I think the medical profession (not addressing you guys at all!) really conflates these. They assume we can't tell people about uncertainty and trade-offs and then we end up in suboptimal positions, but we don't even get the trust because complexity/uncertainty isn't the problem.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
My guess is that if we had prelim data & asked for volunteers in non high-risk groups (for example, HCW: risk by exposure status not age), we'd be surprised by the update. The public can absolutely follow discussions of trade-offs under uncertainty if it's truly transparent.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
There is a meaningful percentage of the country's population who are certain that COVID-19 is a hoax and there's a larger percentage, perhaps ~50% of the population, who are likely to refuse vaccination, at least initially. It's easy to overestimate the audience.
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Replying to @stevenjfrisch @nataliexdean and
Those numbers are at that scale exactly because of a history of *underestimating* the audience which is then worsened by the deliberate misinformation. There is a history here. If you don't trust people, they will never trust you back.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
I would argue that Trump and his predecessors in propaganda leverage a simple truth: a large percentage of society are both easily seduced by lies and also impervious to factual arguments as an antidote.
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Replying to @stevenjfrisch @nataliexdean and
In contrast, I think the sentiment expressed above is exactly why we're failing to compete with lies despite extraordinary scientific achievements, like vaccines. For one thing, it's not lack of trust in facts, it's lack of trust in experts. +
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Replying to @zeynep @stevenjfrisch and
The public does fly despite the insanity of the idea. We get into tin cans hurling across the sky because commercial aviation has managed to establish trust and has a process for it. None of us know fully know all "the facts" of flying—it's beyond our scientific understanding.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
There are a couple of key differences: direct observability and habituation. When you're dealing with the confluence of both, especially when the safety profile is extraordinary and thus adverse incidents scant, public sentiment and susceptibility to myth are very different.
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Replying to @stevenjfrisch @nataliexdean and
Planes crashes dominate news—despite their rarity—and people watch it on CNN at the airport & immediately get on a plane. And medical science has both direct observability and habituation—and extraordinary achievements!—but I think squanders a lot of advantage with its attitude.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
I disagree and, unfortunately, snippets of argument, as mandated by the format of Twitter, provide the opposite of a good medium for substantive discussions. In closing, I would offer that the study of propaganda, focused on the reasons for its efficacy, would be useful.
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Yeah, this isn't a Twitter length argument, and something that is crucial but I do think a lot about propaganda and how to counter it. To push the metaphor a bit, if propaganda is the pathogen, the trust in experts/institutions is the immune system.
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Replying to @zeynep @nataliexdean and
To further the metaphor, Jennifer Mercieca's book* referenced above can be thought of as the genetic sequencing of the Trump pathogen. * Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump
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