And what data would you use? When it's quite clear that the media and the agencies are distorting the data, or at best have erroneous and uncorrected data, then trust is lost.

Ultimately, you do have to trust your source of said data, and that's precisely what's been discounted, several times. Maybe the COVID data is correct right now, but how does one really know? Not many of us go out and try to collect it ourselves.

There are a lot of claims in the article besides COVID policy effectiveness, for starters. They present the racism of the MAGA movement through a single debunked anecdote, rather than hate crime statistics. Policy brutality is presented not as a reality which has numbers and history but as an event that happened one time to one man, etc.

As for COVID data, it would be foolish to claim that the data we have is perfect. After all, we had a seemingly official policy of “if we don’t do tests more, we won’t have more cases” for the first month of the spread in the US. And without a doubt, there are people with stuff to gain by artificially inflating the numbers (incendiary media, etc) and artificially suppressing them (governors, etc). But, I think it’s also difficult to form a coherent claim that the data available is, in aggregate, completely bogus. If you slap an error bar of even 20% on the case numbers, I don’t think my ultimate interpretation of that would not change very much, but YMMV

Yes, the average, everyday person's perspectives on the goings-on are informed primarily by the big news stories that have been rammed down their throats. That's the point of the article.

Well, off subject, but hate crime data isn't exactly the whole picture either, as this article (paywall, sadly) explains: https://reason.com/2021/09/19/do-we-really-need-new-anti-asi... (in general physical violence down, 'uncomfortable' situations or words may be up past year, yet all down over like 20 years)

Back on subject, seems like it's possible though, even if the rest of this article is wrong about COVID, it does mention the fake epidemic at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, where the PCR testing was 100% wrong: https://blog.plan99.net/pseudo-epidemics-7603b2da839

It really doesn't help either that dissenting data is auto-flagged as 'disinformation' now either.

And finally 'the data' is just part of the equation. It has justified lockdowns that have a 100% real negative effect on people's lives, whereas for healthy adults COVID has a far less than 1% effect. Plus I'll note that those that most strongly advocate for lockdowns are the least affected by them - media, academics, medical personnel, politicans, tech and other white-collar workers, public school teachers, etc.

It really shows a selfishness, and a careless disregard for fellow citizens who might not be as fortunate. Is it any wonder 'the data' is not to be believed?

I dissent on the claim that medical personnel are least affected. Is there some subset you're envisioning? Do you somehow mean only particular kinds of affect?

I don't know of any hospitals that were closed due to a lockdown, do you?

the pandemic's affected them a lot, yes, I'm just talking about government imposed lockdowns, which have little in the way of data backing them up.

Chomsky covered this problem comprehensively in "Understanding Power", I recommend giving it a read. The highlights are: 1) it's always been that way 2) collating news for conflicting or foreign sources is the best way to suss out the truth 3) business news is less slanted but obfuscated in business speak. I still recommend the book over my summary :)

It's trying to build empathy for a viewpoint. Understanding and empathizing isn't the same as agreeing.

I've had 100% empathy for the opposite side of the political spectrum for a long time now. I talk to people there, and I try to understand their perspective. I also try to understand the Taliban's perspective, China's, and otherwise. I'm sometimes successful, and sometimes not, but I try.

The reason I am vaccinated is because I have a (modest) background in biology, and I understand the science personally. If I didn't, I might be skeptical too.

We need more articles like this one. You can't convince people without understanding them first, and really empathizing. To quote:

“Know yourself and know your enemy. You will be safe in every battle. You may know yourself but not know the enemy. You will then lose one battle for every one you win. You may not know yourself or the enemy. You will then lose every battle.” Art of War 3:6:1–6

I think there’s a line between empathizing and excusing, though. Understanding why someone feels a certain way doesn’t mean you have to give credit to those reasons, which the above article does.

I think that it’s difficult to consume articles like this, even if the goal is empathy. At best, this is one viewpoint among many, and at worst, it’s a borderline straw man hypothetical. Particularly with the assumptions the article makes (like when it asserts that the reader is white…)

There probably are people whose vaccine hesitancy follow the exact steps laid out in this article, but they are certainly not everyone. The first set of events which the author present as undermining mainstream authority are a lot newer than vaccine hesitancy writ large, which has been steadily increasing through various avenues on the social internet. I try my best to understand, because it’s been clear for a while that yelling doesn’t help, but I don’t think this article does a good job of fostering understanding, it seems more interested in yelling just in the other direction

I do give credit to those reasons. Those reasons are fine, logical, and rational. My experience is that they more-or-less correspond to why the people I know who don't take vaccines don't take then.

The existence of better reasons to be vaccinated doesn't negate those at all.

The central problem is that the establishment, at some point, began to lie more and more. We've entered a post-truth age. I'm part of the scientific establishment, and I see that a lot.

I personally have enough background in biology that I can evaluate the virtually non-existent risks of vaccines for myself, as well as the significant risks of COVID19. That's why I'm vaccinated.

If I didn't have that scientific background -- and most people don't -- I might be an anti-vaxxer for all the reasons listed in the article.

Until you can acknowledge that the concerns are valid and real, you're not getting anywhere. I convinced one person who was unvaccinated, for precisely those reasons but who trusted me, not by ridiculing their logic, but by explaining how, in this particular case, I'd walked through the evidence and they were safe. She trusts me, and she's now vaccinated.

On a more basic level, if both sides of the political spectrum stopped lying to "win," I don't think we'd have this problem.

idk if you even have to exercise a strong degree of empathy per say as opposed to simply engaging differences of culture and action with a degree of anthropological distance rather than allowing yourself to become personally invested in policy outcomes.