Some stuff to help in the fight -
ETFix:
See @RickMycroft ’ s posts. I managed to pull the wrong one. Sorry 'bout that.
7 Likes
I think you chose to misread my post in a very weird way. What I said, quite straightforwardly, is that we as Americans vote for people to represent us in government, and if they don’t do their job, we can then vote to replace them. Anything else you’re getting out of that, i.e. ‘magical thinking’ or whatever malarky, is entirely out of your own head.
1 Like
I think you might have the wrong version of that second video.
1 Like
I can only hope it’ll thin the herd. Arizona is one of the strangest places in America. Here we have a chunk of the country that’s basically the Outback: inhospitable desert country with daytime temperatures up to 120F, but sometime in the 1960s, some entrepreneurs bought up big chunks of super cheap land and marketed it as an ideal retirement community. Big subdivisions opened up for snowbirds and people wanting to buy big, cheap McMansions with industrial-strength air conditioning. So now you have a state that’s partially Latinx, partially Native, and the rest are old racist retirees and grumpy, angry white people who have to literally hide inside to avoid the sun for a chunk of the year.
1 Like
Don’t let the title of the video fool you. Its a very strong case for vaccinations.
1 Like
It’s the Penn & Teller video intercut with antivax “proof” that vaccines don’t work. Check that channel’s other videos.
eta: This is the real one.
4 Likes
Two problems with this. One, stupidity isn’t hereditary, and the parents who buy this load of malarkey aren’t the ones at risk. Two, poor herd immunity endangers children too young to have had certain vaccinations on their schedule even if they’re parents are vaccinating them, the elderly who’s immune systems tend to be weaker, the chronically immuno-compramised, and the temporarily immuno-compramised from serious illness such as cancer patients. In short, the kids of the anti-vaxxers, who to be clear don’t deserve to be thinned from the herd either, are only the most immediately at risk.
On top of that, epidemics and pandemics have numerous secondary social effects beyond the spread of disease, including but not limited to secondary or opportunistic diseases, job loss for the working poor, healthcare debt, psychological trauma, and the depletion or overwhelming of available medical services.
2 Likes
Just to be clear: I wasn’t honestly suggesting that I was hoping for a localized epidemic or the deaths of the families of anti-vaxxers. Besides being facetious, I’m also hoping that this sort of idiocy will encourage the smart Arizonans I know (and who are my family) to leave the place for the racist retirees who don’t mind a life confined to their air-conditioned cocoons.
1 Like
Fair enough. Part of why the whole anti-vax movement frustrates me is that I know several genuinely good and reasonably smart people who’ve bought into this. It’s like having friends who are in a fucking cult.
1 Like
California, West Virginia and Mississippi require vaccinations but every other state allows exemptions?
C’mon… America.
Not to mention populations fleeing the affected areas, which serves to spread pandemics beyond the geographic boundaries of the offending policies. Diseases have absolutely no history of respecting human-defined borders.
2 Likes
Refugee crises from climate change and anti-vax caused diseases resurgence are a perfect storm of human suffering. Which is ironic since the anti-vaxxers I know are also ardent supports of climate change activism.
I have this nauseating feeling that most anti-vaxxers will blame “superbugs” when their chickens come home to roost.
4 Likes
In other some countries, the most virulent antivaxxers are religious fundamentalists. Boko Haram and Taliban are hardcore against vaccination, considering it a Western plot to sterilize Muslim boys. Hence polio resurgence in areas under their control. In others, it is more of a political thing, as in Italy with the 5 Star movement. What they all have in common with our own brand is an utter rejection and contempt for scientific method and evidence. Hard to reach someone when the core of their belief is that the very method you use to determine what is true is not trustworthy.
4 Likes
The anti-vax movement in the US seems to be one of the few issues that’s not particularly partisan. But it’s certainly anti-science. That said, the anti-vaxxers I know in the US and parts of Africa aren’t intentionally ant-science, but they’re leftward parents with a pernicious distaste for “Western medicine”. And I’m all for skepticism of colonialism and for not dismissing traditional non-Western medicine, but that bias has lured a lot of people to buy into the bullshit peddled by these charlatans and everyone’s expense and health.
1 Like
Intentionally or no, the effect is the same. I am a pediatrician and the number of patients who “do their own research” and choose to rely on their chiropractor to “boost their immunity” instead of vaccinating, or who have bought into the “pharma shill” argument to disregard any actual sciency information is truly distressing. BTW, I truly hope you do not equate science with colonialism. One is evil and unforgivable, the other is responsible for most of our advances in the last couple centuries.
4 Likes
I hope not! I’m a physicist.
But I see how some people who aren’t as scientifically literate have been dupped by these charlatans. Not being a medical doctor or biologist, I find some of the science confusing. The main difference is that I know enough about the scientific method and how peer-review works to recognize people trying to sell me snake oil. Tragically, the anti-intellectual trends in the West have inveigled their way into otherwise smart people who don’t think of themselves as anti-intellectual, but have invested a lot of their worldview in the damage anti-intellectualism has wrought.
6 Likes
It’s not partisan, but it does tend towards the fringes on either side: lefty Goop-ish moms on one side who think they’re being intellectual by eschewing “big pharma” in favor of oil infusions, herbal tinctures, and good vibes… and far-right Infowars types on the other side who are more conspiracy-theory-minded and think the gubment is poisoning our kids, etc.
9 Likes
The only answer to that is: YES
1 Like
I’m pretty sure that’s evidence we’re in some alternate timeline. (If the current state of US politics didn’t already lead to this conclusion.)
Quick! Does Spock have a goatee?
