#or exagerated fearmongering

[fluffyblue-multifandommess]

So after 3+ years of not going to the hairdresser (because they expensive as fuck and I can just cut my hair myself once a year), I treated myself to a professional cut & dye.

The intern who did my hair was... well, maybe not an anti-vaxxer. A covid-vaccine hesitant, I guess.

We talked a little and it really drove home for me how much misunderstanding there is among most people of what scientic sources are trying to tell them.

Scientists say, “we’ve only had this vaccine for a few months but if anything happened to it we would kill everyone in this room and then ourselves, so for now we can only reliably expect it to last about six months because we don’t have the data to say it will be effective longer than this (but we are conducting ongoing studies)”

and people hear “we made a vaccine that is only going to last like six months so for the rest of your lives everybody’s gonna have to get booster shots twice a year”. and so, naturally, they are hesitant. “why should i take this vaccine (which ive read a lot of scary misinformation about) if it’s only gonna last six months anyways?”

and it’s. incredibly frustrating. how do we fix this? how do we make sure people understand what they’re being told, how do we make sure people see and understand there is NUANCE in what the scientists are saying. I just. it’s just so frustrating!

and i get it!!! we all have really full lives and we don’t have the brain capacity to read into the nuance of every single thing we hear or read, but come on!! we’re talking about a global pandemic here!

how do we fix this????

--

ps if this post gets any replies at all im anticipating grumbles about a particular country’s education system so ill just tell yall right now im in Europe and vaccine mistrust is a world-wide issue okay thank you

[time-travel-nacho]

It’s important to note that your conclusion differs substantially from the conclusion of the article. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that “people from different places think so differently” because of their textbooks. The textbooks are more accurately a consequence of the fact that people raised in different places have different cultures associated with that place and the people there.

Furthermore, I believe that you are over exagerating both the extent of thesecjanges and the impact of them. Textbook companies claim they do this to adhere to state education requirements, of which California’s are more extensive and the textbooks examined more recent.

I am not justifying this practice. I just intend to call out this post for what it is, fearmongering. There is a change that needs to be made in the system but going about it under false pretenses is not the way to do it.

I highly recommend anyone reading this post go read the full article. OP linked it above, but i will do so down here again.

You ever wonder why people from different places think so differently? Let’s take a look at their textbooks. See, academics write textbooks, but then publishers edit these to fit the standards and political views of each state’s leaders. The New York Times looked at textbooks from Texas and California. These textbooks had the same title, year and author, but some distinct differences.

These are history textbooks, but they tell different versions of history. The California textbooks are more inclusive and use the voices of minorities and non-white immigrants in addition to the white stories we most often learn about in history. They are also inclusive of LGBTQ people and are critical of the excesses of capitalism and call racism in the US what it is.

The Texas textbooks do not, they even call into question whether the art created during the Harlem Renaissance was actually any good, nothing “mixed reviews.”

How can we expect kids to know history, respect and not learned racism when they are all taught different and sometimes dangerous versions of history?

[zenkaiankoku]

'SuperSize Me' was shown in my health class and even back then I could tell it was bullshit. He went from 'vegan' to like five big macs a day. I was like, of course he got sick! But then it turned out to be even worse than I thought, because the entire thing was faked. He did a shit ton behind the scenes like eat more than he claimed, etc. But the damage is done. I admit super size me meals were unhealthy. But the entire movie was a gross exageration meant to fearmonger and make money. And by god did it work.