I’ve never used AI in a post. Not here, not ever.

I swear, I try to concede a point, I get accused of being a bot. What, should just dig in and refuse to concede anything, even if I’m wrong, because doing so makes me sound like a bot? Y’all make it impossible to act in good faith.

Is it so unbelievable that I could be convinced that a particular line of argument I was using was wrong? I had never thought to apply the logic I was using to the specific case of Israel/Palestine, and when I tried to think of a rebuttal, I couldn’t. That’s that. Humans make mistakes, Jesus.

Also, fwiw:

It will persecute you for random capricious and vindictive reasons whether or not you are right or wrong.

Calling a three day ban “persecution” is beyond parody (not to mention comparing an instance to a state), and it’s not for “random capricious and vindictive reasons” it’s because the user is an edgelord who edged too close to antisemitism.

He wasn’t banned for saying Zionism is racism, the mods on .ml agree with that part completely.

It was the part where he was strongly critical of distinguishing Zionism from Judaism, going so far to call that “Hasbara slop,” when the reality is that Zionists are constantly trying to equate the two. He hates it when people distinguish the two because he wants to use the genocide of Gaza as an excuse to be an edgelord and adopt antisemitic positions.

Your instance has censorship and bans too, and also, just two weeks ago I saw people criticize .ml for not banning this exact user.

It doesn’t matter what we do or don’t do, y’all will always find a reason to shit on us.

Damn, only three days. I was hoping they got rid of you for good.

I will repeat the phrase that caused you to label me a “genocidal Zionist liberal” and block me, so that you can block me on this account too.

“I completely condemn the genocidal, apartheid state of Israel. I don’t have a problem with Jews existing.”

You’re just here to pick fights with everyone, while pretending like you care at all about Palestinians to try to give yourself a blank check for your shitty behavior. If only you read actual theory instead of watching some dumbass youtuber’s controversy bait.

Nope, That is very abstract conception of sociology I am sure most sociologists wouldn’t share

“Sociology is the study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behavior. Sociologists investigate the structure of groups, organizations, and societies and how people interact within these contexts. Since all human behavior is social, the subject matter of sociology ranges from the intimate family to global communities; from deviance to organized crime; from religious traditions to state institutions; and from the divisions of race, gender and social class to the shared beliefs of a common culture.” -American Sociological Association

So, no, it’s a very standard definition of sociology that’s consistent with how sociologists define it. You just have weird brainworms about what sociology is and means.

Why the hell do you then say this?!

“that cultures that have the memory of first getting vaccines in living memory tend to be more favorable towards vaccines and less prone to conspiracy theories about them,”

Um. Because it’s true? And once they no longer have the living memory of first getting vaccines, then they will no longer fit that criteria. How on earth does that, in any possible interpretation, lead to, “As if these societies couldn’t be swayed by future social dynamics?” Do you think the living memory of first getting the vaccine will last forever?

The last part, “That’s nonsense. Those ideas come from culture and social relations” treats it as a closed loop and that is bullshit. In fact the mind and ideas are constantly regenerated by physical inputs, that is why false memories are so easy to condition. So yes, everything “naturally” (I hate that word) arises out of physical objects and these words here are ephemera if they’re not being tested against concrete physical reality constantly. I can’t purely logic myself into the right thoughts to come to correct views about the world, it has to be connected to the tangible and if anything ideas that exist primarily through the exchange between people are a weak shadows of that tangible reality.

You’re misunderstanding that completely. There is no “closed loop.” Material conditions shape thought. That is what materialism is, by definition. When a group of people share the same material conditions, those same material conditions tend to shape their thought all together. When a bunch of people have similar thoughts arising out of shared experiences, that’s called a “culture.” This culture can then motivate them towards actions which will affect the material world, as well as influencing individual thoughts, together with constant influence from present material conditions.

The material condition of seeing vaccines eradicate disease shaped thought and culture. It makes people see the value in them and appreciate them more and be less conspiratorial about them. Over time, as the memory of that experience fades, the social conditions changes and people may become more complacent and more prone to distrusting them.

