COVID-19: Chapter 9 - OMGicron

Well shit instead of just having nurses tell us how exhausted they are and how people need to pretty please get vaccinated we have more people tell it like it is and just say “republicans are being conned into resisting the vaccine because idiots who become that radicalized via Facebook are reliable voters”

My wife is a cbt doctorate level therapist and that’s basically her mantra.

Im generally supportive of your unvaxxed arguments until we get to the part where the unvaxxed arent doing real harm to society with their choices that we shouldnt judge them for it. They are doing harm, and should be judged, and the fact that the pandemic wouldnt be over even if everyone was vaxxed doesnt change that.

Generally not a great vaccination campaign strategy to call people idiots and celebrate their loved ones deaths though, fully agree there.

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It also ignores that a) policy has to happen to make the world better and b) emotional appeals drive a lot of policy because the political will to make them happen.

I’m sure she helps her clients to change their way of thinking about things to increase more positive and productive thoughts and decrease more counterproductive thoughts. Maybe emotions is the wrong way of saying what I’m trying to express, which is simply: patterns of thinking about the unvaccinated that lead to anger and rage towards them is not productive. Patterns of thinking that avoid that anger and rage are much better.

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This is exactly right. Anti vaxxer appeasement is a stupid policy in normal times, let alone a pandemic.

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They are doing harm, I totally agree. Should they be judged? Well maybe but to what end. Judgement usually comes with a penalty. Now I don’t have a problem with vaccine mandates, so I guess that’s judgement and then a penalty of a sort. You don’t get a vaccine, you don’t get to work here.

lol I just had a thought. Maybe my choice not to judge antivaxxers is some ad-hoc cognitive behavioral therapy that I spontaneously engaged in for myself. Like I said, I work with antivaxxers every day and if I choose to judge them it would probably lead to me having negative emotions towards them. After all, I judged them guilty of a thing. Maybe avoiding the pattern of thought of judgement for antivaxxing is what lets me maintain a cheerful and pleasant relationship with my antivaxx coworkers. Interesting.

Antivaxxers have actively harmed my partner and many other medical professionals I know. Shaming them maybe doesn’t accomplish anything but I’m not really sure any tactic will so I am having a hard time caring? If nothing else making their behavior not accepted/welcome in polite society has actual benefits keeping people who care about that kind of thing from following in their footsteps.

I was in an uber about a week ago and the driver was maskless and told me when i got in the uber that she hadn’t worn masks the entire pandemic and i didn’t need to if I didn’t want to. I of course did not take my mask off. She then goes on to tell me about multiple family members who have died from Covid including her mother than lived with her. She most likely killed her own mother being careless with Covid and still doesn’t care at all. I don’t see how any tactic will have any impact on someone like that and there are tons of people much farther gone than that.

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Yeah, I agree but again.

So what?

It’s great to empathize with people including antivaxxers because, as I said, people aren’t just one thing. So you (and me, and everyone we know) need to challenge ourselves constantly to answer the tough question: so what? Forget about whether it’s ok to “hate” certain people or not, who gives a shit? The question is: what actions are acceptable and what actions are not acceptable? And what do we do about actions that are unacceptable?

You can hold empathy in your heart for an antivaxxer and still hold that being voluntarily unvaccinated is not acceptable behavior. In fact, this is the only reasonable thing to do. Antivaxxer appeasement is a choice to permit a specific action. The whole discussion around whether it’s ok to be really mad at them is actually beside the point.

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Yeah, and this culture is out there threatening and harassing, and, if that one anecdote is to be believed, assaulting medical workers who are trying to save them. Compassion is great at all, but at a certain point, these people are causing real harm to those around them, and pushback is necessary. If you’ve got some evidence that just being nice to them is all it takes to change their mind, I’d like to see it, but being a victim doesn’t excuse ensuing villainy.

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i ended up getting quickvue, because binax was sold out. how does it compare?

That’s exactly what jit is and except for very specific situations it’s dumb as shit.

On your first point, it bears repeating that the pushback only has to be on the specific action we oppose. This idea that it’s “over the line” to group them together as “anti vaxxers” is kind of obtuse. I guess if someone commits one little homicide we shouldn’t call them “murderers” and we definitely shouldn’t say hurtful things like “murderers are bad”. Have some empathy, asshole!

On your second point, we have a lot of evidence on how successful it is to be nice to people hoping it curtails their selfish actions. The track record is not great!

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How’s the record of “do what I say, shithead!”?

Ya I’m not advocating laughing at his mom dying. I’m simply making the point that none of my behavior or tactics or whatever matters at all. Deplorable types aren’t going to change their mind on stuff like Covid. Having a completely unmalleable mind is pretty much a core belief system for them.

Also which is it? Should we have compassion/empathy for people who don’t meet our personal standards of Covid behavior or not? Because your post seems to lack that for a lot of UPers behavior that you go above and beyond to keep pointing out doesn’t meet your personal standard.

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Aren’t you a lawyer? Regulations actually work, when enforced. If we’re really at a point where we just can’t figure out what to do, asking them nicely and asking them meanly both don’t seem to work, let me introduce you to this cool idea that existed before Reagan where the government just mandated that people all do one thing for the greater good. You may note that we don’t put signs up at the entrance ramp to the highway that say “With our greatest empathy, we ask you to drive on the right side of the road, but we respect your Personal Choice to drive on the left. We’re sorry for even bringing it up.”

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Build that house to code, shithead.

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Can you not have empathy for people building homes that are not up to code? The flames may engulf someone else’s family, but you have to understand that the builder grew up in a culture of cutting corners and maximizing short term profitability above all else. It’s regrettable that those children died but yelling at the builder isn’t going to solve anything, stupid.

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None of this has anything to do with interpersonal judgement or hostility on a personal level. Of course the government should implement policies that encourage vaccination, including punitive ones if that’s warranted.

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Mandates are being met by brief noisy complaints followed by overwhelming compliance.

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