The fact that vaccines have become politicized is testament to how off the rails things have gone. There's other subjects too, but vaccines had bipartisan support until recently.
This shifts the blame away from where it ultimately lies. Being right politically has always meant anti-intellectual. The act of using scientific evidence to support a position in and of itself gives them justification to fight it.
This is victim blaming. I do not mock or humiliate the uninformed, but we cannot meet in the middle to coddle malicious ignorance.
I didn't make any statements about the left, but in what way?
And anything the left does that is viewed as science denial doesn't change anything about the right. If what you are saying is true, that means that both parties can orbit around their willful ignorance.
> This shifts the blame away from where it ultimately lies.
Do you state this as an objective fact regarding causality, or are you more so describing the norms of the (sub-)culture you were raised in, perhaps without serious scrutiny?
If the former, then I would expect there to be some sort of a widely agreed upon proof you could link to.
> Being right politically has always meant anti-intellectual.
Are you genuinely serious when you say this?
> This is victim blaming. I do not mock or humiliate the uninformed, but we cannot meet in the middle to coddle malicious ignorance.
You overlook nothing?
And if I happen to know you are overlooking something, does it follow that me being rude to you necessarily has no negative consequences?
To what degree should death be taken seriously? Seriously enough that everyone should question their faith, or only some people (coincidentally...)?
If you keep posting these cross-examination style comments, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, but we've already asked you several times.
If someone can't follow the scientific method, it isn't on the person who can to validate the opposing parties broken worldview. Discussion should be science vs science, let the truth win. Not feelings, emotions and ungrounded theories vs science.
Your style might be better suited to a lesswrong forum.
I think this might be one of those cases where how it is is a function of how you look at it, or the respective perspectives each of us is taking on the situation.
The perspective I am taking is that while it is clearly sub-optimal that a non-trivial percentage of the population "has issues" with taking vaccines, it is also sub-optimal to not think strategically about how to act when one finds oneself trapped in an environment (Planet Earth) with such people. I don't disagree at all that something is "on" anti-vaxxers to educate themselves about vaccines, but understanding the metaphysics of how to respond to such people, and the consequences of one's response, is also "on" everyone. You may not like the emotions of the people in your outgroup, but don't forget that some people do not like your and your ingroups emotions either - like many things, it is a two way street, even though it seems otherwise.
> Discussion should be science vs science, let the truth win. unfortunately a 2 way street.
I am not a fan of artificially constraining methodologies, or relevant causal variables - generally speaking, science does not take phenomenology into consideration when considering vaccines, whereas (proper) philosophy would take science and everything else causally relevant into consideration. I strongly oppose those who insist on suboptimal thinking methodologies (as you strongly oppose those who you believe are acting suboptimally), especially when it is enforced.
> Your style might be better suited to a lesswrong forum.
It might also be more suited to optimizing interactions between not entirely rational humans of all psychological tribes. I think dialogue and (attempts at) understanding are more suited than presumption and antagonism. I can acknowledge that it is plausible that I am wrong on this, but I suspect I am not - as you say: "let the truth win".
Here is something that I believe is very interesting and relevant: I propose that if abstract instances of such topics come up (say, a psychology study on logical fallacies, interpersonal communication, etc), most commenters on HN tend to align more with my take here, but when controversial, object level instances arise, people tend to act otherwise.
I'm not suggesting "live and let live", I am suggesting we approach the topic seriously - and if one is serious, one takes into consideration causality (that which causes things to happen as they do, which is sometimes other than how it seems).
Everyone likes to privilege their ingroup's form of unseriousness, but that doesn't make the consequences vanish.
