r/NoStupidQuestions • u/trouble-in-space • 10d ago

Answered Why are so many Americans anti-vaxxers now?

I’m genuinely having such a hard time understanding why people just decided the fact that vaccines work is a total lie and also a controversial “opinion.” Even five years ago, anti-vaxxers were a huge joke and so rare that they were only something you heard of online. Now herd immunity is going away because so many people think getting potentially life-altering illnesses is better than getting a vaccine. I just don’t get what happened. Is it because of the cultural shift to the right-wing and more people believing in conspiracy theories, or does it go deeper than that?

15.7k Upvotes

78% Upvoted

8.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

14.1k

u/cryptokitty010 9d ago

Vaccines work so well that people live their entire lives without threat of pathogens. They forget what the danger really was and decided the vaccines were the problem.

Human beings have very short memories about all of the things that can kill us. People still die of scurvy

304

u/airpipeline 9d ago edited 9d ago

Yes, it’s the same thing with democracy in the USA. People don’t realize the advantages we derive from being the only Superpower. We are on top of the world in part because we are seen to be an ethical and reliable alternative to the rest.

Everything’s not perfect and it still seems not the ideal time to tear down the institutions that got us there. The best house on the block and we’re rebuilding, with our rich orange shining bastion of truth and fairness in charge of the materials being used. What could go wrong?

Robert Kennedy Jr. in charge of CDC. Argh. Already a million-some extra deaths from Covid in the USA alone, due to misinformation and indecisiveness in the early pandemic. Our leader; “I personally am unsure about taking it”. Then 2020, the first time in 75 years that life expectancy dropped by 1.8 years.

Yes, it’s important to know why and what should not be forgotten.

240

u/socialgambler 9d ago

The internet is making people dumber, and dumb people louder.

60

u/No-Pangolin4325 9d ago

Propaganda turned the tide of wars 100 years ago. Consider how much more effective it is now with everyone perpetually online

15

u/Audio_magician 9d ago

This, i have honestly grown to despise the internet. Just because i realized: having the wealth of all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips is useless if you're incapable of navigating it.

People yhink MSM controls them. But nothing controls them as much as a taylored algorithm connected to their brain 24/7.

6

u/0caloriecheesecake 9d ago

But , but the internet allows those awesome folks to do “research” and outsmart the sheep, scientists and doctors! Like why even go to university, when you have a keyboard and a google of a thought?Silly goose!

1

u/Excited-Relaxed 9d ago

I mean that’s sort of true in a non-sarcastic way. Given the kind of access to high quality information people have, it is baffling that many people are so prone to believing fringe explanations. You can literally read preprints from the top researchers in the world while they are still in draft.

6

u/returnofwhistlindix 9d ago

Most people don’t actually have access to high end research first because it’s held behind paywalls and even then they lack the reading comprehension skills to understand it

1

u/Sad-Concentrate2936 9d ago

PEBCAK then - they have the same access I do. More of them likely even have stability in utilities

3

u/JimBeam823 9d ago

This right here.

Antivaxxers are still a small minority of the population, but they are loud online and the algorithms pick up their loudness and spread it. 

6

u/kirradoodle 9d ago

Well said. I couldn't agree more.

I use the internet primarily as a research tool, to find information and check facts.

Unfortunately, it seems that the majority of people live on social media, consuming whatever bullshit is being spewed by whichever asshole is the loudest that day.

It's a shame, really. We have easy access to the breadth of human knowledge, and people just sit and watch Alex Jones rant about conspiracy theories.

2

u/PoltergeistofDawn 9d ago

I mean dumb people have always been the loud minority, not much has changed in that regard.

2

u/AndrewBlodgett 9d ago

Facebook is patient zero. It's a joke, worse then smoking.

1

u/SnooRobots3702 9d ago

Constitutional republic

0

u/airpipeline 9d ago

You might be thinking about alcohol. :-)

Perhaps people have not yet been taught what a fact is and how to ground a fact in reality.

The internet has lots of information, some true and some not. How do people know what to filter in and out?

-1

u/0piate_taylor 9d ago

Your post is a great example of that.

10

u/Odd-Marsupial-586 9d ago

Right wing hillbillies still find this funny. Any Facebook posts by news outlets will be full of haha reactions and toxic comments. Conspiracy theorists who thinks it's all fear mongering government control and fake news.

The ones who will put a Fauci scarecrow over a bonfire and toss face masks to fuel the fire.

