Anti Vax Demonstration outside South Stand

[salfordbluetrue]

You are asking us to accept that pre war campaigners in Germany who risked everything standing against the National Socialists compare with idiots who will not spend an hour at most getting a pain free jab. Yes it's a choice by both but you insult the those individuals who stood against the. Natzis.

Did pre-war campaigners know what they risked? yes my my comparison is an extreme but at least it is not fantasy.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

The conspiracy theorising that goes on with some anti-vaxxers is intriguing.

It reminds me a bit of the eschatological beliefs that can be found in some world faiths, namely, those that envisage the world as a cosmic battleground between the forces of good and evil. With the anti-vaxx movement, a shadowy global elite and big pharma appear to stand in for the powers of darkness.

I am additionally not persuaded by the anti-vaxxer claim that we are on a slippery slope that will culminate in the death of democracy and the institution of a new, authoritarian world order, for the simple reason that slippery slope arguments are not especially compelling anyway.

According to the sceptical author Michael Shermer, the slippery slope fallacy typically involves constructing a scenario in which one thing leads ultimately to an end so extreme that the first steps should never have been taken.

For example, ‘Eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream will cause you to put on weight. Putting on weight will make you overweight. Soon, you will weigh 350 pounds and die of heart disease. Eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream leads to death.’

Certainly eating ice cream may contribute to obesity, just as the introduction of rules to restrict the spread of Covid may temporarily curtail our freedoms, but the eventual consequences in each instance (physical death/the death of democracy) do not necessarily follow from the premise.

Lastly, twenty years ago Jon Ronson wrote a book about conspiracy theories called Them: Adventures With Extremists. In it the author looks at different examples, such as ones involving the Bilderberg group, David Icke's view that the world is being taken over by shape-shifting alien lizards, and the claim made by some Muslim radicals that the West has got it in for Islam.

At the end of the book - if I remember it rightly - Ronson concludes by suggesting that conspiracy theories help those who subscribe to them make sense of a world which might otherwise seem unstable, random, more than a little chaotic, and therefore threatening.

This seems plausible to me. With the anti-vaxxers, as with the examples mentioned in the previous paragraph, there sometimes is a factual component to the narrative that is latched onto and built upon. For example, isn't it occasional deaths from myocarditis/blood-clotting that have been highlighted when it comes to the vaccines?

But then this gets blown out of proportion. Of course, all treatments have a risk and, apparently, around 60% of deaths from allergic reactions are from medicines (often an antibiotic). Plus, anaesthesia is sometimes more dangerous than the surgery being undertaken. Nevertheless, this does not mean that antibiotics should be eschewed, nor should anaesthesia be avoided in surgery.

All in all then, where anti-vaxx beliefs get accompanied by a conspiracy theory, I do not find the content of the theory to be in any way convincing. Instead, it seems to me to be a classic case of people putting two and two together and making five.

For anyone wishing to look more deeply into this territory, in addition to Ronson's excellent book, I would recommend the following titles that are also highly readable and entertaining:

Will Storr Heretics: Adventures With the Enemies of Science
Michael Shermer Why People Believe Weird Things
Stephen Law Believing Bullshit

An amusing extract from Law's book (he is a philosopher) entitled 'The Strange Case of Dave: Dogs are Spies from Venus', can be found here:

The strange case of Dave

Dave believes dogs are spies from the planet Venus. He views any canine with great suspicion, for he believes they are here from Venus to do...

stephenlaw.blogspot.com

 

[Corky]

It reminds me a bit of the eschatological beliefs that can be found in some world faiths, namely, those that envisage the world as a cosmic battleground between the forces of good and evil. With the anti-vaxx movement, a shadowy global elite and big pharma appear to stand in for the powers of darkness.

War time propaganda in this country too, which has been fed down through generations now.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

well said

times have moved on since pits & wars so i dont see how we compare what is happening now to what happened then.

we are all intelligent, take time out and stop listening to the biased bbc and celebrities paid a fortune or a government that is embarrassing themselves in lies more and more. Do a little bit of research and dont take everything you hear in the media as gospel.

Just don’t research what 99% of anti-vaccers have researched by using disgraced cranks from the medical profession, misinformation, baseless information on Facebook and Twitter, unfounded claims and proven lies as their basis for their opinion and run with it like it actually means anything.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Just don’t research what 99% of anti-vaccers have researched by using disgraced cranks from the medical profession, misinformation, baseless information on Facebook and Twitter, unfounded claims and proven lies as their basis for their opinion and run with it like it actually means anything.

It doesn’t matter. They’re “enlightened”.

Debate is futile and will just frustrate you.

I gave up trying months ago.

 

[ZenHalfTimeCrock]

War time propaganda in this country too, which has been fed down through generations now.

To buttress their views, some anti-vaxxers think we should emulate the wartime generation, who stood up to an earlier form of tyranny.

But as someone pointed out in a comment I found online last week, if they had been alive then, the anti-vaxxers would actually be the ones demanding to keep their lights on during a Luftwaffe air raid.

