The stupidity of the anti-vaxx nutcases

[existentialist]

It's not about whether specific individuals know about specific events. It's about the fact that people have the subjective experience in modern society of feeling that they are objectivised commodities that have to look out for themselves. The idea of welfare taking care of you has been replaced by the idea of mindset and taking care of yourself. Collectivism has been replaced by individualism. People are bombarded with examples of how they can't trust authority, but have to assume it's corrupt and has ulterior motives. It's taken for granted that choice is king and freedom is the ultimate aspiration, so these need exercising at all times.

Not all these things are bad and I'm not setting out a manifesto here. But you can't subjectify people into feeling that they have to make personal choices about how to look after themselves at every stage of their lives and then be surprised when they make personal choices about how to look after themselves that are derived from the paranoid mindset that is fostered from having to make personal choices all the time.

Yes, I'd agree with that (and "liked" your subsequent post in which you made that point). I definitely think that we are reaping the unintended consequences of decades of treating people like commodities - I'm just not so sure that the very real actual "conspiracies" (which are more often cockup than conspiracy) really make that much difference. Like with Brexit, a lot of this stuff seems to me to be driven by a sense of powerlessness and inchoate rage at their situation, perceived or otherwise. Which is, of course, fertile ground for people to construct conspiracies around.

 

[kabbes]

Plenty of people make choices as individuals without succumbing to pathological paranoia. In fact most of them do.

This is a deliciously ironic response, as it takes for granted the same reified representation of free choice that underlies the paranoia in the first place. The fact that some people make good choices means that all bad choices can be firmly blamed on the individuals that make them.

 

[Shechemite]

U mention cults.

Think of the piss taking and ridicule and general hatred of scientology.

Sounds to me like an affective barrier to steer people away.

In those dreadfully illiberal states like Hungary and Russia they actively clamp down on Scientology. In our progressive western democracies the state goes out of its way to protect these goons from ‘persecution’.

roll on populism

 

[Shechemite]

And yes, cults and conspiracy peddlers don’t operate in a vacuum. They feed off very real injustices.

eg. Lots of people die suspiciously and unnecessarily in Essex Nhs. The government refuses to hold a statutory public enquiry. The ‘Citizens commission for human rights’ then exploits the grief and anger of the bereaved families.

Renewed call for Statutory Public Inquiry into Essex mental health services

When things go wrong in the mental health system, there’s a default setting used by psychiatrists – they blame the patient.

www.cchr.org.uk

 

[BigMoaner]

d[

This is a deliciously ironic response, as it takes for granted the same reified representation of free choice that underlies the paranoia in the first place. The fact that some people make good choices means that all bad choices can be firmly blamed on the individuals that make them.

This is a deliciously ironic response, as it takes for granted the same reified representation of free choice that underlies the paranoia in the first place. The fact that some people make good choices means that all bad choices can be firmly blamed on the individuals that make them.

I don't think people are saying that these choices being made about the vax and covid denial exist in a vacuum.

 

[NoXion]

This is a deliciously ironic response, as it takes for granted the same reified representation of free choice that underlies the paranoia in the first place. The fact that some people make good choices means that all bad choices can be firmly blamed on the individuals that make them.

What's your alternative then? Do individuals ever truly make choices at any point, or are we all just dumb meat robots responding mechanistically to inputs we have have no control over? Because I think this apparent desire to completely efface any notion of free will is ultimately disempowering. If we're all just slaves to social and environmental forces then we have no more agency than chess pieces.

 

[BigMoaner]

But it can become a kind of arguement for determinism where everything is just the product of everything else. In a sense we Are individuals, navigating the world. Individuals in a complex interrelated sphere, but individuals all the same.

 

[BigMoaner]

I would argue there is no chooser of choices, but that is a whole other philosophical mindfield. You can also go dowm the realism vs idealism route with it too (I. E. Does the mind exist in brains or brains exist in minds? )

 

[two sheds]

For me it's all down to the information people have (accepted as true). Once you go down that path of certain Youtube videos & conspiracy theorists then it's all logical steps to arrive at stupid decisions.

 

[BigMoaner]

What's your alternative then? Do individuals ever truly make choices at any point, or are we all just dumb meat robots responding mechanistically to inputs we have have no control over? Because I think this apparent desire to completely efface any notion of free will is ultimately disempowering. If we're all just slaves to social and environmental forces then we have no more agency than chess pieces.

Which we don't on a funddemantel level (you can't choose what your brain does next) but we don't operate on that level and never will. There is individuals, at least in appearance.

