I got the first shot of the Pfizer vaccine on April 29. On Sunday, I got sick with flu-like symptoms. It passed by Monday night. I’m sure there are some people out there who would use this experience to argue for “safe vaccines”. Those people are morons.
The human body is so unique that we can all have an unexpected reaction. I used to take NyQuil almost every night in my sophomore year of college because of insomnia.That caused what’s called a parodoxical reaction. I now have to take NyQuil to stay awake and DayQuil to sleep (I don’t take either anymore). That didn’t make me into an advocate for “safe sleep aids”. I just accepted that I’m different and got on with my life.
I used to talk to an anti-vaxx idiot. When I brought up the fact that no vaccine is 100% safe, his response would be something like, “Have you ever seen a family member have a bad reaction to a vaccine? How can you support something unsafe that could hurt your family?” That is a stupid statement on its face. Nothing in this life is 100% safe. If you want to be totally safe, then sit inside a bubble inside an oxygen chamber in your fortified panic room. You still won’t be totally safe. The chamber could run out of oxygen. Burglars could lock you in and steal all of your things. Your cat might eat your face. Grow up and live in the real world.
So if you’re vaccine hesitant and don’t have any known medical reasons to not get vaccinated, I can’t stress this enough: Stop being an idiot and schedule an appointment. Or stay in your house for the rest of your life. Or die. I don’t really care. But don’t go around spouting nonsense.
First, trolling isn’t all fun and games. I finally excised a troll, the same one who’s “vaccine hesitant”, from my life last year. Best decision I could have made:
Defenders of trolling insist it’s all just a joke, but if trolling is inherently designed to get a rise out of someone, then that’s what it really is. In many cases, it is designed to look and feel indistinguishable from a genuine attack. Whether you believe what you are saying or not is often immaterial because the impact is the same — and you are responsible for it, regardless of how funny you think it is. It is a lesson kids learn time and time again on the playground, and yet, it is ridiculously difficult for people to accept the same basic notion in online culture, no matter their age.
Second, the troll I referred to above is very religious and very much a conspiracy theorist:
… researchers have found that people who are more susceptible to conspiracy theories are often obsessed with religion or a god or a value system.
Third, here’s a decent test to see if an expert is believable:
If an expert passes these two requirements, you may consider them ‘believable’. Dalio then suggests a communication protocol built on top of believability: if you’re talking to someone with higher believability, shut up and ask questions; if you’re talking to someone with equal believability, you are allowed to debate; if you’re talking to someone with lower believability, spend the least amount of time hearing them out, on the off chance they have an objection you haven’t considered before; otherwise, just discount their opinions.