaccination in rural areas in the Netherlands would be enough as well - not so much in Amsterdam.

As I tried to demonstrate with the Apple example, it's hardly rational to assume that because you had a bad experience with the government in one area that you will necessarily have a bad experience again and in particular in another area. Cause for concern? Sure. But so far I'm missing the evidence that Big Pharma and the government are lying and are untrustworthy with respect to the Covid vaccines.

There's different discussion to be had about the efficacy of policies in general and why Covid and not obesity and smoking and eating too much sugar and salt, etc. But those are still not reasons not to get a vaccination since the money has already been spend - your vaccine has been ordered.

Indeed, it isn't evidence, but it is cause for action, or in the case of those who don't get vaccinated, inaction. — baker

No, that's just a heuristic approach that you confuse with making a rational decision. There's an important difference. If I have bad experiences with Apple products, that's no reason to assume their next phone will be shit too. Those bad experiences are a reason to do proper research on the next phone whether the issues I had with previous versions are resolved or not. It's also doubtful my experience with their phones can be carried over to other product lines such as laptops and desktops.

Of course, I can also choose to categorically not but Apple products as a stand in for doing that research but that's not rational because it's quite possible their next phone is the one best suited to my needs.

Enough slapping each other on the backs. Get a private room. If you cannot unearth and empathise why anti-vaxxer believe what they do, you're never going to convince them otherwise. They're not irrational or stupid as much as you want to find a reason why you're not able to convince them otherwise.

It's not fundamentally irrational to distrust governments or the pharmaceutical companies. I think government action in respect of Covid has been pretty shit in general.

In the Netherlands, thanks to this site, I argued for a lock down about 2 weeks before they implemented nation wide restrictions. That means people who's job it was to understand pandemics should've known even earlier. I assume they did, since the writing was on the wall by then and most likely politicians didn't listen because "the economy".

And then this summer when cases per citizen were higher than surrounding countries, the experts advised not to fully open up and the Netherlands being the god-damn most populous country in Europe, they fucking caved on the political pressure from a vocal minority and fully opened up. Predictably, that didn't end well. They then failed to take responsibility for it, which pisses me off even more and we went into lock-down again.

Then there was the wishy-washy communication on masks, which could've been avoided if they had simply said: "Masks work, we just need to prioritise them for front line healthcare workers, so the sale of them are banned until such time as the supply of PEP for front line workers is guaranteed. We've set up a special task force to but PEP." Instead of suggesting they're not effective.

Governments make decisions based on a variety of different social, economic and political interests and as we have seen, saving human lives is not their primary interest in most cases. The economy, e.g. those people who can buy influence and vote for status quo parties, are almost always prioritised and regular people pay the price. Normally that's just about taxes, this time it's about lives, which makes it especially egregious.

So yeah, I get the distrust, I just don't think it translates into having to distrust vaccinations. There's no particular reasons to distrust vaccines other than general distrust of governments and big pharma and that simply isn't evidence.

I stand corrected?