According to a new poll, those most cautious about the risk of catching COVID-19 – the vaccinated – are also the most likely to support initiating war between Russia and the United States. Mary Harrington at UnHerd takes a closer look.
It wasn’t a big sample, but the results were stark. Ekos Politics polled a random sample of around 1,000 Canadians, and stratified the results by vaccination status. This revealed that whereas 56% of unvaccinated Canadians oppose the idea of NATO imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, an even greater number of the triple-vaccinated – 59% – support doing so.
On the face of it this makes no sense. Why would the most Covid risk-averse be the most enthusiastic about a policy that would, as 79 foreign policy experts from across America’s political spectrum put it in an open letter recently, “would mean going to war with Russia”? Well, if you hold (as I do) that humans are not actually very rational, it’s possible that what is in evidence here is less a lack of understanding impeding rational choice than a further iteration in the tribal clustering of political alignments.
Vaccination has been acutely politicised in Canada, where non-compliance has been rewarded with punitive measures such as restrictions on travel and shopping and additional taxes. In turn, vaxx refusal has begun to coalesce with other forms of political dissent, culminating in the Canadian truckers’ protest, supported by many whose grievances reached well beyond vaccination mandates. In this wider context, being triple-vaccinated has wider resonances than healthcare; it’s also a crude proxy for ideological alignment.
Humans have probably always clustered by belief, to an extent. But it’s been evident since at least 2016 that social media greatly accelerates the intensity of this dynamic by unmooring it from material life. I can’t very well ‘cancel’ my local butcher if we disagree about vaccines or Ukraine, at least not if I want to buy a steak off him tomorrow. But if I do my grocery shopping online, I can demonise and expel to my heart’s content.
The obvious link between being unvaccinated and opposing war against Russia is that they are both the opposite of the narrative being pushed by much of the media – though a difference is that Western governments are themselves currently opposed to escalating the conflict with Russia. But the differences also extend to measures Western Governments do endorse, with the unvaccinated being much more sceptical of sanctions and more supportive of the invasion itself, as shown below.
Is it a case, as Mary suggests, of thinking the opposite of what Government and the media are saying?
Worth reading in full.
Discussion
Comments
This week across the site:
To join in with the discussion please make a donation to the Daily Sceptic.
Profanity and abuse will be removed and may lead to a permanent ban.
I see the phantom downvoter is busy again – so annoying. If you disagree with what is being said, why not tell us, instead of just clicking.
Anyway, the above is an interesting study. I would also be interested in knowing how many vaccinated/pro war respondents are also keen users of social media. I would suggest a lot of them. Sites like Facebook (which I think generally displays the utmost stupidity of the human race) are a bit like a club of believers in this sort of thing – in order to be accepted on a lot of social media you need to be pro vaxx, pro war, anti brexit, believe totally in anthropogenic climate change and approve of thousands of illegal immigrants washing up on the Kent coast (if you don’t agree, keep jolly quiet about it!).
Incidentally, I heard someone the other day blame all the nasty side effects of the vaccine (especially brain and heart problems) on covid. People like this will never accept that vaccines may be dangerous. I just hope I live long enough ( because I think it may take a long time) for the truth about the vaccines to come out, because I… Read more »
So you don’t like disapproval.
Interesting that you collate several issues and attribute them to your enemy.
“pro vaxx, pro war, anti brexit”
I am assuming that you wish to claim your team believes the opposite.
ant-vaxx, anti-war, pro-brexit
Problem is that you are mistaken on your war views. In justifying and supporting the Invasion of Ukraine, your anti-war claim is clearly false.
It’s just the extreme right-wing non-thinking nonsense.
My team? I don’t say anywhere what my thoughts on the war in Ukraine (and other matters) are, do I? I am making a comment about social media and the types of people I perceive to use it from my infrequent forays into our village site. What anti war claim have I made? I suggest you re-read my post, your comprehension of the written word is very poor.
Are you a regular Facebook or Twitter user? Do tell.
