Making Sense - Sam Harris - Ask Me Anything #17

In this episode of the Making Sense podcast, I discuss the controversy surrounding vaccines and vaccine hesitancy in the public health care system, and the role of public opinion in shaping public opinion on the matter. I also talk about the dangers of vaccines, and why we should all be concerned about them. I also discuss some of the reasons why people are hesitant to get their kids vaccinated, and what we can do about it. Finally, I talk about why it s a good idea to get vaccinated and why you should get vaccinated if you're worried about getting your kids vaccinated. Make sense of it all, and don't forget to share it with a friend or become a supporter of Making Sense by becoming a patron patron! Thanks to all the supporters of the podcast who have made this podcast possible. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our listeners, who are making possible entirely by the support they're doing here. If you enjoy what we're doing, please consider becoming one of our patrons. You'll get access to the full archive of episodes of the making sense podcast, including the latest Epidemic, The Making Sense Podcast, wherever you get your favorite podcatcher, and a chance to become a patron of the show, and learn about all sorts of useful tools to help make sense of the things we're making sense of our world. Thanks again for making sense, and may you enjoy the podcast. . -Sam Harris, Sam, "Making Sense" (Make sense" - a podcast by Sam Harris, "Make sense?" - making sense? -- copyright by Mark Hopkinson, "The Making Sense's own words, "Let's talk about it, not yours?" -- not your own? -- "I'm not making sense?" -- "It's not about vaccines, it's about you, I'm making sense" -- "You're not getting vaccinated, but you're not going to get it?" -- and you're going to be helped by it? -- "you'll get it? "? , "you're not?" -- "You'll get vaccinated? " -- "and you can get vaccinated, right? " , right? "and "you won't get vaccinated?" -- is it going to help you learn how to be vaccinated? -- "it's not a free rider?" -- are you going to pay for it?

00:00:00.000 welcome to the making sense podcast this is sam harris just a note to say that if you're hearing

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00:00:38.840 okay um i should start with an addendum to the last podcast on vaccines and vaccine hesitancy

00:00:56.100 that i did with eric topel some of the responses i received to that have been

00:01:02.260 astoundingly stupid i guess that's not a total surprise i don't feel like dealing with too many

00:01:10.720 specifics here i got one criticism i do take to heart if only because it came in one form from my

00:01:18.020 wife is that despite my saying that i wanted to remain non-judgmental and try to produce a document

00:01:27.220 that the vaccine averse could actually receive without feeling denigrated in any way i didn't try

00:01:36.420 hard enough and certainly my guest eric didn't try hard enough there i would have to say we are guilty as

00:01:45.220 charged and in truth i'm not even sure it's the right target i mean there is something patronizing

00:01:51.800 about the claim that in order to reach the vaccine hesitant you have to walk on eggshells

00:01:58.500 so as to not make them feel judged nevertheless i do see the depressing results of the last podcast

00:02:05.480 all around me those who were disposed to agree with me absolutely loved it and were grateful

00:02:13.260 and those who are worried about the covet vaccines and taken in by what they've heard on brett

00:02:19.160 weinstein's podcast or tucker carlson or wherever thought eric and i were totally clueless

00:02:28.100 about the state of the conversation that's happening over there i don't actually know what

00:02:34.780 the solution is here because some people ask why not just have brett on the podcast to talk about

00:02:39.540 all this but i think that would be a bad idea not because i don't think there are adequate answers

00:02:45.600 to the kinds of points he would raise but like so many debates on fairly fringe topics you know

00:02:54.520 classic conspiracy theories religious fundamentalism many points can't be addressed in real time many

00:03:02.960 anomalies can't be fully explained right and it can give a sense of uncertainty that is truly unwarranted

00:03:13.580 so there are many cases where merely having the conversation can be misleading for many many people

00:03:22.120 and in this case in the middle of a public health crisis i think it is irresponsible to run this

00:03:30.880 just asking questions routine in public that's that really is my objection to what brett is doing

00:03:37.500 it's just too easy for even smart people to come away from a discussion on these topics confused and

00:03:45.420 by default disposed to not do anything which is to say not get vaccinated there's so many things at

00:03:53.680 play here there's the fact that sticking a needle in your arm really seems like something intrusive

00:04:00.920 right people are afraid of needles they find the whole thing unpleasant they certainly find it unpleasant

00:04:06.000 to have someone do it to their kids right and it's interesting to consider how the debate here would be

00:04:13.060 different if the vaccine were delivered as a chewable gummy or as a nasal spray right i think that would feel

00:04:23.180 different to many people but the default is to feel that getting vaccinated or getting your kids

00:04:31.560 vaccinated is an act of commission which entails greater ethical concern and responsibility than an

00:04:41.200 act of omission right not doing something not doing something is who can fault you for just sitting on

00:04:47.300 your hands well in this case you become part of a petri dish potentially breeding new variants of this

00:04:52.940 virus and you're a free rider on herd immunity if it were ever achieved and i think it is appropriate

00:05:01.720 to judge people for taking that position it is not merely a choice you're making for yourself

00:05:07.120 even choosing not to wear a seat belt isn't merely a choice you're making for yourself there you don't

00:05:14.120 have the problem of epidemiology but if you are not wearing a seat belt and you're thrown from your car

00:05:21.120 in an accident and horribly injured society pays the costs of that your medical bills raise the costs

00:05:29.800 of insurance for everyone and if you're uninsured society bears those costs right and society is

00:05:36.820 bearing the costs of people who land in icus with severe complications from covid when it wasn't

00:05:43.720 necessary at this point i think it's totally appropriate to put the onus on the vaccine

00:05:49.680 hesitant here unless of course they have really compelling reasons not to want to get vaccinated

00:05:56.820 and there's some people who do they're the very people who for whom herd immunity is such an important

00:06:02.020 variable the people who are immunocompromised in various ways or who have terrible reactions to

00:06:09.600 vaccines there are people like this who can't get vaccinated and those are precisely the people

00:06:15.960 one is thinking about when championing the virtues of herd immunity so it's hard to get past a sense

00:06:23.640 that what is happening among the vaccine hesitant is given the state of our current information

00:06:29.640 a failed commitment to the common good you are helping prolong a problem that need not be prolonged

00:06:37.800 we know these vaccines work and we know they're safe enough at this point certainly compared to

00:06:45.800 the problem of getting covid without the benefit of getting vaccinated and if i didn't believe we knew

00:06:50.820 this then there might be something to debate but just i'm not going to have a podcast where someone's

00:06:55.760 haranguing me about thermites and the melting point of steel i'm not going to have a debate about

00:07:01.600 these vaccines in the absence of truly compelling evidence and to give you a sense of how weak the

00:07:12.640 evidence is out there i mean just when i saw brett's response to my podcast one of the things he and his

00:07:19.340 wife heather did on their podcast is single out for distinction a wonderful thread on twitter by someone

00:07:26.220 named alexandros marinos who dissected my podcast with eric topol minute by minute and and brett and

00:07:36.960 heather recommended that people study this thread as a demolition of that episode again there's no reason

00:07:44.800 to go into the details here but so much of this was so obviously missing the point and silly but i'll just

00:07:54.200 flag one thing that should alert brett and heather to how far into the precincts of paranoia they've

00:08:05.500 wandered at one point alexandros references my claim that we could take the worst fears of the

00:08:11.060 vaccine hesitant at face value and it would still be rational to get vaccinated the worst fears being

00:08:17.860 that the the various database is reporting real numbers of deaths associated with the vaccine

00:08:24.220 suggesting that as many as 12 000 people may have died outright from it and alexandros admonishes me

00:08:31.400 to be more careful than that because actually because of the ui and ux concerns of this database

00:08:36.600 people fear that the problem may be tenfold greater than reported so now i'm being asked to

00:08:43.860 imagine that 120 000 people in the u.s have died outright by being vaccinated no one died in the

00:08:51.400 clinical trials but 120 000 people may have died in the last few months and and no one is really

00:08:58.880 noticing apparently right but what's what's happening here are icus filling up with people who were just

00:09:05.000 vaccinated is that what i'm asked to believe are these people dying in their homes and no one knows about

00:09:12.100 it there's absolutely no reason to believe anything like that okay so if you are in a social context

00:09:19.300 where those fears seem plausible to you you have been lured into some kind of information backwater

00:09:25.520 that is not good for your mind and it's certainly not good for our collective well-being actually there

00:09:34.200 was another thread that's even more to the point which brett also singled out as absolutely

00:09:40.780 indispensable for our understanding of what's going on among the vaccine hesitant and this comes from

00:09:46.720 someone named constantin kissin it's a very long thread but the first tweet reads you're struggling

00:09:52.960 to understand why some people are vaccine hesitant the let me help you mega thread imagine you're a

00:09:59.680 normal person the year is 2016 rightly or wrongly you believe most of what you see in the media

00:10:04.900 you believe polls are broadly reflective of public opinion you believe doctors and scientists are

00:10:10.900 trustworthy and independent you're a decent reasonable person who follows the rules and trusts authority

00:10:15.660 and then he goes through all of the insults to this naive way of thinking that have occurred in the

00:10:24.420 last five years or so he talks about brexit election of trump and the claim that russians were involved

00:10:33.140 in getting him elected the steel dossier the jussie smallette hoax the covington catholic high school

00:10:42.660 affair the capitulation of various institutions medical and otherwise to wokeism all the epidemiologists

