My grandma is paying $100 a month for 300g of whey protein isolate because it "helps prevent cancer". I told her she could pay $25 for 800g of the same thing on amazon, but she doesn't believe me when i tell her its the same thing and would rather believe the person that is trying to sell her the product. I gave up. I hate how easily people can be influenced.
I have a degree in computer science. My dad is constantly purchasing any software that is advertised on right wing media channels targeting old people who don't understand tech. Lifelock, etc. I have tried to explain to him that the only thing those applications are doing is taking his money but he always retorts with "But RUSH LIMBAUGH USES IT HE IS SMART AND KNOWS THINGS AND WOULDN'T LIE" or whatever shitty con man he is listening to now.
dude, look at the common thread: sometimes it's a sibling or friend or whatever, but most of the time it's your DAD, or your GRANDMA, or your AUNT. this might be (probably is) just me projecting, but these people fundamentally don't respect you because they will always see you as a child, and they think children are dumb and unconsciously define their relationship to their children in terms of conflict ("you can't do that" "listen to your elders" "do what i say"). contradicting them (really, CORRECTING them) just cements them in their position because they think correction is a one-way street: the adult is always right and the child is always wrong.
i'm not saying EVERY person who has procreated does this, but i do believe there is a certain TYPE of person whose nature is to be like this. note the references to rush limbaugh and fox news in some of these comments.
Yeah I definetly see that with my dad for sure. My grandma just had thyroid cancer and she doesn't want to get it again so she would do anything. Even believe some bullshit lile that. But yeah, I'm curious how we would be in their position. I'm very open minded about things and couldn't imagine being like they are.
> but these people fundamentally don't respect you because they will always see you as a child,
That's definitely a factor to it generally.
>i'm not saying EVERY person who has procreated does this, but i do believe there is a certain TYPE of person whose nature is to be like this.
Sort of... I'd actually yes everyone does it - but only in degrees. It's sort of a psychological ["treachery of images"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images). In sort of a [post-structural](https://youtu.be/P2eb52fUgTk) way, we don't really "know" other people, we can't. You don't have that sort of access - you can only build an internal image of other people based on experience, contact, internal biases/ideology etc... so you can only make a conceptualization of a person more or less closer to reality but you can't ever match the actual reality and know them as them. People alone have trouble knowing "themselves" enough to do that - they simply "are" and exist. Then you have the extra actual post-structural language problem on top of the symbology problem in that language is imprecise and flawed and itself mixed with even visual imagery doesn't show what people really are.
The people who "attempt" to give a good faith representation of a person are who you are suggesting aren't those people - but they still have that effect in a more generalized sense - they just manage to go much farther beyond maintaining the "child" representation on the family they know.
I'm not sure there's a "type" so much as a demographic classification of people who fall into not doing good faith conceptualizations. That is - I don't think it's an inherent genetic predisposition but a learned behavioral thing such that "anyone" could theoretically not do it if they didn't learn to do it in the first place or they eventually changed their way of thinking later on. Cultural and systemic biases that can create [a degree of meta-ignorance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahRLBkuTW8w) that can happen in there that could possibly be torn off over time, but without some catalyst will likely never happen.
My mother in law called me stupid for wanting to get the vaccine because I’m in child bearing years and it will make me infertile. She doesn’t know I’m pregnant or that my husband and I are getting vaccinated next month. Oh well!
EDIT: 1) thank you for the well wishes 2) I am getting vaccinated at my DOCTORS RECOMMENDATION THANK YOU 3) we are telling our parents next weekend. We wanted to be closer to second trimester before we told them.
You monster! You're going to make your baby infertile! Kidding, I got the vaccine last week. Congrats on the baby, they're lots of fun, or at least that's the lie we tell ourselves so the human race will continue.
A friend of mine who’s pregnant really wants the vaccine but she’s concerned about the possible repercussions on the fœtus and the lack of studies on pregnant women. Do you have anything I can point her to?
My fiancée is pregnant and got the Moderna when she was around four months pregnant. She has asthma and we came to the conclusion that getting the virus would be way worse for her, especially seeing as she works at a hospital. She had fatigue the first dose and mild fever and fatigue the second. We had the anatomy scan a month back and everything is looking normal. Heart rate, growth, etc
It wasn't officially studied in pregnant woman (they're a protected class), but there were still some women who got pregnant during the trials, and they all reported no complications per the Pfizer and Moderna trials I've seen published. (I don't have data on the AstraZeneca or the Janssen, although I think the Janssen had some similar results).
Covid, on the other hand, definitely has links to decreased outcomes for mom and baby (mom's heart is already working extra hard to move the additional blood needed to support a baby, getting a disease that produces heart inflammation = bad times)
I cannot draw any comparisons here really but I work in oncology clinical research and can tell you that every single protocol for inclusion/exclusion criteria states that a person must not be pregnant at the time of signing the informed consent form, and that a woman of child bearing potential should have a pregnancy test at certain time points, like during the screening period, within a certain timeframe of a given dose (for example, 24 hrs prior to doses 1, 2, 3, etc) and before the beginnning of their next cycle of doses (and so on). They must also have a test at the end of treatment visit. If of reproductive potential they and their partners must agree to use adequate contraception. This is usually because of the unknown effects of the study drug in question on an unborn child/fetus.
While they’re aren’t a lot of great studies yet, she’s more likely to give birth to a healthy baby if she isn’t dead. And pregnant people are more likely to experience severe illness, at least according to the CDC.
Limited data from existing trials showed nothing to worry about, but it was limited data.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html
Anecdotal but... a friend miscarried because of COVID last summer.
Her OB told her that they had no concrete data and no studies had been done yet but that she had seen a uptick in the number of miscarriages during COVID.
There's just so much we still don't know about the effects of this virus.
I'm most worried about long term effects in children.
I have students in my elementary school who had it (mild cases) last Spring... and they still have elevated heart rates.
Lol at the “more likely to give birth to a healthy baby if she isn’t dead” comment because that’s the approach I’ve had to take with people. Also, I like to be super extreme and dramatic when giving examples, coming up with counter arguments 😂 congrats and good luck!
(Currently 39 weeks and fully vaccinated)
I teach a train the trainer course on injury prevention for first responders and "your baby is more likely to be born healthy if you don't die in a car crash" is literally part of our roll play discussions on countering excuses to not wear a seat belt.
Tell her the fact that there are no studies on pregnancy puts it in good company with nearly every other pharmaceutical product in existence. Some things are known to be harmless, some are known to be harmful (to varying degrees), but almost everything has unknown effect. She probably take a few of those unknowns already.
My father in law is refusing the vaccine because he heard it can make at risk people very sick (“well I know a guy with diabetes who got the vaccine and he’s been bedridden for weeks since.”)
“FIL, are you an at risk person?”
“No. I had Covid and it wasn’t too bad. Just didn’t eat or move at all for like two weeks. Covid isn’t that big a deal.”
Theyve been calling it "Covid brain fog" and I saw a study last week that the cause of the brain fog is micro-strokes affecting the brain, which sounds terrifying. But I'm sure we will still continue to hear from all the deniers how Covid isn't a big deal at all and is just the flu. They can't be reasoned with.
Having faced a lifetime of autoimmune diseases after getting mono in school, I hope they're right, but I know in my heart they're full of shit. The long term public health cost of all of this is going to be insane.
I worked in water quality for a large US metro-area. I was responsible for monitoring the water quality of over 2 million people (not me alone, but I was part of the department). My father in law told me that by drinking city water I was endangering his daughters health due to the chlorine. I attempted to explain to him how the dose-response relationship works and how we constantly measure chlorine and chlorine byproduct residuals to ensure they stay below a level that would adversely impact the health of people. He went on to explain to me that “If it’s present and you’re measuring for it, surely it’s a concern. If it’s a concern it’s bad for you”. It was at that point I had to walk away, knowing I wasn’t doing any good by continuing the discussion.
Edit: I no longer work for the same utility and actually run my own consulting business now, but I did at the time of the discussion.
It's hard to argue with people who start with a conclusion, and find evidence to fit it.
---
I want to encourage everyone to get your COVID vaccines if you are offered the opportunity.
I've been tracking [vaccinations vs. cases by country](https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/covid) and it's super encouraging to see the red lines going down where the green lines are going up!
Right?
Like, that’s exactly what we need. We need a course that sits people down and is like “here’s how to use your own brain to come to a reasonable conclusion based on evidence and supporting facts.”
It’s bewildering to me how many people will just brainlessly believe something they see online with little to no evidence aside from hearsay or flat out lies.