Bad news for you… You are using Social Media.
Yes, I don’t mind if the conversation is more intelligent, which usually it is on here.
So… What this article is actually saying is that vaccine refusers wish Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to go as well as possible for Russia.
or…
Intelligent socially responsible people think Putin should be opposed.
or…
Vaccine refusers ( AKA so-called “sceptics” ) feel obliged to oppose the mainstream narrative regardless of the issue.
Simple. The non-compliant free thinkers versus the compliant sheep.
‘The non-compliant free thinkers’
= people who agree with your positions.
‘the compliant sheep’
= anyone who disagrees with them, who must also be dehumanised into what is considered to be a particularly mindless animal.
= social-biological determinism, i.e. fascism.
Incidentally do you encourage ‘free-thinking’ in Russia, including the right of opposition to the onslaught (or ‘Special Military Action’) against Ukraine –
Or do you wish those who live there to be ‘compliant sheep’ (your terminology and concepts, not mine), to be arrested and fined, imprisoned etc if they step out of line?
‘Why would the most Covid risk-averse be the most enthusiastic about a policy that would…’
A case of perception of risk and treating the State like a god – a god as perceived by our primitive ancestors who could protect them from all evil, as long as they worshipped and obeyed.
So when the god-State says everyone is equally at risk of mortality from CoVid, the Primitives in society (rather a lot of them) believe unquestioningly. When the god-State says it will protect them by providing a magic elixir, they believe. The Primitives perceive CoVid to be more of a threat than the unknown magic potion and trust their god.
So when the god-State orders them to fight a foe that is evil and this will bring them great reward, or if not the god-State’s displeasure, then the Primitives back their god and trust no harm can come to them.
They are of course childish, imbeciles.
Re ‘A case of perception of risk and treating the State like a god – a god as perceived by our primitive ancestors who could protect them from all evil, as long as they worshipped and obeyed.’
Does that wild, generalising and loaded allegation apply to Russia, and if not why.
Re ‘The Primitives back their god and trust no harm can come to them. They are of course childish, imbeciles’
Social-biological, imperialistic fascism in its most naked form.
Answers to the headline:
(1) they have nothing to lose;
(2) they believe everythinb they see and hear on the BBC.
A) Why do you think people who have been vaccinated against coronavirus have ‘nothing to lose’?
B) Re ‘they believe everythinb they see and hear on the BBC.’
How many Canadians receive, never mind watch or listen to, the BBC?
C) Are there any issues over which people disagree with you that you wouldn’t claim makes them mindless, sponge-like dupes?
There is only one logical outcome which this research demonstrates and that is the difference between those who think and those who are happy to be told by their peers what to think.
I recall my dad frequently asking me if I would go and lie down in the middle of the road just because my friends were doing so when I was complaining that not being allowed to do something was unfair because everyone else was. Clearly, sadly, today, many people would go and lie down in the middle of the road because others have done so.
I don’t know what the answer is. How do we pull society back from this? It ties in with the other article in the Daily Sceptic today from David McGrogan where he highlights the increase in nihilism. They care not for others, only about themselves but worse, they claim to take the moral highground whilst doing so and that makes it especially dangerous, potent and difficult to overcome. Perhaps radical trials confirming their unethical behaviour is required. I don’t know. Its a sad state of affairs and to some point, adapting a nihilism perspective, I’m happy I am not 20 but… Read more »
Should those living in Russia be encouraged to think independently and openly challenge the brutal assault on Ukraine if they wish to – or be threatened with 15 years in prison?
What a simplistic interpretation – you have swallowed the MSM propaganda whole.
It wasn’t an ‘interpretation’ but rather a question, which you are clearly unwilling to answer other than through a stock and cliched propagandist technique – ignore any challenges and instead smear the challenger, in this case through the now boringly repetitive allegation that they must all be brainwashed dupes.
