Consept

If we accept that the pandemic is real, there would of course naturally be fear. The question would be whether its been exaggerated or if its even real, in which case you could say people are being deceived and the fear is being enhanced. I think what scares people the most is when someone they know or are close to dies or gets ill from it, in which case their fear makes sense in context. Most people I know including myself know of someone that has died from it and definitely many that have got sick from it. Those that have got sick from it, a lot have said its the worse illness they've had. So these are very real things that people are basing their fear on. When it comes to anti-vaxx there isn't the sane concrete happenings to say that the vaccine is dangerous, potentially there could be in the future but even that's doubtful, either way nothing has actually happened to justify the fear, hence why its fear. Also reporting of the pandemic still has restrictions on it, you can't just outright lie about it although they may only show certain facts, this is not so much the case with alternative media. I also don't buy that alternative media doesn't have anything to gain from an alternative narrative, many you tubers have increased the subscriptions by millions since the start of the pandemic. Ultimately most are choosing a side, it's just are you choosing the side with no restrictions and very few experts

Let's say that you're right and your scientific conclusions are more informed and accurate than epidemiologists and virologists that have spent their life studying this topic. Even if you are 100% correct with your alternative view of health, most who are in the same camp as you have not done the same amount of research. You can see that, so if we are looking at that 'normal' anti-vaxx perspective I think fear plays massive role.

After talking to people who have the anti-vaxx perspective and contemplating this topic for a little while I've come to a conclusion on it. I think it really just comes down to fear and this is a somewhat justified fear, but it's also the inability to admit and face that fear. There's 2 types of fear involved, one is fear of government which manifests in distrust of anything they try and impose on the population. The second is just a fear of having to have something stuck in their arm and injected into them, this is actually a fear many people have had since childhood, what's worse is that they feel pressure to have the shot which makes them feel bad as they're unable to overcome this fear. These 2 fears also cross over of course. Now the big factor is that people are not willing to face this fear, which is to say to recognise where this fear comes from and either go through it and take the shot or just admit that you're fearful of it and don't want to take it. Because the fear is strong, people selling the anti-vaxx narratives can target these people and stoke up the fears within them, because it gives them a rationale and 'evidence' no matter how tenuous it might be. The implication is that these are just 100% rational people who don't have any particular emotions either way, they have looked at the research and it's clear that it's more in favour of the anti-vaxx view. This is simply not the case. The fear was there first and the 'research', came after making it an exercise in looking for a justifiable reason not to take it. The weighting that's given to anti-vaxx research compared to normal research is far greater. For example there can be an anti-vaxx meme given more weight than a peer reviewed scientific paper, not by everyone but a lot of people will give the meme greater significance. This doesnt strike me as a cold hard 'stick to the facts' perspectives. The anti-vaxx perspective doesn't exist without fear, as I said it somewhat makes sense as the government and big business have a history of not having our best interests at heart, so I do get why the fear is there and that shouldn't be shamed its a real thing. However I feel it would be a more honest assessment if the anti-vaxxer would just say I'm scared and its not necessarily rational, this would gain a lot more understanding from other people. What has been happening is that people are so scared that they don't want to admit they're scared and are getting defensive calling others sheeple etc. Also the smarter you are the better you can probably put together a complex argument against the vaccine, but again if you look honestly at it fear is still a big component. Also extra note, I'm not saying people who take the vaccine are fearless, of course they will have their fears too, either they do fear the vaccine but still go ahead with it or they really fear covid or they're just not that fearful either way and do what they think is the best thing, which is probably the majority.

Im not really saying i know exactly where the line is and I am very glad i dont have to make such decisions. My main point is that its not a binary choice of there should be no government control or there should be full government control. The assertion has been made that complete free choice for the individual is paramount over having laws or policies that protect the majority sometimes from themselves. Also keep in mind if there isnt a sign on the road saying how fast you can go or if all the ingredients arent printed on a bottle of coca cola, the individual will sue the company for negligence. So its like the governments is screwed either way. Regarding your thought exercise, it is an extreme one but of course if the human race would become extinct youd have to do whatever it takes really and most likely it would have to involve deception as people wouldnt be willing to just give up their life. Of course youd exhaust every other possibility. The analogy is to say that would people still do something thats significantly bad for their health despite warnings and information, in the case of cola, cigarettes, alcohol, whatever, the answer is a resounding yes, these companies are some of the biggest and most profitable in the world. But i think what your missing is this idea of freedom that you have, it literally would not exist without government control. Its not like youre completely free and government are just annoying and getting in the way, you are free, at least more than ever before, because of government control. Theres no real way around this. Saddam Hussein was obviously a red strongman, dictator, but he had a good amount of control over Iraq. When he was taken out did everyone enjoy the freedom that was expected, well no, there was no control and order which meant anyone could do anything and that turned into a mess. The control we have today is more Orange/Green meaning that its no where near as bad as either a red dictatorship or our society if there was no control.

