[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

a long post, much better worded than anything I have posted on here.

Spoiler!

I get that quite a few of you held back your snark and vitriol against DarkKnight, but if you guys actually think that the vast majority of it was as "polite" as you think it was overall, stop kidding yourself. Many of us are frustrated and looking for an outlet. It's inherently obvious to many standing on the opposite stance as your own. This is why many people are entrenching themselves and pulling out of any opportunity to have any meaningful discussion that might sway them towards vaccination. I'd perceive maybe a quarter of those responses, if viewed from the other side (ie: DarkKnight's POV), might feel respectful. I totally get where many of you are coming from. Not automatically tearing him a new one and berating him as if he was an Oiler fan is a pretty big investment of emotional energy for many of you. I respect that. But from the opposite side POV, it's not enough of an "effort" to feel like they are being treated with respect to their POV. While restrained, many comments still could be perceived to be dripping with an underlying attitude that doesn't feel nice to address. I could see someone like DarkKnight being extra sensitive to some of the criticism and "flinch" easily. If the shoe was on the other foot, I feel like that's how I'd respond when just reading many of the responses.

This was what I was trying to mention and address a few days ago. I have been trying to understand both sides.

I understand why many of you are saying DarkKnight's stance is not helping the overall pandemic. I don't disagree with you. But in all honesty, the predominant approach that was used as a group (not all posts specifically) isn't helping either. DarkKnight is probably more likely to just retreat and ignore all that has been said so far purely due to the fact he probably feels like crap after the vast majority of the responses here. Don't pat yourself on the back thinking that a information dump mic drop with slightly restrained snark is doing your part in moving us towards reaching herd immunity because that approach is IMO just as unhelpful as DarkKnight's stance. A preaching to the choir stance (basically bible bashing and hellfire fear mongering) approach is going to be ineffective to someone who doesn't subscribe to the exact same belief as you. It never has been a highly effective approach, why would it suddenly be an effective one now?


I spoke with the unvaccinated friend yesterday briefly maybe a minute or two at most. It was hard to encroach on the topic. It was basically along the lines of:

Both: Damn, new pandemic restrictions starting tomorrow. That sucks.
Unvax: I basically only meet up with family (multi generation unvaxx), so nothing really changes for us. **Entrenched attitude.
Me: We had a birthday party planned this weekend. I guess we'll be breaking the rules as well. Do you think the vaccine verification system will be a pain?
Unvax: We do takeout now if we order out, so it won't really affect what we do that much.
Me: But it's still nice to sit in a restaurant for the ambience sometimes though, right?
Unvax: Yeah, maybe.

Again, maybe what I did was a waste of time. My goal was not to immediately attempt to convert the other person, but to soften their stance against getting the vaccination. My hopes was that leading the conversation towards an idea of FOMO and hoping that FOMO grows enough that my friend might do what's necessary to get past what is keeping her and her family from getting vaccinated so that they won't miss out. I don't know why she and her family won't vaccinate. To a certain extent, it doesn't matter. She started off with perhaps a mentality that there's no reason for her to vaccinate, but I tried mentioning FOMO to see if she might on her own decide that maybe there is a reason to vaccinate. That's the approach I tried to apply from what I learned in the pod cast that was linked by the other poster.


What most people have in general is fear. DarkKnight's fear/concerns might be uncommon, but it still exists. I think the Covid label is complicating a simple concept for many. If someone has a fear of heights, compassion and incremental steps is the path to helping someone potentially over coming it. An exposure therapy or cold info approach or sharing some story about sky diving won't help and in fact might cause that person to fear heights even further. That's what you guys a basically doing to DarkKnight IMO. I'd really hope we can find a way to get DarkKnight and his wife to get double vaccinated, but whatever has been done so far I do not think it helping and in fact might be hurting the chances.

I'm saying as constructive criticism that some of you are not only not helping, but making matters worse. If some of you are going to get mad that I didn't take another swing at him like he was a pinata, there's nothing I can do about that. But please seriously contemplate whether the current approach is effective.

Also, props for DarkKnight to keep responding. The average person probably would have not bothered to respond to continue discussing long ago.

But the thing is I honestly don't believe he came here to learn or exchange ideas. As I said I think he is here to "Make a Point" and knowing 3 people that got strokes from the vaccination is well hard to believe, but maybe he is being truthful.