So I’ll try again – should those living in Russia be encouraged to be sceptical (including toward their own so-called ‘MSN’), independently minded, and if they wish to openly protest against the vicious attack on Ukraine – or should these protesters be arrested (including for holding up blank placards), fined, sent to prison etc?
I didn’t smear you – I pointed out that your interpretation is simplistic. It is.
If I wanted to smear you I’d have followed up and said a simplistic solution is the product of a simple mind – and that you provide plenty of evidence of having one.
You’ll be much happier on the Guardian website.
Re ‘I didn’t smear you – I pointed out that your interpretation is simplistic. It is.’
Again, I didn’t offer up an ‘interpretation’ but rather responded to a post with a question:
‘Should those living in Russia be encouraged to think independently and openly challenge the brutal assault on Ukraine if they wish to – or be threatened with 15 years in prison?’
You ignored this completely (for obvious reasons) and instead indulged in one of these cliched propagandist claims about individuals whose points are to be ignored and dismissed ‘swallowing MSN propaganda whole’.
In other words you indulged in a personal smear instead of engaging with the content.
Re ‘If I wanted to smear you I’d have followed up and said a simplistic solution is the product of a simple mind – and that you provide plenty of evidence of having one.
You clearly hold to the fascistic belief that people should be judged, labelled, mocked and ignored because of perceived biological deficiencies (in this case allegations about low intelligence).
Re ‘You’ll be much happier on the Guardian website’
Thank you for the concern and advice, I try to be happy wherever I find myself!
You have nothing of interest to contribute to any conversation, repeating, as you do, BBC and Guardian propaganda; you are clearly incapable of independent thought.
How typical that you throw in the word ‘fascistic’. That is tediously predictable and indicative of a remarkably unimaginative intellect.
I expect you get a thrill seeing all the negative responses to your dull contributions, no doubt persuading yourself that you are getting under the skin of all the ‘right wing gammon’. Hardly – we’re laughing at your supposed intellectual superiority.
.. and still not a syllable in response to the post which you initially responded to:
‘‘Should those living in Russia be encouraged to think independently and openly challenge the brutal assault on Ukraine if they wish to – or be threatened with 15 years in prison?’
Third time of ignoral, third time for obvious reasons.
Re ‘How typical that you throw in the word ‘fascistic’.’
I didn’t ‘throw it in’ I argued that looking down upon and attacking people because of perceived biological deficiencies (in this case low intelligence, or having a ‘simple mind’) is fascistic – as it is.
Re ‘I expect you get a thrill seeing all the negative responses to you dull contributions, no doubt persuading yourself that you are getting under the skin of all the ‘right wing gammon’.
I have a vague idea what that derogatory sectarian label is meant to mean, and can assure you that is not my perception of the basis of the highly coordinated and completely unsubtle pro-Putin / pro-Ukrainian invasion mass involvement in these boards.
Re ‘we’re laughing at your supposed intellectual superiority’
I am neither interested in nor make claims about my own or others’ ‘intellectual superiority’ (see… Read more »
They are not good at answering questions.
Translating….
The sceptical folk around hear only like the sound of an echo chamber. Anything else makes them anxious and prone to throwing abuse.
Sounds like a smear denied, the followed up with a smear.
No actual content to this comment. Just a standard slur.
Oh, PO, troll.
Another reasoned, rigorous and non-personally derogatory reply which fully addressed the content of the post…
Like you, he’s a tedious troll. You can PO, too.
I suggest that if you wish to try and order people to leave these boards you should contact Toby Young (the founder both of this site and the Free Speech Union) to see if he will make you a monitor with executive powers…
It’s the best they can do.
Hi Tree, I find it truly bizarre that a site that was set up (originally as Lockdown Sceptics) to challenge excessive state power re ordering people to wear masks and stay at home etc should now be being used as a platform to cheer on one state’s use of power to mass murder people in their own homes by blowing them to bits.
This clearly has nothing to do with the site’s ownership or basic outlook but rather comprises organised political and propagandist opportunism.
My own position is fundamentally anti-war and I wish for a peace settlement asap in Ukraine (and every other conflict zone).
