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It really is rather astonishing what one idiot in the right place at the right time can accomplish. For example, if you had asked me to describe a typical anti-vaxxer anytime before 2020 I would have described someone a lot like a hippie. Someone who smokes a lot of weed, makes their own clothes, shows up at all the mid-week protests against factory farming, that sort of thing. If you asked me that same question now you'd get a very different answer and it really can be summed pretty succinctly in the acronym MAGA.
I'm sure the first type is still out there but the second type is much more interesting in the academic sense of the word. These are people who were openly mocking anti-vaxxers less than 5 years ago. These are the people who didn't think twice about mandatory vaccination days in school or the military. This sort of person flipped their whole attitude towards the medical community almost exclusively because one loud idiot who obviously doesn't have a fucking clue how any of it works told them that he knew better. That's amazing.
Can’t tell you how many times in my clinic I heard “I can’t stand that Fauci”. Every time a look of disgust would envelop my face and I would ask ”why?!” in disbelief. Most of the time they couldn’t tell my why other times because he “lied”. It was clear they didn’t understand basic science and we’re being told what to believe. These were your run of the mill MAGAs that constitute the majority and the norm where I’m from.
What's wild has been watching previous hippies that were antivaxxers suddenly adopt racist and hateful attitudes because it aligned with their newfound perceived in-group.
Like - how do you go from proudly having protested for civil rights to using the N word all because of the strength of your convictions about the healing power of quartz?
Our brains are weird as shit and I really can't wait for AI superintelligence because it's become clear as fucking day that such a thing as superintelligence sure as hell isn't going to be happening in humans.