I get what you're saying but then how far do you go with this? Should we be allowed not to wear seat belts? Which of this wasn't a law millions would most likely die. What about enforcing protective equipment for cycling or even having rules for the road, all these things could be seen as a nanny state in which the government purports to know better but bottom line is millions of lives are being saved. Also the very idea that we have any freedom is only possible because the government has immense security, laws and structure. If that wasn't in place there wouldn't anything stopping someone running into your house taking everything you have and beating the crap out of you. You having any freedom is specifically due to government of which you are also free to buy land off and live off grid not taking or giving anything to them. Imagine you were the leader of say Italy and they said to you, 'experts have told us that Coca-Cola consumption will be the cause of 2 million deaths over the next 10 years, if we significantly lower the sugar content we can save all these people, however there could be protests and people won't be happy about us choosing their sugar content because they want freedom to choose'. Would you give them that free choice knowing you're condemning so many people to death?

The thing here though is that you're making an assumption people will make the best choices for themselves. Take Coca-Cola for example, it's been one of the most popular drinks for the last 100+ years. Is it responsible for the government to allow the same sugar content which will mess up peoples health, lead to numerous diseases etc in the name of freedom? Or is it more responsible to reduce the sugar or even ban the drinks as this will definitely save lives? It's not a simple choice as people will complain either way, so I guess as long as people are complaining you might as well save their lives. Either way I don't buy into this thing that everyone's going to make the best choice, not only for them but society, we're not even close to that level of consciousness on a wider scale.

I understand the green perspective and i get the red perspective, i dont necessarily agree with these perspectives but i think Leos laid this out quite well. If we say that what we currently have now in terms of the pandemic solution is a Blue/Orange (vaccines, lockdown etc) then what would be a red or green solution, as in if there was a green leader in charge who didnt believe in the current course of action what would their solution be? Also how effective would it likely be? We've had red leaders deal with it, most notably Bolsanaro in Brazil, which was a complete disaster and led to the state leaders simply not listening to him. We also had hints of it with Trump, although he was hindered by a good amount of the population and a system that includes weighted expert opinion. Had he been allowed to do what he wanted i think we can see it wouldve been pretty damaging. But would like to hear from someone who is a green anti-vaxx or vaccine hesitant person to break down the steps for what would have been an alternative strategy to what we have had.

Turquoise can be very proactive, they basically live their life in service, whether it be giving daily talks to help people raise consciousness or doing what Sadhguru does with his eco efforts and volunteers. I think they realise that they can have a powerful impact on the planet and humans and so they use their higher perspective to carry it out. There are of course some that would probably just meditate in a cave but i dont think its intrinsic. Turquoise also is more community orientated, each stage of sd goes from individual to communal, yellow is individual and so next stage would be communal.

Flat earth theory is really going to struggle to keep going with the imminent passenger space travel from virgin galactic and others, would be interesting to see how that's explained, maybe it's a simulator or something. In terms of censorship I guess what you're saying is 'what harm can it do?' to have potentially false ideas out there, especially if there's even a slight chance they could be real. The issue is how they are presented, so this isn't a neutral scientist saying 'here's the evidence for flat earth and here's the evidence for a globe'. These theories turn into belief systems a kin with religion, where they actively try and convince others what they believe. I guess inherently there's nothing more wrong with that than any other religion, so if it isn't causing damage then there's not as much of problem. However if you have a privately owned platform then it may degrade the validity and integrity of that platform if you allow such vagrant misinformation posing as truth on it . For example imagine this forum if there were many topics discussing and going into detail about whether flat earth is true or not, most serious actualizers would never come on here. Its the same with youtube and Google, if every out there, debunked, theory was given the same weight as proven theories then most likely people wouldn't go to those platforms for information, at best it would be very confusing. So to me it makes sense from that perspective, however they should obviously be free to talk about it amongst themselves, the idea itself is not censored its just not promoted. But the problem is if people find what they think is truth they always want to share it.

