Back in '21, after we had the vaccine, there was a subreddit with a very simple premise: find social media posts of people who were anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-lockdown, then find the social media posts from when those exact same people caught COVID and died.
Even as they were dying, most of those people couldn't admit where they'd gone wrong. Even death wasn't enough to open their eyes.
In case you were wondering if we'll ever be able to reach some of the people who got us into this shit.
@Bigtallguy @Legit_Spaghetti This is also why I resist making my identity all about being covid serious and I'm weirded out by the more cult-like aspects of no/low covid circles, too, honestly.
I take covid extremely seriously, and I'm not "both sidesing", I promise.
It's that tolerating cultish behaviour tends to lead to (very) bad things.
My critical thinking and compassion remain firmly engaged (as do my covid safety protocols), and my identity isn't tied up with the herd.
@Bigtallguy @Legit_Spaghetti ...which by extension give me space to take in new information, admit mistakes, learn and grow.
It's a pretty good system (when I manage to live up to it).
@ShaulaEvans @Legit_Spaghetti i have an incredibly hard time finding/fitting into larger communities i identify with. while it does make it annoying for me to find an "online" home it does make it easier for me to step away from groups that are, frankly, enganging in big circlejerks.
many identities in history were forced to become political for survival i.e. LGBT, AfAms, jewish, etc but now in the social media age all politics are becomign identities and its tearing apart our social fabric
@Catawu @Legit_Spaghetti there’s a book called “mistakes were made, but not by me” about the psychology of how we justify wrong beliefs, and decisions.
Main premises that the psychological pain of admitting we are wrong, can justify doubling down on those wrong beliefs.
"En 2021, después de conseguir la vacuna, había un subreddit con una premisa muy simple: encontrar publicaciones en redes sociales de personas antimascarillas, antivacunas y anticonfinamiento, y luego encontrar las publicaciones de cuando esas mismas personas contrajeron COVID y fallecieron.
Incluso mientras morían, la mayoría no podía admitir qué había hecho mal. Ni siquiera la muerte les había hecho abrir los ojos.
Por si se preguntaban si alguna vez podremos contactar con algunas de las personas que nos metieron en esta situación."
@Legit_Spaghetti there's a quote from Thomas Paine that is very relevant here.
"To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture."
Part of one hell of a letter, looks like...
@Legit_Spaghetti One of the things that continues to baffle me is that so much effort and intensity and time goes into "get people to admit they are wrong" (or "a bad person", or any of the variants.)
This straight up doesn't happen. People don't do that; they're generally entirely willing to die given a choice between dying and admitting they're wrong.
Whatever else you want out of the world, give this up. You can't have it and trying for it is the opposite of helpful.
@raven667 @Legit_Spaghetti Good and bad are judgements.
Other people aren't going to use your judgements of good and bad. (Nor is it proper to expect them so to do.)
Fortunately, this is not necessary.
@raven667 @Legit_Spaghetti Like so much, the concepts of good and bad are personal.
This is widespread; "attractive" is a response, not a thing, and it's a response specific not merely to persons but to a mood and a moment of some one person. In the same way, good and bad are specific to someone's present.
Personal things do not scale to society and policy; any attempt to do so involves telling someone that, nope, how you feel about this is less important than how this person feels.
@Legit_Spaghetti@mastodo.neoliber.a Like the couple who were interviewed by a news network, and were still antivax even after one of their own kids had died from measles.
The propaganda is designed to bypass people's critical faculties and appeal to them on an emotional level. It's often impossible to change the minds of those susceptible to such messaging.
@Legit_Spaghetti @cstross we could. If we really wanted.
Censor the shit out of antivaxxers. Make them liable for the deaths they provoked. Prosecute them for crimes against humanity.
We don’t really need to reach those who voted for this shit; we need to reach those who didn’t vote at all. And we *don’t* do that by acting like the ones who got us into this shit in the first place!
Little pleasure for us in looking on at self-destruction, while knowing our lives are also being wrecked!
How evil, that there are people who excel at the construction of malignant identities, that know how to shape the mental equivalent of coffins for cult members to climb inside and die in!
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