Have you heard about the Birds Aren't Real movement?

Antivaxxers and others of their ilk are immune to reason or evidence.
And for that matter, mockery, too.
However ,if satirical movements manage to prevent some people from gliding off into lala land, by pointing out the absurdness of a conspiracy theory, that is a positive result.
As is the amusement I draw from it. Like countering someone who claims that the moon landing was faked, by staunchly asserting that the moon is hollow, and actually an giant space station constructed by reptiloid aliens, that houses all the UFOs.

There are better ways of encouraging vaccination than this. Telling people they are stupid is never going to work.

I hadn’t heard of it. I certainly don’t think it will help encourage people to get vaccinated. I don’t think it will have positive results. Maybe if they’re lucky one person in one million will question that maybe the conspiracy theories are false when coupled with the other information out there.

I have a fantasy that Trump in an interview and in his speeches starts bragging about how easily he manipulated people and that they just would believe anything. I realize that will never happen, and anyway some of his followers would just decide he was being forced to say that.

@JLeslie He did. He said in the 1980’s on camera he’d run as a Republican and they’d love him. :)

@ragingloli You sir are correct. Many called their parade and press stupid, they claimed satire and said those people were stupid.
I have to agree with @flutherother that it’s not productive, if that was the intent. Is it appropriate to even have a satire movement right now?
I’d love to hear from someone familiar with this movement.

https://fb.watch/v/1uERl4VbT/

Here’s the video, they’re obviously giggling. :) It is a little funny, actually.

@KNOWITALL Oh yes, I actually saw an interview, maybe the same one, years ago where he talked about how great Republicans are at running political campaigns and the people will believe anything. I saw it at the time of the interview. He was talking about when Bush ran against Kerry.

I meant now, him bragging now that he was brilliant for understanding how people think and can be led to believe anything.

No, but its a way to male money selling useless products.
What does it matter what another person believes, how does it affect you.
I realize in a Pandemic and the need to vaccinate is imperative and has consequences .
But for other beliefs as long as it doesn’t hurt others then it doesn’t matter what they believe.

They mock out of desperation. Because they are fools thinking Americans can’t be that dumb believing in CTs.

Personally I have a hard time buying that most Americans who claim they truly believe in CTs are telling the truth. They know it’s BS but it rallies them together successfully and that’s all that matters.

What was that satirical movie again about all American citizens ending up as idiots in the future? None of those idiotic characters in the film were faking it.

There’s millions of Americans today that are faking it imo.

This is hilarious. I’ve long been fascinated with how otherwise intelligent people can come to believe in false ideas (myself included). It lead me to learning about skepticism and trying to be rigorous in my thinking when forming conclusions. I’m certainly not immune to biases and errors in reasoning. Being cognizant of my own fallibility is an important component of critical thinking.

My diagnosis for the epidemic in anti-scientific thinking is that our education system has failed at teaching critical thinking and implementing it into the curriculum at all levels. Science is largely taught as a series of facts to be memorized instead of as an investigatory process. My “faith” in science is derived from the understanding of HOW the process works. If I have the confidence in the process, I can trust the results.

The other major culprit is terrible journalism when reporting on scientific news. Often, preliminary papers with small sample sizes and small effects are reported with sweeping headlines for clicks. When subsequent studies with larger samples and more robust controls contradict the initial findings, the public is often left thinking that science doesn’t work. The exact opposite is in fact true. Science is self-correcting with more data and research.

@gorillapaws I want to give you 100 GA’s.

Chickens, ducks and geese are birds. I didn’t know drones were so delicious.

Btw, now I’m not sure whether birds are real. I’ve seen them but never touched one while perched on a tree or in flight above me. They could just be digital projections by aliens.

@gorillapaws It is hilarious, but I hope they leave town before the rednecks figure out they’re being mocked. Whoosh, right over there heads-for now. (Intentional pun.)

