OK, stupid or not stupid?

[John Clark]

From today's New York Times:

MOUNTAIN HOME, Ark. — When the boat factory in this leafy Ozark Mountains city offered free coronavirus vaccinations this spring, Susan Johnson, 62, a receptionist there, declined the offer, figuring she was protected as long as she never left her house without a mask.

Linda Marion, 68, a widow with chronic pulmonary disease, worried that a vaccination might actually trigger Covid-19 and kill her. Barbara Billigmeier, 74, an avid golfer who retired here from California, believed she did not need it because “I never get sick.”

Last week, all three were patients on 2 West, an overflow ward that is now largely devoted to treating Covid-19 at Baxter Regional Medical Center, the largest hospital in north-central Arkansas. 

Mrs. Billigmeier said the scariest part was that “you can’t breathe.” For 10 days, Ms. Johnson had relied on supplemental oxygen being fed to her lungs through nasal tubes.

Ms. Marion said that at one point, she felt so sick and frightened that she wanted to give up. “It was just terrible,” she said. “I felt like I couldn’t take it.”

Yet despite their ordeals, none of them changed their minds about getting vaccinated. “It’s just too new,” Mrs. Billigmeier said. “It is like an experiment.”  

John K Clark

[SR Ballard]

Not stupid. 

SR Ballard

On Jul 18, 2021, at 7:14 AM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[William Flynn Wallace]

Those three people are no different from the ones who drove after 9/11 instead of taking a plane.  "Too experimental", eh?  Tens of millions of shots and very rare side effects.  But then we know that most people are poor at probability,a nd some are just neurotic:  "It'll happen to me, I just know it."  Still, I do not have a problem with calling them stupid, dumb, superstitious, ignorant and whatever other negative things you can say.  Currently, I read, way over 90% of the new cases of the virus are among the unvaccinated.  Poetic justice, anyone?  bill w

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[John Clark]

On Sun, Jul 18, 2021 at 2:00 PM SR Ballard <sen....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Not stupid. 

Well let's see, they all have sufficient information to make an intelligent decision, in fact they have better information in this case than you or I do because they know from visceral first-hand experience that COVID-19 can be a very serious disease, and they have observed that every single one of their fellow COVID-19 patients in the emergency room hospital are unvaccinated just like themselves, and yet even after all that they were STILL unable to make an intelligent decision; so they must be lacking something, and the only thing I can think of is intelligence. Do you really want to call such behavior smart, is that the hill you want to die on? 

I don't think dreaming up lame excuses for people who insist on turning their bodies into petri dishes that cultivate viruses and generate mutations, some of which might end up being even more virulent than the current Delta variant, demonstrates broad-mindedness, and it certainly doesn't help those very stupid people or society at large. Logic will never convince them to get the vaccine because logic never played a part in their decision not to get it, but if logic doesn't work maybe social stigmatization will shame them to do so. Thus I firmly believe the moral thing to do is to give these people all the respect they deserve.

John K Clark

[SR Ballard]

I never called them intelligent either. I’d say they’re pretty average. 

SR Ballard

On Jul 18, 2021, at 3:35 PM, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Henry Rivera, PsyD]

Is this just the Darwin effect playing out? Nature weeding out from the genepool the “stupid” and/or “pretty average” or whatever their nonadaptive problem is in this case? If so, we will be collectively better off as a result ultimately, no? I’m asking opinions on this, not necessarily endorsing this to clarify. 

On Jul 18, 2021, at 3:57 PM, SR Ballard <sen....@gmail.com> wrote:

I never called them intelligent either. I’d say they’re pretty average. 

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[William Flynn Wallace]

Henry, this is my area and I should be contributing more to it:  attitude change, persuasion, attitude formation, resistance to attitude change, conformity, compliance, obedience, and so on.   Will finish that religious book and try to put together a post.  bill w

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[SR Ballard]

That would describe my view pretty well Henry, yeah. I think it’s for the best now that vaccines are available. 

SR Ballard

On Jul 18, 2021, at 4:31 PM, Henry Rivera, PsyD <henryri...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Stathis Papaioannou]

Stupid. But maybe Mrs Billigmeier said that because she had realised she had been stupid and didn’t want to admit it: doubling down on stupid because she didn’t want to appear stupid.

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Stathis Papaioannou