After going back and forth and giving Claire's article some thought something I feel that needs to be pointed out is long before social media say pre 2007 large elements of the mainstream media frequently trafficked in anti-vaccine propaganda. Does anyone remember the Don Imus show on MSNBC? And Don Imus was far from the only one. Yet today MSNBC and NBC News are considered the flagship of the anti Trump resistance with hero-worshipping of the likes of Stephanie Ruhl, Nicole Wallace, Rachel Maddow, and Larry O'Donnell yet it was NBC that was largely responsible for rehabilitating Donald Trump's image as a failed businessperson in the years between 2000 and 2010. In fact the same exact individual NBC executives promoted Donald Trump's Apprentice TV show, allowed Don Imus to spout anti-vaccer theories on air and going further back covered up the sexual misconduct of Bill Cosby in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Thanks for pointing out a pretty interesting lack of coordination, even within the same organization. It sort of reminds me how Fox News and Fox seem to be pulling on opposite ends of the cultural rope. It's almost like it's all about profit motives...
Fox News and the Fox TV Network are almost completely separate companies based in two different cities. Fox News is almost entirely based in NYC while the Fox TV Network is almost entirely based in Los Angeles(unlike the other three networks that have a mix of offices in NYC and LA). In fact the Fox TV Network building and office in NYC is located in a completely different part of the city from Fox News(in the WNYW building on the Upper East Side).
However, more specifically on Don Imus and his anti vaccine views Imus was at least nominally under the banner of NBC News and MSNBC unlike say Trump's Apprentice show. Imus had many politicians, academics and other journalists on his show who continue to appear on MSNBC in seem cases during the exact same timeslot that Imus had(during the "Morning Joe" show with former FL Congressman Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski). When Imus was fired in 2007 basically Morning Joe inherited his guest roll and has kept it ever since.
Claire, you are uncommonly brave for continuing to dissect this (waves hands around in the air) in such a logical and rational manner. Thank you.
Here in Switzerland, my head exploded again yesterday at this front-page headline in the "NZZ am Sonntag" (initially welcomed as a Sunday dose of the excellent Neue Zürcher Zeitung, but sadly gone the way of the Sunday tabloid): "Not many teenagers want to get vaccinated against Corona" with the helpful subhead pointing out "Less than 10% of 12- to 15-year-olds have registered for a vaccination so far."
Well. The federal authorities approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for the 12-15 age group on June 4. The Moderna vaccine is not approved for under-16. These are the two vaccines in use in Switzerland (A third, Johnson&Johnson, was approved, but Switzerland didn't order or buy any of that one.) It was another 10 days to two weeks before the cantons managed to update their registration platforms to allow people under 16 to be registered. I know this because I live with a 14-year-old who is at least impatient as I am.
Nowhere in this piece of hard-hitting journalism is it mentioned that 12- to 15-year-olds are highly unlikely to register themselves for a vaccine appointment. Since when do 12- to 15-year-olds act autonomously and take their own decisions? Not even in this direct democratic paradise of individual responsibility is that possible. The selected vaccine centers are not easy to reach, and several cantons explicitly require under-16s to have written permission from a parent or guardian. No, it is instead posited that those young folk don't find it necessary since infection numbers are low and restrictions are being relaxed.
Sigh. It's the parents. They are too busy to bother, since it's now summer vacation and the kids have to be kept busy somehow. Or, see above, numbers are low, etc. Or– another wild theory put forth by the so-called NZZaS journalist– it's not clear whether the federal government really recommends the vaccine for all 12-15s or only those with a chronic illness. Or, what I most fear, the response I have heard from many (vaccinated) friends and acquaintances: "No way am I letting my child get that stuff injected!"