I do not think the cause of anti-scientific thinking is just the lack of critical thinking skills.
There is also clearly a great distrust and resentment of scientists and acadaemia in general, which I think is rooted in:
– an inferiority complex. people hate the feeling of being less educated and less intelligent. Their feelings of being inferior is then transformed into disdain for those who they perceive to be lording over them. A form of intellectual classism, if you will.
– politics. decades of propaganda depicting institutions of learning as left wing and communist indoctrination centres has nurtured a hatred of academics as a political enemy.
Science then, in general, becomes “liberal propaganda”
– religion. science is non-religious, almost always contradicts religious doctrine, and scientists themselves are by a large majority atheist. Science and scientists are therefore viewed as blasphemous, and scientific knowledge that contradicts their religious beliefs must therefore be false by default.

@ragingloli You just have to put things in perspective intelligently didn’t you? : )

@ragingloli Lack of critical thinking in education and failures in the media aren’t an exhaustive list. I do think the points you raise are valid, but I also think they’re derivative causes from the lack of critical thinking in education. If people had the educational foundation of critical thinking skills they wouldn’t have the inferiority complex you describe. If they had the critical thinking skills then they wouldn’t be nearly as susceptible to the political propaganda poisoning their beliefs, and they would have better cognitive tools to reflect on their faith and how it intersects with scientific discoveries.

I find there is nothing I can do with true antivaxxers. However most people I meet aren’t true “antivaxxers” but just vaccine hesitant. Those people I can usually talk to and many of them end up getting a vaccine. I don’t do it by mocking them, I do it by education and telling my personal experiences as a doctor.

@Caravanfan Maybe you need to book a flight here. I hear we are #2 in the country for lowest vaccination rate in Missouri. .

Hey, you got me with the flu shot and the vaccine, maybe if we had more of THAT approach instead of the hospital presidents scolding everyone via social media, while his nurses and staff are telling everyone not to get the shots, we’d be better off.

Why is there such a disconnect inside the medical profession?
Say what you want about yokels being stupid (not you personally), but trained professionals are the ones spreading the word not to do it.

This reminds me of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Pastafarians as a protest against religion.

@KNOWITALL Trained professionals? Doctors? Or, who exactly?

@JLeslie Nurses, Staff, ER workers. It’s not required in the hospitals here.

How much confidence is that in the vaccine from the medical profession?!

But I find that being polite and respectful gets me far more leverage than being a dick.

I don’t think it will persuade anyone but it’s a decent satire of conspiracy theories (my favorite is “Australia isn’t real”. I mean, egg-laying mammals, really?)

@KNOWITALL So, mostly not doctors if I understand correctly. Or, am I still misunderstanding?

I think the liberal parts of the media who are calling hesitant people names make it worse. Make those people not want to do it on principle at that point. Luckily, many doctors and scientists calmed down that name calling, but some damage was done.

@Caravanfan Yes! Thank you.

I saw a hospital doctor, I don’t know if she was ER or some other specialty, say when she asks an unvaccinated person if they want to get a shot while in the hospital the majority agree to do it.

While I can sympathize with those suspicious of government competence regarding all aspects of covid, the likelihood of risk for some future unforeseen consequence of the vaccines against the certainty of increasingly severe and MULTIPLYING dangers from mutating strains should lead to the obvious conclusion regarding which is riskier.

@stanleybmanly for a 28 year old who wants to get pregnant and already worried about folic acid, not drinking, and not taking any medication while trying to get pregnant, the vaccine easily seems more worrisome UNTIL a few hundred healthy babies are born to vaccinated women.

That sounds plausible until you have a gander at the list of complications attributed to the disease.

So @JLeslie are you saying babies may have . . . three heads ?

Don’t get pregnant ! !

No indications there are any problems with child birth after vaccination for COVID-19!

Just the opposite CDC on pregnancy ! ! !

@Tropical_Willie I am explaining some of the concerns of young women. I am 53, I am not talking about me.

Some of the young women who have not been getting vaccinated, who were first hesitant, now that they feel more confident the vaccine has not affected fetuses. My point is calling them ridiculous or stupid or shouting at them the first months of the vaccine roll out does not help the cause. I don’t know if you have ever been a woman wanting or trying to get pregnant? Remember DES daughters? Thalidomide? Rubella vaccination too close to pregnancy? The difficulty getting Acutane?

Most people do not understand the differences between various vaccines and drugs and vaccines and so they need time to sort things out so they feel like they are making the right decision.