So effective it made stupid people : microblogmemes

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 56 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Same shit with covid. People be like "it was a hoax because most people survived" and I just stare at them with no way of knowing how to explain to these geniuses the most basic shit about hygiene and physical distance and how it affects the spread of a potent new virus.

I have a couple of family members who are nurses. One of them being my MiL. She saw the early cases of corona up close and personal and she was very, very, VERY concerned. One of the first patients was a healthy man in his early 50s who was physically active and all that good shit. His lungs were completely destroyed by Delta. Had to get a transplant to survive. Was disabled for life due to other complications caused by the virus.

Every single person I have met who thinks corona was a hoax or doesn't take the virus seriously, are ironically also some of the least educated people on the matter. They also think they know better than medical professionals. They didn't see what this virus was capable of because people like my MiL worked themselves to the bone to save their ungrateful asses.

So when I come across these types in the wild, I just stare at them and think my thoughts about their level of intelligence and move on with my life. Must be nice to be this fucking stupid.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

I just looked it up and the global cumulative deaths from COVID is around 7 million people.

"Only" 0.1% of the humans living on earth, died, so it's not bad, right?

.... And I'm very positive the data is confirmed deaths by COVID, so it's likely a very low figure compared to how many people died from COVID, or died from other things that were complicated by COVID, or died by complications of COVID directly, or died because the hospitals and medical care systems were too overwhelmed by COVID patients to care for them.

I'd estimate that number is probably double if you took all of the associated deaths into account.

It's very very likely that you know someone or are someone who lost someone to COVID. Yet these uneducated chucklefucks think they know better than PhD doctors, researchers, and scientists, that have been studying this shit their entire fucking lives, have qualifications up the ass, and who have dedicated years of their lives to even understanding what a virus is, nevermind any specific virus' behavior. A nontrivial number of them have been working the problem longer than some of these fucks have been drawing back oxygen. Yet, they're not to be believed because reasons.

These kinds of people can get fucked. I hope that they, and their dumbass offspring get a preventable disease and fucking croak, so the world can be less goddamned stupid.

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

7 million would be 0.1%. but that's still a lot.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago

Sorry, my brain isn't happy about doing math right now; I won't get into why.

Thank you for the correction. I will update my post now.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I don't believe the "good/hard times make soft/strong people" trope is entirely true, but I do feel a modicum of adversity or at least exposure to it is good for people. A lot of people truly don't understand adversity until they experience it themselves. Once they do, though, some can apply that lesson to all parts of life.

I also experienced some COVID consequences: it killed my lunatic antivaxxer father. Even though we literally watched him die on a ventilator, some relatives were adamant it "had to have been something else". Certainly it couldn't have been the novel respiratory virus killing thousands of people! Those people...they won't learn.

[–] Jiggle_Physics@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago

Having no real adversity in your life creates a situation where you never really learn to cope with with it as an adult. However, actual hard times just create generational trauma.

[–] skisnow@lemmy.ca 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

An in-law of mine was admitted to hospital with Covid-like symptoms, tested positive for Covid, died on a ventilator, doctors gave Covid as the cause of death.

Her immediate family remain convinced that it was some unspecified mystery other illness, and that the doctors were paid extra by the government based on how many covid death certificates they issued.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 6 days ago

Oh shit, are we related?! I had all the same. I even had one offer to help me sue the hospital.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'm sorry about your loss. Must have been an emotionally draining experience to put it mildly. :/

I think many of the people who become anti-vaxxers and covid deniers are people who struggle with a feeling of general powerlessness in their lives. Believing in a fantasy where they see the truth and everybody else is blind or stupid can give them a feeling of importance/control.

