Big Tech is a force multiplier. It amplifies the scale and scope of the damage. To make an analogy, it’s like replacing muskets with machine guns. Capitalism was headed this direction long before tech came along, but with tools like these in their pocket, the scale of the disinformation went from “a serious problem” to “an existential crisis”, and the tools we have to resist it are simply incapable of holding the line against the firehose of BS.

That’s my experience with the medical field as well. It breaks my heart, I used to trust doctors, but after some interesting experiences I am now convinced it’s all a minstrel show held together with bailing wire.

I worked in a nursing home during Covid, including when the vaccine came out and it became mandatory for employees. Despite going through school to become nurses or aides, as well as witnessing all the horrors of Covid with their own eyes, some people chose to quit instead of get the vaccine.

I had no words, and I still have no words.

There’s also the shingles vaccine, which (at least, in the US) is typically reserved for those 50+. I could understand if they limited the vaccine for those young enough to have been immunized against chicken pox. However, that vaccine wasn’t released here until 1995, well after many of us (particularly Millennials and younger Gen X) already caught the disease. This leaves those of us under 50 in a vulnerable gap, where we’re susceptible to shingles, but not allowed to be vaccinated against it. Of course it’s especially dangerous for older folks, but that doesn’t mean shingles won’t kick the ass of an otherwise healthy 35 year old.

I personally fall into this gap, and I’m pretty pissed about it. I know people younger than me who’ve already experienced shingles, and it’s frankly terrifying.

She’s only become very vocal about her beliefs since the covid vaccine propaganda has been going around. I always thought she didn’t vaccinate us because she just didn’t care. It was rare for her to care about any of our (me and my siblings) physical ailments, or illnesses. And we don’t really speak, even when we do talk, there’s never any conversations where we talk about things, so I wouldn’t have ever spoken to her about getting my babies vaccinated. She’s a full blown narcissist, so conversations with my mother look like, her running some spiel about how amazing she is, how much better she is at literally everything, how much of a burden and annoyance everyone in her life is, because they are lazy or some such and make so much work for her, (even though she never lifts a finger to do anything, it’s all done by these people for her). And I’m the black sheep, she’s hated me the most for as long as I can remember, she diminishes and ridicules everything I say, or outright ignores me, randomly pretends I don’t exist and she can’t hear anything i say. All that to try to explain, we’ve never really talked, like ever.

Partially she hated me the most because from teen years on i always called her out on her shit. Sometimes just by asking simple questions, sometimes by outright stating the ways , what she was saying didn’t make sense. Lately I’ve been calling her out on the covid bullshit, but she makes such idiotic statements, I’m starting to feel like what’s the point. She doesn’t listen to or consider what I’m saying. I’m feeling like it’s a waste of my energy. None of us believe her bullshit. The last time she started on her vaccine rants, it was that “covid vaccine caused all those deaths” spiel. I explained to her, painstakingly, that more people will die without the vaccine. She said that doesn’t matter, any deaths are too many. There’s nothing rational going on up there.

I feel like She just likes to rage about something, it doesn’t matter what, but it has to be something right wing type. To distract from the massive ego vs reality imbalance, rife inside narcissistic types. Their beliefs don’t match reality, about themselves, so they’re constantly having to either try and create that fantasy reality by tearing others down, in an attempt to assert the hierarchy, therefore being able to see themselves as better than those they tear shreds off, in some twisted logic, or distracting themselves with some injustice (usually a bourgeois injustice, as they see themselves as the top 1%. Regardless if that matches reality).

I had a friend who was an antivaxer, too. She wasn’t a crazy narcissist, like my mother. She just fell for the propaganda. She was respectful about it, we just didn’t talk about it at all. But if we did accidentally come upon the subject in conversation, she still wouldn’t say anything. She didn’t ever try to convince me, none of that. We drifted apart, busy lives.

How about we take in the sick kids, and file charges of child neglect on the parents?

And get innocent people killed in the pr

I honestly believe that this will happen over a long period of time. As more diseases and pandemics come back, the people who don’t get vaccinated will die in larger numbers, leading to natural selection against stupidity. Unfortunately it will also take out the vulnerable.

It means if someone needs healing you heal them, end of story. Choosing to not help is doing harm.

This circle of hate is sad and worrying. The solution to this measles problem is more education and leaders that really care about their population, not stupid campism. What is gained by not treating the stupid fucks who refuse the vaccine because they think they know better? They will become a contagion vector and die in their conviction, and you get to feel smug I guess. Be the better person, don’t stoop to their level.