Coronavirus: Better Call Sol - CORONAMANIA (18 Viewers)

That's 33 children in Ireland. Currently one children's ICU bed free in the country, what will todays case numbers of 3,700 translate to in children's hospital numbers in a fortnight?
 

US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Tuesday evening she was endorsing a recommendation to vaccinate children ages 5-11 against Covid-19, clearing the way for immediate vaccination of the youngest age group yet in the United States.
"CDC now expands vaccine recommendations to about 28 million children in the United States in this age group and allows providers to begin vaccinating them as soon as possible," the agency said in a statement.
 
hi pricks

I was having a fairly-fruitless back-and-forth with the antivaxer acquaintance of mine again yesterday (the same one that I talked a little bit about somewhere back in the thread a few weeks back).

the discussion felt really exhausting, in a way that I suppose I haven’t felt before. I think that previously I was trying my best to stretch my empathy and stay kind and open and generally try to connect rather than react. yesterday I did not feel like that. I felt instead like I was talking to the worst kind of pouty teenager. two years into the pandemic he’s still talking about how if he feels fit and healthy he should be allowed to do what he likes. he’s utterly convinced that covid passes are ‘medical apartheid’ and all the rest of it. it was tough going.

So, I was going to continue the discussion with him today, and then decided to close the app and leave some things unsaid, despite the strong urge to say them. then I went for a walk, and now I’m writing these thoughts down here (I suppose so that they can go *somewhere* and not just rattle around in my head).

I was trying my best to figure out some way to reframe how I think about this, because I don’t want this to turn into some sort of personal-argument equivalent of trench warfare, just slinging the same points back and forth with him.

the reframing that I arrived at over the course of my walk is to try to think of this in terms of individuals and communities. a common element to a lot of the antivaxxer types is a kind of individualised, personal-sovereigntist framework for understanding the world. this seems to exist somewhat outside of any considerations of left or right, big or small, gender, race, whatever else.

I realise I’m not saying anything particularly new or insightful here, others have already made this point far better than me, but it was different to really encounter it so directly.

This acquaintance of mine wants to be able to be the centre of his particular universe, a little kingdom of control. that’s the only way I can understand his choices, his thoughts, his actions. the idea of thinking of himself as part of an extended community, a network, a patchwork — however you might want to refer to it — seems in some way foreign to him. Ironically, he’s quick to actually use these words himself, but his idea of a community seems to often come down to a sort of coalition-of-the-willing that can align themselves together temporarily.

the strange thing is that he’s not in any way a sort of cowboy type individualist. he’s an artistic soul, essentially. very kind and open and funny and sound. I really hoped I could somehow get through to something that would change things for him. I suppose I failed. I suppose I was trying to do *something* that would be some kind of countervailing force to the power of the zuckerberg algorithms, and maybe that’s just not possible any more.

anyway I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to get at here exactly, but make of it what you will.
 
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hi pricks

I was having a fairly-fruitless back-and-forth with the antivaxer acquaintance of mine again yesterday (the same one that I talked a little bit about somewhere back in the thread a few weeks back).

the discussion felt really exhausting, in a way that I suppose I haven’t felt before. I think that previously I was trying my best to stretch my empathy and stay kind and open and generally try to connect rather than react. yesterday I did not feel like that. I felt instead like I was talking to the worst kind of pouty teenager. two years into the pandemic he’s still talking about how if he feels fit and healthy he should be allowed to do what he likes. he’s utterly convinced that covid passes are ‘medical apartheid’ and all the rest of it. it was tough going.

So, I was going to continue the discussion with him today, and then decided to close the app and leave some things unsaid, despite the strong urge to say them. then I went for a walk, and now I’m writing these thoughts down here (I suppose so that they can go *somewhere* and not just rattle around in my head).

I was trying my best to figure out some way to reframe how I think about this, because I don’t want this to turn into some sort of personal-argument equivalent of trench warfare, just slinging the same points back and forth with him.

the reframing that I arrived at over the course of my walk is to try to think of this in terms of individuals and communities. a common element to a lot of the antivaxxer types is a kind of individualised, personal-sovereigntist framework for understanding the world. this seems to exist somewhat outside of any considerations of left or right, big or small, gender, race, whatever else.