It's all so tiresome, and tiring. Frankly I am more worried about the potential effects of Long Covid than the potential long-term side effects of a vaccine. My 14-year-old is, physically, closer to adulthood than childhood. Why would you not want to afford your child the same protection that you have? And why is the allegedly "liberal intellectual" media in German-speaking Switzerland writing such rubbish? (yes, I've asked, and wait eagerly for a reply)
I registered the manboy in two cantons, since we live on a border, and apparently a new shipment of Pfizer dropped last weekend because we were offered appointments in both venues. He's getting his first shot tomorrow and is relieved that he is catching up with his American cousins. Whom we will be able to visit again one day, maybe soon.
There's a very strange thing I've noticed where the vast majority of arguments come down to self-concern. I can imagine the dials regarding self interested being tuned when deciding to be vaccinated, based on age. But why are conversations about protecting others so few and far between?
Put simply, I do not want to kill my mother through my inaction. How many elderly people do I have to endanger (by my estimates, I could on average expose 4-8 senior citizens before my symptoms showed up) before this question is no longer about unknowns and minor reactions or even rare major reactions, and instead we're asking: "What kind of risk am I willing to assume to protect the lives of others?"
I have no children, so I can't confidently say these conversations aren't happening. Perhaps they're just happening in circles where I'm blissfully absent. Is this the sort of thing you're hearing in your circles? Are teenagers actually weighing these questions before making decisions? I kind of like the idea of teens taking the responsibility on themselves and getting the shot regardless of parental wishes, but I had a rebellious streak at that age that I encourage in others. Thank you.
The Kinderspital was doing a brisk business in Pfizer when we went this evening. There were a couple boys / girls who were unaccompanied, and looked to be on the upper end of the age range (15 and some); the rest had a parental-looking person. One can't tell age by looking at 12- to 15-year-olds. Some had definitely not been kissed by the dark angel of puberty yet; others, including mine, towered over their accompanying adult.
Boy and I had plenty of time for conversation enroute, during which I learned the following. He is not the only one in his class getting the vax, but estimated that less than half of the eighth-graders had signed up (so, maybe 10 of 25 kids?). But they don't discuss among themselves the 'why.'
Of course, I pushed. Boy pointed out that he is the last one in our German-American-Swiss extended family to be vaccinated, so it's not like he's protecting anyone in the family especially.
After a few non-committal shrugs, he said 'for me, it just seems like the right thing to do.' As a parent, I'll happily take that as a sign of greater social responsibility.
Matt: I agree with you on the rebellious streak! But in this horrid newspaper article that got me so worked up at the weekend, there were mentions of (anti-vax) parents threatening to sue their family doctors if teenaged kids were vaxed at their own request. Shudder.
I know. It's astonishing. There's a significant portion of the public that's either genuinely antisocial or unreachably stupid. I had not realized this before. I thought this might be about 2-4 percent of the people I pass every day on the street; it hadn't occurred to me it might be as high as 30-40 percent.
I'm sure some portion of the country fits those two categories. I hope your estimates are driven by a temporary despair, and we can appeal to the rest of the crowd.
I had a strange encounter with a friend in college. Students were complaining (of course) about some American cultural issue of the day, and my friend rebutted in confidence to me, "If you don't like it, get out." I didn't particularly sympathize with the student protest, but all the same I was repelled by the idea of relying on emigration as a means of consensus building, so I gave what was probably a rather flimsy defense of assembly, protest, and republics. It was like a broke a spell over him, and he immediately abandoned the position.
Some part of this crowd, in fact I sincerely hope it's a majority, is doing it because they're a part of that crowd. They're looking for approval for things they say, but not necessarily for things they believe. At times it resembles performance art: some spoken word piece of bold proclamations acted out for the audience. I'm still struggling with how to dispel this.
Respectfully, Claire attributing the lack of vaccine enthusiasm to stupidity or anti-social venality gets us nowhere. Making these accusations is not only wrong, it’s arrogant. It’s the arrogance of the ruling intellectual class that is largely responsible for the mess we currently confront.