But that anti-violence stance doesn’t prevent me from recognising one of the most naked acts of extreme military aggression – backed up by repeated threats from President Putin to incinerate billions of people via nuclear weapons if anyone intervenes – in modern history.
Of course they should and as for the ‘threatened with 15 years in prison’ which isn’t the first time this has been flung back as an ‘excuse’ – we have similar ridiculous laws here. a) the offences ‘rarely’ attract such sentences as they are maximums and b) its called standing up for what is right rather than swallowing the MSM and essentially following a ‘so long as I all right jack’ attitude
Re ‘we have similar ridiculous laws here’ – where is ‘here’, i.e. which country are you living in that threatens peaceful anti-war protesters with up to 15 years in prison?
Both the UK and Canada have ridiculous laws existing and planned which limit freedom of speech, right to protest etc and have been used as we have seen
So you spend your time moving between Britain and Canada (you did say ‘we’ and ‘here’ meaning where you were located).
In any case it is certainly true the the Trudeau regime introduced ridiculously draconian ‘Emergency Power’ laws in Canada (now thankfully rescinded) in response to the perfectly peaceable truckers protest – but even then there was no threat of up to 15 years imprisonment for simply non-violently challenging the government (over vaccine passports, lockdowns, foreign policy, or anything else).
Ditto the UK.
Unlike the Putin-led Russia
This is far from a definitive survey. Nevertheless a correlation between vaccine scepticism and opposition to helping Ukraine is not surprising.
People refuse vaccines for all kinds of reasons including fear of needles. I wouldn’t expect there to be a correlation there.
However, looking at the views expressed on this website there are many other overlaps with vaccine scepticism which might not seem obvious at first eg:
Distrust of all news sources which are termed ‘MSM’ Distrust of own government (even in comparison with autocratic governments) Sympathy with a wide range of conspiracy theories 9/11, ‘crisis actors’ etc Trust in Assad rather than the west over issues such as use of chemical weapons Trust in Putin rather than the west over attacks on the Skripals and Litvinenko Belief in some kind of ‘world elite’ and/or deep state threat There’s probably a relatively high correlation with Trump supporters and QAnon, although it’s not been a topic I’ve come across.
From the outset, it wasn’t obvious this would happen. Many people can and do question covid strategies purely on the basis of medical evidence. But as far as this website goes, it feels like a majority of members also embrace at… Read more »
And there you go – the mantra in full swing.
Not vaccine hesitant at all and the MSM has lost trust of news given the proven lies told over the past couple of years, ditto own government.
Conspiracy theory is not a negative term, it relates to a theory which has developed in an attempt to explain what is happening. the WEF is not a conspiracy theory; the Rockefeller’s lockstep is not a conspiracy theory. Neither are several of the other global ‘elite’ clubs and what they have openly requested. The only question is whether or not they have sufficiently infiltrated Govts and are actively pushing their openly published agenda’s which do align. How can it be conspiracy if it is there and published?
Crisis actors – proven – or do you refuse to watch the video’s and look at photographs which have been published by MSM endeavouring to ‘prove’ events which have clearly not happened.
Distrust of western governments and MSM does not mean that we trust Putin, Assad et al. What a ridiculous thing to say. But equally ridiculous is trusting those that you have learned have lied to you. That is like staying with a lying, abusive… Read more »
Go back and look how many of you condemn Putin. You will find it is not many.
Then try to explain why you have your point of view.
How about there are 2 sides to every story and if you are sufficiently grown up you can accept that you can have 2 bad men and don’t need to choose who is going to be the good guy and who is a bad guy
What about the 44million people I. Ukraine. Don’t let your support for Putin allow you to forget what he is doing to them
I’m really pushed to see what lies you think the UK government has made, to compare with Putin’s even in the last few weeks. Please don’t bring up WMD, we need something fresher than that.
The fact that there are international institutions doesn’t mean they control the world. There’s an international Tolkein society. It doesn’t worry me.