The difference between our views is just that I acknowledge material relations, including the availability of a material object, including events and experiences with the object, where you only look at physical characteristics of the object itself. Nothing I have said in any way implies that thoughts simple materialize from nothing or that ideas have some special power or that you arrive at ideas through pure logic or any of that. I’m just expressing actual materialism. Is the availability of an object not an aspect of the material world?

Just because things are mystical, doesn’t mean I have to reject them completely, just because something almost leaves a bad taste in my mouth doesn’t mean I shouldn’t engage with it. Economics is very crucial, I hate it! It is mystified and stupid! But I engage with it and take it seriously non the less because I am an antimoralist.

??? I’m not even gonna take a stab at detangling that. “I’m a materialist, but I don’t reject things just because they’re mystical.” Uhh, ok, sure.

Also your approach to vaccine denialism just being regulating speech is in fact pure paternalism with a little education thrown in. Thought I might add that before nodding off.

If there is ever a case where removing misinformation is justified, this is it. Vaccines are the single greatest accomplishment of human civilization.

The first responsibility of the state is to protect the people. The state is not only justified in intervening, but has a moral obligation to intervene to ensure that children are vaccinated. It’s the same way that “freedom of speech” does not extend to shouting “fire” in a crowded theater. Antivax rhetoric results in physical harm to innocent people. You only disagree with my suggestion because you don’t fully understand what’s at stake.

To appropriate a Marxist term, and in the eyes of a sociologist a sociological term, sociology is mostly a petty bourgeois jerk between professors with very little practical applicability.

Lmao Marx was all about social relationships! And sociology is simply the study of social relationships. You can critique particular ideas within sociology (I did not reference Durkheim or anybody like that in any way, so that’s irrelevant) but if you claim to understand social relationships and see them as worth studying, then you’re saying that you’re doing sociology right there. What is a social relationship if not a sociological factor? It’s like you heard the word “sociology” and completely lost the plot.

The cultural memory stuff is mostly BS and contradicted by your appeals to the temporally changing rate of vaccine denialism in western countries. As if these societies couldn’t be swayed by future social dynamics.

“As if?” Nothing I said could even remotely be construed as implying they couldn’t! In fact, it’s quite likely that they will follow the same trend, and that future generations that don’t have the memory of getting vaccines may be more prone to conspiracy theories about them. Where on earth did you possibly get this idea from, that I think otherwise?

You believe ideas have a special power, as evidenced in your previous message

By what in my previous message? You believe lizard people control the world, “as evidenced by your previous message,” see, I can make utterly baseless claims about your beliefs too.

More accurately, you’ve chosen to die on this hill of “cultures aren’t real, sociology isn’t real, history doesn’t matter, all ideas come from the inherent properties of individual objects and they’re only different across cultures because of social factors that are somehow totally different from sociological factors.”

First nowhere did I perform a complete rejection of sociology

And sociology is absolutely mystical,

What the fuck does this even mean? It’s mystical, but you don’t reject it? What are you even trying to say?

Choosing to ignore sociology and social relations is not “hard science” or “materialism.” That’s like saying that if you recognize chemical compounds, you might as well “go back to the church and PRAY” because the only real material thing that exists are atoms (or subatomic particles, if you prefer). Just as chemistry is a field of science that studies the relation of atoms at the molecular level, just as biology is a field of science that studies the interaction of molecules at a cellular level, sociology is a scientific field that studies the interactions of individuals at a societal level. There is nothing “mystical” or “immaterial” about it.

When I say, for example, that cultures that have the memory of first getting vaccines in living memory tend to be more favorable towards vaccines and less prone to conspiracy theories about them, that is materialism! The material fact of whether the vaccine was available or not is what shaped the cultural ideas. Materialism doesn’t end at the quality of an object itself. The historical availablity of an object, which is both a material fact and a social relation, also affect the way people think about it.

What you’re doing is some bizarre, vulgarized form of materialism that disregards entirely material relations and the long term effects of material events on people’s thought processes, and instead attributes everything a person thinks about a particular object to the object’s innate qualities. This is nonsense, it’s a misunderstanding of what materialism is.

