"Primitive" in your sentence codes for "evil", right? — Olivier5

Yes, I think you are evil. Even though I know, on some level, you are just a product of nature and nurture.

Likewise, you aversion towards classic moral categories such as good and evil is probably due to some mistake in your education, or perhaps some brain deficiency.

the need to "bash one's opponent on the snout." — tim wood

I'm all for vaccines, but this doesn't help either.

I think there is something like hazing going on with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and such. They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing.

Further insulting or attacking them will only make it worse. In my experience, the best way to convince someone who is on the fence not to take the vaccine is to try and shove it down their throats. People are very hesitant to accept sound arguments when they are delivered rudely or condescendingly. And much more hesitant if delivered by force.

If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with. — Tzeentch

Stop ostracizing people for exercising their inalienable right to free speech, it's ungentlemanly!

I think there is something like hazing going on with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and such. They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing. — khaled

You can play nice with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and the likes -- it's doable as long as you don't give a shit -- but they won't play nice with you, because they care. One cannot be rabidly anti-consensus without a little grievance. They don't just calmly review the consensus opinion to conclude "Hmm not sure I can agree with that". No, they have chosen their camp in what they see as one of the most important battle of mankind, and they attack the other camp aggressively, and anyone defending it. Because they care.

They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing. — khaled

In what way do you think pro-vaccers avoid this situation? Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong.

It's a good analysis of entrenched positions, but I don't see how it applies only to one side here, and if anything the pro-vaccers have a hell of a lot more to lose in admitting it if they ever felt they might actually have been wrong.

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it's doable as long as you don't give a shit -- but they won't play nice with you — Olivier5

I've had one conversation with one where I was the hostile one and they actually were pretty reasonable. He ended up citing me a post with 50 studies I haven't read. But in every other point we argued he admitted when he was wrong and was pretty reasonable. I haven't read those studies in depth, but I've skimmed them, and they were grasping at straws as far as I could tell.

They don't just calmly review the consensus opinion to conclude "Hmm not sure I can agree with that". No, they have chosen their camp in what they see as one of the most important battle of mankind, and they attack the other camp aggressively, and anyone defending it. Because they care. — Olivier5

Worth asking just what, exactly, they care about. I'll wager they do not know, and can only at best rant at any such question. — tim wood

It's hazing. They don't care about anything specific. But after paying the "price of admission" which consists of denying reality, there is no way they're leaving that camp.

Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong. — Isaac

That's not what I'm saying. To be pro-vax has no upfront cost. To be antivax has a huge upfront cost. It comes with ostracization and belittlement. After paying that, there is nowhere to go except further in the rabbit hole.

I'm not saying antivax people are antivax because if they're wrong there is a price to pay, I'm saying they're antivax because they already paid a huge price. It's hazing. Members that go through hazing to join a fraternity rarely ever leave, and will defend it with their dying breath. Otherwise that humiliation was for nothing.

then the rest of us either have to endure the effects of that stupidity - in a pandemic unnecessary sickness and death - or fight it. — tim wood

Or what I think is the best approach: Passive resistance.

Don't argue with them. Don't make a big deal about it. Just don't let people into your establishment if they're antivax.

People will commit to any ridiculous position in an online argument but once their livelihood is threatened, it's a whole different story. They make all these "arguments" but really, I think the main reason most antivax are antivax is laziness (and staggering irresponsibility). I bet you if McDonald's required you to be vaccinated to get food form there, the number of vaccinations in the US would skyrocket. A rational argument won't remove laziness or irresponsibility, creating an actual consequence will.

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Worth asking just what, exactly, they care about. — tim wood

And why. Like, why do some people spend such a large part of their life arguing that Pi is a rational number, or that perpetual movement ought to be possible, or that there's no such thing as climate change? What's the motivation? In my experience, and I have a lot of experience with dissenters, there is always at the start of it some sense of scandal, as perceived by them. What's the big scandal for CC? Maybe this idea that Western science and technology (a good thing, right?) are killing the world. What's the big scandal with the Holocaust? Maybe the very idea that them gooooood white folks, who invented civilization as we know it, could do such an awful thing, and that them baaaaaad Jews be presented as victims.

So what's the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? That ought to be the question.

So what the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? That's the question. — Olivier5

Problem, reaction, solution.
Its part of the plan to destroy the economy to make way for a new economy, usher in a fourth industrial revolution, and eventually a technocracy.