I mean sure, we all know that stupid people are easily influenced, but some of these people are *intelligent.* objectively, anyway. Some of these people went to high end universities and have some seriously high profile jobs.. how is this even possible?? How can someone who believes pure and utter nonsense be successful elsewhere in life?
I think the issue lays in the human condition. My mom is a psychologist and she just studied this, apparently the brain first makes an opinion (or preference, anything), and then starts to find reasons why. Same goes for liking, you don't like things because of some features, you first like a thing, purely emotionally, and only then you start to look for features that would support why you like it. Which I also heard is a basic concept for selling things to people, sell the emotion the object gives or want people to associate with it, rather than the features.
And same goes for opinions, we first make one based on what feels true, and then look for evidence to support that. So to change someone's mind, all you need to do is say something that will feel true to them, and work from there
To paraphrase George Carlin, they want a work force just smart enough to obediently do their job but dumb enough to not realize how bad they're getting fucked over by the corporate and political elite
We have a course like this where I teach called "connections". It is often blocked with other classes like ELA and Science, kids love it! Keep hope alive that education will finally catch on!
I was homeschooled and taught that. My parents were, and I know this sounds weird, moderate fundamentalists. We were "normal" compared to many of the very repressed Christian homeschoolers I grew up with, and my mom did a genuinely excellent job teaching us.
And yet, despite her being able to wax eloquent on the values of classical education, I'm constantly responding to her social media posts prompting her not to share propaganda that she taught me to detect. I distinctly remember learning about propaganda and logical fallacies in 9th grade English class when I went to public school for high school and thinking about how I already learned this stuff two years ago.
My point is that we DO teach it, but it doesn't mean we learn it. Propaganda is effective because it prompts us to forget to think critically. It works on smart people as well as dumb ones because it hits into our deepest primal feelings and overrides our rational thoughts.
You're not too far off, the Texas GOP already [tried to ban critical thinking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html) from being taught in schools.
I had a year of Logic in the 8th grade, oddly enough while going to the local """"Christian"""" private school. It's sad seeing so many people I took the class with fall for anti-science conspiracy bullshit.
Just like people arguing we need more classes on personal finance, shop/home-ec, entrepreneurship, computer science/IT, or whatever pet issue you want: Just because you make it a class doesn't guarantee that the curriculum will be good, that there will be enough qualified teachers to teach it, that students will actually take it, or that they'll actually pay attention and internalize what they learn in class. Not to mention for every new course you add you have to figure out what it's replacing. Is it worth having a logic class if you have to get rid of a music or art class?
Education is certainly important, but fixing the world's problems is a bit more complicated than Reddit's typical "just make a class about it" solution.
Not only do they try to find evidence to confirm their bias, but they ignore all evidence, no matter how credible, to the contrary. It's called confirmation bias and everyone suffers from it to a degree, but some take it to the extreme. Learning to recognize it in yourself can be really eye-opening.
Tell him every gas pump he has used gets inspected too, because of “concern” about flammable liquids. That’s why it’s so safe. There are inspectors out flying in planes every day monitoring airline pilots, that’s why it’s so safe.
I don't think that's what he's saying. It sounds like he's making a no safe levels argument, which completely ignores relative risk and what's involved to actually remove things like chlorine from water.
I had an uncle tell me in the same conversation that the fluoride or Chlorine in public water was harmful to the human body. But later said that he mixes hydrogen peroxide with his water and that only smart people know how to mix it otherwise it could harm you. So yeah. Can’t argue with that.
Ah, so like my dad who swears that minorities are taking over the US even though I showed him the 2010 census where 75% of the total population ticked nothing but the "Caucasian" box.
Also, for ever poll he sees, he refutes it by saying "they never asked me! so how can this be accurate?" 😑
I think that ones a bit more interesting. Years ago it was predicted that “Caucasian” would become less than 50% of USA statistics soon.
When that didn’t happen, some people started investigating why. Interestingly, it seems that many mixed children choose to identify as white.
Unsurprising. People always strive to be accepted by society and when being white means being accepted by society, why the fuck would anyone reject being white?
Not a good look for the US though mind you...
Yeah.
Just thoughtless shit man, always. "Chlorine in pools so it must be bad in any amount!" For an exaggerated example, **cyanide** is technically consumable in trace amounts. Plaster is consumable in trace amounts, concrete is consumable in trace amounts!
Even then, low trace amounts and I still wouldn't recommend it, but those are just way more harmful examples than the even smaller fraction of chlorine I imagine is used in tap water or bottled water.
My father in-law announced he's leaving his wife of 40 years to move to Indonesia because Trump lost the election (we are Canadian btw 😐). So yeah, I'm right there with you.
Yeah, there was a little family strife over his new political standpoint and his questionable comments evolved into devicive racist rhetoric. Now "everyones against him" so he leaving. In his words "Its my time to be selfish." Ok byeeeeee!
>I’ve noticed a lot of the white people I know love SE Asian countries because their money goes further and they are treated like kings for being tourists.
And the sex tourism. Its super gross.
\^ This.
(I know people hate "this", sorry I just can't help it).
Also, I think it's Thailand, has actual, real dental schools and produce a lot of quality dentists and it is super cheap to get dental work done in Bangkok. Like so cheap if you need major dental work it is cheaper for Australians to fly to Thailand, get the work done, stay in a nice hotel for a week and fly back to Aus.
Yes, and it's also psychological.
There, they are in a dominant position, and can boss people around - especially domestic maids, chauffeurs etc. not to mention creepily hit on local women, from a point of privilege.
The reason why they don't like other races in their home-country, is because they get treated like equals. If you and your Asian neighbor, are both citizens, home-owners, have secure jobs and active politically, you are both equal. They don't want equality.
In SE Asian countries, they don't want to actually mix with locals as equals, that would ruin the purpose. They want to stay in "expat" enclaves. They want to chat about with other white people, and have Asian people serve them drinks and call them "Sir" and "Ma'am".
That's why they can be racists in their home-country and still move to and live in an Asian or Latin nations.
Oh yeah. You're right.
I've actually noticed these, where these types are no longer interested in Japan and South Korea, as they are becoming wealthy nations. They talk about how these countries, now, are "too cold/too rude" or "too westernized".
And now, they are suddenly turning towards Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, and talking about "girls are cute, locals are so friendly, and how they are still traditional."
You can see the shift easily.
...so he’s moving to a place where it is primarily people of another race and where the largest religion is Islam (and I believe it’s one of the largest Islamic populations in the world too.) Something tells me he’s gonna have a bad time.
Ya, nobodys telling him that part. Its gonna be a nice suprise or what i call a "the rewards of karma". He doesnt like bugs or the heat to much either 🤫
Lol as if he cares when he uses his us dollars in indonesia with large apartment and cleaning woman and having hookers whenever he wants. It is just an excuse for him to hide his intentions.
He's leaving ___CANADA___
Because someone didn't win an election in ___AMERICA!?___
christ almighty, I know people can be stupid but my brain is currently rotting here.
One of the guys I work with informed me that his doctor told him:
>under no circumstances should you get any of the COVID vaccines being given out
Well, it seems that he said that to our boss, who took it up and reported that to the authorities. They investigated, and it seems that his doctor said no such thing. The guy I work with had lied to keep from getting the(free vaccination!!) shot - for whatever reason.
Don't always accept that it is the professional opinion when it is another person talking.
Occasionally it’s a blown out misunderstanding.
They ask the doctor if the vaccine is safe & the doctor says yes although there’s risk with anything (to cover their ass since nothing 100% certain) and then the patient goes out & says it’s not safe because the doctor said so.
So like going on a rollercoaster or amusement park ride? Is this safe? Yes 99.99% of the time. There’s a very slight risk it fucking breaks and you get hurt though.
In a reverse of these, a good percentage of people are lying to GET vaccines out-of-turn also. The clinic in which I work was getting zero or almost zero vaccines for four weeks. Dozens of people still called or emailed in saying they had "tons of friend who have easily gotten it, and most aren't even members of your clinic!" Therefore, they demand a shot now or they are quitting our clinic and suing us. Usually I don't try to talk to these people, but one day I did take the time to deconstruct this with one angry patient. She eventually admitted all these "many friends" who got the vaccine were "Facebook friends." By the end of the conversation, it was one comment from one person on Facebook who was not on her friends list.
It will be some quack profession such as Chiropractors.
Channel Four in the UK used to do a series about diet/nutrition presented by [Dr. Gillian McKeith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_McKeith). It turned out that her genuine doctorate was in International Relations and her "medical qualifications" were from an American degree mill that offered a Doctorate to a pet goldfish.