I don't think it's the case for absolutely everyone who belong in that conspiracy group, but those I know personally who fall for this type of shit are people who are not doing great in life already and who are very emotionally vulnerable. I am equally frustrated and sad for them because I see how they cling to their delusions while their personal lives crash around them. Financially, socially, physically. It sucks to witness. Sucks even more to talk to them about anything, really. They will take any conversation and find a way to direct the topic of conversation into their weird conspiracies. I have somewhat learned how to navigate a conversation with them, but man, it is hard sometimes. I can't help but wonder how terrible it must be to be stuck in a mental prison of your own making. It was supposed to protect them from a reality where something as scary as a mysterious virus could suddenly collapse the world they knew and leave them completely at the mercy of scientists and politicians who are calling the shots for something you barely understand. And instead of the delusion helping you becoming less afraid, it just ends up isolating you from everybody, because nobody gets it like you do, right? They are all just trying to silence you because you are the truth sayer. It must be so fucked to have your own mind betray you and hold you hostage like that. I really hope that especially one person I know, will never start using AI chat bots, but honestly, I fear it is not a matter of if, but when they will get into that shit.

[–] SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thank you, but it was not actually a loss but a gain. My father was not a good man. His dying was the best thing he ever did for our family.

I agree completely. I've always seen it as people looking for simple answers for a world full of complex problems. It's also my experience that they tend to not be doing well in at least some domains of life. The worst I've experienced, though, are the moderately successful ones. I have a couple of cousins in this category. They see their relative success as confirmation that their worldview is correct. There's nothing worse for me than dealing with a smug idiot who celebrates their idiocy.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 2 points 6 days ago

Man, you dad must have messed up for his own kid to feel this way. O.O I hope you have other people in your life that can give you the stability and love your father couldn't.

I'll take your word for it when it comes to people woth moderate success. I don't really know any myself. Knew a guy once who inherited a lot of money and he became very smug too. Also burned through most of it in no time. Mostly on stupid shit he didn't need. I think I asked him once if he had plans to invest any of it to secure his future and he just ignored me and decided to show the electric eraser he had bought 🤣 at least he wasn't anti-vax, but he did start babbling about the Jewish question at one point and called me small minded for telling him he was on his way down the far right pipeline.

Having anti-vax family members who are doing well financially must be next level annoying, though.

[–] zarkanian@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Every single person I have met who thinks corona was a hoax or doesn't take the virus seriously, are ironically also some of the least educated people on the matter.

That isn't ironic. That's exactly what I would expect.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 5 points 6 days ago

It's ironic in the sense that they consider themselves to be of superior intellect and are very stubborn in that world view. Text probably doesn't communicate sarcasm super well, but that was what I was aiming for.

Also, I agree with you hehe.

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

When covid started and seeing news reports of many people dying I was so scared. They had no idea what it was then or any infection vectors. I recall seeing something from Italy and it was horrific. This was maybe early spring late or winter 2020 (maybe I got the country wrong but I don't think so). Anyone who could have seen that and not understood what that means has no right to an opinion on the impact of viruses or on how a society needs to be run. Mean didn't NYC have freezer trucks at one point?

Man we have degenerated as a society to let that happen in the world's strongest military power (mean we can't all have the propaganda might Russia does). But sure let's give the person who did the worst a welcome mat to the Presidential position again. Ugh I thought we could have learned better.

I am not American but understand the impacts the orange dictator does in his name (only say it that way cause his brain is no better than potato salad, fuck project 2025 and Miller).

But long but this whole world situation is very frustrating. Like it's right there for everyone to see but let's blame neighbors not the people who've been in charge.

Edit forgot to add, as scared as I was I made a decision to do the best for my household, when reccomdations came through I followed them as best I could. I wanted to make sure the people I cared about were safe. It's a shame that many of the people who figured that out are shunned these days.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, it was Italy. It's was so fucked to follow that shit in real time.

I'm not American either. Anti-vaxxers and covid-deniers sadly exist outside of America too. 😮‍💨

[–] orbitz@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago

There are and it's so mystifying. I have no idea how someone could experience that in real time and not get it. Mean I sort of get it but it's one of those things that make my brain want spring out of my head when I do try., like a divide by 0 or segmentation fault.

Oh well not like we are trying to make our planet liveable for the future. Mean I got no kids but I sure want the human race to continue comfortably.If not well maybe it'll be time for Super Mario Bros the movie timeline, reptiles will take over against b. Oh hey it works, we burned up the oil anyways so that's why they're electric (in the movie)

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

They also think they know better than medical professionals.

Bingo.