One of the major reasons millions of people are reluctant to be vaccinated (in the United States) is that it’s government officials who are urging this measure and the government has been so abusive of these folks that they simply don’t believe anything government advocates.
I can practically see you, in your Paris apartment, shaking your head in disbelief.
Don’t.
Millions of African Americans refuse to be vaccinated because the abuse of black Americans as epitomized by the Tuskegee experiments is still resonant in black culture. That doesn’t make these Americans stupid or venal; try a little bit and you can recognize their hesitancy.
Millions of Americans in the heartland, especially the South, share the hesitancy to be vaccinated. Can’t you figure out why?
The bill of particulars on the government’s abuse of these folks is long and horrible.
The government has told them that their religious beliefs are not critical and the popular culture makes plain that it views religion as little more than superstition.
The government wants bureaucratic gun control even though there’s little to no crime in towns where rural Americans live in the vain hope that it will control gun violence in New York, Los Angles or Chicago; places these people are unlikely to ever visit.
Youngsters in these Black and rural Southern communities disproportionately serve in the military. Whether controlled by the GOP or the Dems, their kids have been sent off to fight in foreign wars where we have bo chance of winning and under rules of engagement that only the arrogant elite can think are rationale. How many quadriplegics return from these wars to homes in the South? How many return to homes in Silicon Valley or Boston, Massachusetts?
They’ve watched the Government gladly ship their jobs off to China while allowing immigrants to compete so that wages are held down more than they might otherwise be for the jobs that remain.
They’ve watched the Government pursue economic policies that ensure the stock market soars benefiting the 401Ks of the upper middle class while simultaneously ensuring that the banks where Black and rural Americans keep their meager savings (if they have any savings at all) pay interest rates to depositors that are near zero.
These folks are told by the Government that if they’re reluctant to have their children change in the school locker room with transgendered kids that they are little more than bigots.
I could go on and on; the level of abuse experienced by our fellow citizens at the hands of a government controlled by our arrogant clerisy is stunning to behold.
After all of this when Black Americans or rural Americans hesitate to trust the government on vaccines, all elitists can do is chalk it up to stupidity and venality.
Sorry, Claire, the only thing that’s wrong with these folks is that they’ve been kicked so often by their own Government that they can’t see straight.
Blaming them accomplishes nothing. It’s the venality of our ruling class that needs to be remediated. Instead of blaming others, a good look in the mirror might be called for.
I have to push back on this sentiment in particular in pointing out it was largely the political right and more importantly the media organs of the political right like Fox News, the NY Post, and the Wall Street who pushed for and promoted those foreign wars. Yet these media organs have been able to convert themselves into mouthpieces of Trumpism without skipping a beat. I think Claire to her credit(and I would point out that if myself 15 years ago and Claire of 15 years ago got into a discussion over politics it would have quickly turned into a shouting match) has acknowledged the ideas and political philosophies she formerly promoted have turned out to have been incorrect.
I actually think doing a retrospective on American and more broadly "Western" politics of the last 15 or 20 years would be an interesting exercise for the CG in terms of discussing what went wrong and what went right. My own view and I think it Claire agrees with is that basic government functioning is perhaps more important than many "high" political theorists though over grand political theory. People for example care very deeply that ATM machines are stocked with cash especially when it starts become a question as to whether ATM's are going to continue to be stocked with cash like in 2008 than say George W Bush's policies regarding aid to Africa or the evils of Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah.
I think you might see something very similar occur in the aftermath of this building collapse in Surfside, FL where you have the image of FL Governor De Santis being more concerned with culture wars than basic building safety. In my personal opinion De Santis initial comment that this building collapse should simply be "viewed" as a one off accident has to be a major political screwup on his part.
Tim; I agree it was mostly the GOP and it’s allies that blundered us into our recent wars though to be fair, Obama called Afghanistan the “good war.” Remember though, it was GOP hawks like Liz Cheney who were the most bellicose. Trump destroyed that wing of the GOP; a feat all Americans should be grateful to him for.
