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To have better disagreements, change your words

16 Comments
By Julia Minson

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16 Comments

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When I read the first paragraph, I just burst out laughing. The word 'refuses' with regard to COVID vaccinations, along with the obvious casual anti-white racism of the third 'dilemma' is a great example of everything that's wrong with the 'bien pensants' of the early 21st century. I was reading the other day in the BBC that pressure was mounting on Japan to remove its 'ban on same-sex marriage'. In fact, of course, there is no 'ban': same-sex marriage simply doesn't exist. Another good example is the near-ubiquitous usurpation by the word 'gender' of the biological and scientific reality called 'sex'. The left has long been adept at using words to change reality. Sadly, they are winning.

5 ( +12 / -7 )

I'm not a big fan of people manipulating others. I favour respecting a person's right to think and do their own thing and letting them get on with it. In return, I ask them to respect mine. That seems fair.

In practice: quote: Your 18-year-old daughter announces she’s in love, dropping out of college and moving to Argentina. Fine. Kids have to make their own mistakes. In life, we succeed or we learn. Plus travel broadens the mind. Why should parents expect to approve of their daughter's choices? Kids are not clones.

quote: Your yoga-teaching brother refuses to get vaccinated. No problem. I'll keep my mask on, you stand over there. Or bend double, curl up and do the flirting swan over there.

quote: Your boss is hiring another white man for a leadership team already made up entirely of white men. Depends on the person they hire and whether it affects me. If it did, but he was good at his job, fine. If an idiot with better staff passed over on racial grounds, and it impacted on me, I'd find a better job and let the racist and his company sink in Aryan mediocrity. Serves him right.

Life is too short to waste trying to socially re-engineer those around you. Just do your own thing and let others do their's.

Perhaps being an adult all about not feeling the need to manipulate others to your way of thinking. If someone goes to Klan meetings at the weekend, votes for the most right wing candidate he can and worships Hitler, that's OK. That's his life. It doesn't mean that you cannot buy stuff from him, sell stuff to him or work with him. Accept that people are different and get on with your life. If we all thought the same way, life would be dull (and a bit creepy).

4 ( +6 / -2 )

"Your yoga-teaching brother refuses to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and is confident that fresh air is the best medicine."

You should listen to your brother

-1 ( +8 / -9 )

 We paired vaccine-supportive participants with the vaccine hesitant and instructed them to persuade their partner to get the shot. 

An interesting and useful article, but it is important to understand it applies only when discussing with people that are still rational and interested in reaching a valid conclusion (in the case of the quote that would be the vaccine hesitant participants), the approach do not apply when discussing with people that take pride in being irrational and that put a lot of their self value in not changing their opinions (like antivaxxers). In that case H.E.A.R. is worthless and in the case of private discussions the best option after realizing the other part want to be irrational is to not discuss in the first place.

Of course if the discussion is in a public forum it is still useful to discuss with irrational people, giving rational arguments to clearly defeat the mistaken ones can help people on the fence understand what can be demonstrated correct before they make the mistake of investing their own self worth in those mistaken beliefss. Even more productive is to discuss to the point the irrational party descend to obvious trolling, repeat things already demonstrated false or insulting their opponent instead of using arguments. Seeing one side becoming intentionally obtuse, lying or attacking people instead of arguments can easily let other people want to distance themselves from that position because nobody wants to be seen as in the side of the troll.

-2 ( +6 / -8 )

To have an objective, rational discussion on the efficacy and dangers of COVID 19 vaccines one would require that the data regarding vaccine injuries as well as the rate of fatalities and hospitalization for severe cases by demographics be published and not suppressed as has been the case up until now. Many of the issues concerning those who have been vaccine hesitant are just now coming to light.

0 ( +6 / -6 )

No need for that. Of course I am right and only me. If, and only if in a rarest of thinkable cases someone else is right, then I of course am capable to realize that and switch myself to that person’s arguments. You see, there’s just no need for violent discussion or loud disagreeing or a sophisticated Harvard conversation toolbox. lol

2 ( +4 / -2 )

"Your yoga-teaching brother refuses to get vaccinated for COVID-19 and is confident that fresh air is the best medicine."

I haven't heard anyone ever claim that fresh air is the best medicine, but many have brought up the solid evidence demonstrating the positive effects of sunlight against Covid19.

The H.E.A.R. conversational style is unfortunately not appropriate for online forums, where one side of the argument is censored.

