It is amazing how the conspiracy-minded are such slaves to confirmation bias and cherry-picking.
One doctor says something they agree with? Great, then that overrules the thousands of doctors who say the opposite, because *they're* obviously wrong!
(, Mon 13 Dec 2021, 8:14, Reply)
to be fair i reckon confirmation bias is almost humans default position, and something even conscientious scientist need to actively police in themselves
but there is this kind of odd assumption in anti-vaxxers, like 9-11 conspiricy theorists, that because their position is contrary to authority or orthodoxy, that therefore it's more credible. It's "most people are against us, therefore we must be right". That these dickwits, youtube jocks, fringe scientists often talking outside their field (like the retired paediatrician above giving her opinion on epidemiology and public health policy) who they turn to, are somehow not out to exploit them and generate hits or a profile for themselves, while actual scientists and experts are. It's not an intellectual position, it's an "Us-who-know-the-real-truth" club that you join, and it attracts the kind of people whose personality that appeals to.
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 13 Dec 2021, 10:16,
Reply)
Indeed.
My partner's step-sister is one roll away from going full tinfoil. She occasionally asks searching questions about stuff I deal with at work (pharmaceutical manufacturing) like "but how do you know what's in vaccines?", which is fair enough and she is quite right to challenge assumptions. The problem is that she doesn't subject her own views/opinions to the same scrutiny. So maybe it's down to a lack of self-awareness.
I try to avoid her, though. Last time I saw her, she asked if I could get hold of some Ivermectin because Joe Rogan was taking it.
(, Mon 13 Dec 2021, 10:47, Reply)
sell her some placebos. Claim it's the stuff big pharma don't want people to know about that all the top execs take themselves
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cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Mon 13 Dec 2021, 14:00,
Reply)
It would be too easy.
That's the other attribute that is astonishingly common in the conspiracy-minded: extreme gullibility. It's like they're overcompensating for being credulous fools by projecting it onto everyone else.
(, Mon 13 Dec 2021, 14:57, Reply)