 

[BigMoaner]

There is ethical and moral issues massively at play here, too. Even forgetting the wider context in which these choices appear.

 

[BigMoaner]

What's your alternative then? Do individuals ever truly make choices at any point, or are we all just dumb meat robots responding mechanistically to inputs we have have no control over? Because I think this apparent desire to completely efface any notion of free will is ultimately disempowering. If we're all just slaves to social and environmental forces then we have no more agency than chess pieces.

When my kid misbehaves I just tell him not to worry as its just the wider context determining it.

 

[NoXion]

Which we don't on a funddemantel level (you can't choose what your brain does next) but we don't operate on that level and never will. There is individuals, at least in appearance.

I think as a society we should recognise both individual agency, as well as the fact that sometimes forces beyond our control can act upon us. Like, it's just as stupid for someone to excuse their shitty behaviour by saying "that's just the way I am" as it is to say that people who lose their homes to natural disasters should have made better choices and need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

With regards to paranoid conspiracy thinking in particular, there's loads of things that could be done on a societal level to address the issue without focusing on individuals. But I think if someone is using conspiracy shit to justify their own crappy behaviour, then that's on them too.

 

[BigMoaner]

I think as a society we should recognise both individual agency, as well as the fact that sometimes forces beyond our control can act upon us. Like, it's just as stupid for someone to excuse their shitty behaviour by saying "that's just the way I am" as it is to say that people who lose their homes to natural disasters should have made better choices and need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

With regards to paranoid conspiracy thinking in particular, there's loads of things that could be done on a societal level to address the issue without focusing on individuals. But I think if someone is using conspiracy shit to justify their own crappy behaviour, then that's on them too.

Yes it's a balance of both.

But there are no real fundamental answers to this stuff, free will vs determinism. People have tried for centuries.

 

[kabbes]

The point isn’t about whether there is any such thing as free will. The point is that if you actually want to reduce the harmful conspiratorial guff, you need to look at what are the contextual factors that bring it about and tackle those, not just call people idiots and hope that fixes it.

 

[BigMoaner]

The point isn’t about whether there is any such thing as free will. The point is that if you actually want to reduce the harmful conspiratorial guff, you need to look at what are the contextual factors that bring it about and tackle those, not just call people idiots and hope that fixes it.

I doubt anyone denies that

 

[existentialist]

The point isn’t about whether there is any such thing as free will. The point is that if you actually want to reduce the harmful conspiratorial guff, you need to look at what are the contextual factors that bring it about and tackle those, not just call people idiots and hope that fixes it.

Maybe a system of social isolation and lockdowns might be a good way of limiting the spread of covspiracy memes?

 

[two sheds]

Antivaxxers do seem to 'self isolate' either by either cutting people off who criticize them or by going so extreme that their friends/family cut them off. Scientology there's specific demands to isolate yourself from anyone who's critical of scientology.

Again criticizing them just pushes them back into it. Once you've given them the information you think they need, in a way you just have to hope they'll come out of it in their own time. When I came out there was an overwhelming sense of relief that I didn't have to do any of that any more.

 

[keybored]

Which each passing day I have more sympathy with regimes who impose Internet blackouts.

 

[Shechemite]

I doubt anyone denies that

thomas Szasz was all about ‘personal responsibility’. He also collaborated with Scientology. Libertarianism is grim

 

[existentialist]

Antivaxxers do seem to 'self isolate' either by either cutting people off who criticize them or by going so extreme that their friends/family cut them off. Scientology there's specific demands to isolate yourself from anyone who's critical of scientology.

Again criticizing them just pushes them back into it. Once you've given them the information you think they need, in a way you just have to hope they'll come out of it in their own time. When I came out there was an overwhelming sense of relief that I didn't have to do any of that any more.

A friend of mine, who seems to be quite profoundly influenced by a couple of relatives who are relentlessly pushing every flavour of conspiraloonery known to man (and, of course, seamlessly linking it all up together ) has at least started to preface his remarks with "I know you all think this is bollocks, but...". Which I am choosing to regard as a slightly encouraging sign. We don't call him an idiot, but we don't debate with him either. Just nod and smile - and it's that absence of a reaction which seems to be making the difference.

 

[existentialist]

Which each passing day I have more sympathy with regimes who impose Internet blackouts.

I know what you mean, but be careful what you wish for

 

[Sweet FA]

I doubt anyone denies that

Yet when a well-liked & respected old school poster tipped up, I didn't see much tackling of contextual factors (at the start anyway).