There are countless examples that prove this. For example, Spain once found tons of platinum in America and dumped it because they considered it worthless. If the reasons we value platinum have to do with it’s innate qualities, then the Spanish and everyone else at the time would have valued it as much as we do today.

The really important idea here is that not everything can become the subject of conspiracy theories, chairs, friends, or plain money f.e., even when there is an effort.

I 100% disagree with that. Money especially has been the subject of countless conspiracy theories. There are plenty of people (for example, with schizophrenia) who form conspiracy theories about their friends. I’m not sure there’s ever been a conspiracy theory about chairs, but that’s only because there’s never been a sociological reason for there to be.

You are treating ideas that exist only in particular times and cultures as inherent things that will naturally arise out of the existence of particular physical objects. That’s nonsense. Those ideas come from culture and social relations. In a culture that has the memory of life before vaccines within living memory, conspiracies about them don’t tend to emerge or gain traction, even though the physical object is the same. I feel like I’m repeating myself here, but that should just be the end of the discussion. It’s clear proof that it’s cultural and sociological.

Let me just put it this way: Is there any conceivable evidence that could exist that would falsify this idea that conspiracy theories come from the properties of particular physical objects rather than sociological factors?

Not one of the things you listed regarding Somalia was “an imminent property of the object.” Every one was a sociological factor. That’s exactly what I’m saying. The differences across countries can only be explained through sociological factors, rather than some quality of the vaccine itself.

So is it your idea to limit the spread of misinformation after the fact, and then everything is fine? To say that vaccine denial is reproduced top to bottom, instead of being reproduced by the system of consumers and consumers of such content, abetted by the circumstance of vaccines themselves lending themselves well to paranoid narratives, is a bit shortsighed.

I get that this is a charged topic, but let’s not let the subject or “victim” of misinfo off the hook, as well as all the other relevant factors that can be understood to make it easier to combat antivax.

I didn’t say any of that. I cited one case of state sponsored misinformation to demonstrate the effects that misinformation in general can have. I never painted it in terms of “top down” misinformation outside of that one example. Of course, once someone is an antivaxxer they’re likely to spread misinformation organically.

The solution is a combination of banning the proliferation of antivax misinformation as far as possible, promoting a better understanding of science through funding education, and through any other methods that are shown to be effective. For example, some doctors have found it helpful to offer a choice between staggering the shots instead of doing them all at once, even though there’s really no difference, just to let people feel like they’re making a choice. As you mentioned, there’s some limited success with addressing people who are hesitant because of a fear of needles. But these little tactics miss the core, underlying reasons why it’s happening in the first place, which needs to be addressed on a larger scale.

A picture of a suffering child does not prove vaccines eradicated smallpox.

THEN WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK DID?

All of human history, plagued by this disease, 300 million deaths in the 20th century alone, someone developed a vaccine, and poof, it’s gone. Just like that. Country by country, as the vaccine spread, the disease disappeared. Countries that didn’t have the vaccine yet, like the one where that picture was taken, still had smallpox, when other countries had eradicated it. Then they got the vaccine and it was gone.

How the fuck do your conspiracy theories explain that?

Why do you believe what you believe?

Because of overwhelming scientific evidence.

Why do you get triggered when your identity feels attacked?

Because you are promoting lies that are getting innocent people killed as we speak.

Misinforming cabals are one thing, but why antivax specifically and not flatearth musings?

But… it’s both? Both of those things exist. And there’s overlap, people who believe in one conspiracy theory often believe in others. Someone might just happen to be exposed to one theory as opposed to the other, or they might find one plausible and the other absurd, or it could be that one more effectively appeals to something in one person than another.

My father worked in traffic safety in East Kentucky and something he encountered a lot was people refusing to wear seat belts because they saw it as “authoritarian” for the government to impose it on them. Plenty of antivaxxers frame it the same way, as it being an issue of personal choice and autonomy, against government or pharmaceutical companies. This combines with a natural desire to make sure they’re making the right choice for their children, and when they’re told that the science is clear and settled and that there’s one choice that’s objectively correct and another choice that’s objectively incorrect, some people don’t want to accept that, and they want to get both sides of the story, and as the only way to support antivax arguments is through lies, misinformation, substacks from people called “Dr. Wojak, M.D.” they get exposed to that conspiracy theory rather than a different one.