Do you ever consider that blue especially but also orange are also incredibly sensitive, you could make the argument that they are even more sensitive than green, it's just that their sensitivities are more respected. For example if we look at blue and not even necessarily an extreme version. They tend to be religious, if anything was said about Jewish, Christian or Muslim people, even in an outdated language type of way they would be extremely sensitive to it. In fact there are anti-defamation organisations setup with the express intent of looking for these infractions that could even loosely be deemed as defamation, which then the person responsible will be sued or worse. I wont get into the backlash that has occurred from criticising Islam. Republicans are intensely sensitive, abortion, immigration, patriotism. The uproar and outrage from Kaepernick taking the knee was incredible. So to me it would seem people on both sides are sensitive, it's just that the green side is seen as comical or over the top, but I think this comes down to people being against the core ideas. The core ideas of green are not changing language, although both sides can do that to suit them, their ideas are about protecting the environment, treating animals as sentient beings, community etc. I think the reductionist way of taking them down to their most annoying tendancies is actually exceptional and a kind of whatever works marketing by the right, as it means you don't take them seriously and therefore don't look at the bigger picture. This strategy is played by both sides to some extent but the right are able to be more ruthless with it.

OK I get where you're coming and why you might say that. First off I'm not really interested in labelling you anything, I don't think that's the point of this discussion. Everyone has at least an implicit bias, so it is what it is. So your position is to teach kids just facts with no context or no theory so that they can come up with their own theories. This sounds good on the surface but I think you're underplaying the importance of theories in teaching. For one youre asking a lot of kids to just come up with coherent theories for themselves just by being presented with facts. Most subjects and teaching have theory and are almost based around teaching it, there's economic theory for example, if you do economics you will learn all type of theories to make you understand the vast data of economics. If you just said there was a crash and then there was a boom and then this happened and then that happened, it gives no context or understanding of the bigger picture or why anything could have happened. It might be that some theories are biased or have different perspectives of the same event, but that's why you don't just learn one theory, you learn many and decide for yourself what makes the most sense or maybe take bits of different theory. When I was in school and we learnt about the holocaust, we learnt about Hitlers eugenics theory, we even learnt about his ideas in 'Mein Kempf', this was important to get an idea of what his perspective was and why he did what he did. I don't think anyone would say this shouldn't be taught as long as its not taught as truth and is balanced with other theories. So this brings us to crt, why is there an issue teaching a theory where the perspective is that society is somewhat built upon systemic racism? People have generally been OK with theories if it doesn't affect their worldview. There's a fear that this new theory, whatever it might be, will change the world we want to see. Creationists campaign against atheism or evolution to be taught in schools because they want to uphold their 'truth'. This is the same with crt. Even if you say crt is bullshit why should it not be taught? I don't have a problem with creationism or eugenics being taught and not because I'm overly accepting, I think if it is a bullshit theory it won't stick and if you don't teach it as truth and teach other theories as well, then kids or adults even can come to their own conclusions. It's also important to teach because you can get to the root of why something happened. Yes I'm sure you can discern what is hate speech and what's not. In the same way people can discern what theories make sense and what dont. Crt has theory in the name so by definition it's not being taught as truth. Your saying that you want to be able to decide what is hate speech but at the same time you're saying people shouldnt be able to decide which theories make sense and which don't.

One way to look at it is there will always be a 'mainstream' narrative. This idea cancel culture has just come about now and that there was complete freedom of speech prior to whats happening now is plainly false. All thats happened is the mainstream narrative has shifted, for example someone who was lgbtq in the 80s didnt have freedom of speech to celebrate who they were or even legally to have sex, it only became legal for same sex, sexual acts in 2003. So there was freedom of speech for people who wanted to condemn lgbtq people but there wasnt for lgbtq people to actually be themselves. This wasnt the case for just lgbtq people, basically any minority had a sever limit to their freedom of speech if it went against the narrative in ways that were not just annoying but actually life limiting. As consciousness has risen these things have changed and maybe to some extent even over corrected, in terms of not being able to say black or whatever, but i still cant see how that would be worse than what was experienced by minorities. It would also seem to me that those that want it to be how it was before are not really happy about minorities getting equal footing. This is a somewhat survival instinct in which they want their group to still be privileged, but it would then follow that to halt this progress may be beneficial which is why cancel culture is boosted to be a much bigger problem than it actually is. Basically if i had to choose a mainstream narrative, one causing actual harm to people and the other meaning occasionally someone over reacts to someone saying the word black, id probably go for the former. This will also most likely correct itself as well anyway.

OK could you just clarify this please, i dont want to misrepresent you. Are you saying i get serotonin hit calling people racist because im right that there is systemic racism and maybe i enjoy pointing that out to people, or are you saying i get a serotonin hit because systemic racism doesnt actually exist and i just want to make people feel bad by calling them racist?

@StarfoxEpiphany OK so get to your final point, are you saying racism doesn't exist and black people are just blaming their struggles on race and exaggerating the effect of racism on them?

You're missing my point I'm talking about the actual penalties in law for different drug offences. If we compare crack cocaine to meth, meth users for possession may receive a fine and up to 3 years, for possession of crack you can get up to life imprisonment. Essentially in law the two drugs are treated completely differently despite the heavy damage they both do. So looking at that it seems like there's a racial element to it, although I might be wrong and maybe you can enlighten me.

