I have become more skeptical of bashing of "conspiracy theorists", and rapid mislabeling from numerous experiments gone awry, due to great examples of crazy things in government like Operation Midnight Climax [1]
>The problem is when people raising perfectly legitimate concerns about COVID-19 vaccines are dismissed as anti-vaxxers. The truth is their risk-benefit profiles are not fully known at this time, scientists are still studying their effects. It's absolutely possible that some vaccine has higher risks than benefits. Yet people saying anything that isn't glowing support for vaccination get moderated on social media for spreading disinformation.
I think this had to do with Science-as-a-process vs "Scientism". When you treat science as a methodology it works great, because I truly believe science is regularly self-correcting, even if the correction period is in centuries. But, when science becomes mixed with narrative truth, painted through a partisan lense, or a dogma, then we devolve into something out of Frankenstein. Or, perhaps, better, The Fly.
[1] https://archives.sfweekly.com/sanfrancisco/operation-midnigh...
The US is a country with documented examples of doctors injecting microorganisms into unsuspecting patients. There's a truly astounding list of unethical scientific experiments performed there on wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...
So I don't fault americans for assuming there's some kind of conspiracy behind vaccines and I would most certainly not be surprised if they turned out to be right. I don't fault them for not trusting doctors, especially psychiatrists. I've read some truly horrifying stories.
People should be able to make informed decisions with regards to these vaccines, not get manipulated into taking them because governments are desperate to contain the situation.
The vaccines have side effects, though are regarded as a very safe method. It's very targeted, as broad corona vaccines are not deemed to be good. Medical experts know this much better.
It doesn't take long to find evidence of truly outlandish conspiracies perpetrated by the US government itself. Dosing citizens with drugs in an attempt to control their minds. Exposing citizens to radiation on purpose without their knowledge or consent in order to study the effects, measurably causing increased rates of cancer in that population. Anyone can find stuff like this just randomly browsing wikipedia. Yet somehow we're supposed to disbelieve when "theorists" speak?
I've also concluded there's people out there who want to discredit these "theorists" in any way possible. Abusing science and medicine to do it? Why not? They must be mentally ill, right? All those insane ideas must be evidence that something is literally wrong with their cognition. Their brains must be scrambled or something. Schizophrenia? Throw in words like paranoia and suddenly people will agree that maybe we should involuntarily institutionalize these people. Put them on medication to calm them down. Yeah.
Paranoia is not a symptom when they really are after you. I don't understand how anyone can accuse people of paranoia in the 21st century when we know there are a hundreds of government agencies out there spying on literally everyone on the planet at all times. We know they conspire to do all sorts of completely unacceptable actions. We know they always deny the truth afterwards for as long as they can get away with.
Some people have silly beliefs like flat earth. That's just wrong and it's safe to ignore them. The problem is when people raising perfectly legitimate concerns about COVID-19 vaccines are dismissed as anti-vaxxers. The truth is their risk-benefit profiles are not fully known at this time, scientists are still studying their effects. It's absolutely possible that some vaccine has higher risks than benefits. Yet people saying anything that isn't glowing support for vaccination get moderated on social media for spreading disinformation.