I generally find it questionable to seek primary causes outside of objects that have immanent properties that could explain so much more.

If it was an immanent property of the object, again, you wouldn’t see the kinds of variation across countries and over time. We can see a clear correlation that countries that more recently gained access to vaccines have much higher opinions of them. We can find other correlations and come up with reasonable explanations based on that, that for example complacency is a factor. If it wasn’t, if it’s just an immanent property of the object, then how do you explain the difference between perspectives on vaccines between different areas, like Somalia and France?

If it was nothing but a holdover from a time when vaccines were not as safe, then we would expect to see antivax attitudes declining over time. The primary factor is the spread of misinformation, whether state sponsored or otherwise. This misinformation reaches more people because of the internet, and it clearly correlates with decreasing levels of trust in institutions.

Do you know what that is? That’s a child with smallpox in 1973. Do you know why we don’t have to deal with that anymore? Because of fucking vaccines, dumbass.

Now, you idiots are bringing back diseases that were already nearly eradicated, like measles, because you’re blindly trusting “Dr. Wojak, M.D.” instead of every actual doctor on the fucking planet.

Across the adult population, blood-injection-injury fears may explain approximately 10% of cases of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

It’s not the main driving factor, is what I’m saying. There’s of course going to be some people who avoid vaccines because of a fear of needles, but those are generally ordinary people who are aware of the fear and may know it’s irrational but still can’t overcome it. The people who aren’t just hesitant but full on antivax aren’t generally driven by a fear of needles, they’re driven by the same factors that drive other conspiracy theories.

If this were true, then we’d expect to see similar levels of antivax around the world, remaining at a constant rate. Let’s look at some actual numbers.

A world survey of the question, “Do you agree that vaccines are important for children to have?” found 97% agreement in Somalia, where the effects of vaccination are more observable, and only 68% agreement in France, which has had them long enough to take them for granted. In Asia, we see 95% in China, 93% in Vietnam, 96% in the Philippines and Cambodia, compared to 62% in South Korea and only 48% in Japan (down from 82% in 2015). 92% in Mexico compared to 79% in the US (which was 87% in 2015)

What’s going on here? Did 34% of Japanese people suddenly develop a fear of needles in the span of 10 years? In the Philippines, 100% of people agreed with that statement in 2015, which dipped all the way down to 68% in 2021, before recovering to 96% today! Weird that that phobia of needles spontaneously appeared out of nowhere, and everyone got over it just as suddenly.

Or, maybe it’s not really about a fear of needles at all. Maybe that has more to do with the fact that the US actively spread vaccine misinformation in the Philippines to get people to distrust China’s COVID vaccine. And if we can directly observe antivax attitudes generating in response to a targeted misinformation campaign, then maybe this whole thing has more to do with the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories, rather than some innate phobia.

This thread is full of people who actually think laws apply to rich people. No wonder y’all ain’t commies.

You want accountability, the only kind of court that would ever do anything to them would be goddamn revolutionary tribunals. And you can say that unrealistic, and it is, but it’s more realistic than thinking the existing political and judicial system would ever take real, meaningful action against a former president. And even if they did, Trump’s fucking 80, he can easily drag out any legal precedings long enough for them not to matter. At best, maybe you get a fall guy, but you’re never getting the main culprits.

Laws are just threats made by the ruling class, and the ruling class has a level of class solidarity that puts the rest of us to shame.

There was no justice for Bush’s crimes, and there was no justice for Trump’s first term. You’re kidding yourself if you think it’ll be different this time.

I already lost my mind when there were zero consequences for all the illegal, fucked up shit Bush did. At a certain point you just have to come to terms with the fact that the ruling class has solidarity and no president will ever be held accountable to the law under the current system. Trump already faced zero consequences for anything in his first term.

I agree with the judge that Trump should be deposed, although I’m not sure we mean the same thing by it.