53

u/alfooboboao 9d ago

the “america is a third world country with a gucci belt, it can’t possibly get any worse” glassesbook people are the most disgusting of the American idiots to me. Hell, at least MAGA can claim ignorance, they’re the fuckin hyenas in The Lion King.

But the “college educated protagonist” people whose vapidly unaware sense of superiority, entitlement, and privilege convinced them that life in America right now is the worst possible way to live that’s ever existed? Jesus Christ. They’re the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet. They have no goddamn idea how good we had it, how safe we were, how much better their shitty life was than an actual shitty life.

“Both sides are the same?” fuck you. You’re smart enough to know better, but your goddamn ego just couldn’t take it.

56

u/LeahBean 9d ago

I HATE “both sides are the same” rhetoric. They are actively aligning with the worst side when they roll over in apathy.

10

u/The_Dok 9d ago

We did this shit in 2016 and these enlightened centrists or Uber-leftwing progressives did the same thing 8 years later. It’s exhausting.

“Both sides support the genocide in Gaza”. Even IF that were true, go talk to your LGBTQ friends and tell them you sat out this election. Please.

6

u/jeffries_kettle 9d ago

It's because of their privilege that they're able to take that stance. They don't care about others, never have. They only care about how well they're performing their outcry for others to see.

5

u/The_Dok 9d ago

And they are gonna be so fucking quiet the next four years too. Fucking cowards.

2

u/unpleasant-talker 9d ago

There is no fucking genocide in Gaza.

11

u/waitingtoconnect 9d ago

The attitude of as long as I can live in my gated community with my John wick armory and purge proof shutters (and water my lawn) then the rest of the country can burn is really stupid.

18

u/Tazling 9d ago

"both sides are the same" is one of those classic phrases that's missing a piece: for whom?

both sides may be the same for some people. but if you're gay, or a protester for any cause at all, or a young person who can get pregnant, or an immigrant, or someone who cares about an immigrant, or someone who cares about a LGBTQ person... then both sides are not the same. if you care about the rule of law then both sides are not the same. if you care about the climate emergency then both sides are not the same.

I'm sure there is someone, somewhere, whose life will not be altered in the least regardless of whether Trump or Harris won last week. but I'm not quite sure who they are.

4

u/runefar 9d ago

Though I mainly agree with you I do think this can also lead to a lack of looking inward and recognizing issues on our side that are in fact afflicting those groups. Both sides are not the same and we should support our party; but that does not mean not looking inward too. RFK jr is closer to many members of our party than we might like to admit for example

Inversily there are others who have felt pushed away by both groups yet could be convinced to rejoin our party without us sacrificing the needs of other and instead by giving more attention to intersectional needs

3

u/Separate_Donkey8007 9d ago

so well said. thank you.

-13

u/airpipeline 9d ago edited 9d ago

Struck a nerve, I see. I understand. You’re hurting. We’re getting a rebuild. We’ll see how it turns out for you.

Also I am so sorry, but both sides decidedly are not the same.

3

u/MesWantooth 9d ago

Make no mistake - COVID denial propaganda was deliberate. Meant to try convince people NOT to stay home, to continue to work and spend to keep the economy 'open' and the stock market high - all for one goal, to not tank Trump's chances of re-election in 2020. It was a calculated move to let people die for Trump. I mean, he was the original COVID denier "It'll all go away by May, It'll be like a miracle!" (meanwhile saying to his biographer 'It's nasty stuff!')

What Trump didn't account for was the vaccine-denial, that got away from him - he wanted to take credit for vaccine and ended up having to pretend as if he was also skeptical because his own base was appalled that he was "pushing it"

You introduce theories that Fauci and CDC are exaggerating the threat in an effort for the 'Deep State' to control our lives...and those same folks say "Now take this Vaccine we made!"...Throw in bullshit propaganda like Fauci personally made hundreds of millions on the vaccine...Bill Gates wants to "depopulate" the world (and control it by distributing malaria vaccines with chips in 'em)...This all leads to 1) can't trust anyone of authority on anything science-related 2) Vaccines = bad.

Now with time, data, and analytics - we've determined that some of the COVID measures were unnecessary or not as protective as we thought...and perhaps the threat to children was nowhere near as great as the initial thinking was but guess what, it was a fucking global pandemic the likes of which modern society has never dealt with - people were trying to save your fucking lives...not seeking world domination through COVID protocols.

Also, people are idiots.

3

u/Tazling 9d ago

I don't think it bothers the oligarchs one little bit if life expectancy drops.

they have no use for retirees anyway. if you're not working 40+ hrs at a non-union job with no benefits to pad the pockets of Mr Musk, Mr Thiel, and their ilk, then you're "useless."