 

[YaYa]

Have a really simple diagram as designed by Florence Nightingale back in the Crimea, to help you

the big gaps under the red and purple lines before you get to the other year lines, is quite easy to spot

Florence Nightingale Diagrams of Deaths in England & Wales | The Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine

www.cebm.net

plus the country isolating that was happening during autum/winter 2020… could have something to do with the lack of transmission of flu… as it’s passed on by airborne particles…. Damn those masks stopping it.

Thanks for posting that, fascinating to see it visually like that.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

The conspiracy theorising that goes on with some anti-vaxxers is intriguing.

It reminds me a bit of the eschatological beliefs that can be found in some world faiths, namely, those that envisage the world as a cosmic battleground between the forces of good and evil. With the anti-vaxx movement, a shadowy global elite and big pharma appear to stand in for the powers of darkness.

I am additionally not persuaded by the anti-vaxxer claim that we are on a slippery slope that will culminate in the death of democracy and the institution of a new, authoritarian world order, for the simple reason that slippery slope arguments are not especially compelling anyway.

According to the sceptical author Michael Shermer, the slippery slope fallacy typically involves constructing a scenario in which one thing leads ultimately to an end so extreme that the first steps should never have been taken.

For example, ‘Eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream will cause you to put on weight. Putting on weight will make you overweight. Soon, you will weigh 350 pounds and die of heart disease. Eating Ben & Jerry’s ice cream leads to death.’

Certainly eating ice cream may contribute to obesity, just as the introduction of rules to restrict the spread of Covid may temporarily curtail our freedoms, but the eventual consequences in each instance (physical death/the death of democracy) do not necessarily follow from the premise.

Lastly, twenty years ago Jon Ronson wrote a book about conspiracy theories called Them: Adventures With Extremists. In it the author looks at different examples, such as ones involving the Bilderberg group, David Icke's view that the world is being taken over by shape-shifting alien lizards, and the claim made by some Muslim radicals that the West has got it in for Islam.

At the end of the book - if I remember it rightly - Ronson concludes by suggesting that conspiracy theories help those who subscribe to them to make sense of a world which might otherwise seem unstable, random, more than a little chaotic, and therefore threatening.

This seems plausible to me. With the anti-vaxxers, as with the examples mentioned in the previous paragraph, there sometimes is a factual component to the narrative that is latched onto and built upon. For example, isn't it occasional deaths from myocarditis/blood-clotting that have been highlighted when it comes to the vaccines?

But then this gets blown out of proportion. Of course, all treatments have a risk and, apparently, around 60% of deaths from allergic reactions are from medicines (often an antibiotic). Plus, anaesthesia is sometimes more dangerous than the surgery being undertaken. Nevertheless, this does not mean that antibiotics should be eschewed, nor should anaesthesia be avoided in surgery.

All in all then, where anti-vaxx beliefs get accompanied by a conspiracy theory, I do not find the content of the theory to be in any way convincing. Instead, it seems to me to be a classic case of people putting two and two together and making five.

For anyone wishing to look more deeply into this territory, in addition to Ronson's excellent book, I would recommend the following titles that are also highly readable and entertaining:

Will Storr Heretics: Adventures With the Enemies of Science
Michael Shermer Why People Believe Weird Things
Stephen Law Believing Bullshit

An amusing extract from Law's book (he is a philosopher) entitled The Strange Case of Dave: Dogs are Spies from Venus, can be found here:

The strange case of Dave

Dave believes dogs are spies from the planet Venus. He views any canine with great suspicion, for he believes they are here from Venus to do...

stephenlaw.blogspot.com

Indeed.

There is higher risk of an adverse reaction to a shot anaesthetic at the dentist (1 in 10,000 chance of reaction) than there is to a Covid vaccine (1 in 450,000 chance of reaction).

Has anyone ever seen groups of people outside dentists demonstrating about anaesthetic injections or a load of social media experts all over Twitter and Facebook spreading conspiracy shit about dentists and what they really want with our teeth?

Has anyone who has refused the Covid vaccine on safety grounds ever refused an injection of anaesthetic at the dentist for the same reason? Do they march into the dentist and brave having their tooth pulled out or having root canal surgery with no pain-reducers at all? Or has it never even crossed their minds because it’s never been the flavour-of-the-month topic to get all hyped up about, I wonder?

 

[Big Joe Corrigan]

Indeed.

There is higher risk of an adverse reaction to a shot anaesthetic at the dentist (1 in 10,000 chance of reaction) than there is to a Covid vaccine (1 in 450,000 chance of reaction).

Has anyone ever seen groups of people outside dentists demonstrating about anaesthetic injections or a load of social media experts all over Twitter and Facebook spreading conspiracy shit about dentists and what they really want with our teeth?

Has anyone who has refused the Covid vaccine on safety grounds ever refused an injection of anaesthetic at the dentist for the same reason? Do they march into the dentist and brave having their tooth pulled out or having root canal surgery with no pain-reducers at all? Or has it never even crossed their minds because it’s never been the flavour-of-the-month topic to get all hyped up about, I wonder?

Jurgen Klopp likes this post.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

Jurgen Klopp likes this post.

Brilliant!