Much of the rest of the abuse of non-college educated citizens has a bipartisan lineage with Democrats (of the Bill Clinton variety) playing a starring role.
Claire’s remark that 30-40 percent of people she passed by in the street are stupid or venal because they won’t get vaccinated is uncharitable to say the least. But it does put Claire in exalted company.
Presumably these are the same people Hillary Clinton demonized as deplorables. President Obama insulted them as gun-slingers and religion clingers.
Claire’s comment is most reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s gaffe when he was running against Obama. He suggested that 47 percent of Americans were takers not makers.
It’s not just that comments like these are unkind and wrong; it’s that they make things worse not better.
People will not take advice from those who insult them on vaccinations or anything else.
Calling people antisocial or stupid is not a way to encourage vaccinations, it’s a way to discourage vaccination.
It also reflects an elitist mindset that is as responsible for tearing our country apart as anything that social media giants might do.
If a person is responsible for the hurt feelings caused by insult, should a person be responsible for exaggerating the harms done by your elites? More harm is going to be done by those who profit from parading this narrative and fanning the flames of resentment, than by the capable minds that provide us with medicines and the infrastructure that distributes them.
I wish we had an edit button. It would have been clearer to say "additional harm," not "more harm." I meant if we have people who cynically peddle outrage, there will be a higher casualty count than otherwise.
Another excellent piece. I would love to hear you debate Dennis Prager, and I hope you will be back on Uncommon Knowledge again to discuss these important issues. Some people, of course, are immune to the effects of logic, but your reasoned approach no doubt has and will continue to save lives as we move forward. Thank you.
After going back and forth and giving Claire's article some thought something I feel that needs to be pointed out is long before social media say pre 2007 large elements of the mainstream media frequently trafficked in anti-vaccine propaganda. Does anyone remember the Don Imus show on MSNBC? And Don Imus was far from the only one. Yet today MSNBC and NBC News are considered the flagship of the anti Trump resistance with hero-worshipping of the likes of Stephanie Ruhl, Nicole Wallace, Rachel Maddow, and Larry O'Donnell yet it was NBC that was largely responsible for rehabilitating Donald Trump's image as a failed businessperson in the years between 2000 and 2010. In fact the same exact individual NBC executives promoted Donald Trump's Apprentice TV show, allowed Don Imus to spout anti-vaccer theories on air and going further back covered up the sexual misconduct of Bill Cosby in the late 1980s/early 1990s.
Thanks for pointing out a pretty interesting lack of coordination, even within the same organization. It sort of reminds me how Fox News and Fox seem to be pulling on opposite ends of the cultural rope. It's almost like it's all about profit motives...
Fox News and the Fox TV Network are almost completely separate companies based in two different cities. Fox News is almost entirely based in NYC while the Fox TV Network is almost entirely based in Los Angeles(unlike the other three networks that have a mix of offices in NYC and LA). In fact the Fox TV Network building and office in NYC is located in a completely different part of the city from Fox News(in the WNYW building on the Upper East Side).
However, more specifically on Don Imus and his anti vaccine views Imus was at least nominally under the banner of NBC News and MSNBC unlike say Trump's Apprentice show. Imus had many politicians, academics and other journalists on his show who continue to appear on MSNBC in seem cases during the exact same timeslot that Imus had(during the "Morning Joe" show with former FL Congressman Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski). When Imus was fired in 2007 basically Morning Joe inherited his guest roll and has kept it ever since.
Claire, you are uncommonly brave for continuing to dissect this (waves hands around in the air) in such a logical and rational manner. Thank you.
Here in Switzerland, my head exploded again yesterday at this front-page headline in the "NZZ am Sonntag" (initially welcomed as a Sunday dose of the excellent Neue Zürcher Zeitung, but sadly gone the way of the Sunday tabloid): "Not many teenagers want to get vaccinated against Corona" with the helpful subhead pointing out "Less than 10% of 12- to 15-year-olds have registered for a vaccination so far."