I see that you do support the crisis actor fantasy – one of the worst of all the conspiracy theories. I can’t imagine how gutting it is to be, say, a parent of one of the kids who died in the Columbine massacre – only to be accused of being a fake actor. It doesn’t get much worse than that.
Where have I said that Putin hasn’t told any lies? Where have I said that? They all lie. The biggest lies told by our Govt have been about covid. As I said above – lie several times why the hell should I believe you a third? Equally I never said that international institutions rule the world. Try reading what I write and then we can discuss rather than you endeavour to belittle and demean. I have pointed out that they have published agendas which Governments are following. They claim to have positioned people where they can influence governments and countries so it is not unreasonable to ask whether they have infiltrated and are influencing – READ WHAT I HAVE PUT RATHER THAN NOT READING AND ASSUMING!!! As for the crisis actors – seen them or are you doing an orwellian and trying to tell me that my eyes are deceiving me?
Crisis actors: zero evidence, never happened, not once.
The lies your government has told you…Boris lies all the time. He said he was building 40 new hospitals, he built none. He said Brexit would mean less red tape, it means more. He said he knew nothing about parties, he was at them personally. But these lies are not remotely on the scale of Putin’s total media control. To call the chaos that is western media Orwellian is to tremendously underestimate how scary controlled media can be. Putin has total control in plain sight, yet people on this website have nothing to say about it.
Indeed they will blame anyone except Putin. They get all their arguments from their peers here, so don’t actually know anything. The urge to conform to the group’s opinion is overwhelming to them.
So what specific lies have been told in UK about Covid?
Your analysis of the vast majority “sceptics” is spot on..
They feel compelled to object to any mainstream position, no matter what.
If the BBC covered the subject of gravity, they would suddenly believe it is a scam!
The clearly highly organised pro-Russian mass murder and destruction (sorry, ‘Special Military Operation’) attempted takeover of this site is both deeply offensive and hilariously inept / obvious.
People who refused the so-called vaccines have the ability to think critically for themselves. Those who just did as they were told by people they regarded as being in authority believed the propaganda and that the government would keep them safe.
The fundamental problem underlying all of this is that people do not accept that they are going to die one day. Organised religion used to mitigate this fact with the promise of a better after-life. Now that the popularity of organised religion is waning, people have a fear of death. Until we consciously accept that we will die one day, and therefore, as Carlos Castaneda has described it, learn to live with death at our shoulder, we can never be fully alive. Only when we have accepted that we will die one day can we truly live.
It is therefore no surprise that those who accepted the jabs would call for the government to keep them safe from an aggressor. No doubt the same bunch voted to Remain in the EU because they were frightened of change.
So.. having some some critical thinking on the subject of vaccines, what in the clinical trial data or subsequent real-world effectiveness trials can you share that supports your refusal to take them (and encourage others to also refuse)?
Please don’t quote any of the distorted nonsense published as articles on this site.
As a critical thinker, you must have read the detailed reports yourself.
The data speaks for itself or are you suggesting that Pfizer’s published trial data (replicated on the site and others), Moderna’s data (limited) that they have released on the kids trials, ONS and NHS data (replicated frequently on the site) not forgetting of course the original Diamond Princess data confirming how undeadly the virus is for the majority of people in the first place is all distorted nonsense. I assume by suggesting this that you are proposing that MODELLED data from models with known to be inaccurate and incorrect assumptions built in is valid and reliable and the only data to be believed
We all know you haven’t read any of this data yourself.
Ah hah! I did suspect a correlation with Brexit too. However, motives for Brexit were varied. Although it may include most vaccine sceptics, there are far more Brexit voters than sceptics.