I'm sure you will be vehemently defensive of the elites plans every step of the way, up to and including when they want to microchip every man woman and child for our "safety"

And where have we got? The reasonable get vaccinated; it's the right thing to do for - as a practical matter - everyone. And there was a time when most folks in the US did the reasonable and right thing. But now the stupid hold sway with outrageous and absurd conspiracy theories and ideas. It's a call to battle. Sometimes the stakes are a joke in themselves and sometimes deadly serious. — tim wood

I don't even understand the issue that people, both people in government and folks on this site, are having at this point in time. The vaccine is readily available. Those of us who are not plagued by excessive suspicion or conspiracy theorism have been vaccinated (even those of us, like myself, who were never particularly worried about this bullshit virus in the first place), and have had our loved ones vaccinated. As for the rest of the population, what's the concern? They've made their decisions based upon their own irrational fears. If they catch it and die, or spread it to their own loved ones who die, well then... (gigantic shrug). Know what I mean? Just open everything up, and let all of these die. I do not consider this an inhumane stance. As for me, I'm fairly confident in the vaccine; if the girl was fine enough, I'd stick my tongue down her throat even if I was sure she had the virus. Of course, I think I had it before I was vaccinated, and it really "wasn't shit"...basically, a chest cold in my case.

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They've made their decisions. If the catch it and die, or spread it to their own loved ones who die, well then... (gigantic shrug) — Michael Zwingli

I agree with that. Vaccination must remains a choice and cannot be made mandatory for the general public. They can antivaccinate all they like, for what I care. Medical professionals are another matter.

is it not the case that the madness is controlled before treatment commences? — tim wood

My thinking is, you cannot treat the madness if you don't know the cause of the madness.

So what's the big scandal with COVID? Any idea? I note that AIDS had its fair share of dissenters too, so there could have been perhaps a similar "scandal" with AIDS, and I remember that it included the crazy idea that the HIV virus was fabricated (by the CIA, of course). So maybe the idea that new virulent diseases can appear or evolve naturally, as predicted by Darwinism, is the big "scandal" here? The idea that nature can change radically, evolve, and treat us as mere food. I don't know.

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a technocracy. — Yohan

Thanks for the clue. Yes, the fear of being dependent on labs and lab technicians for regular shots, that may protect you but also may affect you. Artificialization of life on a massive scale, moving to scary transhumanism. We're getting close to the core of the neurosis, I think.

On the basis of what (sound) argument? In the US children have to go to school and to go to school they have to have been vaccinated. — tim wood

That is true, in France and Italy as well, and COVID may be put on the list. And children do stay out of school if their parents don't want to vaccinate them for, say, measles. This said, the habeas corpus principle implies that you cannot force an adult to take a medical treatment that he doesn't want to take.

And given the realities of Covid, your "don't care" means you're good with your friends, family, even yourself getting possibly very sick, even dying - because some other people are stupid. — tim wood

Yes but you cannot control everything, and it's not all about me and my dear ones. People need to make a living, kids need to mingle, and people are allowed to be stupid... My family and friends are vaccinated. I trust that we all wash hands and wear masks as need be... To the degree that we might still catch the virus and get sick, it will be chalked up to shit that happens.

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I understand it as a law principle that says that your body is yours to decide about. I cannot decide to alter your body in any way, because it's yours not mine.

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I'm just not going to invite him at the barbecue, as simple as that. That is something I can control, but I cannot control my neighbors' medical treatments. I have to share society with people who disagree with me on many things.

given the realities of Covid, your "don't care" means you're good with your friends, family, even yourself getting possibly very sick, even dying — tim wood

But, Tim, this only pertains if you lack confidence in the vaccine. With as reasonable a man as you appear, all your loved ones should have their heads screwed on right, and so should be vaccinated already. As for the kookoos who think that someone might be putting mercury, or anything else harmful into the vaccine, they are writing their own script... Both you and I know that the only reason the Biden Administration appears to be having an existential crisis right now, is the consideration of "optics", they cannot politically be viewed as lacking concern for anybody. This is just typical political behavior.

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what makes you think your body cannot be altered against your will? — tim wood

Article L. 1111-4 of the French Public Health Code, which stipulates: “that no medical act and no treatment can be practiced without the free and informed consent of the person and this consent may be withdrawn at any moment.” And I trust a similar article must exist in Italian law because they always ask me to sign all sorts of consent forms.

I can materially stop anyone from entering my home. Unless the guy comes with loads of guns, he is not crashing my barbeque.