[haertig]

Originally Posted by issybird

I was reacting to your blanket assertion that people in the US knew little if anything about the AstraZeneca vaccine, where you seemed to extrapolate from your own lack of knowledge to include all your countrymen.

No, not "all". But "most".

Prove me wrong.

Again, wrong. You can’t start from the position that the truth is “usually” somewhere in the middle, most especially when dealing with facts.

When the facts are unknown, or conflicting, or not readily available, then I disagree. "The middle" is exactly where you should start.

You appear to think that things you believe are facts. So your starting position is that you are right and everyone else who does not agree with you is wrong, because they don't know the facts. Only you know the facts.

I am exactly the same way. I thought I knew a "fact" - that Fauci had authored an article indicting masks in the 1918 pandemic. But it turns out that my "fact" was wrong. I admit that. And I appreciate those that provided links to articles that nuked by belief. I will not make that statement again, because now I know that it was in error.

I'll bet if you look hard enough, you will find an instance where you were wrong too. If not, it's going to eventually happen. You will be wrong at some point in your life. No, I can't state that as a "fact", only a highly likely outcome based on my personal experience (which is, apparently, questionable).

It’s akin to the idea that all opinions are valid and that people are entitled to opinions that are illogical or based on false information.

No, it's not akin to that. It's akin to people rarely knowing all the facts, even if they think they do, and sometimes being wrong because of that lack of complete knowledge. If you don't think you occasionally suffer from that yourself, I suggest you look internally a little harder.

Sometimes "wrong" is absolute - you are right or you are wrong - there is no valid middle ground. But other times it's a continuum and the answer does indeed lie in the middle.

FWIW, I totally reject the new interpretation of opinions and thinking, "Everybody is right". That's a bunch of crap.

However, it’s certainly true that people will double down on demonstrable lies and there’s not much if anything that can be said to sway them.

That is indeed true. But you can't grab on to that thought about something that can happen and apply it universally and suggest that it happens in every case.

If you can find an instance where I have "doubled down on a demonstrable lie" then bring it to my attention. I would assume that you have tools to search every word that I have ever posted here. But use some common sense please. Don't confuse my being misinformed or ignorant as an intentional lie. And don't try to take one of my sarcastic jokes, like "I really, really trust my government!" and claim that is a demonstrable lie (doubled down because I used "really" twice). If you do view my previous posts honestly, you will have to admit that many of them - maybe even "most" of them - are sarcastic, dry humor in some way. Others are rants. Still others are "normal". I do not view you as a humorous person, but I do view you as an intelligent one who would know the difference.