this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Confidently Incorrect
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When people are way too smug about their wrong answer.
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I just don't bother TBH. Same with all these alt-right type people who keep trying to start pointless arguments online, I just ignore them. You can't combat nonsense with facts, they're not going to learn anything or change their views, I'm certainly not going to come around to whatever they're peddling, all they want to do is get their little dopamine hit by blasting bullshit at me until I give up because they think that's what winning is. It's a waste of time and energy as far as I'm concerned.
There are times when it’s useful to engage these people, though never for the purpose of convincing them. Sometimes, there’s an opportunity to provide a counterpoint for anyone who hasn’t yet been sucked into crazy-town, to help keep them away from that path.
I like to put it that “science education isn’t a cure, it’s a vaccine”; you can’t realistically change the mind of someone (especially of a stranger) who’s already bought in to a mindset like this; but in some cases, you can help prevent it from spreading.
That said, if you’re not particularly good at e.g. public speaking, or science outreach, or whatever, you can end up playing into a troll’s hands (assuming you’re interacting with an intentional troll and not just a deluded person). So it can be tricky, and personally I’m not very good at it.
While I mostly agree on the topic of fascists, with anti-vaxers just ignoring them basically means leaving them to die and potentially take a bunch of people with them, which seems rather cruel.
Even with fascists it boils down to hoping that whoever else they encounter is sufficiently immunised to not fall for their bullshit. Also less than ideal.
Well ideally they'd be the only ones to die, does solve the issue - and respects their wishes, they wanted that.
So I guess we just need to find ways to vaccinate the rest of us to such a degree that the idiots opting to die can't affect us. 🤔
Herd immunity, yes. And that's exactly why those page enthusiasts are so dangerous with their disinformation.
what's the alternative? if somebody can't be reasoned with should we just force-vaccinate them? then you're just providing them with much needed conspiracy confirmation from their perspective. if they're so far down the antivaccine rabbit hole, best thing to do is distance yourself (physically, too) and let nature play out. no sense trying to save them who don't want to be saved.
propaganda (where I am including fascists now) is also tricky due to the built in failsafe that 'if they disagree with us, we are right, there's the proof'. how do you even combat that? with vaccines, fence-sitters might be swayed by the potential risk to health if they don't take it and some survival instinct may kick in, but propaganda is free to take up with almost no risk to immediate survival.
We may not be allowed to forcibly vaccinate people, but I'd argue we could quarantine them. If someone has a history of attacking people we lock them away to protect the majority.
If someone refuses to get vaccinated without compelling medical reason, thus deliberately increasing their risk of an infection, and don't wear PPE, thus deliberately increasing the risk they pose to those around them, that is a very similar situation, albeit with less violence.
The failsafe in fascist reasoning only works if you have no understanding of logic, which obviously they don't. But yeah, it's like playing chess with a pigeon.