Well. The federal authorities approved the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine for the 12-15 age group on June 4. The Moderna vaccine is not approved for under-16. These are the two vaccines in use in Switzerland (A third, Johnson&Johnson, was approved, but Switzerland didn't order or buy any of that one.) It was another 10 days to two weeks before the cantons managed to update their registration platforms to allow people under 16 to be registered. I know this because I live with a 14-year-old who is at least impatient as I am.
Nowhere in this piece of hard-hitting journalism is it mentioned that 12- to 15-year-olds are highly unlikely to register themselves for a vaccine appointment. Since when do 12- to 15-year-olds act autonomously and take their own decisions? Not even in this direct democratic paradise of individual responsibility is that possible. The selected vaccine centers are not easy to reach, and several cantons explicitly require under-16s to have written permission from a parent or guardian. No, it is instead posited that those young folk don't find it necessary since infection numbers are low and restrictions are being relaxed.
Sigh. It's the parents. They are too busy to bother, since it's now summer vacation and the kids have to be kept busy somehow. Or, see above, numbers are low, etc. Or– another wild theory put forth by the so-called NZZaS journalist– it's not clear whether the federal government really recommends the vaccine for all 12-15s or only those with a chronic illness. Or, what I most fear, the response I have heard from many (vaccinated) friends and acquaintances: "No way am I letting my child get that stuff injected!"
It's all so tiresome, and tiring. Frankly I am more worried about the potential effects of Long Covid than the potential long-term side effects of a vaccine. My 14-year-old is, physically, closer to adulthood than childhood. Why would you not want to afford your child the same protection that you have? And why is the allegedly "liberal intellectual" media in German-speaking Switzerland writing such rubbish? (yes, I've asked, and wait eagerly for a reply)
I registered the manboy in two cantons, since we live on a border, and apparently a new shipment of Pfizer dropped last weekend because we were offered appointments in both venues. He's getting his first shot tomorrow and is relieved that he is catching up with his American cousins. Whom we will be able to visit again one day, maybe soon.
There's a very strange thing I've noticed where the vast majority of arguments come down to self-concern. I can imagine the dials regarding self interested being tuned when deciding to be vaccinated, based on age. But why are conversations about protecting others so few and far between?
Put simply, I do not want to kill my mother through my inaction. How many elderly people do I have to endanger (by my estimates, I could on average expose 4-8 senior citizens before my symptoms showed up) before this question is no longer about unknowns and minor reactions or even rare major reactions, and instead we're asking: "What kind of risk am I willing to assume to protect the lives of others?"
I have no children, so I can't confidently say these conversations aren't happening. Perhaps they're just happening in circles where I'm blissfully absent. Is this the sort of thing you're hearing in your circles? Are teenagers actually weighing these questions before making decisions? I kind of like the idea of teens taking the responsibility on themselves and getting the shot regardless of parental wishes, but I had a rebellious streak at that age that I encourage in others. Thank you.
The Kinderspital was doing a brisk business in Pfizer when we went this evening. There were a couple boys / girls who were unaccompanied, and looked to be on the upper end of the age range (15 and some); the rest had a parental-looking person. One can't tell age by looking at 12- to 15-year-olds. Some had definitely not been kissed by the dark angel of puberty yet; others, including mine, towered over their accompanying adult.
Boy and I had plenty of time for conversation enroute, during which I learned the following. He is not the only one in his class getting the vax, but estimated that less than half of the eighth-graders had signed up (so, maybe 10 of 25 kids?). But they don't discuss among themselves the 'why.'
Of course, I pushed. Boy pointed out that he is the last one in our German-American-Swiss extended family to be vaccinated, so it's not like he's protecting anyone in the family especially.