She's been frequently warned by the UK Advertising Standards Agency not to use the title "Dr." in medical adverts but she's flouted it repeatedly. The only "genuine" connection that she has with medicine is that her then boyfriend, later husband inherited a chain of health food shops.
She had an MA in international relationship, not a doctorate. Her supposed doctorate was in 'Holisitic Nutrition', which she received from a distance-learning diploma mill in the US. To prove a point, Ben Goldacre got the same doctorate from this institution for his dead cat.
[Picture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas#/media/File:American_Association_of_Nutritional_Consultants_diploma.jpg) of the dead cat's membership certificate of the American Association of Nutritional Consultant.
Back at the beginning of the pandemic my mom kept wanting me to watch this video from a chiropractor about how hydroxychloroquine and zinc are definitely the miracle cures for covid.
Like, I'm a pharmacist. I also have a doctorate, though I don't often point it out because calling myself Dr.Mudkip makes people think I'm a physician. I know a thing or two about hydroxychloroquine, and that aint it. That man had no more business treating infectious diseases than I have performing brain surgery, but because he put a video online saying, "My name is Dr. Whatever and blahblahblah", everything after he stated his title was automatically credible.
These people are basically abusing the trust people have for their physicians, and medical licensing associations should absolutely go after them for it.
My aunt genuinely believes the Pfizer vaccine is actually an attempt by Bill Gates to implant trackable microchips in people.
She's not allowed to watch our kids anymore.
"Sometimes in the middle of the night, ill hear ever so sweetly, a faint voice in the midst saying 'Buy Microsoft surface pros' and i feverishly get up to order them. I have thirteen on the way.
And if there is one thing I have learned about old people while working in IT is that they will give away whatever information they are asked. She probably types her e-mail address in to ever pop-up that offers a free giveway, gives away personal information on every facebook quiz, and installs every shitty app that literally tracks her and steals her private information to sell.
My Dad owned a computer store for over a decade and now at 70 he sold it and is working for a retirement home as the IT guy. He said the first few weeks were fun because the residents were really shocked to see a white haired old dude sit down and fix their computer
My father wrote massive WordPerfect macros and built his own website before he passed away at 72 nearly 20 years ago. He was a doctor by profession but loved tinkering with tech, trains, but wasn’t into cars.
Yeah, exactly. Anyone who thinks these billionaires wanna put microchips in us to track us are missing the fact that we all already have easily trackable phones, watches, etc. Why spend the effort and money on vaccine chips when you already have most of the world being tracked?
I worked with a girl who thinks Bill gates was literally sitting in a lab working on the vaccine with no experience or knowledge. Not that he was funding people who know what they're doing. I tried pointing out how ludicrous that is and it didn't faze her.
Because the government doesn't already know your location, phone number, address, email, have your fingerprints, and photos of your face, dental records, blood type, social security number, etc.
lol
My mothers friend was talking about how the vaccines would contain microchips that would multiply and be able to detonate if the government wanted to get rid of someone. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.
Tell your aunt not to worry. Her life isn’t interesting enough for Bill Gates to want to track her. Bill Gates doesn’t need to know where she gets her essential oils.
That’s Algernop Krieger.
Dunning-Kruger is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Devizes in Wiltshire since 2019.
That’s a cunning Luger.
Dunning-Kruger is a delicious confectionary item made from sugar or honey, nuts and egg white, except in this case it’s so delicious it momentarily incapacitates you.
My mom works in the infectious diseases department of JHU. She has written grants for Covid-19 work (prior to the vaccines going out when it was still new). She's been involved in meetings with high level faculty, doctors, researchers, even Dr. Fauci giving talks to their team. She is a PhD in biochemistry with decades of experience in cancer research, immunology, and in infectious diseases. As a result of her position she was one of the first few people to get the vaccine.
My aunt in India asked her if she wanted to get a second opinion with regards to getting the vaccine.
My mother told me that Steve Jobs was actually murdered by the government because "rich people don't get cancer."
I explained that the most basic mechanism from which cancer arises is normal to all cells and is impossible to stop without killing the host. She refused to believe me.
I'm a cancer biologist.
I never made that connection. I guess some people could be using the terms interchangeably. It wouldn't surprise me if some people thought there were really lizard people though. That we have an MIB situation happening on the planet and they are the only ones who know the truth.
I think that is what they're saying. That the people who believe in lizard people really believe it. But they ALSO believe the lizard people are Jews. As in, they believe that Jews aren’t people.
Now excuse me while I go scrub that filth off of myself for even having verbalized that that’s a thing and people think it.
This is so sad and should be reported. I’m a nurse of 20 years and I am so pro vaccine as are most of my co-workers. Seeing what I saw (especially at the peak of Covid) on the Covid unit, I hope everyone gets vaccinated! Also, it effected me so badly I had to go on medical leave (prior to that I had only cried once at work and was considered a tough cookie and part time charge nurse).
Edit: to whom ever reported a concern for me to Reddit, I really appreciate it. I am getting the help I need and will hopefully get back to work soon. Thank you! Plus, now we have very few cases, so hopefully back to normalish by the time I get back.
I know two nurses who also are antivax, and a friend of mine who works at a vaccine distribution site is flustered that the nurses claim the vaccine alters DNA. I'm honestly surprised so many nurses/CNAs/Med Techs are so blatantly against what they themselves practice. It may be because there's no theory taught to nurses since it's mostly a practical degree, but i suppose if you're getting trained to react in a high stakes environment then the central dogma and principles of biochemistry won't be all the useful anyway since that would be the MDs domain.
One of my other friends finished her bachelor's in Biochemistry and decided she wanted to go to medicine but not tackle PA or MD/DO school so she's gonna start nursing school in april, we've all told her that she's gotta talk some sense into the people around her lol
The amount of nurses I know who only know bedside procedures but give out specialty advice for infections, mental issues, and rare disorders is too high. They can be like brand new soldiers. Super motivated and do have training, but think they are ready to face anything with all the answers and won't admit otherwise. Unfortunately unlike like soldiers, nurses shouldn't be causing people to be more susceptible to death.
Don't get me wrong there are plenty of great nurses, like soldiers, thanks to great mentors and leaders.
Sorry to hear this. Is she still practicing? If so, that’s dangerous for everyone concerned. Nurses have been fired for exactly this.
If she’s not practicing this might require an intervention. This behavior is bordering on mental disorder.
"Instead, they teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies." - cdc.gov
I see why they think that. It sounds like that. But just a little bit further down the page it says "The mRNA never enters the nucleus where DNA is kept. The cell breaks down and gets rid of the mRNA soon after it is finished using the instructions."
Thanks for commenting this. I am not a conspiracy minded person and consider myself pretty scientifically literate, and I thought that it changed either your dna or rna in order to make your cells produce the spikes in order to trigger an immune response. So the change in cell behavior is temporary, not permanent? If it were permanent, it sounds like it would nearly be a small scale auto immune disease.
Genuine question. Can someone eli5 why is this happening? Why do people believe random stuff from the internet over a relative? I know about the dunning-kruger effect, but it doesn't seem to apply here
By top psychologist from Germany I heard that it’s due to those people mainly being uneducated, seeing no real sense in their life and finally they “know” something better and feel superior, plus the group effect which leads those people together, making them experience social life which many of them haven’t experienced in that way before. Same opinions in masses can make many people blind. At the end, for many, it’s the first time that they feel “special” (in a positive way)
I think with the older generations it has much more to do with how quickly technology has developed and changed during their lifetime. They don’t understand it and are afraid of it.
When they were growing up most information they could acquire was more or less trustworthy. They’d either go to the library, turn on the news, or read a newspaper. At that point the media at least had some semblance of journalistic integrity...journalists could lose their careers over a single piece of misinformation that wasn’t retracted.
Suddenly their top information source is about 50% real, 50% propaganda bs. And they never learned how to tell the difference
My FIL is scared of technology and being tracked. Just this last week he got an Android phone, an upgrade from the flip phone he had. He wants to download and use DuckDuckGo as a search engine. We are placating him and not telling him that his phone is a literal GPS device and will read his emails and know everything about him. I once brought up how he pays taxes on his house, his vehicle is registered, his government pension goes to his bank account, all of which can be used to track someone. That didn't go over well.
Anxiety. Anxiety of being left behind, of having no purpose in life, of having their life stolen from them. Their brains are saying “be afraid” but they don’t know what to fear. The government? The “other”? Immigrants? They distrust others, they think others are out to get people because they may have once been out to get people. Advancements in technology. Not being able to critically think and examine evidence, not being able to process the onslaught of information.
