Originally Posted by
Skydog
I played poker last night and maybe six of the players were Vietnamese-Americans. Mostly working class, one owned a restaurant, one was a professional but said little. All but the silent one said they weren't getting the vaccine. Why, I asked? There was some laughter and then one said because Vietnamese women don't even get the flu! They had heard that you would have to get one every year from then on and didn't like that. After all, they didn't get the flu shot and were fine. Another pointed out that some people got the vaccine and still got covid, so why bother? I threw out a couple of pro-vaccine arguments but it was quickly clear that I was wasting my breath. It seemed to be a peer decided issue about which they all laughingly agreed - good times! They were all between 35-50yo and appeared healthy and probably low risk, so I kind of understood the "What, Me Worry?" attitude.
There was also a redneck guy (I can say that - I grew up on a Texas farm!) - he said he had just seen a newsmax report that only 9k people total in the US died from Covid-19! I asked the source - he glanced at the article and said CDC. I asked for link and he sent it. It turned out they were backing their screaming headlines with a cockamamie argument that only 9k people died of "just covid" - the rest had co-morbidities. So anyone who has a co-morbidity, gets covid and dies doesn't count. I tried to explain the problem with that but he said he didn't even read the article - he just knew that "the news" was lying and was surprised I still fell for it.
So I had a couple takeaways from this night out. First is that for maybe 20-30% of the population, logical arguments can't compete with the mutually reinforcing rewards that come with peer-group group-think. Agreement is fun and independent thinking is hard. So it will take something really personally salient - like someone close to them get really sick or die to change their minds.
My second takeaway was that I need to find a new poker game.