Just a quick one today. It has to do with being an idiot.
As you probably already know, I’m a great proponent of rationality, the scientific method, the proposition that belief ought to backed up with, you know, evidence…and all sorts of other libtard, bourgeoise, old-fashioned stuff like that that neither full Professors of Postmodernist Obfuscation Studies nor Gun-kissing Patriots of the Deplorable Variety have a moment’s patience for.
But, I’m an old-fashioned bourgeois libtard sort of a guy…so, we’ll just have to live with my delusions.
And among those delusions, one of the chief is the idea that modern medicine and saving people’s lives has a real value. In particular, I’m a great fan of vaccines. That’s because I’m just enough of an amateur historian to know about things like Smallpox, Polio, Plague, The Spanish Flu, and lots of other diseases like that which have killed Ye Olde Whole Bunches Of People. I also read the news so, even if history weren’t a guide, there’s this little issue of fact that half a million Americans have already died of Covid-19.
So…having those things in mind…I get really peeved by anti-vaccine activists who, IMHO, can be genuinely described as enemies of the entire human race.
And thus, I was particularly cheesed off by a recent article in Mashable, “12 people are behind most of the anti-vaxxer disinformation you see on social media,” by Matt Binder. In it, the author discusses a report from The Center for Countering Digital Hate that reveals that the vast, Vast, VAST majority of anti-vaccine propaganda on social media comes from just 12 people and their organizations.
That’s right, just 12, a truly deadly dozen.
A Special Place In Hell For Them
I’ll let you read the article in Mashable and look at the report on The CCDH (you can see all 12 names here https://252f2edd-1c8b-49f5-9bb2-cb57bb47e4ba.filesusr.com/ugd/f4d9b9_b7cedc0553604720b7137f8663366ee5.pdf). But what I find fascinating is that the 12 seem to include just two sorts of people: first, those who appear to have a screw or two lose, and, second, those who profit from anti-vaccine hysteria by selling dietary supplements, alternative “medicine,” and other snake oil preparations that are supposed to be “better” than vaccines.
I suppose, of the two, the first…the nut jobs…are the most dangerous, because they really believe what they say. But they can sort of be forgiven. After all, they didn’t ask to become lunatics. It just came natural.
The second, though, the profiteers, they are surely not forgivable. They are getting rich by encouraging others to get sick, and potentially die. For that, well, the term “special place in hell” springs to mind. But, then, both groups are part of a long standing tradition. The modern anti-vaccine movement began in madness and greed, and, it seems, remains there.
The question, of course, is what to do about the anti-vaccine movement. Even all twelve of the Deadly Dozen were removed from all social media, others would doubtless spring up to take their place. Alas, the human capacity for self-destructive stupidity seems limitless.
Which…and this thought is truly terrible…makes one wonder.
Is the only solution to the problem that of Darwin? To wit, to allow the anti-vaxxers to do as they please…
Until, in the natural course of time and pandemic…
There are none left?
Until next time…
Onward and Upward.
~mjt
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Copyright © 2021 Michael Jay Tucker
Sources:
“The Disinformation Dozen: Why platforms must act on twelve leading online anti-vaxxers,” CCDH: https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen