It attempts to fit a pre-conceived view onto the world, that "no-vaxers" must be dumb the same way "flat-earthers" are and this helps you rationalize away digital content you personally disagree with without having to engage with it.
I believe unvaccinated people seeking medical treatment from the same "elitist establishment" they had nothing but scorn for is a somewhat more obvious demonstration of the same principle.
1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Million_Dollar_Paranorma...
The analogy is actually flawed for a different reason: it simply sets up a one way bias. If you want to force people to put a price on their beliefs, get rid of all the subsidies for vaccines and all the liability for the manufacturers. Make people pay for their own shots and then allow those who get injured to sue the manufacturers for damages.
Well, we could do that but actually we don't have to. We already know what the outcome is: the outcome is there are no COVID vaccine manufacturers at all, because complete legal immunity to damage claims was a mandatory criteria for them to sign contracts with governments. Liability allowed = no vaccines.
So the market spoke already, and it seems to suggest the opposite of what's being implied above.
Many people, whether anti-vax or not, would like to be able to receive medical advice and treatment from a person of their own choosing. But this is illegal, at least in most places HN commenters are likely to be found. So "seeking medical treatment from the same 'elitist establishment'" is nothing more than "seeking medical treatment, legally".
I would argue that there is no subjectively felt risk.
It isn't that we as society decided to care for these people when they fall ill. They nonetheless have a higher risk of dying from an infection with Sars-CoV-2. The risk is there - they just do not feel it, because the felt risk of some wonky chip implant or other imagined side effects feels bigger.
These people have over time constructed a world view for themselves (with lots of help from YouTube, Facebook and other places to find "inspiration" for said world view) that is not only constructed around this one fear.
To me esp. these COVID deniers feel (and I have no data to back that up) like they are grasping for straws of (felt) control in a world they feel is out of their control. They say: I do not let the state vax me. Because now they are in control of at least something. Then they need to make the fact go away that they just handed the control over to a virus. So the nearly logical next step is to either not believe the virus is real, or to believe it doesn't hit you or believe, if it hits you your immune system is fit enough to deal with it, because it isn't as dangerous as the big bad state wants you to believe.
It is a rabbit hole to go down - one fear/believe/feeling out of control leading to the next piece of the puzzle in your new world view were you are in control.
And the politicians doing the exact opposite thing that scientists recommend as well as science (by definition) not being able to provide 100% certainty and easy answers (because well life isn't made up of easy answers) are not equipped to make these people feel in control (because they are not - nobody is).
So I feel (as said - I have no data) the problem lies deeper. Either (some) humans just want/need easy answers or we as a society have not learned to teach ourselves from early on, that there are no certainties and control is a myth and how to deal with greys and uncertainty.
On the other hand - if one actually looks at the numbers, these people may seem loud and a big mass on said (social) platforms (probably amplified by the algorithms) but are a very tiny minority in reality.
One of the reasons I got vaccinated (despite having a fear of needles) is the fact my mother has COPD and I want to protect her. One could argue that's a selfish reason, ie. I want my children to know one of their grandmother (their grandfathers, including my father, having passed away before they knew them).
That's my personal reasoning, I also want to get out of this crisis and I don't wish it upon anyone to lose a loved one. Its a matter of compassion. I believe -perhaps naively- we all have someone to lose, one way or another. Though it may seem support for COVID-19 regulations is dwindling across the globe (and it is), the group who's firmly against is and remains an active, relatively small amount of loudmouths.
If you follow the above narrative, there's an understandable urge to that in order to defeat the problem, we can convince people to follow the COVID-19 regulations, to get vaccinated, etc. But what happens is that people double down within the cult-esque echo chamber. And such echo chamber is there in both examples (antivax and flat earth). So the urge, while understandable, we must abstain from, as its like 'energy put into a black hole'.
Funny little story: Back when I still had Facebook, I joined a Facebook group called Flat Earth Society ('we have members all around the globe'), thinking it was actually a joke, like I'd call 'The Illuminatus Trilogy'. I took me while (Poe's Law) till I figured these people actually weren't joking; they were dead serious. Its like someone who makes a terrible joke with bad taste, until you realize at some point, that they're serious about it. E.g. they really wanna eat a human being, not just jokingly.