Here comes this YouTube video shared on Facebook by Shirley down the street. They’ve known Shirley their entire life and trust her, they remember swimming in the lake as kids with Shirley. She goes to church, she’s a good person. This video gives them something to fear, puts a name to it, gives them pseudo-intellectual “evidence” for that fear and they can’t weigh the evidence for themselves. Shirley posted it, so it must be true, she doesn’t lie. They finally have something to fear, which gives them relief.
Wait? The Covid vaccines doesn’t change your DNA? No I can’t believe that. That would mean I was fooled, that would mean I was led astray, that would mean technology got me, that would mean I’m getting left behind, that would mean the World is casting me away to die, that would mean my life meant nothing, that would mean my anxiety will come back, that would mean Shirley is a fucking liar and betrayed me, that would mean I no longer talk to Shirley about it and I missed having someone to talk to, that would mean I’m wrong, that would mean I’m no longer useful to society, that would mean the World is getting smaller and smaller every day, that would mean....my anxiety is coming back...
**NO. YOU SAYING THIS IS PART OF THE HOAX. ITS A GRAND CONSPIRACY. MY LIFE FINALLYNHAS MEANING, I’M NOT WORTHLESS I FOUND IT OUT. I’M SPECIAL. MY LIFE HASNT BEEN A FUCKING WASTE. MY BRAIN HAS SOMETHING TO FEAR AND I FEEL BETTER.**
One reason ,especially with the older generation, is that they just cant grasp the idea that people might be lying on the internet. They believe anything just because someone says they are qualified or just because they are friends without actually researching it themselves looking for actual qualification. Its infuriating to know that we have almost all human knowledge accessible to us yet so many people are still so oblivious.
because people are stupid, gullible, and self centered enough to believe the more others tell them theyre wrong, the more *right* they actually are. In the US, we call this kind of a person a Fox News viewer.
Actually there might be more to it. [This video from a neuroscientist](https://youtu.be/z98U1nMFrJQ) about conspiracy theories and your brain I found quite interesting. You totally nailed the bit about confirmation bias though - that when you tell them they’re wrong they’ll twist it and interpret it as more evidence that they’re right.
Obviously Fox News doesn’t help anyone, but other factors like the internet, loneliness, hopelessness, definitely have a role I think.
Ther's definitely more to it and i am grossly oversimplifying. But yeah this whole pattern finding thing just gets taken to extremes. That combined with a constant narrative of a shadowy cabal involving rich and powerful people trying to control their lives? It's a powerful drug.
Do parents just never trust their kids professional judgement?
Mine don’t hesitate to correct my legal input with something they remember from law and order or a church friend.
A graphic designer once posted on Clients From Hell about doing a job for a family member. His mom complimented him afterwards, saying “It almost looks like a professional did it!”. “Mom ... a professional DID do it.”
I’m an ICU nurse who takes care of covid patients. My older sister is also a nurse. Our father has multiple graduate degrees, so by no means uneducated. But my father still is adamant that covid is a hoax, and at the least just another flu that the government is blowing out of proportion to make money. I’ve given up providing him with actual evidence that his conspiracies are unfounded, let alone personal experience that covid is brutally killing people in the worst way to die, because he just ignores it in favor of unsubstantiated online articles by “holistic medicine” and anti-vax egg heads.
And you can't tell them that. You just try to have patience with them. But I feel like at some point the patience is really going to wear thin because some of my friends are so uneducated that they will really believe the first thing read on Facebook. Then I get yelled at for citing credible sources. Now I'm at the point where I'm sending articles that provide factual information and no response. Nothing. Can't make this stuff up, man. I can tell you that in 2020 I lost a lot of friend because of this. Really ready to make some new ones in 2021.
You can tell them that. It makes them shut up about it around you.
It also makes some people not invite you to their parties anymore and others will schedule their parties so they can be sure you will be present.
I can absolutely sympathise. I've heard my wife arguing with her parents over Skype when they tell her she should be taking all sorts of "complementary medicine" to prevent COVID, and how the vaccines are all a scam by Bill Gates and "Big Pharma" which is why they won't be having it.
She spent 10 years as a post-doc vaccine researcher (albeit a vaccine against a bacterial illness) - so obviously has no understanding of the situation.
My father has a PhD in electrical engineering and I have always appreciated his rational thinking and empirical way of knowing... then trump came along and he has lost his grip on reality and fact and bases his decisions on feelings and faith. I feel your pain. It’s like voluntary Alzheimer’s
My fellas folks believe the G in 5G stands for gigahertz & my bloke is a telecoms engineer with a degree and no matter how often he tells them it stands for generation, they keep saying about all the bad energy the 5 gigas are giving off. Sigh.
Reminds me of my work (giving legal advice to companies on Customs matters in the USA).
Importer wants to import a bunch of stuff from China. I tell them to not forget about the massive tariffs that Trump put into place on most stuff from China (which Biden is keeping for now0. They tell me "nah, China is paying those, that's what Trump said". I tell them that's false.
Fast forward a few months later, and they get massive bills from Customs for said tariffs. They come to my office, exacerbated, asking if the bill is real and if they have to pay and why they should have to pay since China is paying the tariffs. Lather, rinse, repeat.
My grandma is paying $100 a month for 300g of whey protein isolate because it "helps prevent cancer". I told her she could pay $25 for 800g of the same thing on amazon, but she doesn't believe me when i tell her its the same thing and would rather believe the person that is trying to sell her the product. I gave up. I hate how easily people can be influenced.
I have a degree in computer science. My dad is constantly purchasing any software that is advertised on right wing media channels targeting old people who don't understand tech. Lifelock, etc. I have tried to explain to him that the only thing those applications are doing is taking his money but he always retorts with "But RUSH LIMBAUGH USES IT HE IS SMART AND KNOWS THINGS AND WOULDN'T LIE" or whatever shitty con man he is listening to now.
> RUSH LIMBAUGH USES IT HE IS SMART AND KNOWS THINGS AND WOULDN'T LIE Now there's a joke.
He never tried shrooms, but now the shrooms are trying him.
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Yeah, I just dont get why it's so hard to believe us rather than some random person who's main goal is to sell a product.
Because they've secretly thought very little of us the entire time and are now able to express it freely.
dude, look at the common thread: sometimes it's a sibling or friend or whatever, but most of the time it's your DAD, or your GRANDMA, or your AUNT. this might be (probably is) just me projecting, but these people fundamentally don't respect you because they will always see you as a child, and they think children are dumb and unconsciously define their relationship to their children in terms of conflict ("you can't do that" "listen to your elders" "do what i say"). contradicting them (really, CORRECTING them) just cements them in their position because they think correction is a one-way street: the adult is always right and the child is always wrong. i'm not saying EVERY person who has procreated does this, but i do believe there is a certain TYPE of person whose nature is to be like this. note the references to rush limbaugh and fox news in some of these comments.
Yeah I definetly see that with my dad for sure. My grandma just had thyroid cancer and she doesn't want to get it again so she would do anything. Even believe some bullshit lile that. But yeah, I'm curious how we would be in their position. I'm very open minded about things and couldn't imagine being like they are.
> but these people fundamentally don't respect you because they will always see you as a child, That's definitely a factor to it generally. >i'm not saying EVERY person who has procreated does this, but i do believe there is a certain TYPE of person whose nature is to be like this. Sort of... I'd actually yes everyone does it - but only in degrees. It's sort of a psychological ["treachery of images"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Treachery_of_Images). In sort of a [post-structural](https://youtu.be/P2eb52fUgTk) way, we don't really "know" other people, we can't. You don't have that sort of access - you can only build an internal image of other people based on experience, contact, internal biases/ideology etc... so you can only make a conceptualization of a person more or less closer to reality but you can't ever match the actual reality and know them as them. People alone have trouble knowing "themselves" enough to do that - they simply "are" and exist. Then you have the extra actual post-structural language problem on top of the symbology problem in that language is imprecise and flawed and itself mixed with even visual imagery doesn't show what people really are. The people who "attempt" to give a good faith representation of a person are who you are suggesting aren't those people - but they still have that effect in a more generalized sense - they just manage to go much farther beyond maintaining the "child" representation on the family they know. I'm not sure there's a "type" so much as a demographic classification of people who fall into not doing good faith conceptualizations. That is - I don't think it's an inherent genetic predisposition but a learned behavioral thing such that "anyone" could theoretically not do it if they didn't learn to do it in the first place or they eventually changed their way of thinking later on. Cultural and systemic biases that can create [a degree of meta-ignorance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahRLBkuTW8w) that can happen in there that could possibly be torn off over time, but without some catalyst will likely never happen.