I disagree with both the reasons given, though political alignment does, I think relate to what is going on here. This most significant factor here is I believe a more fundamental principle that also drives political alignment. And that is the notion that “something must be done” and the state and must fix anything (and everything) that is wrong in the world. If someone is holding a puzzle, it is a part of human nature that you want to grab it out of their hand and have a go yourself. That feeling occurs irrespective of if you actually know how to solve the puzzle. People start firing out “I’ve got an answer” hypotheses and wanting to test them out before knowing if they will actually work because, again, “something must be done.” I’m pretty sure if you test those who are politically aligned left, you will find they squirt out premature hypotheses all over the place without knowing if they will actually work and more than that, will seek to apply their hypothesis to all before reaching the more usual than not “oh crap, that isn’t working as I expected” moment. They think they are clever and that centralised authority… Read more »
I’m frankly disappointed that Pfizer and the rest haven’t told us how safe and efficacious their “vaccines” are, in protecting against radiation sickness. I’m sure that they’re chock-full of goodies like iodine, as well as the other secret ingredients, and they will ensure that “vaccinated” humans will be able to live in harmony with the cockroaches that survive the nuclear holocaust; as the former morph into the latter.
Interesting that you should use the ultra-fascist terminology of ‘cockroaches’ to refer to those you disagree with / view as inferior – just as Mr Putin described those who challenge his regime inside Russia (including hugely courageous anti-war protesters) as ‘gnats’ flying into mouths to be spat out on the pavement.
You are presumably unacquainted with the saying that was common during the Cold War (in Britain, at any rate), that the only survivors of a nuclear holocaust would be the cockroaches; as in the insect, which was reputed to be the only living creature capable of withstanding such an event.
It has nothing to do with people, fascists or anything else.
You said that vaccinated people would morph into cockroaches.
I don’t fit into this tribal clustering.
I was at the ultra-sceptical end of the spectrum throughout 2,years of the mainstream media’s pandemic narrative, but for obvious reasons I’m many orders of magnitude more sceptical of Putin’s Ukraine narrative.
Why would anyone believe the narrative of someone with no accountability, who has abolished free media, who imprisons sceptics and dissenters, and who is a psychopath?
You do realise that you could be describing Zelensky?
..
“Vaccine refusers”. I wonder why they don’t call them “vaccine free”?….
Pretty obvious isn’t it? They actually swallow hook, line and sinker the trash printed in the NY Times, the lies spun on CNN, MSNBC, NBC etc. They still think the Government is trustworthy, they actually believe Biden won the election and they couldn’t believe that Anthony Fauci would actively want to kill a lot of them.
More fool them.
Because nothing distracts from one bad decision like another bad decision.
Its a caste system. The people who continue to wear masks, who want to get vaccinated, who want to virtue signal over Ukraine; they WANT to do it. They want to be different to unvaxed, unmasked, Putin apologists because they are SUPERIOR. They support their fellow citizen, they are feeling, thinking, empathetic people; they want to be seen to be different to the ‘untouchables’. They know they are the chosen people, they wear their badges of allegiance with pride. They are typically reasonably affluent urban dwellers, either pubic employees or professionals. ( old ACORN classification B, C1 and C2)They are the same caste in all western countries.
What surprises me is that anyone is surprised.
Its the caste that got Trudeau reelected, will get Macron reelected, got Biden elected, and will elect Johnson’s replacement.
Why? Because this caste has the power of all media behind it 365/24/7 although they represent at most 30% of any country’s population.
you have nailed it Peyrole – you have just described one of my relatives
Incorrect. They are not superior, they just like to think they are. Equally they do not support their fellow citizens are feeling, thinking and empathetic people, they are just plain selfish
Erm, Maxine, I think everyone on here knows they are ‘incorrect’,but not them themselves.
I agree with the assertion that political alignments and “establishment vs anti-establishment” views both play a big part.
However I think it’s also to do with “interventionist vs laissez faire” attitudes. Some people get all caught up on the idea that – regardless of the situation being discussed – we should “do something”.
Whether that thing makes any sense to do, or ends up being counter-productive, can end up being irrelevant to these people. They’re happy provided we’re “doing something”.
For others they appreciate that “just doing anything” might invoke the law of unintended consequences, and they see the value in being a little less knee-jerk reactionary.
