People have absolutely changed their minds because of internet discussions. Usually it's not one of the participants, though.
How about, rather than assuming people you disagree with are "captured" by "memes", you sit down, treat them like intelligent adults, listen to them and only then consider what to do?
End of argument.
"There is no FDA approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19"
and
"This is an unapproved vaccine"
This was written by Pfizer, May 10, 2021
A vaccine isn't even really medicine, it's science. It is a method of giving your immune system a heads up about a pathogen without exposing you to the actual pathogen. The vaccine doesn't hang around in your body for the "long term". The vaccine material is quickly disposed of by your body. After a few weeks, the only things left inside you is your own immune system, better educated.
There is no single "vaccine material" and pretending there is this single magic completely disappearing thing in all vaccines is disingenuous at best.
Also, just because something disappear from the body does not mean that it will have long lasting impacts (of course that is the point, where the gained immunity is a positive impact, but there could also be negative)
If you want to go down that rabbit hole of "long lasting impacts" then you must equally accept that everything you eat is a risk. Everything you wear against your skin is a risk. Every breath you take. Every move you make. Every bond you break. Risk is everywhere.
Running away from a Komodo dragon carries the risk present in any form of physical activity. It's possible that you might trip, fall, and hit your head in a particularly nasty way. But the fact that running isn't entirely free of risk doesn't mean running away from a Komodo dragon is a bad idea.
I do. That is why I am not going to dictate what you should eat, and why I think that will be very wrong.
But given how extremely well tested it is, given its utterly astonishing and indisputable efficacy, given that the upsides greatly outweigh the risks[0], I have no problem with society applying a bit of societal pressure on people to get vaccinated voluntarily.
[0] Obviously this is the case when talking about known risks, likely but unproven risks, or even unlikely but plausible risks. But it's still true EVEN IF you accepted all of the wacky paranoid nonsense about vaccine safety and their beliefs about "long term risks". I haven't heard any anti-vax argument that makes the vaccine out to be even one tenth as bad as the disease it protects you from.
The problem is that you are essentially imposing your trust in the institutions, onto others.
Trust in "science" is fundamentally different from trust in "scientists". Even though it might make sense to apply societal pressure to mandate trust in "science", it makes no sort of sense to mandate trust in "scientists".
I think it is hard for a lot of people to see or acknowledge the distinction between "Science" and "Scientists" which is causing these debates..
Can you show me the exact number of adverse events observed after, say pfizer covid vaccine, in real world use?
Can you show me the exact number of breakthrough infections observed after, say pfizer covid vaccine, in real world use?
Even if these numbers are available, then it is anyone take if they want to trust the entity that collected this data..
Basically, it always comes down to "trust", if you are not the once who is collecting the raw data and doing the analysis on it.
Also, you would be very wrong is "consensus" cannot be set on a single flawed metric, you would be very wrong as well.
If you want my attention, you'll have to show me evidence that vaccines have caused millions of people to die within weeks and millions more are currently suffering serious long term illness. But you can't show anything like that. You're playing an infantile game of "I demand exact numbers" in order to hide the fact you're asserting phantom dangers while unable to offer any numbers of your own.
Also https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/defining-away-vaccin...
Not addressing concerns of people who have suffered adverse effects, does not inspire confidence either..
https://www.c19vaxreactions.com/uploads/1/3/7/7/137732232/le...
All this is being compounded by technology in many different ways. Everyone has the ability to create their own version of Malleus Maleficarum and publish it to the world in an instant. Social media, especially with the lockdowns, has demonstrated the limits of our evolutionary biology. Twitter often reminds me of a very crude form of the Babel fish from THHGTG[0]. It's going to take more than love and respect to overcome the effects of the virus and the response to it.
What I don't understand is this obsession about the vaccination status of strangers. The only time that I felt upset about somebody else's vaccination status was with (our) teachers that said they won't get it. Because kids can't be protected by the vaccine, I think it's justified that the teachers are asked to vaccinate and the manufacturer/gov must compensate them for any side-effects. Other than that everyone has a right to decide what they put in their body. The state of the pandemic does not justify violating this right.
Herd immunity. It's an important part of the efficacy of the vaccination of highly contagious pathogens. It's why smallpox is now just a page on Wikipedia, rather than an existential risk to your life.
Remember, nobody is going to change their mind on this issue because of a perfectly worded response in an internet discussion. If you want to change anyone's mind, focus on the people you can speak to in the real world—and have a conversation filled with love and respect. Fear of vaccination is a powerful meme which cannot be countered by deriding the people who are sincerely captured by it. Instead, I suggest you walk them through the statistics and place them into human terms and human context. Show them how to calculate risk of death. Show them how to calculate risk of long term injury.