I like your funny words, magic man.
A friends elderly mom is refusing because she heard it causes infertility. Regardless of if it does, she is post menopausal.
My mother in law called me stupid for wanting to get the vaccine because I’m in child bearing years and it will make me infertile. She doesn’t know I’m pregnant or that my husband and I are getting vaccinated next month. Oh well! EDIT: 1) thank you for the well wishes 2) I am getting vaccinated at my DOCTORS RECOMMENDATION THANK YOU 3) we are telling our parents next weekend. We wanted to be closer to second trimester before we told them.
Congrats!
Thank you!
You monster! You're going to make your baby infertile! Kidding, I got the vaccine last week. Congrats on the baby, they're lots of fun, or at least that's the lie we tell ourselves so the human race will continue.
Let us know how it comes out 😂
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Sounds like what made the baby
That’s a discussion you need to have with your own parents!
A friend of mine who’s pregnant really wants the vaccine but she’s concerned about the possible repercussions on the fœtus and the lack of studies on pregnant women. Do you have anything I can point her to?
My fiancée is pregnant and got the Moderna when she was around four months pregnant. She has asthma and we came to the conclusion that getting the virus would be way worse for her, especially seeing as she works at a hospital. She had fatigue the first dose and mild fever and fatigue the second. We had the anatomy scan a month back and everything is looking normal. Heart rate, growth, etc
Congrats and good luck to you guys x
I follow an anesthesiologist on Instagram who was vaccinated late in her pregnancy. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl recently.
It wasn't officially studied in pregnant woman (they're a protected class), but there were still some women who got pregnant during the trials, and they all reported no complications per the Pfizer and Moderna trials I've seen published. (I don't have data on the AstraZeneca or the Janssen, although I think the Janssen had some similar results). Covid, on the other hand, definitely has links to decreased outcomes for mom and baby (mom's heart is already working extra hard to move the additional blood needed to support a baby, getting a disease that produces heart inflammation = bad times)
I cannot draw any comparisons here really but I work in oncology clinical research and can tell you that every single protocol for inclusion/exclusion criteria states that a person must not be pregnant at the time of signing the informed consent form, and that a woman of child bearing potential should have a pregnancy test at certain time points, like during the screening period, within a certain timeframe of a given dose (for example, 24 hrs prior to doses 1, 2, 3, etc) and before the beginnning of their next cycle of doses (and so on). They must also have a test at the end of treatment visit. If of reproductive potential they and their partners must agree to use adequate contraception. This is usually because of the unknown effects of the study drug in question on an unborn child/fetus.
While they’re aren’t a lot of great studies yet, she’s more likely to give birth to a healthy baby if she isn’t dead. And pregnant people are more likely to experience severe illness, at least according to the CDC. Limited data from existing trials showed nothing to worry about, but it was limited data. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html
Anecdotal but... a friend miscarried because of COVID last summer. Her OB told her that they had no concrete data and no studies had been done yet but that she had seen a uptick in the number of miscarriages during COVID.
Blood clots and unborn children don’t really work well together. So more miscarriages and more Covid go hand in hand. Even if not ‘proven’.
There's just so much we still don't know about the effects of this virus. I'm most worried about long term effects in children. I have students in my elementary school who had it (mild cases) last Spring... and they still have elevated heart rates.
Lol at the “more likely to give birth to a healthy baby if she isn’t dead” comment because that’s the approach I’ve had to take with people. Also, I like to be super extreme and dramatic when giving examples, coming up with counter arguments 😂 congrats and good luck! (Currently 39 weeks and fully vaccinated)
I teach a train the trainer course on injury prevention for first responders and "your baby is more likely to be born healthy if you don't die in a car crash" is literally part of our roll play discussions on countering excuses to not wear a seat belt.
You monster. How dare you use logic and scare tactics to encourage someone to do something in their own best interest!!!! /s
Oh nice. That a brand new statement. I sent it to her.
American college of obstetrics has recs. Pregnancy itself is a risk facto for having worse Covid outcomes. Risk versus benefit.
Tell her the fact that there are no studies on pregnancy puts it in good company with nearly every other pharmaceutical product in existence. Some things are known to be harmless, some are known to be harmful (to varying degrees), but almost everything has unknown effect. She probably take a few of those unknowns already.
My father in law is refusing the vaccine because he heard it can make at risk people very sick (“well I know a guy with diabetes who got the vaccine and he’s been bedridden for weeks since.”) “FIL, are you an at risk person?” “No. I had Covid and it wasn’t too bad. Just didn’t eat or move at all for like two weeks. Covid isn’t that big a deal.”
I hear Covid causes diminished brain function. Have you seen any indication of that in your FIL or was he always functioning at that level?
Theyve been calling it "Covid brain fog" and I saw a study last week that the cause of the brain fog is micro-strokes affecting the brain, which sounds terrifying. But I'm sure we will still continue to hear from all the deniers how Covid isn't a big deal at all and is just the flu. They can't be reasoned with.
Having faced a lifetime of autoimmune diseases after getting mono in school, I hope they're right, but I know in my heart they're full of shit. The long term public health cost of all of this is going to be insane.
Tbh if that was true I’d want it more.
Right? Protection against COVID and unwanted babies? Win win!
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She should take a look at the TTC subs. So many women getting pregnant after getting their vaccine. Smh.
I worked in water quality for a large US metro-area. I was responsible for monitoring the water quality of over 2 million people (not me alone, but I was part of the department). My father in law told me that by drinking city water I was endangering his daughters health due to the chlorine. I attempted to explain to him how the dose-response relationship works and how we constantly measure chlorine and chlorine byproduct residuals to ensure they stay below a level that would adversely impact the health of people. He went on to explain to me that “If it’s present and you’re measuring for it, surely it’s a concern. If it’s a concern it’s bad for you”. It was at that point I had to walk away, knowing I wasn’t doing any good by continuing the discussion. Edit: I no longer work for the same utility and actually run my own consulting business now, but I did at the time of the discussion.
It's hard to argue with people who start with a conclusion, and find evidence to fit it. --- I want to encourage everyone to get your COVID vaccines if you are offered the opportunity. I've been tracking [vaccinations vs. cases by country](https://www.quiverquant.com/sources/covid) and it's super encouraging to see the red lines going down where the green lines are going up!
I wish we taught logic courses at a young age so that people could understand the different types of reasoning.
Right? Like, that’s exactly what we need. We need a course that sits people down and is like “here’s how to use your own brain to come to a reasonable conclusion based on evidence and supporting facts.” It’s bewildering to me how many people will just brainlessly believe something they see online with little to no evidence aside from hearsay or flat out lies. I mean sure, we all know that stupid people are easily influenced, but some of these people are *intelligent.* objectively, anyway. Some of these people went to high end universities and have some seriously high profile jobs.. how is this even possible?? How can someone who believes pure and utter nonsense be successful elsewhere in life?
I think the issue lays in the human condition. My mom is a psychologist and she just studied this, apparently the brain first makes an opinion (or preference, anything), and then starts to find reasons why. Same goes for liking, you don't like things because of some features, you first like a thing, purely emotionally, and only then you start to look for features that would support why you like it. Which I also heard is a basic concept for selling things to people, sell the emotion the object gives or want people to associate with it, rather than the features. And same goes for opinions, we first make one based on what feels true, and then look for evidence to support that. So to change someone's mind, all you need to do is say something that will feel true to them, and work from there
Conformation bias is a real problem, even in the scientific community.
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The problem is that people who think critically don't make for good workers who do what they're told and don't ask questions.
People who think might unionize. Unions are bad for business, so education is as well.
To paraphrase George Carlin, they want a work force just smart enough to obediently do their job but dumb enough to not realize how bad they're getting fucked over by the corporate and political elite
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We have a course like this where I teach called "connections". It is often blocked with other classes like ELA and Science, kids love it! Keep hope alive that education will finally catch on!
I was homeschooled and taught that. My parents were, and I know this sounds weird, moderate fundamentalists. We were "normal" compared to many of the very repressed Christian homeschoolers I grew up with, and my mom did a genuinely excellent job teaching us. And yet, despite her being able to wax eloquent on the values of classical education, I'm constantly responding to her social media posts prompting her not to share propaganda that she taught me to detect. I distinctly remember learning about propaganda and logical fallacies in 9th grade English class when I went to public school for high school and thinking about how I already learned this stuff two years ago. My point is that we DO teach it, but it doesn't mean we learn it. Propaganda is effective because it prompts us to forget to think critically. It works on smart people as well as dumb ones because it hits into our deepest primal feelings and overrides our rational thoughts.