 

[scalyboy]

Needless to say David fucking Icke is pushing the vaccine shedding bollocks, I had to debunk that elsewhere, the other day.

Needless to say the linked Pfizer document doesn't back-up his claim, yet idiots are sharing Icke's bollocks anyway.

Maybe deterioration of attention span is a factor? I know my attention span and ability to concentrate has been worsened over the last 10-20 years by that internet and by the social medias.

If someone takes the trouble to check page 67 of that document they would see it does not support wild claims of ‘humanicide’ - but if they just take it on trust they might believe it.

I wouldn’t have bothered to read all 149 pages if I’m honest, it’s only cos the link directed me to a specific page that I read that.

Checking references and sources seems to be a dying art, the instantaneous news feed of online papers and Twitter doesn’t encourage lengthy discussion or slow digestion of a subject.

 

[BigMoaner]

Yet when a well-liked & respected old school poster tipped up, I didn't see much tackling of contextual factors (at the start anyway).

Maybe it was the contextual factors that resulted in that?

 

[BigMoaner]

Turtles all the way down

 

[existentialist]

Maybe deterioration of attention span is a factor? I know my attention span and ability to concentrate has been worsened over the last 10-20 years by that internet and by the social medias.

If someone takes the trouble to check page 67 of that document they would see it does not support wild claims of ‘humanicide’ - but if they just take it on trust they might believe it. Checking references and sources seems to be a dying art, the instantaneous news feed of online papers and Twitter doesn’t encourage lengthy discussion or slow digestion of a subject.

I'm always very dubious about the idea that <latest cultural phenomenon> has fundamentally changed the way people interact. We've seen it with text messaging, email, even the humble telephone was portrayed as an agent of chaotic change when it first appeared.

What social media has definitely done is to, ahem, "equalise" the voices. Before the Internet, mass communication was in the hands of a small number of well-financed corporations - news and broadcast media, largely. Now, any fool with an opinion can shout just as loudly, if often somewhat less articulately, which has meant that the conspiraloonery memes can spread more easily.

The answer, I think, is not for society to wring its hands at the newer phenomena and try to wish them away, but to evolve ways of countering and addressing them. Number one on my list would be teaching more people, earlier, about using their own critical thinking skills - the "meme" equivalent of vaccination. But that's not going to happen, not least because it means changing the way we educate people today in order to achieve a potential benefit a minimum of 10 years down the road.

 

[two sheds]

A friend of mine, who seems to be quite profoundly influenced by a couple of relatives who are relentlessly pushing every flavour of conspiraloonery known to man (and, of course, seamlessly linking it all up together ) has at least started to preface his remarks with "I know you all think this is bollocks, but...". Which I am choosing to regard as a slightly encouraging sign. We don't call him an idiot, but we don't debate with him either. Just nod and smile - and it's that absence of a reaction which seems to be making the difference.

|'ve a mate who's been in the moon-landing-was-a-con camp for over 30 years, we don't have much contact but when we do I just say "right" and seamlessly change the subject. I do feel sorry for his wife though, who's one of my all-time favourite people. She just rolls her eyes when he starts and has put up with it all that time.

 

[scalyboy]

The point is that if you actually want to reduce the harmful conspiratorial guff, you need to look at what are the contextual factors that bring it about and tackle those, not just call people idiots and hope that fixes it.

I tend to agree with this.
I did once ponder whether ridiculing the ‘truthers’ might be a useful tactic, but overall I feel - like others - that this just pushes them further into the cult.

Can’t speak for anyone else, but for me - on this thread and elsewhere - my ridicule and mockery of ‘freethinkers’ isn’t done in the hope of changing their opinions, but is instead a way of letting off steam in a supportive environment! The idea that other Urbanz also feel exasperated, angry & despairing has been helpful to me in a world that seems to have gone bananas.

 

[cupid_stunt]

If someone takes the trouble to check page 67 of that document they would see it does not support wild claims of ‘humanicide’ - but if they just take it on trust they might believe it.

I wouldn’t have bothered to read all 149 pages if I’m honest, it’s only cos the link directed me to a specific page that I read that.

Checking references and sources seems to be a dying art, the instantaneous news feed of online papers and Twitter doesn’t encourage lengthy discussion or slow digestion of a subject.

I agree, that was a direct quote from Icke's site, he included the link & page number, not me, but these fools don't bother to follow the link & read it, or don't understand what they are reading, and just spread the bollocks instead.