I realise I’m not saying anything particularly new or insightful here, others have already made this point far better than me, but it was different to really encounter it so directly.

This acquaintance of mine wants to be able to be the centre of his particular universe, a little kingdom of control. that’s the only way I can understand his choices, his thoughts, his actions. the idea of thinking of himself as part of an extended community, a network, a patchwork — however you might want to refer to it — seems in some way foreign to him. Ironically, he’s quick to actually use these words himself, but his idea of a community seems to often come down to a sort of coalition-of-the-willing that can align themselves together temporarily.

the strange thing is that he’s not in any way a sort of cowboy type individualist. he’s an artistic soul, essentially. very kind and open and funny and sound. I really hoped I could somehow get through to something that would change things for him. I suppose I failed. I suppose I was trying to do *something* that would be some kind of countervailing force to the power of the zuckerberg algorithms, and maybe that’s just not possible any more.

anyway I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to get at here exactly, but make of it what you will.
I get what you’re saying. And the need to argue I think comes from a place of wanting to help the person and also, like you said, make a difference. I already went through something similar earlier this year with and it was completely pointless. Eventually, I ended up having to block the person because it wasn’t doing either of us any good. The only person winning was Mark Zuckerberg because we kept engaging and arguing with each other on his platform.

The main thing to remember here is that you haven’t failed, because 1. It was never your job to save and 2. You didn’t lead them down this anti-vaxxed path in the first place

I think at some point as well you have to look at the engagement with this person in terms of your mental health and how it’s affecting your day to day life. If it’s something that is taking a toll, there has to come a point where you say to yourself “I don’t need this in my life anymore.” and cut your losses.

A good first step was logging off the app and leaving things unsaid. Because at this stage, you’ve said as much as you need to.
 
I get what you’re saying. And the need to argue I think comes from a place of wanting to help the person and also, like you said, make a difference. I already went through something similar earlier this year with and it was completely pointless. Eventually, I ended up having to block the person because it wasn’t doing either of us any good. The only person winning was Mark Zuckerberg because we kept engaging and arguing with each other on his platform.

The main thing to remember here is that you haven’t failed, because 1. It was never your job to save and 2. You didn’t lead them down this anti-vaxxed path in the first place

I think at some point as well you have to look at the engagement with this person in terms of your mental health and how it’s affecting your day to day life. If it’s something that is taking a toll, there has to come a point where you say to yourself “I don’t need this in my life anymore.” and cut your losses.

A good first step was logging off the app and leaving things unsaid. Because at this stage, you’ve said as much as you need to.

thanks.

can’t wait until I’m having the same pointless arguments in the metaverse in 2034.

one thing that was revealing to me in the discussions was that we both had completely different understandings of the word ‘solidarity’. I said that getting vaxxed was an act of solidarity with the vulnerable. he said that solidarity is when you do something like wearing a colour to show your support for something. for him it seemed to be all symbolism. the idea of solidarity as a lived process of making real choices just seemed alien to him. that made a couple of things snap into focus for me.
 
The whole Big Bird thing should be hilarious but it's just depressing.
 
I'm sorry

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thanks.

can’t wait until I’m having the same pointless arguments in the metaverse in 2034.

one thing that was revealing to me in the discussions was that we both had completely different understandings of the word ‘solidarity’. I said that getting vaxxed was an act of solidarity with the vulnerable. he said that solidarity is when you do something like wearing a colour to show your support for something. for him it seemed to be all symbolism. the idea of solidarity as a lived process of making real choices just seemed alien to him. that made a couple of things snap into focus for me.
It is interesting, the differences in interpretation there.
 
I think that's true for a lot of things - for some people their imaginary world is much more important than actual reality

yep, I reckon so.

a related point: I was feeling like I was *also* in an impossible situation, because I didn’t want to be presenting some kind of centrist-big-brother appeal-to-authority type of perspective. I *also* hate all the apps and passes and checks and tests and authoritarian bio-politics. covid passes *are* a restriction of freedom. it’s just that his world doesn’t ever seem to involve responsibilities, or trade-offs, or adapting to the needs of a community, or anything like that. so that’s why I was trying to emphasise the idea of solidarity. that a restriction of freedom can be balanced against the needs of a community, etc.
 

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