00:10:51.280 who shrieked about covid when people on the far right were protesting but the moment the protest for

00:10:58.180 george floyd erupted they not only didn't judge the protesters but asserted that protesting was itself

00:11:05.360 a contribution to public health all of these insults to reasonableness and instances of public hypocrisy and

00:11:14.380 just just the full litany here so he runs through all of this as an explanation for why the vaccine

00:11:22.520 hesitant now no longer trust authority of any kind the government scientists scientific journals public

00:11:31.560 health officials as though this explains it all i would quibble with a couple of things constantin said in

00:11:39.640 his litany of abuse but the general shape of it is something i totally accept yes there has been an

00:11:45.560 impressive breakdown in our institutions and in particular the media and the way in which politics

00:11:54.520 has deranged our public conversation more or less on every topic but the one thing that this analysis

00:12:00.240 does not explain is the thinking of those of us who have still followed the plot those of us who

00:12:10.280 experienced all of these insults to our intelligence and yet still managed to understand that trump really

00:12:18.960 was a threat to our democracy and if the side of a u.s president not committing to a peaceful transfer

00:12:26.260 of power doesn't convince you on that point nothing will and in the case of covid despite all of the

00:12:33.320 failures of clear thinking and clear public health messaging many of us still understand that the

00:12:42.060 vaccines are incredibly effective and all things considered it is far wiser to be vaccinated at this

00:12:49.540 point than to be running the risk of getting covid without having been vaccinated it's possible to keep

00:12:56.260 the big picture in view here's the big picture the failings of our institutions need not lead to a total

00:13:07.240 breakdown of trust in our institutions it is possible to exaggerate how much our institutions have failed

00:13:15.480 and that is what is most objectionable and so dysfunctional about what brett is doing with this podcast

00:13:25.940 this just asking questions routine is corrosive of public trust at a time where the failure of trust

00:13:35.680 translates into disease and death an unnecessary risk of disease and death for others right we're in

00:13:45.380 the middle of a pandemic there is no compelling reason at this point to be worried about these vaccines

00:13:51.560 there is a compelling reason to be worried about just letting this pandemic burn through the unvaccinated

00:13:57.360 population right we should be spreading these vaccines to the entire world at this point and we need

00:14:04.760 institutions right we need to repair our institutions we need to criticize them for their failures but the

00:14:11.960 idea that we can navigate a global public health emergency by podcast and substack newsletter is patently

00:14:20.120 ridiculous we need a functioning cdc and fda and who we need medical journals that are credible and it's this

00:14:30.120 breakdown in legitimacy or perceived legitimacy that is proving so dysfunctional so my issue with what brett is

00:14:38.840 doing is that he's doing it in public fine if you're uncomfortable getting vaccinated you want to make that private

00:14:46.600 decision for yourself and your family well fine i don't agree with it but that is very different than

00:14:53.720 making it a public cause to convince as many people as possible that they should be worried about these

00:15:00.360 vaccines there is no compelling reason at this moment to be worried about these vaccines and yet you're

00:15:07.800 devoting podcast after podcast to spreading that fear again in the middle of a pandemic that's the part that

00:15:17.720 doesn't make any sense that's the part that seems unethical and irresponsible of course it's possible to worry

00:15:25.640 about the long-term safety implications of these vaccines or of any other new medical intervention for

00:15:32.200 which long-term safety data are unavailable i'm not saying it's crazy to worry about these things i'm

00:15:39.560 saying that all things considered it's not reasonable and it's not reasonable to stoke those fears in millions

00:15:46.680 of people we have a forced choice you can get exposed to covid without having been vaccinated or after

00:15:54.440 having been vaccinated that's the choice of course brett thinks there's a third choice you can be exposed

00:16:02.200 while taking ivermectin prophylactically but he admits that ivermectin is not widely available

00:16:08.760 that most people can't get their hands on it so this isn't an option for his audience for the

00:16:14.920 most part even if he could justify it for himself which again i don't think he can really do so this

00:16:22.200 really is the crux of the matter which i would put directly to brett what public good is being served

00:16:29.880 by spreading fear of the covid vaccines to millions of people who have no rational alternative really

00:16:40.840 but to be vaccinated we have every reason to believe that the long-term implications of getting covid

00:16:47.960 without having been vaccinated are worse take the concerns about election fraud

00:16:55.320 that are endemic on the political right at the moment

00:16:59.880 now is it completely insane to be concerned about election fraud no election fraud is certainly

00:17:06.040 a possibility that we should be worried about we should guard against it we're absolutely right to

00:17:12.760 want to be confident in the results of our elections and if there's new technology that we introduce

00:17:19.000 that turns out to be hackable you know all of that is a concern right so it's not you're not crazy to be