After a few non-committal shrugs, he said 'for me, it just seems like the right thing to do.' As a parent, I'll happily take that as a sign of greater social responsibility.
Matt: I agree with you on the rebellious streak! But in this horrid newspaper article that got me so worked up at the weekend, there were mentions of (anti-vax) parents threatening to sue their family doctors if teenaged kids were vaxed at their own request. Shudder.
Wow, reporting live from the front lines! Thank you!
I know. It's astonishing. There's a significant portion of the public that's either genuinely antisocial or unreachably stupid. I had not realized this before. I thought this might be about 2-4 percent of the people I pass every day on the street; it hadn't occurred to me it might be as high as 30-40 percent.
I'm sure some portion of the country fits those two categories. I hope your estimates are driven by a temporary despair, and we can appeal to the rest of the crowd.
I had a strange encounter with a friend in college. Students were complaining (of course) about some American cultural issue of the day, and my friend rebutted in confidence to me, "If you don't like it, get out." I didn't particularly sympathize with the student protest, but all the same I was repelled by the idea of relying on emigration as a means of consensus building, so I gave what was probably a rather flimsy defense of assembly, protest, and republics. It was like a broke a spell over him, and he immediately abandoned the position.
Some part of this crowd, in fact I sincerely hope it's a majority, is doing it because they're a part of that crowd. They're looking for approval for things they say, but not necessarily for things they believe. At times it resembles performance art: some spoken word piece of bold proclamations acted out for the audience. I'm still struggling with how to dispel this.
Respectfully, Claire attributing the lack of vaccine enthusiasm to stupidity or anti-social venality gets us nowhere. Making these accusations is not only wrong, it’s arrogant. It’s the arrogance of the ruling intellectual class that is largely responsible for the mess we currently confront.
One of the major reasons millions of people are reluctant to be vaccinated (in the United States) is that it’s government officials who are urging this measure and the government has been so abusive of these folks that they simply don’t believe anything government advocates.
I can practically see you, in your Paris apartment, shaking your head in disbelief.
Don’t.
Millions of African Americans refuse to be vaccinated because the abuse of black Americans as epitomized by the Tuskegee experiments is still resonant in black culture. That doesn’t make these Americans stupid or venal; try a little bit and you can recognize their hesitancy.
Millions of Americans in the heartland, especially the South, share the hesitancy to be vaccinated. Can’t you figure out why?
The bill of particulars on the government’s abuse of these folks is long and horrible.
The government has told them that their religious beliefs are not critical and the popular culture makes plain that it views religion as little more than superstition.
The government wants bureaucratic gun control even though there’s little to no crime in towns where rural Americans live in the vain hope that it will control gun violence in New York, Los Angles or Chicago; places these people are unlikely to ever visit.
Youngsters in these Black and rural Southern communities disproportionately serve in the military. Whether controlled by the GOP or the Dems, their kids have been sent off to fight in foreign wars where we have bo chance of winning and under rules of engagement that only the arrogant elite can think are rationale. How many quadriplegics return from these wars to homes in the South? How many return to homes in Silicon Valley or Boston, Massachusetts?
They’ve watched the Government gladly ship their jobs off to China while allowing immigrants to compete so that wages are held down more than they might otherwise be for the jobs that remain.
They’ve watched the Government pursue economic policies that ensure the stock market soars benefiting the 401Ks of the upper middle class while simultaneously ensuring that the banks where Black and rural Americans keep their meager savings (if they have any savings at all) pay interest rates to depositors that are near zero.
These folks are told by the Government that if they’re reluctant to have their children change in the school locker room with transgendered kids that they are little more than bigots.
I could go on and on; the level of abuse experienced by our fellow citizens at the hands of a government controlled by our arrogant clerisy is stunning to behold.
After all of this when Black Americans or rural Americans hesitate to trust the government on vaccines, all elitists can do is chalk it up to stupidity and venality.