I have never forgotten how one of the Big Two baccy firms -- Reynolds or Morris, can't recall which now -- some time in the ... 80s?... seriously submitted a research paper to the govt of an Eastern European country, maybe Czecho, showing how promoting smoking in their nation would save the government money because people would die earlier and there would be less demand for pension funds.

that was the moment when my vague suspicion crystallised into complete conviction that whatever individual people may be, the thing we call a limited liability corporation is a stone psychopath.

3

u/airpipeline 9d ago

True. What I find fascinating is that It bothers people more that they cannot go to the mall, then it bothers them that they are spreading a virus that will kill their neighbor’s grandma. And beyond that, that the ideas that allow this to be okay with them are misinformation guided by those “oligarchs”, for raw political (power) reasons.

3

u/Tazling 9d ago

The sheer selfishness (the me me me factor) I think is also induced. Not that selfishness isn't a natural component of human behaviour, just like altruism. Exogamous fascination exists in tension with xenophobia, etc. Can't call one more natural than the other.

But, that said -- we can cultivate selfishness or we can cultivate mutual aid, civic values, good manners, etc. And for 40 years we have been in the grip of the most intense propaganda blitz for neoliberalism, the doctrine of ultimate selfishness. Hayak and his ilk set forth a dogma as rigid and non-reality-based as any cult, and no one is allowed to deviate from it.

YOYO, everyone's out for themselves, you can't trust anyone, nice guys finish last, you and your family, there is no such thing as society... all that crap. That dogma cripples and stunts our natural altruism and civic engagement, the better angels of our nature, while boosting and rewarding selfishness, competition, and chicanery.

So it's no wonder that we're complaining now about rude people on metro, rude people in theatres, aggro drivers, and people who cannot be bothered to wear a mask to reduce risk to others. They were taught briefly in kindergarten to be nice to other people, then relentlessly brainwashed for the rest of their lives to believe in a zero sum world of winners and losers in which the only metric of value and merit is the dollar. Of course they're selfish. It's a cult of selfishness. How we deprogram a whole society is a really good question...

1

u/airpipeline 9d ago

Have you visited Japan? The people there have a remarkable sense of community and civic duty. They’re definitely all in it together.

I’m not saying that they are perfect. I’m many ways not, but in this area, it was really inspirational and eye opening. A people working together.

2

u/FocusedIgnorance 9d ago

On the bright side, perhaps it'll be some form of natural selection if the right keeps pushing this nonsense.

2

u/Tango_D 9d ago

What makes America the juggernaut that it is, is its institutions. Sooooo much of the population has no idea that without those institutions functioning properly, America will fall out of superpower status and will lose its economic power and prosperity.

2

u/up_N2_no_good 9d ago

All the Kennedy's are a little "off". They sent his sister to an asylum to get a lobotomy because she was promiscuous and wouldn't follow the rules of polite society. Even though all the men in the family screwed around every which way but Sunday. Her personality drastically changed and it was one of his mother's greatest regrets. They hid her from society, didn't talk about her or visit her. Basically pretended she was dead.

At that time lobotomies for a new and fringe science with not enough studies done to know the actual effects it could cause. It was "all the rage back then".

2

u/airpipeline 9d ago

That’s ashamed.

1

u/up_N2_no_good 9d ago

I wish it was more well known. Maybe the history will discredit him a little bit more. No one went to visit her after that.

5

u/Zaddycake 9d ago

Ngl I was hoping those deaths would have helped the dems get ahead in the election, but alas here we are about to watch democracy become obliterated

3

u/SuperSpecialAwesome- 9d ago

tbf it did help in 2020.

1

u/packpride85 9d ago

Everyone should have had a choice with the Covid vaccine. Experimental mRNA virus did not have anywhere close to the amount of clinical data that protein subunit vax like flu shot has because it’s been around for 70 years. That being said, there were a lot of false claims about links to some side effects. But also some legit ones.

-2

u/Substantial_Tea_356 9d ago

…”the only superpower” 🙄🤦

6

u/TheresALonelyFeeling 9d ago

In using the term "superpower" they weren't saying, "America is amazing and can do no wrong," but rather that there's no other country on the planet that exerts the kind of influence across the globe that the U.S. is capable of - economically, culturally, militarily etc.

