A generation raised on “contrarian” and “anti-conformist” YouTube influencers is skeptical of democratic power and international institutions, but willing to give a free pass to billionaires and any other kind of power that operates via ruthlessly deployed private property. Worldcoin fits this mold and so it will find fans.
* Skepticism over mass vaccination (as opposed to at-risk groups only). Shut up, anti-vaxer, you're anti-democratic. Backed by Big Pharma.
* Skepticism over climate change policy (asking middle class to reduce expectations, rather than cranking down on planned obsolescence and offshore production). Shut up, climate denier, you're anti-democratic. Backed by the companies doing offshoring and using climate as selling point.
* Skepticism over affirmative action (as in discriminating people based on skin color in Academia, rather than making it easier for ALL parents to teach things to their kids). Shut up, you racist. Backed by the billion-dollar DEI industry billing enormous rates to public institutions.
I can give many more examples where valid skepticism is immediately conflated with the nearest crazy idea nobody actually cares about (like the actual KKK), and is shut down on that basis by those who have a vested interest in not being scrutinized.
All successful vaccination is mass vaccination. That's the whole point. Would we be rid of polio if we'd only vaccinated the 5% of population who were most at risk?
Every infection has an R0 rate (average number of people infected by a single infected person). If it's greater than 1, the infection spreads exponentially. If it's lower than 1, it peters out.
Vaccinating X% of people pushes R0 lower by X * N, where N depends on mutation rate, how good is the vaccine at preventing the spread (vs. reducing symptoms), etc.
R0 is also affected by seasonality, immunity from earlier infections, etc.
Polio doesn't mutate as fast, the vaccine lasts long time, and prevents both symptoms and the spread. R0 drops below 1, polio defeated.
COVID mutates much faster, has one of the highest R0 rates among known diseases, vaccine lasts a limited time, considerably reduces mortality rate (which isn't much of a concern for fit healthy adults under 50), and somewhat reduces the spread. It pushes the R0 number somewhat down, but not below 1.
What actually ended the pandemic was the Omicron variant that mysteriously grew much faster in the upper respiratory tract, and got your body to start fighting it before it did anything to the lungs. It still has enough R0, but the symptoms are so mild, it became mostly indistinguishable from common cold, so people stopped caring.
Had we vaccinated the at-risk groups, and given strong incentives for others to lose weight and start exercising, we could have arrived at the same, or lower death toll with much less taxpayer money going towards the Big Pharma.
It's not good to be knee-jerk skeptical of everything that defined the post-WWII rules-based international system while idolizing billionaire founders and their corporate power. We had some good things figured out by the 1990s. It wasn't the proverbial "end of history" but IMO we need more of the cooperative spirit and respect for human rights that got us there, not less.
Because they have temporarily poor millionaire syndrome.
I’m not sure what the solution is but I’m not sure that shutting down every slightly uncommon opinion is it. (I recognize that this comment is exactly what a savvy troll would say and well I guess that’s kinda part of my point)
There's no "hijacking" occurring except in your mind. Your preferred political tribe also engages in its share of conspiracy-adjacent skepticism.
I think having a little bit of slop in a human system is good. A world where your freedoms and responsibilities are entirely managed by computers, like an AWS IAM role for people, sounds awful, and this project seems to want to go there.