Sorry, Claire, the only thing that’s wrong with these folks is that they’ve been kicked so often by their own Government that they can’t see straight.
Blaming them accomplishes nothing. It’s the venality of our ruling class that needs to be remediated. Instead of blaming others, a good look in the mirror might be called for.
I have to push back on this sentiment in particular in pointing out it was largely the political right and more importantly the media organs of the political right like Fox News, the NY Post, and the Wall Street who pushed for and promoted those foreign wars. Yet these media organs have been able to convert themselves into mouthpieces of Trumpism without skipping a beat. I think Claire to her credit(and I would point out that if myself 15 years ago and Claire of 15 years ago got into a discussion over politics it would have quickly turned into a shouting match) has acknowledged the ideas and political philosophies she formerly promoted have turned out to have been incorrect.
I actually think doing a retrospective on American and more broadly "Western" politics of the last 15 or 20 years would be an interesting exercise for the CG in terms of discussing what went wrong and what went right. My own view and I think it Claire agrees with is that basic government functioning is perhaps more important than many "high" political theorists though over grand political theory. People for example care very deeply that ATM machines are stocked with cash especially when it starts become a question as to whether ATM's are going to continue to be stocked with cash like in 2008 than say George W Bush's policies regarding aid to Africa or the evils of Saddam Hussein and Hezbollah.
I think you might see something very similar occur in the aftermath of this building collapse in Surfside, FL where you have the image of FL Governor De Santis being more concerned with culture wars than basic building safety. In my personal opinion De Santis initial comment that this building collapse should simply be "viewed" as a one off accident has to be a major political screwup on his part.
Tim; I agree it was mostly the GOP and it’s allies that blundered us into our recent wars though to be fair, Obama called Afghanistan the “good war.” Remember though, it was GOP hawks like Liz Cheney who were the most bellicose. Trump destroyed that wing of the GOP; a feat all Americans should be grateful to him for.
Much of the rest of the abuse of non-college educated citizens has a bipartisan lineage with Democrats (of the Bill Clinton variety) playing a starring role.
Claire’s remark that 30-40 percent of people she passed by in the street are stupid or venal because they won’t get vaccinated is uncharitable to say the least. But it does put Claire in exalted company.
Presumably these are the same people Hillary Clinton demonized as deplorables. President Obama insulted them as gun-slingers and religion clingers.
Claire’s comment is most reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s gaffe when he was running against Obama. He suggested that 47 percent of Americans were takers not makers.
It’s not just that comments like these are unkind and wrong; it’s that they make things worse not better.
People will not take advice from those who insult them on vaccinations or anything else.
Calling people antisocial or stupid is not a way to encourage vaccinations, it’s a way to discourage vaccination.
It also reflects an elitist mindset that is as responsible for tearing our country apart as anything that social media giants might do.
If a person is responsible for the hurt feelings caused by insult, should a person be responsible for exaggerating the harms done by your elites? More harm is going to be done by those who profit from parading this narrative and fanning the flames of resentment, than by the capable minds that provide us with medicines and the infrastructure that distributes them.
I wish we had an edit button. It would have been clearer to say "additional harm," not "more harm." I meant if we have people who cynically peddle outrage, there will be a higher casualty count than otherwise.
Give Joe Rogan a chance. He’s fair to his guests, has an enormous audience, and provides the gangia. It’s a win-win.
Claire,
I hope this isn't making you so aggravated that you are pulling your hair out.
I would certainly understand if you did.
It appears the physical pods of the matrix are not really necessary. All they have to do is make sure everyone has a smart phone.
Another excellent piece. I would love to hear you debate Dennis Prager, and I hope you will be back on Uncommon Knowledge again to discuss these important issues. Some people, of course, are immune to the effects of logic, but your reasoned approach no doubt has and will continue to save lives as we move forward. Thank you.
Do you think Prager is on the level? He sets off my carnie warning bell.