Manufacturing Contempt

scorning the unvaxxed and disdaining the war-hesitant

Apr 13, 2022

In this episode I take a close look at a July 2020 study on 'persuasive messaging' for a vaccine not yet released. The Naked Emperor fulfilled my wish for exact details on what messages induce a person to get vaccinated, to pressure friends and family, and to scorn those who don’t.

I examine some of the repercussions by citing a tender and emotional comment thread on Robert Malone’s Substack. I question if persuasive messaging on Ukraine has been similarly tested, quoting Matt Taibbi's article, Give War a Chance. I end with the advice to be kind to ourselves and generous to other people, even when we're the target of their contempt. Let go of striving for accomplishment: we're on a bullet train and we're all getting somewhere without doing anything.

don’t want to study hate no more

A Yale psychology experiment was done in July of 2020 but not made public until late 2021, after the vaccination campaign was widespread. I first talked about it on an earlier video that was removed from YouTube, How to Lie with Statistics on Dr. John Abramson. I later repackaged it in Domestic Truth Agents Unite! where I talk about this study at 21 min. My information had come from Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy’s site, but I was wishing it had more details. My wish was the Naked Emperor’s command! He published a recent article called Why Anger towards the Unvaccinated was Intentional Psychological Manipulation.

The authors of the study, for a vaccine where no actual safety or efficacy data was yet known, made their intentions clear:

Viewing vaccination through the lens of a collective action problem suggests that in addition to increasing individuals’ intentions to receive a vaccine, effective public health messages would also increase people’s willingness to encourage those close to them to vaccinate and to hold negative judgments of those who do not vaccinate. By encouraging those close to them to vaccinate, people are both promoting compliance with social norms and increasing their own level of protection against the disease. Also, by judging those who do not vaccinate more negatively, they apply social pressure to others to promote cooperative behavior. This would be consistent with theories of cooperation, like indirect reciprocity or partner choice, that rely on free riders being punished or ostracized for their past actions to encourage prosocial outcomes.

The study was done on 4000+ people who received a targeted message or a placebo message about the effectiveness of bird feeders. Neither the baseline message—that the vaccine was safe and effective, and had saved millions—nor the self-interest message—that it could prevent you from getting sick or dying—made an appreciable difference in intended uptake on the vaccine. The ones that increased it by 27% combined community interest with guilt and shame:

Community Interest (Stopping COVID-19 is important because it reduces the risk that members of your family and community could get sick and die. COVID-19 kills people of all ages, and even for those who are young and healthy, there is a risk of death or long-term disability. Remember, every person who gets vaccinated reduces the risk that people you care about get sick. While you can’t do it alone, we can all protect every-one by working together and getting vaccinated.)
Community Interest + Guilt ((3) (Imagine how guilty you will feel if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about.)
Community Interest + Embarrassment ((3) + Imagine how embarrassed and ashamed you will be if you choose not to get vaccinated and spread COVID-19 to someone you care about.)

And these increased negative opinions by 21% of those who didn’t get vaccinated:

Not Bravery (Soldiers, fire-fighters, EMTs, and doctors are putting their lives on the line to serve others during the COVID-19 outbreak. That's bravery. But people who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 when there is a vaccine available because they don't think they will get sick or aren't worried about it aren't brave, they are reckless. By not getting vaccinated, you risk the health of your family, friends, and community. There is nothing attractive and independent-minded about ignoring public health guidance to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Not getting the vaccine when it becomes available means you risk the health of others. To show strength get the vaccine so you don't get sick and take resources from other people who need them more, or risk spreading the disease to those who are at risk, some of whom can’t get a vaccine. Getting a vaccine may be inconvenient, but it works.)
Trust in Science (Getting vaccinated against COVID-19 is the most effective means of protecting your community. The only way we can beat COVID-19 is by following scientific approaches, such as vaccination. Prominent scientists believe that once available, vaccines will be the most effective tool to stop the spread of COVID-19. The people who reject getting vaccinated are typically ignorant or confused about the science. Not getting vaccinated will show people that you are probably the sort of person who doesn’t understand how infection spreads and who ignores or are confused about science.)

It’s particularly striking that the message to trust the science, something we’ve all heard ad infinitum, preceded any actual science to trust. All of the statements about stopping infection or transmission were hypothetical, obviously, with no vaccine developed. So the ridicule and dismissal of ‘anti-vaxxers’ as ignorant and confused predated any scientific results one way or the other. The same strategy could have been used for wearing garlic, as a way to repel the virus, with less harmful results.