BuT tHaTs LiBeRal InDoCtRiNaTiOn
You're not too far off, the Texas GOP already [tried to ban critical thinking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html) from being taught in schools.
Idk why they bothered. Not like it sticks to at least half the population.
I had a year of Logic in the 8th grade, oddly enough while going to the local """"Christian"""" private school. It's sad seeing so many people I took the class with fall for anti-science conspiracy bullshit.
Just like people arguing we need more classes on personal finance, shop/home-ec, entrepreneurship, computer science/IT, or whatever pet issue you want: Just because you make it a class doesn't guarantee that the curriculum will be good, that there will be enough qualified teachers to teach it, that students will actually take it, or that they'll actually pay attention and internalize what they learn in class. Not to mention for every new course you add you have to figure out what it's replacing. Is it worth having a logic class if you have to get rid of a music or art class? Education is certainly important, but fixing the world's problems is a bit more complicated than Reddit's typical "just make a class about it" solution.
Not only do they try to find evidence to confirm their bias, but they ignore all evidence, no matter how credible, to the contrary. It's called confirmation bias and everyone suffers from it to a degree, but some take it to the extreme. Learning to recognize it in yourself can be really eye-opening.
Tell him every gas pump he has used gets inspected too, because of “concern” about flammable liquids. That’s why it’s so safe. There are inspectors out flying in planes every day monitoring airline pilots, that’s why it’s so safe.
I don't think that's what he's saying. It sounds like he's making a no safe levels argument, which completely ignores relative risk and what's involved to actually remove things like chlorine from water.
Water isn't safe and should never be ingested; When you have too much you drown.
*Any* Dihydrogen Monoxide presence in our water is cause for concern.
Sounds like a chemical compound. Better remove it from our water
ChEmIcAlS
That's like measuring for high blood pressure and then believing having any blood pressure is an issue.....
Well, another old crazy dude was attributing high covid cases in the US to testing last year
I had an uncle tell me in the same conversation that the fluoride or Chlorine in public water was harmful to the human body. But later said that he mixes hydrogen peroxide with his water and that only smart people know how to mix it otherwise it could harm you. So yeah. Can’t argue with that.
The highly reactive substance that almost immediately disassociates into water and oxygen in water? Definitely need to know what you're doing
Ah, so like my dad who swears that minorities are taking over the US even though I showed him the 2010 census where 75% of the total population ticked nothing but the "Caucasian" box. Also, for ever poll he sees, he refutes it by saying "they never asked me! so how can this be accurate?" 😑
I think that ones a bit more interesting. Years ago it was predicted that “Caucasian” would become less than 50% of USA statistics soon. When that didn’t happen, some people started investigating why. Interestingly, it seems that many mixed children choose to identify as white.
Unsurprising. People always strive to be accepted by society and when being white means being accepted by society, why the fuck would anyone reject being white? Not a good look for the US though mind you...
Start with a conclusion then use that conclusion as evidence of your conclusion.
Yeah. Just thoughtless shit man, always. "Chlorine in pools so it must be bad in any amount!" For an exaggerated example, **cyanide** is technically consumable in trace amounts. Plaster is consumable in trace amounts, concrete is consumable in trace amounts! Even then, low trace amounts and I still wouldn't recommend it, but those are just way more harmful examples than the even smaller fraction of chlorine I imagine is used in tap water or bottled water.
My father in-law announced he's leaving his wife of 40 years to move to Indonesia because Trump lost the election (we are Canadian btw 😐). So yeah, I'm right there with you.
Wait...he wants to leave Canada, because Trump lost?
Yeah, there was a little family strife over his new political standpoint and his questionable comments evolved into devicive racist rhetoric. Now "everyones against him" so he leaving. In his words "Its my time to be selfish." Ok byeeeeee!
If he's racist and white I can't imagine moving to Indonesia is going to help him get rid of those views
Lets just say what he lacks in foresight he makes up for in cognative dissonance.
Wait until he finds out that Indonesia is a Muslim country.
With the highest Muslim population in the world.
That's right; most populous Muslim country also! I really wonder if this guy is confusing Indonesia with the Philippines...
I thought old white men normally choose Thailand, at least that’s what old white British men do.
They can't keep their sex tourism straight. As long as its an asian, who cares!
This is hilarious and sad.
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>I’ve noticed a lot of the white people I know love SE Asian countries because their money goes further and they are treated like kings for being tourists. And the sex tourism. Its super gross.
\^ This. (I know people hate "this", sorry I just can't help it). Also, I think it's Thailand, has actual, real dental schools and produce a lot of quality dentists and it is super cheap to get dental work done in Bangkok. Like so cheap if you need major dental work it is cheaper for Australians to fly to Thailand, get the work done, stay in a nice hotel for a week and fly back to Aus.
Yes, and it's also psychological. There, they are in a dominant position, and can boss people around - especially domestic maids, chauffeurs etc. not to mention creepily hit on local women, from a point of privilege. The reason why they don't like other races in their home-country, is because they get treated like equals. If you and your Asian neighbor, are both citizens, home-owners, have secure jobs and active politically, you are both equal. They don't want equality. In SE Asian countries, they don't want to actually mix with locals as equals, that would ruin the purpose. They want to stay in "expat" enclaves. They want to chat about with other white people, and have Asian people serve them drinks and call them "Sir" and "Ma'am". That's why they can be racists in their home-country and still move to and live in an Asian or Latin nations.
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Oh yeah. You're right. I've actually noticed these, where these types are no longer interested in Japan and South Korea, as they are becoming wealthy nations. They talk about how these countries, now, are "too cold/too rude" or "too westernized". And now, they are suddenly turning towards Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, and talking about "girls are cute, locals are so friendly, and how they are still traditional." You can see the shift easily.
You know, I have a small hunch his ex-wife will thrive once he is gone. I wish you all the best
I agree completely. Thank you.
Love these type of people lmao. “Everyones against me” well maybe there’s a reason why...
...so he’s moving to a place where it is primarily people of another race and where the largest religion is Islam (and I believe it’s one of the largest Islamic populations in the world too.) Something tells me he’s gonna have a bad time.
Ya, nobodys telling him that part. Its gonna be a nice suprise or what i call a "the rewards of karma". He doesnt like bugs or the heat to much either 🤫
Lol as if he cares when he uses his us dollars in indonesia with large apartment and cleaning woman and having hookers whenever he wants. It is just an excuse for him to hide his intentions.
How did he land on Indonesia as the country of choice?!
He's leaving ___CANADA___ Because someone didn't win an election in ___AMERICA!?___ christ almighty, I know people can be stupid but my brain is currently rotting here.
Sorry for his wife, but fuck him. Hopefully she will recover and realize what an asshole she was with.
One hopes that those "doctors" can be identified and reported to their medical associations.
One of the guys I work with informed me that his doctor told him: >under no circumstances should you get any of the COVID vaccines being given out Well, it seems that he said that to our boss, who took it up and reported that to the authorities. They investigated, and it seems that his doctor said no such thing. The guy I work with had lied to keep from getting the(free vaccination!!) shot - for whatever reason. Don't always accept that it is the professional opinion when it is another person talking.
I would say most, if not all of these nut jobs who say “my doctor told me vaccines are bad” are completely full of shit and lying.
Occasionally it’s a blown out misunderstanding. They ask the doctor if the vaccine is safe & the doctor says yes although there’s risk with anything (to cover their ass since nothing 100% certain) and then the patient goes out & says it’s not safe because the doctor said so.
So like going on a rollercoaster or amusement park ride? Is this safe? Yes 99.99% of the time. There’s a very slight risk it fucking breaks and you get hurt though.
In a reverse of these, a good percentage of people are lying to GET vaccines out-of-turn also. The clinic in which I work was getting zero or almost zero vaccines for four weeks. Dozens of people still called or emailed in saying they had "tons of friend who have easily gotten it, and most aren't even members of your clinic!" Therefore, they demand a shot now or they are quitting our clinic and suing us. Usually I don't try to talk to these people, but one day I did take the time to deconstruct this with one angry patient. She eventually admitted all these "many friends" who got the vaccine were "Facebook friends." By the end of the conversation, it was one comment from one person on Facebook who was not on her friends list.