It all pivots between those for whom thinking things through is a necessity, and other people and who want to wish reality away and relax into a dream perfect world without the intrusion of reality. I’m sorry to say , but the Utopia version is a myth, the real version is just boringly real. So it goes.
We can have a perfect world if only we loved one another and grew radishes on our allotments and went to ‘Glasto’.
EXCLUSIVE: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Responds to Critics of His Positions Regarding COVID Tyranny and Ukraine
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/exclusive-archbishop-carlo-maria-vigano-responds-critics-positions-regarding-covid-tyranny-ukraine/
By Joe Hoft
Next Events
Thursday 24th March 5pm to 6pm
Yellow Boards By the Road
London Road, B3408 junction
Russell Chase & John Nike Way
Bracknell RG42 4FZ
Stand in the Park Sundays from 10am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham Howard Palmer Gardens
(Cockpit Path car park free on Sunday)
Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
…
The “vaccinated”, as the DS likes to call them, were told by the government and the MSM that they needed to be injected by experimental gene therapy. So without further enquiry, they queued up to be jabbed three times and will do so again in a few weeks time.
The “vaccinated”, as the DS likes to call them, have been told that we need hate Russia and they’re even encouraged to go out to Ukraine to fight the Russians with their bare hands. And so the “vaccinated” do as they’re told and support warfare.
Maybe the gunge they’ve been injected with really does meddle with their brains?
Perhaps those volunteering to fight can go and jab the Russians with some of our surplus clot shot?
That stuff is pretty lethal.
It seems like the “sceptics”/vaccine refusers are overwhelmingly apologists for Putin.
It is quite a shameful position to adopt.
“On the face of it this makes no sense. Why would the most Covid risk-averse be the most enthusiastic about a policy that would, as 79 foreign policy experts from across America’s political spectrum put it in an open letter recently, “would mean going to war with Russia”?”
It makes no sense only if you make the basic error of assuming that risk aversion is a root causative factor in taking the “vaccines”. Clearly, it is not. People became risk averse about covid because they believed the lies designed to make them fearful (but notably not about taking an experimental novel therapy).
Likewise, risk aversion has no root causative relation to views on the Ukraine. At most, again, it’s a manipulative mid-stage in the process of generating the moral panic, ignoring risks involved in confronting Russia but manufacturing largely dishonest “risks” in not confronting Russia, just as largely dishonest (ie hugely exaggerated) “risks from covid” were pushed on people while the real but unknown risks inherent in taking a novel therapy were suppressed.
The real root cause common to both is vulnerability to emotional manipulation, via fear or other sentimentalities, to peer pressure, and to authority.
And the best defence in either… Read more »
Beautifully and comprehensively put.
Many years ago, as a young teenager, I asked an uncle in the corporate world why companies bothered with advertising. All that money for what? He told me, “Because it works.”
When I told him that I didn’t believe a word they said because I knew they were trying to get my money by any means they could, he said that they knew it didn’t work on everybody.
I’d forgotten that, until I read your last sentences.
Being against something because the media supports it is simply the mirror image of being for the things the media supports and no more free thinking. After having agreed with almost everything skeptical vis a vis covid, I find the belief the ukraine is acting at the behest of the elite in this war to be not very well supported.
Of course science and politics, at the core, should be very different domains. Science has better access to proof.
I don’t think that’s what’s being argued in the main. Most sceptics (the ones on here anyway) are simply resisting the calls to demonise Russia wholesale without contextualising the conflict or the role Western influences have had in fomenting and probably prolonging it.
“contextualising the conflict” is simply code for supporting the invasion.
Western politicians have repeatedly stressed their beef is with Putin, not Russians. Whereas in Russia, Putin has been feeding them for years with the notion that ‘the west’ is against everything Russian
Really? Do you watch a lot of Russian TV then?
You should read Suttons books, “The best enemy money can buy” He got kicked out of the Hoover Institute for exposing too much hard evidence, here’s an interview with him talking about his research
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTDvLmEBESY
Some are easily brainwashed.
