D&D and the rising pandemic

[Umbran]

I thought I understood the why of folks not wanting to get a treatment because the government/politicians/business folks said to and they don't trust them for well justified reasons with a long history. But I'm stuck on how the fact that all of the people doing the telling lined up to get the treatment first, and that all groups on the country are pretty much being told to get it, doesn't change the dynamic.

If I understand what you are saying, here's a key element...

If you don't trust them... how do you trust that you are getting the same treatment they did?

 

[Cadence]

There are historical reasons for this distrust that we can't really go into on this forum, because of the rules. The distrust is warranted specifically because of what @Dannyalcatraz mentioned, above.

I think I understand at least a few of the historical incidents pretty well (and hence understand why there would certainly be distrust). It was the "poison goblet" idea that had never occurred to me.

If I understand what you are saying, here's a key element...

If you don't trust them... how do you trust that you are getting the same treatment they did?

I was going to ask if there were folks who would go to a different neighborhood (where they assumed folks would get the real thing) to get it then, but they'd still have to trust that the giver wouldn't switch it on them when they saw them in line.

 

[Thomas Shey]

My family is still working on getting one of my cousins vaccinated, He’s not exactly anti-vax, nor is he a conspiracy nut, but his distrustful attitude towards white America is just shy of paranoid.

Well, not like there isn't some history there.

 

[NotAYakk]

And STILL, my cousin balks.

Imagine not understanding the world. And not understanding why you don't understand it.

You don't understand airplanes. And when someone tries to explain it to you, it comes out as nonsense. Complicated nonsense.

You do understand your lived experience. You get on a plane and end up somewhere else. You don't grasp aerodynamics, and you only trust that planes work because you know people who flew on planes, and most of them aren't dead. You are still more than a bit terrified of them, because the news keeps on talking about crashes.

You don't understand taxes. You are annoyed by the numbers on your paycheck. You do things your boss tells you to do, because they have social power over you, and you have learned that direct defiance against people with social power over you ends poorly. Sometimes you can't resist. But often you sublimate it into using social power on those weaker than you.

You have learned that when your bank account goes too low, bad things happen. So when you see it going down, you cut back on spending. And when it goes up, you are told to do some savings. But you also like spending it on cool naughty word. And leases are awesome, because you can get stuff without having numbers in your bank account.

Maybe you have gone to school, and picked up an area of expertise. In that area, you have learned best practices. You have memorized enough domain-specific math to be competent in that domain. Maybe you know the basics of amortization as it applies to real estate or business good purchases. Maybe you are even an engineer, and know how to do differential equations and component analysis to determine stress on load bearing members. You sometimes apply these techniques elsewhere. But in areas you aren't an expert, you assume you are either equally qualified, or the other people are spewing naughty word.

And now we have this pandemic.

You can't see it. People using science you don't understand are telling you to do annoying things that seem to have no effect. People who act like you are saying it is naughty word.

Societies reaction to the pandemic was informed by the nature of exponential curves and forecasts by experts. We didn't do a lockdown in California (or whatever) because of what was happening there, but because of Italy and NYC and a prediction of what would happen in California if we didn't.

Even today, the "sensible" responses are based off of abstract reasoning and trust in the models of experts and the assumption that what goes wrong elsewhere would go wrong here. They aren't direct responses to concrete local events.

Opposing that is "common sense" (concrete, local, personal experience based), and as you repeat your "common sense" position it becomes a matter of opposing it because you are on the other side of the argument.

This is why messaging and preparation is key to getting a high uptake of something like vaccines to work. "It actually works" only convinces a certain percentage of the population.

Parents get kids vaccinated more out of "common sense", it is the way things work, not out of an understanding of the arguments about why vaccination is a good idea.

 

[Janx]

Imagine not understanding the world. And not understanding why you don't understand it.

You don't understand airplanes. And when someone tries to explain it to you, it comes out as nonsense. Complicated nonsense.

You do understand your lived experience. You get on a plane and end up somewhere else. You don't grasp aerodynamics, and you only trust that planes work because you know people who flew on planes, and most of them aren't dead. You are still more than a bit terrified of them, because the news keeps on talking about crashes.

You don't understand taxes. You are annoyed by the numbers on your paycheck. You do things your boss tells you to do, because they have social power over you, and you have learned that direct defiance against people with social power over you ends poorly. Sometimes you can't resist. But often you sublimate it into using social power on those weaker than you.

You have learned that when your bank account goes too low, bad things happen. So when you see it going down, you cut back on spending. And when it goes up, you are told to do some savings. But you also like spending it on cool naughty word. And leases are awesome, because you can get stuff without having numbers in your bank account.

Maybe you have gone to school, and picked up an area of expertise. In that area, you have learned best practices. You have memorized enough domain-specific math to be competent in that domain. Maybe you know the basics of amortization as it applies to real estate or business good purchases. Maybe you are even an engineer, and know how to do differential equations and component analysis to determine stress on load bearing members. You sometimes apply these techniques elsewhere. But in areas you aren't an expert, you assume you are either equally qualified, or the other people are spewing naughty word.

And now we have this pandemic.

You can't see it. People using science you don't understand are telling you to do annoying things that seem to have no effect. People who act like you are saying it is naughty word.

Societies reaction to the pandemic was informed by the nature of exponential curves and forecasts by experts. We didn't do a lockdown in California (or whatever) because of what was happening there, but because of Italy and NYC and a prediction of what would happen in California if we didn't.

Even today, the "sensible" responses are based off of abstract reasoning and trust in the models of experts and the assumption that what goes wrong elsewhere would go wrong here. They aren't direct responses to concrete local events.

Opposing that is "common sense" (concrete, local, personal experience based), and as you repeat your "common sense" position it becomes a matter of opposing it because you are on the other side of the argument.

This is why messaging and preparation is key to getting a high uptake of something like vaccines to work. "It actually works" only convinces a certain percentage of the population.

Parents get kids vaccinated more out of "common sense", it is the way things work, not out of an understanding of the arguments about why vaccination is a good idea.

to add to this, there are evil people actively creating propaganda to encourage doing the wrong thing specifically to cause chaos and harm. So the "You" in your story is someone susceptible to that.

 

[Umbran]

Imagine not understanding the world. And not understanding why you don't understand it.

Um... explaining to Danny why an African American might not trust the American healthcare system is, as they saying goes, teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

 

[NotAYakk]

Um... explaining to Danny why an African American might not trust the American healthcare system is, as they saying goes, teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to directly address that subgroup. My apologies Danny.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

 

[Janx]

Um... explaining to Danny why an African American might not trust the American healthcare system is, as they saying goes, teaching your grandmother to suck eggs.

good point, my reply wasn't even thinking of that as I hadn't seen Danny's pretty clear post the reply I replied to was for. totally different. Sorry Danny.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And just in case it wasn't clear, mine was intended more as sympathy for the cousin in this case (something I have for very few of the vaccine resistant).