The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue" not because of the "conspiracy nut in every village", but because the scientific literacy of the general public is astonishingly low, and the second and third order consequences of public health policy are tremendously complex.

We must encourage discussions that move beyond overly-simplistic dualistic framing such as "vax versus anti-vax", "individual choice versus public health", etc.

Looking back through human history we can find numerous examples where scientific consensus was wrong, or where we created powerful new tools that backfired in unexpected ways. Diversity in opinion and choice is natures way of arriving at optimal decisions. Although it feels like friction and divisive arguments to us now, these are critical discussions that help expand everyone's knowledge and awareness.

At one level it appears to be chaos, but at a higher level it appears as harmony. We are now living in the age of the super-organism. The age where we all must become acutely aware that the separation between you and I - the separation between self and other - must be dissolved and reformulated, for the survival of our species and our planet.

> The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue"

They are a political wedge issue because some want them to be policy.

Anything that is policy -- taxes, marriage, controlled substances, international trade -- is political.

And always someone says "why is policy X political?" without realizing what "politics" is. Usually, they mean to say "why doesn't everyone agree with me?"

Also, the question of should a government force its citizens to have a medical procedure. Or de-facto forcing by requiring proof for common daily activities.

This issue was then weaponized for political purposes, and people got militant about it.

But governments have consistently lied/been wrong about this virus, so there is no trust either in their messaging about this crisis.

> Also, the question of should a government force its citizens to have a medical procedure.

There’s a Supreme Court decision[0] about whether states can mandate a vaccine (they can).

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts

> can

> should

> "The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue" not because of the "conspiracy nut in every village", but because the scientific literacy of the general public is astonishingly low, and the second and third order consequences of public health policy are tremendously complex."

This. Feels like the future depends on identifying the root cause of these issues and working to overcome them.

> The SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are a "political wedge issue" not because of the "conspiracy nut in every village", but because the scientific literacy of the general public is astonishingly low, and the second and third order consequences of public health policy are tremendously complex.

This seems disingenuous. We eradicated smallpox and scientific literacy just as low then. Why is it different this time?

Because public trust in institutions has been destroyed. It's also a main reason why Trump was elected. The people in charge of these institutions destroyed this trust over decades, and they have continued to do so throughout the pandemic.

Yes, calling people nuts is a sure fire way to solve this problem.

The “nuts” were also saying covid was coming and was dangerous and were called crazy xenophobes.

I’m vehemently pro-vax but there are as many idiots on both sides of this issue as there are non-idiots. Note that I need to disclose that, since the scarlet letter being handed out now has the power to prevent you from being on YouTube and in some places soon will probably bar you from your local grocery store (now that that is normalized.)

>calling people nuts is a sure fire way to solve this problem

I tried to emphasize that this is a very small slice of the population. They get kicked out of the village because there's no other way to solve the problem. Or at the very least, the village lacks the resources and talent to solve it. Human psychology is still a huge mystery. Ideally, everyone gets free, assessible mental health care, but ideally people would also wear a mask so they don't die/have others die. We're far from Paradise.

>I’m vehemently pro-vax but there are as many idiots on both sides of this issue as there are non-idiots.

I fully agree with this, and I much too often see people trying to cast this as a "all conservatives are antivaxx" issue, which is such a broad stroke that you may as well just say "anyone who doesn't agree with all my world views".

That is not who I mean when I say "nuts". Not the people genuinely misinformed (often by nuts), not the people who may have reasonable hesitations or doubts about certification of a new medical product. And certainly not "people who aren't my political party" (yes, everything is Red's fault. How productive). To be honest, not even the people high up who KNOW they are spouting BS or citizens who know the dangers but "want freedom" (they aren't crazy, that's just malicious and greedy at that point. different topic altogether).

But there are just some few people who genuinely seem unhinged and just want to latch onto something that feels relatable, even at the own health's expense. Those are the nuts gathering together. And this is far from the first time. Just the most potentially impactful.

Us "nuts" are merely the most well-read, intellectual individuals in society:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https:/...

I don't disagree about name-calling, but the responsible thing to do is to adapt your opinions as new knowledge is revealed, not everyone is doing that.

You can never convince someone by calling them stupid, selfish, irresponsible or in general blaming them. All you will do is create hatred toward yourself as well as your viewpoint and further the disagreement.

Best way to convince someone is to make them think it was their idea all along.

At this point, I figure much of the anti vax crowd may be actively hoping something would go wrong here, due to the hate they are receiving.

Why does anti vax crowd look at things like Ivermectin etc which hasn't been tested at all compared to vaccines and could potentially have more unknown risks? Because it wasn't shoved down their throat and they were able to find it by themselves.

Even those who are in the middle, vaccine hesitant for example may be feeling the hate that is coming towards them, making them avoid vaccines altogether out of anger towards the other vaccinated side.

> You can never convince someone by calling them stupid, selfish, irresponsible or in general blaming them. All you will do is create hatred toward yourself as well as your viewpoint and further the disagreement.

Who's calling them stupid? I don't recall any politicians or government health officials calling anyone stupid. Sure, there are people on Facebook/Twitter/etc... name-calling, but that's always been the case, and there's plenty of it on both sides.

If someone is telling you to do something, but demonstrates clearly they are not able to repeat your own argument back to you convincingly, they're calling you stupid, because they've demonstrated they don't think you have an argument.

> The “nuts” were also saying covid was coming and was dangerous and were called crazy xenophobes.

I only ever saw people saying that calling it things like "Wuhan Flu" was xenophobic.

Earlier than that, it was about only closing travel to China but not Europe, which was having a completely uncontrolled outbreak.

Lol. I didn't realize there was a race of people known as wuhanis.

The problem is, that the media is creating the wedge. Instead of a huge spectrum of pro- and anti- people, they combine them into two groups.

I'm vaccinated, and I don't care if others don't get the vaccine. Forcing people to get vaccinted is imho stupid. And we've already taken away a year from young people to "save grandma", and now grandma can get vaccinated (or possibly die, if she doesn't want to), and we're again locking down the kids, creating long-lasting problems, especially mental ones.

It is a political wedge issue because it generates fear. Anything that causes people to be fearful is going to be exploited, and amplified, by political parties in whatever way they feel would benefit them.

It's a handle they can pull, so they pull it. It can be xenophobia, it can be "look at what they're doing in country X, what if they did that here?" It can be fear of loosing jobs, fear of wildfires, sea-level change, and it can be fear of getting sick.

Conspiracy theorists said the virus came from Wuhan, then they said it had a low fatality rate, then they said COVID would be here to stay like the flu. Now the village is slowly accepting and even promoting all those “conspiracies”