00:17:25.160 thinking about election integrity and happily many smart people on both sides of the aisle

00:17:31.720 have thought a lot about it it turns out that there's no significant evidence of election fraud

00:17:38.920 but should we be on guard against this of course but what we have among republicans at the moment

00:17:45.560 is the utterly delusional claim that the 2020 election was stolen and this has become a crystal of doubt

00:17:54.680 around which an insane personality cult has formed so the merely asking questions routine

00:18:03.640 is in bad faith or it's totally oblivious to the corrosive effects of asking certain questions again and

00:18:12.040 again i'm not going to have someone on the podcast to talk about the 2020 election who's going to say

00:18:18.120 well what about the 4 000 ballots in phoenix that went missing when it's impossible to respond

00:18:25.000 to a claim like that you platform a claim like that that you can't possibly respond to i don't know

00:18:31.880 if it's made up i don't know how many journalists it would take to track it down but i know that

00:18:38.120 in the general picture of things the incentives are such that the claim is guaranteed to be spurious

00:18:45.720 we're talking about an election which in the relevant case was governed by republican election

00:18:50.680 officials and there were republican judges who heard these challenges and threw them out right

00:18:56.440 the incentives were never there to produce a massive fraud all of this is virtually guaranteed to be

00:19:03.800 bullshit now is it conceivable that some facts will come to light so that i'll have to recant this

00:19:09.640 statement sure it's conceivable and it's conceivable that in some years we'll discover that

00:19:16.520 mrna vaccines were more dangerous than we thought and that ivermectin is a far more potent prophylactic

00:19:23.800 against covid than we have any right to believe now but the question is what is it rational to

00:19:29.160 believe and do now given the information we have anyway as i said i i don't actually think there's

00:19:35.800 much to say on this topic i do think it is quite straightforward we have enough information to know

00:19:43.400 what happens to people generally speaking when they get these vaccines and the differential outcomes

00:19:49.640 for the vaccinated and unvaccinated who get covid that part really isn't debatable anymore so if we

00:19:57.240 want to get society back to something like normal globally speaking i think we have an ethical obligation

00:20:03.880 to help get the world vaccinated against this disease and it's worth considering what the world will look like

00:20:11.400 if we get a variant that is far more deadly than those currently circulating how will the just asking

00:20:18.520 questions routine look in the case of something that's killing five or ten or fifteen or twenty percent

00:20:27.080 of those it infects hopefully we'll never experience such a thing but under those conditions

00:20:34.680 to get a vaccine that works and not to use it and to argue against its use should be unthinkable

00:20:42.760 right and i'm not so sure it is at this point again i think we're in the presence of something like a

00:20:49.720 religious or pseudo-religious phenomenon people are just not thinking clearly and mere contrarianism

00:20:58.600 is becoming part of their identities and there's something pornographic about all this this reflexive

00:21:06.120 distrust of distrust of institutional authority is like the pornography of doubt people are infatuated

00:21:13.880 with this stuff and there's a there's a zealotry around it and the quality of the thinking is so bad

00:21:22.680 in so many cases given my experience on other topics it's impossible to shake the feeling of familiarity

00:21:31.480 here this is what it's like to argue about religion or the 9-11 truth conspiracy and those fronts i've learned to pick my battles

00:21:43.080 because getting into the trenches is so unrewarding

00:21:47.240 covid aside we have a much larger problem on our hands but we have to figure out how to solve

00:21:54.760 this riddle of how do we improve our institutions and trust them when we should all the while recognizing

00:22:05.080 they become less worthy of that trust it's like we have to repair an airplane as it's flying right and

00:22:12.440 not do anything so stupid or iconoclastic that it just falls out of the sky and that's what i perceive

00:22:21.240 brett and his audience to be doing we're just asking questions we're just doubting everything

00:22:27.160 we're just being scientific skeptics show us the data i'll believe it when you show it to me

00:22:32.760 oh but what about this little wrinkle over here you know the jet fuel only burns at 1500 degrees fahrenheit

00:22:38.600 and the melting point of steel is 2500 degrees fahrenheit and you mean to tell me that those planes

00:22:43.560 brought down those buildings have you heard of thermite i've got a 90-page master's thesis i want

00:22:48.520 you to read on the thermite hypothesis can you set a day aside for that that's where we are and it

00:22:55.640 matters that people like brett are choosing to contribute to that side of the conversation okay

00:23:05.720 and now getting to your questions hi sam my name is walt dalkash and i live in dublin ireland my question

00:23:13.960 for you is how can i inoculate my biracial children against the identity politics ideology they are

00:23:20.520 bound to encounter at school and university okay well walt this is a question that is on the minds of

00:23:28.920 many of us these days

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - August 08, 2021

Ask Me Anything #17

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