Other sample messaging conflated the impacts of policies as the fault of the unvaccinated, i.e. people have lost jobs, can’t pay bills, businesses have closed, kids aren’t going to school—don’t you want this to end sooner? This was more effective for the second study in September 2020, when a nationally representative group was tested, divided into categories like Democrats and Republicans, men and women, someone who espouses liberty, or is risk-taking.

truth or consequences

What have been the results of this manipulation to exert social pressure? On Robert Malone’s Substack, this message was posted:

Mar 31

Death came to us yesterday. Our daughter's dear friend throughout high school, who attended the same university in Virginia and remained her friend ever since has died.
She was 27 years old, beautiful, brilliant, with a Masters in Speech Pathology and a new baby. She dutifully got her "vaccines" and a booster. It was required by her employer in Virginia.
She went out for a short run yesterday and collapsed and died.
My anger is beyond anything I have ever felt. I want to throttle every single person who has told me to Sit Down and Shut Up about the "vaccines" for the past two years.
No more being nice to those who uninvited me to their holiday parties. No more biting my tongue with my Useful Idiot nephew who informed me that he and his fiance' "Hope You Will Share Our Wonderful Wedding Day With Us" (Oh, btw, A VACCINE AND BOOSTER ARE REQUIRED). …
They killed our beloved daughter's friend. They did this. With their smug, self-righteous, arrogant condemnation of anyone who dared challenge the Great and Powerful Doctor Fauci.
This is war now.

A responder to this message said she had lost a dear friend whose children had said, “We’re worried about you, Mom, let’s all get the vaccine together.” Another responder hoped the kids had learned their lesson but when the worst consequences have already happened, what good is the lesson?

My friend stopped by the liquor store where she hadn’t seen the owner for awhile, and asked how he was. He told her that his son had died, at 27, after getting the vaccine that was mandated because he worked in the school system. These are people whose own experience is contradicting the narrative and they’re still being shunned.

the psyops cyclops of war

I read somewhere that, if you’re still not vaccinated, congratulations for resisting the most intensive psy-ops campaign in history. But that campaign isn’t over, certainly for vaccine mandates, and I wonder if persuasive messages on Ukraine have been similarly tested. The phrase “Stand with Ukraine” implies that it’s one homogenous monolith. Standing with Ukranians may mean standing those who speak Russian and the Eurokranians held hostage by the neo-Nazis along with their President. It may mean refusing to arm those who Obama called thugs, now made into heroes.

Matt Taibbi's article, Give War a Chance, quotes Robert Kagan, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century and husband to Victoria Nuland, from a piece called “The Price of Hegemony”:

Although it is obscene to blame the United States for Putin’s inhumane attack on Ukraine, to insist that the invasion was entirely unprovoked is misleading.
Just as Pearl Harbor was the consequence of U.S. efforts to blunt Japanese expansion on the Asian mainland, and just as the 9/11 attacks were partly a response to the United States’ dominant presence in the Middle East after the first Gulf War, so Russian decisions have been a response to the expanding post–Cold War hegemony of the United States and its allies in Europe.

Matt then compares Kagan to Dr. Strangelove, stating his view as “while Russia’s invasion may indeed have been a foreseeable consequence of a decision to expand our hegemonic reach, now that we’re here, there’s only one option left. Total commitment”:

It is better for the United States to risk confrontation with belligerent powers when they are in the early stages of ambition and expansion, not after they have already consolidated substantial gains. Russia may possess a fearful nuclear arsenal, but the risk of Moscow using it is not higher now than it would have been in 2008 or 2014, if the West had intervened then. And it has always been extraordinarily small…

So my nukes are bigger than your nukes and you’ve never used them but I have. Neener neener pumpkin eater! Kagan and others go on to ridicule those who fear taking on a nuclear nation because “If we let nukes prevent us from action then expect literally every country to try to get nukes in next few years.” And I find it astounding that the word ‘hegemony’ is now admitted to be the goal as if it’s no big deal.

So if you fear nuclear war, you’re just not brave. Be big and strong like the rest of us and roll up that sleeve for your empire injection. It’s selfish and cowardly to put your silly old fears ahead of Ukraine. Man up! Hegemony or bust!

be kind, be generous, be patient

As my closing advice, we are in a hard position. We’re the fulcum on which the world is tilting. Be kind to yourself. Be generous. Don’t engage in confrontation that will make you the target of this manufactured contempt. Let others come to their conclusions in their own way and time—hopefully, without the worst of consequences.

We—our society, our world, all consciousness—are accelerating at a pace that would make us puke if we were aware of it. Let go of that feeling that you’re not accomplishing anything. We’re evolving at a head-spinning rate, despite all appearances to the contrary. Save your strength for building the next thing, which will be better than we’ve ever dared to dream.

Third Paradigm

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