The drug law comparison wouldn't be between other countries, for it to make sense and be considered racist, you would have to compare the penalties for another illegal drug within the same country that's user base is a different demographic. This isn't hard to do for example you can compare the sentences people got for weed over say crystal meth which has a mostly Caucasian user base, you'll find it's not even close, there were much harsher penalties imposed on black people using weed, despite the fact meth is a much more damaging drug to the community. Same can be said for the descrepencies in penalties for cocaine vs crack cocaine. Mostly the same drug but treated completely differently in the legal system. So you would have to find another country where there are harsher penalties imposed on drugs that are the same or less damaging than other drugs for your example to make sense.

OK I'm racist against people from Papua new Guinea, does that change the impact systemic racism?

True, which gives in an insight into the scope of how hard it would be to educate people on nuanced matters like this, especially given the issues that come about because of the lack of education. Children in fact would be open to these ideas which is what the adults in these groups are worried about lol. To actually create change going forward you would need theories like this taught in schools and i say that just from the reaction of the parents. In terms of crt itself, i dont know the ins and outs of it but its not above criticism and maybe its not the best theory but the point is that something needs to be taught that address the history and effect racism has had on, in this case, America. Anti-crt people seem to be saying nothing should be taught and these facts should be hidden, which would be the equivalent of Germany pretending the Nazis didnt happen and not teaching about it in school. If you know about Germany they've gone out of the way to address what happened during that period and make as sure as they can nothing like that would ever happen again, reparations, education, monuments and museums, dedicated to repairing the damage. When you consider millions more people were brutalised for a longer period of time during slavery and people are fighting for the statues of slavers to not be brought down, its a troublesome thought and speaks even more to way some kind of racial studies is extremely important.

It is hard to actually face the points that I've laid out, which says a lot on how crt is seen by certain people, 'you're just calling us racist, we're not racist, you're racist'. Anyway I'll leave this here, if anyone else wants to comment on the actual points raised and discuss further than deciding who's more racist, I'm open

As I said its not about who's racist, if we say everyone's racist that acknowledges a flaw that we all have as humans to favour our own group to varying degrees. Racism is more of a perception of your race as superior to other races, that's the dictionary definition. So if that's the case it would stand to reason that if you have a society that generally favours white people, then of course those that are not favoured will not be happy about it and want to point it out or redress the balance. This isn't necessarily exclusive to white people it would happen in any society, it just so happens white people have had the most power in an age where the consciousness level of humans has risen sufficiently enough to become aware of this bias that we have on a wider scale. But let's take my original point of red lining, I assume this is taught in crt. Now this is an actual thing that actually happened and had actual social and economic effects on black people to this day. So there are two options in terms of how to handle this one of many racially dark instances of American history. One is to teach it to young people in an effort that they don't repeat it and have an understanding of why it was done and why it will not lead to a fair and just society. The other option is to ignore it, pretend it never happened and label anyone that mentions it as 'race hustlers' or people with 'victim complexes'. Essentially do we want to deny reality and history and all its implications or do we want to embrace and learn from it?

Feel free to address the actual point in my post

Yes you are right, all humans are racist to some degree, but the problem is how that racism affects others. For example in 60s up until even the 90s red lining was a common thing, meaning that black people literally couldn't by properties as they wouldn't be given loans or they would drive the house prices down of certain areas. If you think on this for a second it would mean that the generational wealth and equity built up for the last 60 years just by owning a house is non-existent. This is obviously a racist practice that had a massive affect on black families and incorporated future consequences. Now if black people are racist, let's even say they are as racist as white people were or are, what practice or policy could they implement that would affect white people in the same way as red lining?

Break it down though, what's your take on racism over the last 100 years? Does it exist, does it not have an effect on today? Expand on your take

The key with this is that it is a theory, in reality you can teach any theory that does not in anyway equal that kids are being indoctrinated. For example I learnt Hitlers theory on eugenics in history, this gives context for why he believed what he did and did what he did, but obviously the theory didnt ring true for me and theres pretty solid scientific criticisms against it. But to say that it shouldnt be taught because it might indoctrinate kids into nazism would be ridiculous. This is similar with crt, if though what they say rings true then that is just a pill i think people need to swallow. If the theory was completely outlandish like eugenics i dont think there would be much fuss made, the fact that so many people of a similar type are worried about it, shows that it hits home in some way. Its almost like a collective reaction to actually addressing race, ultimately even if this isnt the best way to do it, these people will have a problem addressing race on any level, I cant actually envision a way that they would happily address it.

Whats your perspective though do you think race has not been an issue at all over the last say 100 years?