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8tchbein's avatar

The broad points here are entirely correct but I think you are wrong about some of the specifics about health professionals and COVID.

With the early messaging about masks being ineffective (which they knew was a lie but thought was a noble lie to preserve masks for hospital), messaging about how even fully vaccinated people need to act as if they arent vaccinated, or boosters being unnecessary (another noble lie to force the USA to export more vaccines to foreign countries) the health organizations in this country have shown quite a willingness to prioritize messaging they think will manipulate behavior. I think our health organizations needed more scientific messaging with less concern for how their messaging will impact behavior. Let someone else figure that out, the scientists need to prioritize accurate scientific information.

This emphasis on messaging intended to take into account how the public will react to the message has made things worse not better.

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Troy Ryan Wood's avatar

Terry Pratchett said it best. Nobody considers themselves the villain of their own story.

Or to put it another way; Everybody is in the Rebel Alliance.

Depending where you fall on the scale of power and self-determination, even the most selfish asshole in existence will spin some sort of narrative that paints himself in the right as either the downtrodden victim of a selfish uncaring society (therefore, anybody I hurt probably deserved it and the ends justify the means) or the lone wolf rebel/sheriff/self-made man and the only person capable of seeing clearly above the stupid/lazy/greedy crowd (therefore, anybody I hurt probably deserved it and the ends justify the means.)

Most people fall somewhere between the two polar extremes, where there's always some group of evil conspirators or an amorphous cloud of stupid greedy assholes out there trying to strip us of our dignity, power, and personal freedom, but whenever we do manage to gain a little control in the game (even if it's just putting a sassy bumper sticker on our car or posting a rant on facebook), any loss of dignity, power, or freedom that the other guys may experience as a result is fully justifiable and only causing them pain because they were jerks who were in the wrong to begin with.

Where this sort of thinking really breaks down and rises into bat-shit extremism in when there is incredibly overwhelming easily obtained information that your POV is not just wrong but *dangerously* wrong, and you have to really stretch the plausibility of your counter-narrative to explain why you're the good guy and these other people with their fancy "science" aren't merely incorrect... but EVIL.

Which is why we're now in a situation where an incredibly large section of the population legitimately believes that there's a satanic cabal of blood-drinking pedophiles Democrats ruling the world who eat fetuses to stay young, operate artificial weather machines and hire crisis actors to manufacture disasters and school shootings, and have paid off all the doctors and scientists as part of an elaborate conspiracy to seize our guns and personal freedom, force everybody to be gay, and make that bastion of pussy-grabbing human decency Donald Trump "look bad."

And while it seems like that should have absolutely nothing to do with whether it's basic common sense to fucking put on a mask to protect yourself from a terrible airborne illness that's pretty demonstratively all around you and already killed a shit-ton of people, these folks have been indoctrinated to believe "everything a Liberal says or does is wrong/immoral" and are constantly reassured of this position every day by Fox News, their local megachurch, and surrounding social group, to the point where agreeing with a Democrat about *anything* is akin to walking up to Hitler and giving him a big high-five.

If a satanic baby-eating Dracula wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and came up to you sinisterly hissing "Here, take this scarf and pair of mittens, it's cold outside and I don't want you to catch a chill. Mwahahahaha!" you'd definitely think twice about accepting the gift, even though you're shivering, it's the middle of winter and you can see snow falling from the sky. Because why would this clearly evil and immoral monster offer me something and tell me it's going to help me, if it wasn't a lure or trap of some kind? It must be some sort of evil social control experiment! Ha! I see through your clever ploy!

Get thee behind me Satan with your warm and fuzzy mittens of temptation!!! I care not that they bear image of adorable hedgehogs or small dogs in funny hats! I know that were I to accept such an offering, my very soul would be subject to eternal damnation! I must post to the YouTube and 4chan immediately to spread the word to others and warn them of this evil scheme to subvert human dignity by forcing them to become reliant upon the devil's fleecy outerwear!!!

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