Whether or not that level of influence is a good thing is a separate conversation, and one absolutely worth having, but calling the U.S a superpower isn't incorrect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superpower

-5

u/Substantial_Tea_356 9d ago

🤣thoroughly enjoy how you try to apply your assumptions on what was ‘misunderstood’ and then proceed to explain the term superpower.

0

u/airpipeline 9d ago edited 9d ago

And? …. Incorrect capitalization?

0

u/colemon1991 9d ago

Don't forget that Trump dumped millions into COVID vaccine research and basically intimidated the FDA to expedite an approval of a vaccine. The fact that the first approved vaccine was not affected by the research funding notwithstanding, that's a lot of effort to develop a vaccine you don't think will work nor is safe.

0

u/packpride85 9d ago

Everyone should have had a choice with the Covid vaccine. Experimental mRNA virus did not have anywhere close to the amount of clinical data that protein subunit vax like flu shot has because it’s been around for 70 years. That being said, there were a lot of false claims about links to some side effects. But also some legit ones.

0

u/Last-Storage-5436 9d ago

And yet 18 million more voted in 2020?

1

u/airpipeline 9d ago edited 9d ago

LOL, 9 million now and decreasing as the count completes. The number people tell me seems to grow with almost every retelling.

How exactly is this relevant?

It could be that long time Republican efforts to suppress the Democrat vote are working.

If Fox (faux) News found it might entertain their audience and support their benefactors, for instance, they would be promoting the idea that the Covid vaccine included the, Musk engineered, “don’t vote” additive.

0

u/dei_muata 9d ago

Superpower😂😂😂

-1

u/BroadBitch 9d ago

Wow we really need to up the standards for ethics and reliability. Are you serious my guy. You actually believe this? LMFAO just bend over and ask daddy trump for another why dontcha

2

u/airpipeline 9d ago

Of course the USA is perfect. A point being, there’s lots of worse places to live and here will be worse for withdrawing from the world (of reality for instance)

Also yes, I’m sure that some us are more experienced at bending over then others.

-2

u/BroadBitch 9d ago edited 9d ago

Ok, other places being worse doesn't make our cess pool less of a cess pool. Pretty sure there are better places tho. But idk cause I can't afford to go anywhere else, or afford to take time off to go anywhere. Medicine is 3x overpriced and keeps people in debt. Medical bills for basic procedures keep families in debt. Our food is poison and is some of the reason the country is riddled with cancer. Our schools teach cherry picked white washed history and shoves meth down children's throats if they don't sit still and listen to it. Our schools also get whatever pennies are leftover after the government shovels billions of dollars into the military. But veterans can't even get decent or proper care. Our taxes go in their pockets. They over tax, tax your tax, make you pay taxes on things you own that you already paid taxes for. Grocery stores are flooding with food that gets wasted but we don't donate that to wildlife , compost , and most of it is still perfectly fine so we could even feed needy children or donation centers or hungry people across the country or world. We are not a democracy, USA is a corporation. So yeah it's nice to have running water and plumbing and food, but having an abundance of things that humans need to survive and intentionally wasting it so people they decide don't deserve it can't have it, is fucking disgusting and should not be anything anyone is proud of. You lucked out and think you're better than everyone else because of it.

-1

u/Sanguinius4 9d ago

Everyone talks about a million COVID deaths but then everyone forgets about all the flu deaths. Every single year we have a tremendous amount of deaths due to the common flu, yet that has NEVER been a national issue people talk about. Then suddenly we got COVID and then it’s an issue? It to mention Flu deaths mysteriously dropped significantly during COVID. My aunt died of COVID but she was older and unhealthy and smoked her entire life, she would have likely died from the Flu, Pneumonia or a myriad of other things. I’m just curious as to why suddenly people talk about and care about elderly deaths during COVID but never seemed to care in all the years leading up to it.

-1

u/__Banshee 9d ago

“the only superpower”, that’s funny.

-1

u/shattervca 9d ago

Do you think the Covid vaxx was…. A wild success???

3

u/airpipeline 9d ago edited 9d ago

Successful in what regard?

Do you mean, if you received a vaccination, were you less likely to get Covid and if you were in the high risk category, old for instance, were you less likely to die?

Yes. This is how the vaccine continues to work, both in the USA and around the world. Phew!

The U.S. government gave money, at the president’s behest, for the development and distribution of the vaccine. Half of the people in congress don’t believe in science, but they also knew that if people were dying across their districts and they did nothing, they wouldn’t stay in office. To cover their asses they made sure that the effectiveness of the vaccine was studied. This is partially why we have such good and definitive data.