Others are critical thinkers.
They still trust the media, govts, and institutions.
Succinctly and perfectly put.
After being ‘red-pilled’ by Brexit, I’ve come to the firm conclusion that – besides death and taxes – there is one thing in life of which one can be absolutely 100% certain. . .
Namely, that when the unholy trinity of politicians (of all colours), so called ‘experts’ and the mainstream media are all signing from the same hymn sheet, then it’s time to smell one mighty big – as in ‘effing gargantuan – rat! Be it Brexit, Trump, the p(l)andemic, or Ukraine – they’re all in lockstep. Throughout all of the above, we’ve had global warming – or climate change – or whatever the latest term for it is. As far as I’m concerned, they lied to us about Brexit, they lied to us about Trump, they lied to us spectacularly about the p(l)andemic and they are lying to us about climate change. The trend is clear. Ergo, why on earth anyone believes a word they say about Russia and Ukraine is beyond me.
. . .PS
I forgot to say: I’m a ‘pureblood’!
Very easily explained. What largely separates unvaxxed and vaxxed are three traits – willingness to conform (need for peer approval), levels of naivety/trust, ability to assess risk. These three traits can be wrapped into a single measurement – level of common sense. Guardian readers will be at the very bottom of the well.
Absolutely the first trait is the most important in my opinion. I have absolutely no qualms disagreeing with a room full of my professional peers, and I often do. If I disagree, I will never change my mind unless persuaded by reason. It serves me quite well professionally and I think it is somewhat surprisingly seen by others as a positive trait, despite them cowardishly conforming whenever they have their own doubts. However, I am in a tiny minority and have only ever met a handful of others who lack this stupid animal instinct.
As Tucker Carlson pointed out recently, and I enlarged on here at DS a couple of weeks back, we’ve seen three great moral panics sweeping the US sphere in the past two years, engulfing the gullible and the receptive in waves of emotionally manipulative propaganda, generating hysterical belief in essentially anti-rational ideas based upon key lies at the root of each one. These related to first covid, then BLM, and now the Ukraine.
Each issue is likely to appeal to slightly different demographics, but the common factor is gullibility and hence vulnerability to emotionally manipulative propaganda.
You can add climate alarmism, on a rather longer timescale.
The issue for us, imo, is why our society seems to have become so vulnerable to these manipulative mass panics, and how can we revert to a situation where there were controls and cultural and political “circuit breakers” that protected us from the worst effects of this kind of thing?
These panics and alarms have been different in nature since 9/11. The Y2K nonsense that preceded it caused nothing like the heightened emotional levels we see now. Reasonable disagreements were more common.
The “war on terror” encouraged and incited terror, and emboldened authoritarians. The hysteria about Iraq and the gullibility with regard to the existence of weapons of mass destruction and “that madman” Saddam were extraordinary.
Cruelties have abounded. Torture is fine (as long as the good guys are the torturers); fair trials of bad guys are completely unnecessary (even a bad idea, because it gives them a chance to share their badness); Guantanamo is a reasonable way to treat people you fear.
A dark night began.
Yes 9/11 is where I can trace my own scepticism to. I remember being a fresh faced Guardian reading young chap receiving a text message the day after from a dear friend expressing gentle scepticism about the supposed perpetrators and it was my 🤯 moment. Spent several years down that particular rabbit hole arriving at the conclusion that the official story was nonsense fiction; that lead to the invasion of Iraq, also a pack of lies, that lead to Libya, Syria and finally everyone’s favourite global health crisis. We live in a reality carefully constructed by arch criminals. As soon as you realise that, there’s no going back to normie world.
So that’s where your problems began.
Moderate your opinions, fools, the phantom downticker is on the prowl and means business!
Help is on the way. I’ve been doing lots of up-ticking …
Sorry cs, I just couldn’t resist an invitation like that! I promise I’ll never do it again!
🙂
I was asking for it.