Sometimes I read these posts and feel like I am standing on an island of sanity among a sea of insane people. That 88% support of Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause just seems totally nuts.
If you’re looking for something useful to do, call your senators and congresspeople and ask them to send our Astra Zeneca doses to hard hit parts of India.
On the bright side, that 88% of people may not be as insane as they seem. The vast majority of people don’t think for themselves on most topics. Rather people outsource thinking to trusted institutions and specialized individuals. That makes sense. Unless you’ve focused a lot on how to think well it’s going to be far too expensive and ineffective to figure out (most things) by yourself.
Unfortunately, when the institutions are bad and spread insane views, this outsourced thinking causes the trusting majority to share those insane views.
when the institutions are bad and spread insane views, this outsourced thinking causes the trusting majority to share those insane views
Or alternatively, with the model of institutions as competent but dishonest, the takeaway from an action with an implausible-sounding explanation (pausing vaccination out of “an abundance of caution”) is to make up your own explanation that would make the action seem reasonable (there are issues that are actually serious), and ignore all future claims from the institution on the topic (“we checked and it seems fine”).
Thus conspiracy theories, grounded in faith in the competence of institutions. With how well they manage to keep the evidence behind the real explanations secret, they must be pretty competent!
Sometimes I read these posts and feel like I am standing on an island of sanity among a sea of insane people. That 88% support of Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause just seems totally nuts.
If you’re looking for something useful to do, call your senators and congresspeople and ask them to send our Astra Zeneca doses to hard hit parts of India.
On the bright side, that 88% of people may not be as insane as they seem. The vast majority of people don’t think for themselves on most topics. Rather people outsource thinking to trusted institutions and specialized individuals. That makes sense. Unless you’ve focused a lot on how to think well it’s going to be far too expensive and ineffective to figure out (most things) by yourself.
Unfortunately, when the institutions are bad and spread insane views, this outsourced thinking causes the trusting majority to share those insane views.
Or alternatively, with the model of institutions as competent but dishonest, the takeaway from an action with an implausible-sounding explanation (pausing vaccination out of “an abundance of caution”) is to make up your own explanation that would make the action seem reasonable (there are issues that are actually serious), and ignore all future claims from the institution on the topic (“we checked and it seems fine”).
Thus conspiracy theories, grounded in faith in the competence of institutions. With how well they manage to keep the evidence behind the real explanations secret, they must be pretty competent!
I do kind of see it as being the responsible action, I just do not think this is the same thing as it being the right or even reasonable action.
It’s trying to be “responsible” despite not actually having the kind of control over the situation that makes things your responsibility.