1 ( +8 / -7 )

The Covid vaccine is an entirely different argument now, knowing what is known now.

Never mind the leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, which is another issue.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

To have an objective, rational discussion on the efficacy and dangers of COVID 19 vaccines one would require that the data regarding vaccine injuries as well as the rate of fatalities and hospitalization for severe cases by demographics be published and not suppressed as has been the case up until now

It is published and not "suppresed", that is a false argument promoted by antivaxxer propaganda, it is not believable that every recognized institution of the world that support the safety and efficacy of the vaccines failed to notice this supposed lack of data. Part of their work is precisely to evaluate if the evidence is adequate and what conclusions can be made about it.

but many have brought up the solid evidence demonstrating the positive effects of sunlight against Covid19.

None that would make it an alternative to the benefits of vaccination. Which would make the example still about an irrational belief not supported by clinical data.

The Covid vaccine is an entirely different argument now, knowing what is known now.

It is stil the same, on one side people with scientific evidence of safety and efficacy well demonstrated over literally billions of vaccinations, on the other side people that believe videos are primary scientific sources and that use as "arguments" unproved declarations of people without names nor credentials that supposedly can contradict the scientific and medical consensus.

Never mind the leak from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan, which is another issue.

Another example of people trying to contradict the scientific consensus and calling published scientific articles "hearsay" instead of simply following what the best experts of the world (with names and credentials fully available to be confirmed) say about it (a natural origin).

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

Lord DartmouthToday  10:08 am JST

When I read the first paragraph, I just burst out laughing.

Same here. You could tell straight away where this article was going.

Nice to see our curmudgeon of consensus chime in, too, with the usual appeal to authority.

Remember a quote from the great Richard Feynman – "I’d rather have questions I can’t answer than answers I can’t question."

2 ( +8 / -6 )

To have an objective, rational discussion on the efficacy and dangers of COVID 19 vaccines one would require that the data regarding vaccine injuries as well as the rate of fatalities and hospitalization for severe cases by demographics be published and not suppressed as has been the case up until now

It is published and not "suppresed", that is a false argument promoted by antivaxxer propaganda, it is not believable that every recognized institution of the world that support the safety and efficacy of the vaccines failed to notice this supposed lack of data.

It's an argument that was confirmed by official documents that were obtained by FOIA requests. The Pfizer data, which was provided to all the relevant agencies before the shots first received their EUA, clearly shows that the lipid nanoparticles quickly leave the injection site and accumulate in various organs throughout the body. Data available today clearly shows that for healthy people below 60 or so, the shots confer greater risk than benefit.

-3 ( +5 / -8 )

but many have brought up the solid evidence demonstrating the positive effects of sunlight against Covid19.

None that would make it an alternative to the benefits of vaccination. Which would make the example still about an irrational belief not supported by clinical data.

There is a very strong correlation between high vitD levels and reduction of covid hospitalization, greater than any alleged protection provided by the shots.

-1 ( +4 / -5 )

Another example of people trying to contradict the scientific consensus

Hearsay.

and calling published scientific articles "hearsay" instead of simply following what the best experts of the world (with names and credentials fully available to be confirmed) say about it (a natural origin).

"best experts of the world" - - -ok . . . . . So who are those according to you? (hearsay).

2 ( +5 / -3 )

It's an argument that was confirmed by official documents that were obtained by FOIA requests

So you think only one single country in the world vaccinated people? because the evidence that demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the vaccines comes from all the countries of the world where this happened. It is terribly illogical to pretend FOIA proved the data of all these different countries was wrong.

The FOIA documents shows us what the regulators knew when they awarded the EUA. The people you call "experts" were telling us the shots stayed in the arm, when they knew very well they don't, they spread throughout the body and accumulate in various organs (ovaries, brain, liver....). Those shots should never have been awarded a EUA, considering the information that was available (to the regulators) at the time.

And large studies (in peer-reviewed papers, not unnamed people in videos) demonstrate that for people below 60 or so, the shots provide more harm than good, by a lot....

1 ( +4 / -3 )

The post is not about COVID and is only mentioned once in the article. That didn't stop 7-8 posts on it.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

@wallace

wrote: "The post is not about COVID and is only mentioned once in the article. That didn't stop 7-8 posts on it."

All the hubbub regarding COVID restrictions, efficacy of vaccines, injuries due to vaccines, misinformation, suppression of information etc. make it a quintessential example for the above topic.

-3 ( +4 / -7 )

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