I mean, people have always been this way to some extent…

But I think a combination of institutional skepticism and the ‘I found this on Facebook!’ phenomenon (or TV, or podcasts, anything) lead a ton of the public to think they know better instead of just nodding along to what some dedicated professional say, compared to decades past.

[–] hamsterkill@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I suspect this kind of willful ignorance is the result of the resistance to taking climate action. For decades now, people have been hearing the argument "Why spend effort or suffer pain trying to avoid a fate that only might be catastrophic?" Now that's extended to things like disease and even the economy.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 2 points 6 days ago

I think it's simpler than that. Covid happened. Some people don't like being told what to do or to feel powerless against an abstraction, so they start to make "sense" out of a situation that is too hard for them to accept.

There definitely were climate deniers way before covid, but I do think that covid set in motion a trend of contrarianism and apathy that we will have to live woth and gradually overcome for a long time. The fact that our governments and scientists did such a fantastic job at protecting us the world over has allowed these people to live in their fantasy, that covid was a hoax. I have heard all manner of reasons for why they did what they did. Big pharma wanting to get rich, lobbying for that power. Governments wanting to prime us all for fascist regimes and keeping all the power permanently. Forcing us to take the vaccine to control us and poison us. On and on and on the reasons pile on and I know for a fact that if the governments and scientists had done nothing to stop the spread and the death toll being higher than it was, these same people would have found a way to make conspiracies about governments wanting us all to die.

Some vulnerable people cannot handle adversity and will find excuses to deny the reality of their situation because it gives them a false sense of security. And once that ball starts rolling, it's so easy to branch out to more things.

[–] T156@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

I don't think so. It's more a side effect of the fact that the disaster was successfully prevented that makes it seem like there was no disaster at all to begin with, and that it was all fearmongering.

Like with acid rain, or Y2K.

People worked very hard in the background to prevent bad things from happening, but because they did so, and the effects weren't outwardly public, it didn't seem like very much happened at all.

[–] rarsamx@lemmy.ca 15 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Well, I know a senior person, retired epidemiologist who is anti covid vaccine because "no vaccine developed so fast can be safe".

It hard containing my self from telling her that from her time as an epidemiologist to now, technology has changed and that they've studied mRNA vaccines for a long time so fighting a particular strain of virus is easier as the whole process has already been successfully tested. However, her family trusts her, she has the credentials and I don't, so it should be up to another epidemiologist with proper credentials to explain that. Not me.

It's like an old engineer saying that current structural calculations in buildings can't be trusted because it used to take months/years of hard work and now they can be done in a fraction of the time with computers.

🤦‍♂️

[–] Randelung@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

The umbrella roof is so tight people start to forget it's raining.

[–] DannyMac@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We should really make anti-vaxers walk through a cemetery with deaths from the last 50-100 years vs one from the last 100-200 years and note the differences in dead children/infants.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 13 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

"How do I know there are really dead people buried here and not just a buncha headstones?"

"How do I know the cause of death isn't another libtard lie?"

[–] DannyMac@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago

We can just keep drawing it out until:

"How do I know what I'm seeing and feeling is real or not?"

"How do I know that reality isn't another libtard lie?"

[–] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago

They are not that effective on their own, but 95% herd immunity is enough to make any pandemics unviable, and the very few people that still manage to catch the disease can be isolated and treated. In other words, vaccinating 90% of a population will result in way less than 10% of the original infections/casualties.

[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

It's really on the developed, privileged richer countries that there are significant number of anti-vaxxers. But in the developing ones, especially the global south, they overwhelmingly believe in vaccines because these countries are in the tropical who have to deal with nastier and frequent diseases than those in the colder global north where diseases are more or less subdued by colder climate.

[–] MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 days ago

A suprise to be sure, that people in countries with continual and consistent access to vaccines, where 90+ % of the population of the last 50+ years has been fully vaccinated, is where antivaxxers have sprouted up, while people in less developed countries with inconsistent access to vaccines and medical care, believe in vaccines, where most of their population in the last 50 years has struggled to get vaccines or gone unvaccinated and they've seen first hand the horrors of the diseases that vaccines prevent....

What a shocker.

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