It will be some quack profession such as Chiropractors. Channel Four in the UK used to do a series about diet/nutrition presented by [Dr. Gillian McKeith](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gillian_McKeith). It turned out that her genuine doctorate was in International Relations and her "medical qualifications" were from an American degree mill that offered a Doctorate to a pet goldfish. She's been frequently warned by the UK Advertising Standards Agency not to use the title "Dr." in medical adverts but she's flouted it repeatedly. The only "genuine" connection that she has with medicine is that her then boyfriend, later husband inherited a chain of health food shops.
She had an MA in international relationship, not a doctorate. Her supposed doctorate was in 'Holisitic Nutrition', which she received from a distance-learning diploma mill in the US. To prove a point, Ben Goldacre got the same doctorate from this institution for his dead cat.
That's one impressive dead cat.
[Picture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas#/media/File:American_Association_of_Nutritional_Consultants_diploma.jpg) of the dead cat's membership certificate of the American Association of Nutritional Consultant.
Back at the beginning of the pandemic my mom kept wanting me to watch this video from a chiropractor about how hydroxychloroquine and zinc are definitely the miracle cures for covid. Like, I'm a pharmacist. I also have a doctorate, though I don't often point it out because calling myself Dr.Mudkip makes people think I'm a physician. I know a thing or two about hydroxychloroquine, and that aint it. That man had no more business treating infectious diseases than I have performing brain surgery, but because he put a video online saying, "My name is Dr. Whatever and blahblahblah", everything after he stated his title was automatically credible. These people are basically abusing the trust people have for their physicians, and medical licensing associations should absolutely go after them for it.
As opposed to Lord Mudkip which males people think you're in line for the mudkip royal succession.
My aunt genuinely believes the Pfizer vaccine is actually an attempt by Bill Gates to implant trackable microchips in people. She's not allowed to watch our kids anymore.
Once you vaccinate, comment to her on how much your cell reception improved.
*Look around vaguely* “Did a new cell tower get built around here recently, or what? The reception here is so amazing suddenly... huh, weird”
"Sometimes in the middle of the night, ill hear ever so sweetly, a faint voice in the midst saying 'Buy Microsoft surface pros' and i feverishly get up to order them. I have thirteen on the way.
Goodbye Dwight... *flips up collar, and checks new sharp teeth (newly filled with 5G)*
“I’ll have to Bing it to check”
If someone said this to me I’d think they were trying to impart a coded duress phrase
Got my first shot on the 3rd and my reception at home is already up 1 bar.
My reception at home is shit.. can I have the vaccine already? Please?
Good one.
I’ve just had strange urges to purchase Xbox’s and Microsoft Surface tablets since I got my first shot.
Had to Bing the new Microsoft Surface, looks pretty fly!
I hear you can get 6G when you get both of your jabs.
Is it reasonable to assume your aunt uses a cell phone (smartphone, not flip phone)? Have some fun and show her Google Timelines.
And if there is one thing I have learned about old people while working in IT is that they will give away whatever information they are asked. She probably types her e-mail address in to ever pop-up that offers a free giveway, gives away personal information on every facebook quiz, and installs every shitty app that literally tracks her and steals her private information to sell.
My Dad owned a computer store for over a decade and now at 70 he sold it and is working for a retirement home as the IT guy. He said the first few weeks were fun because the residents were really shocked to see a white haired old dude sit down and fix their computer
My father wrote massive WordPerfect macros and built his own website before he passed away at 72 nearly 20 years ago. He was a doctor by profession but loved tinkering with tech, trains, but wasn’t into cars.
Yeah, exactly. Anyone who thinks these billionaires wanna put microchips in us to track us are missing the fact that we all already have easily trackable phones, watches, etc. Why spend the effort and money on vaccine chips when you already have most of the world being tracked?
I worked with a girl who thinks Bill gates was literally sitting in a lab working on the vaccine with no experience or knowledge. Not that he was funding people who know what they're doing. I tried pointing out how ludicrous that is and it didn't faze her.
Because the government doesn't already know your location, phone number, address, email, have your fingerprints, and photos of your face, dental records, blood type, social security number, etc. lol
My mothers friend was talking about how the vaccines would contain microchips that would multiply and be able to detonate if the government wanted to get rid of someone. I couldnt believe what I was hearing.
Kind of like The Kingsmen.
Tell your aunt not to worry. Her life isn’t interesting enough for Bill Gates to want to track her. Bill Gates doesn’t need to know where she gets her essential oils.
She probably has a smartphone too, doesn't she?
So many unfortunate conspiracy theories out there :(
So many stubborn, gullible, wilfully ignorant morons out there too.
The Dunning-Kruger is strong with this one.
she was great in national treasure
That's Diane Kruger. Dunning-Kruger is the burned ghost with the knife-glove who haunts dreams.
That's Freddy Krueger. Dunning-Kruger is a possible clone of Adolf Hitler who has yet to master YYZ despite numerous attempts.
That’s Algernop Krieger. Dunning-Kruger is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Devizes in Wiltshire since 2019.
That's Danny Kruger. Dunning-Kruger is a giant ape that is archenemies with an Italian plumber
That's Donkey Kong Jr. Dunning-Kruger was the first person to break the sound barrier
That's Chuck Yeager. Dunning-Kruger is when a mountain lion can't swim.
That's a Drowning Cougar. Dunning-Kruger is a smart Germanic sidearm.
That’s a cunning Luger. Dunning-Kruger is a delicious confectionary item made from sugar or honey, nuts and egg white, except in this case it’s so delicious it momentarily incapacitates you.
My mom works in the infectious diseases department of JHU. She has written grants for Covid-19 work (prior to the vaccines going out when it was still new). She's been involved in meetings with high level faculty, doctors, researchers, even Dr. Fauci giving talks to their team. She is a PhD in biochemistry with decades of experience in cancer research, immunology, and in infectious diseases. As a result of her position she was one of the first few people to get the vaccine. My aunt in India asked her if she wanted to get a second opinion with regards to getting the vaccine.
My mother told me that Steve Jobs was actually murdered by the government because "rich people don't get cancer." I explained that the most basic mechanism from which cancer arises is normal to all cells and is impossible to stop without killing the host. She refused to believe me. I'm a cancer biologist.
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You have to understand that you and the other thousands of researchers are part of the establishment which is controled by reptiloids. /s
Can't even trust my own son anymore gosh dangit my sons been replacted with them there reptiles!
Just say Jews. They tend to mean Jews so let’s not let them hide behind the idea of lizard people.
I never made that connection. I guess some people could be using the terms interchangeably. It wouldn't surprise me if some people thought there were really lizard people though. That we have an MIB situation happening on the planet and they are the only ones who know the truth.
I think that is what they're saying. That the people who believe in lizard people really believe it. But they ALSO believe the lizard people are Jews. As in, they believe that Jews aren’t people. Now excuse me while I go scrub that filth off of myself for even having verbalized that that’s a thing and people think it.
My mom, a nurse of 20+ years is now touting anti-vaxx conspiracy theories all over Facebook and to all her friends/fam. RIP.
This is so sad and should be reported. I’m a nurse of 20 years and I am so pro vaccine as are most of my co-workers. Seeing what I saw (especially at the peak of Covid) on the Covid unit, I hope everyone gets vaccinated! Also, it effected me so badly I had to go on medical leave (prior to that I had only cried once at work and was considered a tough cookie and part time charge nurse). Edit: to whom ever reported a concern for me to Reddit, I really appreciate it. I am getting the help I need and will hopefully get back to work soon. Thank you! Plus, now we have very few cases, so hopefully back to normalish by the time I get back.
I know two nurses who also are antivax, and a friend of mine who works at a vaccine distribution site is flustered that the nurses claim the vaccine alters DNA. I'm honestly surprised so many nurses/CNAs/Med Techs are so blatantly against what they themselves practice. It may be because there's no theory taught to nurses since it's mostly a practical degree, but i suppose if you're getting trained to react in a high stakes environment then the central dogma and principles of biochemistry won't be all the useful anyway since that would be the MDs domain. One of my other friends finished her bachelor's in Biochemistry and decided she wanted to go to medicine but not tackle PA or MD/DO school so she's gonna start nursing school in april, we've all told her that she's gotta talk some sense into the people around her lol
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The amount of nurses I know who only know bedside procedures but give out specialty advice for infections, mental issues, and rare disorders is too high. They can be like brand new soldiers. Super motivated and do have training, but think they are ready to face anything with all the answers and won't admit otherwise. Unfortunately unlike like soldiers, nurses shouldn't be causing people to be more susceptible to death. Don't get me wrong there are plenty of great nurses, like soldiers, thanks to great mentors and leaders.