If this is accepted as an appropriate way of dealing with no-vaxers then the entire intellectual edifice of state-sponsored healthcare is at risk. You'll probably see some superficially surprising positions where (1) anti-vaccers are human scum willingly endangering us all and (2) it is necessary that we offer them high quality medical treatment. Note that it is a reasonable and consistent worldview, although probably not the intuitive one to someone who doesn't hold it.
I'm all for the idea, personally. People should pay their own medical costs. But it isn't a universally tolerable solution for how to handle the vaccine resistant (especially in the medical community, I assume).
Money is a very bad medium to talk about probability and human reasoning because doing so supposes that all dollars are worth the same when in reality they are anything but. Your last dollar is more valuable than your hundredth dollar which is more valuable than your thousandth dollar which is far more valuable than your millionth dollar. Giving someone ten million dollars does not make a hundred times as much difference to their lives as giving them one hundred thousand.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
VSL
Framing it as them knowingly sacrificing the equivalent of $100 k for no good reason ("belief!") is dishonest to the complexity of the problem.
Most serious illnesses will compromise the immune system. A compromised immune system will make you more vulnerable to any infection. So the most common and most spread infection will then also naturally be the most common one to trigger death.
If someone has aids, which is a decease that compromises the immune system, and then dies from pneumonia. Did they die from pneumonia or aids?
The statistics are a total mess in my opinion and any being professed with any exactitude should be taken with a grain of salt.
It's strange to think about society in those terms. Being trapped here, being forced to obey under threat of some very inhumane punishments. It does seem fundamentally unfair. While I think most of us just come to terms with it (especially since nobody has come up with a better option for a successful and functional society) I can get why some folks would feel a desire to assert their independence and freedoms. Sadly, the sovereign citizen crowd has decided to come up with some pretty insane ways to cope with the situation. I can still laugh at them, but not without also acknowledging that one injustice I and everyone I've ever met are stuck living with.
I'll happily just keep with society and deal with the indignities it forces on me, but for those who can't or won't it'd be nice if there were a lot more unowned and empty places on the planet people could go to on their own if they really wanted to "opt out" and not play by anyone else's rules. Maybe once we have space travel...
It looks like sovereign citizens want to have their cake and eat it too: not to pay taxes, but travel the roads build with the same taxes. Not to pay for medical insurance, but being able to get the best treatment from the cursed oppressive state.
So if all that’s true, then who are we fooling: the real issue is the lack of ability to educate. You can blame stupidity and give up but that’s not a path forward.
To me the strangest bit is the idea that scientists are the authorities? What!? I wish!
Funnily enough, the "flat earthers" of that time were the ones spreading the idea that the Earth was moving :D (see: Galileo)
Columbus was being dissuaded from his voyage because people correctly calculated his supplies will run out way before he reaches Indies west-wards
So the "earth is flat" is almost not a conspiracy, it's just a lack of education. "Someone is fooling us into thinking the earth is round" is the conspiracy part.
People are smart enough to know when they're being "lied"* to by the tv/teacher. Especially when the reply is "it just is stop asking"...
These same people are unfortunately often not driven enough, and/or in a position where they're able to disentangle the fact that "all of this _evidence_" on the internet, (which is deliberately written at an overly accessible level vs actual science) is ultimately incoherent nonsense. Unfortunately on topics like this, the answer from science and describing reality is actually quite complex and requires time and effort to understand the details and implications.
*A lie of omission, or failing to acknowledge "I don't know" and replying with only solid certainty of "I've been told by someone" is akin to teaching from the bible and offers nothing toward scientific literacy. (Deliberately drawing a line between this and theological debates)
Heck, I have seen some pretty outlandish comments on hacker news that aren’t much better and I assume everyone here is smarter than I am.
People believe things for emotional reasons. People often, for example, find religion after the death of a loved one. People also want to believe what others in their community believe, so belief can take hold easily once seeded into a community.
We all like to think we are rational, we are not.
> Flat Earthers are not otherwise-empty vessels who believe one kooky thing. They believe that thing because it suits their purposes. [...] it says something they already believe about the nature of the social world. Flat Earth is a thing people want to believe because if it were true it would be irrefutable proof of everything else they believe.
Folding Ideas, In Search of a Flat Earth ~29 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44