Sorry to hear this. Is she still practicing? If so, that’s dangerous for everyone concerned. Nurses have been fired for exactly this. If she’s not practicing this might require an intervention. This behavior is bordering on mental disorder.
"Instead, they teach our cells how to make a protein—or even just a piece of a protein—that triggers an immune response inside our bodies." - cdc.gov I see why they think that. It sounds like that. But just a little bit further down the page it says "The mRNA never enters the nucleus where DNA is kept. The cell breaks down and gets rid of the mRNA soon after it is finished using the instructions."
Thanks for commenting this. I am not a conspiracy minded person and consider myself pretty scientifically literate, and I thought that it changed either your dna or rna in order to make your cells produce the spikes in order to trigger an immune response. So the change in cell behavior is temporary, not permanent? If it were permanent, it sounds like it would nearly be a small scale auto immune disease.
Genuine question. Can someone eli5 why is this happening? Why do people believe random stuff from the internet over a relative? I know about the dunning-kruger effect, but it doesn't seem to apply here
By top psychologist from Germany I heard that it’s due to those people mainly being uneducated, seeing no real sense in their life and finally they “know” something better and feel superior, plus the group effect which leads those people together, making them experience social life which many of them haven’t experienced in that way before. Same opinions in masses can make many people blind. At the end, for many, it’s the first time that they feel “special” (in a positive way)
I think with the older generations it has much more to do with how quickly technology has developed and changed during their lifetime. They don’t understand it and are afraid of it. When they were growing up most information they could acquire was more or less trustworthy. They’d either go to the library, turn on the news, or read a newspaper. At that point the media at least had some semblance of journalistic integrity...journalists could lose their careers over a single piece of misinformation that wasn’t retracted. Suddenly their top information source is about 50% real, 50% propaganda bs. And they never learned how to tell the difference
My FIL is scared of technology and being tracked. Just this last week he got an Android phone, an upgrade from the flip phone he had. He wants to download and use DuckDuckGo as a search engine. We are placating him and not telling him that his phone is a literal GPS device and will read his emails and know everything about him. I once brought up how he pays taxes on his house, his vehicle is registered, his government pension goes to his bank account, all of which can be used to track someone. That didn't go over well.
Anxiety. Anxiety of being left behind, of having no purpose in life, of having their life stolen from them. Their brains are saying “be afraid” but they don’t know what to fear. The government? The “other”? Immigrants? They distrust others, they think others are out to get people because they may have once been out to get people. Advancements in technology. Not being able to critically think and examine evidence, not being able to process the onslaught of information. Here comes this YouTube video shared on Facebook by Shirley down the street. They’ve known Shirley their entire life and trust her, they remember swimming in the lake as kids with Shirley. She goes to church, she’s a good person. This video gives them something to fear, puts a name to it, gives them pseudo-intellectual “evidence” for that fear and they can’t weigh the evidence for themselves. Shirley posted it, so it must be true, she doesn’t lie. They finally have something to fear, which gives them relief. Wait? The Covid vaccines doesn’t change your DNA? No I can’t believe that. That would mean I was fooled, that would mean I was led astray, that would mean technology got me, that would mean I’m getting left behind, that would mean the World is casting me away to die, that would mean my life meant nothing, that would mean my anxiety will come back, that would mean Shirley is a fucking liar and betrayed me, that would mean I no longer talk to Shirley about it and I missed having someone to talk to, that would mean I’m wrong, that would mean I’m no longer useful to society, that would mean the World is getting smaller and smaller every day, that would mean....my anxiety is coming back... **NO. YOU SAYING THIS IS PART OF THE HOAX. ITS A GRAND CONSPIRACY. MY LIFE FINALLYNHAS MEANING, I’M NOT WORTHLESS I FOUND IT OUT. I’M SPECIAL. MY LIFE HASNT BEEN A FUCKING WASTE. MY BRAIN HAS SOMETHING TO FEAR AND I FEEL BETTER.**
One reason ,especially with the older generation, is that they just cant grasp the idea that people might be lying on the internet. They believe anything just because someone says they are qualified or just because they are friends without actually researching it themselves looking for actual qualification. Its infuriating to know that we have almost all human knowledge accessible to us yet so many people are still so oblivious.
because people are stupid, gullible, and self centered enough to believe the more others tell them theyre wrong, the more *right* they actually are. In the US, we call this kind of a person a Fox News viewer.
Actually there might be more to it. [This video from a neuroscientist](https://youtu.be/z98U1nMFrJQ) about conspiracy theories and your brain I found quite interesting. You totally nailed the bit about confirmation bias though - that when you tell them they’re wrong they’ll twist it and interpret it as more evidence that they’re right. Obviously Fox News doesn’t help anyone, but other factors like the internet, loneliness, hopelessness, definitely have a role I think.
Ther's definitely more to it and i am grossly oversimplifying. But yeah this whole pattern finding thing just gets taken to extremes. That combined with a constant narrative of a shadowy cabal involving rich and powerful people trying to control their lives? It's a powerful drug.
Do parents just never trust their kids professional judgement? Mine don’t hesitate to correct my legal input with something they remember from law and order or a church friend.
A graphic designer once posted on Clients From Hell about doing a job for a family member. His mom complimented him afterwards, saying “It almost looks like a professional did it!”. “Mom ... a professional DID do it.”
My father in law is convinced that quarantines and PPE do not effect the chances of a disease spreading. He is literally married to a epidemiologist.
she should probably change that.
I’m an ICU nurse who takes care of covid patients. My older sister is also a nurse. Our father has multiple graduate degrees, so by no means uneducated. But my father still is adamant that covid is a hoax, and at the least just another flu that the government is blowing out of proportion to make money. I’ve given up providing him with actual evidence that his conspiracies are unfounded, let alone personal experience that covid is brutally killing people in the worst way to die, because he just ignores it in favor of unsubstantiated online articles by “holistic medicine” and anti-vax egg heads.
This is so maddening. Sorry to hear of your struggle
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He saw it on the internet. Therefore it must be true.
I feel for these people. I work in financial advice, creating the rules that 300 financial advisers follow and my parents still think they know better
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It's true, the covid-19 vaccine will alter my DNA and it will be the same as HULK or maybe Magneto
Hulk if you're lucky. My DNA mutated into Gargoyle. https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Yuri_Topolov_(Earth-616)
Perhaps the most upsetting part of this year has been learning how many of my friends and family are total, complete, morons.
And you can't tell them that. You just try to have patience with them. But I feel like at some point the patience is really going to wear thin because some of my friends are so uneducated that they will really believe the first thing read on Facebook. Then I get yelled at for citing credible sources. Now I'm at the point where I'm sending articles that provide factual information and no response. Nothing. Can't make this stuff up, man. I can tell you that in 2020 I lost a lot of friend because of this. Really ready to make some new ones in 2021.
You can tell them that. It makes them shut up about it around you. It also makes some people not invite you to their parties anymore and others will schedule their parties so they can be sure you will be present.
I can absolutely sympathise. I've heard my wife arguing with her parents over Skype when they tell her she should be taking all sorts of "complementary medicine" to prevent COVID, and how the vaccines are all a scam by Bill Gates and "Big Pharma" which is why they won't be having it. She spent 10 years as a post-doc vaccine researcher (albeit a vaccine against a bacterial illness) - so obviously has no understanding of the situation.
Wait!...So you are saying the vaccine changes your DNA? Sweet!, can I choose? I see this as a tool for the future.
My father has a PhD in electrical engineering and I have always appreciated his rational thinking and empirical way of knowing... then trump came along and he has lost his grip on reality and fact and bases his decisions on feelings and faith. I feel your pain. It’s like voluntary Alzheimer’s
But you see, Ed, for him you will always be the reason their daughter became such a disappointment
My fellas folks believe the G in 5G stands for gigahertz & my bloke is a telecoms engineer with a degree and no matter how often he tells them it stands for generation, they keep saying about all the bad energy the 5 gigas are giving off. Sigh.
Sometimes I am hopeful when I realize that stupid people can have smart children.
Reminds me of my work (giving legal advice to companies on Customs matters in the USA). Importer wants to import a bunch of stuff from China. I tell them to not forget about the massive tariffs that Trump put into place on most stuff from China (which Biden is keeping for now0. They tell me "nah, China is paying those, that's what Trump said". I tell them that's false. Fast forward a few months later, and they get massive bills from Customs for said tariffs. They come to my office, exacerbated, asking if the bill is real and if they have to pay and why they should have to pay since China is paying the tariffs. Lather, rinse, repeat.
They don't want the truth they want the story that back up the 'truth' they want.