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(thelemmy.club)
cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/43535087
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this post was submitted on 04 Aug 2026
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Hey, it's not that complex. If I really want to know now, I need to become a scientist in this specific field, otherwise I have no hope to verify any of this. If I don't, I will consider it more trustworthy when after 20-30 years of its regular use people who took it and their kids don't develop something bad.
You don’t need to become a scientist, just trust the good ones. I don’t know shit about fixing cars, but I trust my mechanic.
Not that I'm on dude's side or anything, but:
Trusting our Government Issued™ scientists implicitly is how we got The Tuskegee Experiments, sometimes a little healthy skepticism isn't a bad thing. Idk about this one but y'know "just trust me bro" honestly shouldn't be our SOP on a daily basis.
You also shouldn't trust your mechanic implicitly, they've (as a profession) been known to upsell on things you don't need to get more of your money because they know you don't know anything and they can get away with it.
I trust my mechanic, because when he replaced a rusty section of my exhaust he used a stethoscope to check if his welds were airtight, I watched him do it.
I trust the scientists, because people watching them do the work is exactly what peer review and replication are.
The rest of the stuff they do, that I don't understand, I will trust implicitly because of how open and honest the things I do understand were.
Then you verified that, you're not just trusting that he did.
Sure you can trust these scientists, again that isn't what I'm talking about.
The Tuskegee Experiments had more than one mad scientist in the room too, "just trust me bro" isn't a good enough answer for anything, just trust me bro.
No my point is, I'm trusting him when I'm not watching too.
We can extrapolate from the existing body of work of these scientists, we demonstrably can trust them bro.
That experiment that started 90 years ago, running for 40 years, never underwent any contemporary peer review. The COVID vaccines have, with government reviews, dozens of outside parties having a look into the formulations, many papers speaking to the theoretical and I'm sure by now practical efficacy.
You can't compare a region limited pre electric conspiracy to a contemporary information age alleged conspiracy, the circumstances and scale reduce any parallels to background noise.
Well good for you, but that doesn't mean he's necessarily actually trustworthy, without knowing either of you, you could be a total sucker and he could be a good conman. "While I was down there I noticed your struts..." Struts were fine, he noticed you wouldn't question him saying they needed to be replaced.
Ok here's something you can really trust me bro on, for the fourth or fifth time, I'm not talking specifically about The Holy Vaccine, I'm speaking of the concept of trusting bros as a whole.
Peer review existing at all is an example of not "trusting them bro" btw.
If you're unable to discuss the topic of why or why not you should or should not "just trust" people regardless of expertise divorced from one specific thing, then I don't think there's a point to continuing this, we'll have to agree to ~~disagree~~ not talk about the same thing. Your focus is so narrow, is The Covid Vaccine™ the only thing that exists to you or is reality larger?
So, at some point where he's proved his methods of work, he's going to be trusted.
The same is for basically any medical researcher. Why are individuals expected to make an informed assessment, when by any account the structure that has that researcher gain their position has them suffer the scrutiny of people that have a much better idea of what problems might be in that research, and a vested interest in picking apart that methodology? (Writing their own paper for school or getting published themselves)
I literally can't do better than take the information I have access to and understand (my mechanic has spent time educating me, being transparent, and given me cost/benefit opinion; the medical researchers have gained degrees from credible orgs, peer review has not discredited the methodology, research is replicable etc)
I'm not going to go to trade school or medical school. Trusting them is happening, or I go live in a cabin in the woods. You trust people implicitly, your grocer, landlord, water supply, etc. There are thousands of ways that the people you rely on every day could maim or outright kill you. That doesn't happen. Applying this level of mistrust to a shot you get every 6 months and not the things you imbibe and tolerate every day is not logically consistent.
All of that isn't "trusting them bro," and still, they can be wrong even with all that.
You trust people implicitly.
Is trying to rip me off the most they can, they've been caught doing shady shit in the past, they're "my grocer" because they're closest to my house.
I think you're the only one on this entire fedi trusting landlords lmao. Nice to meet the one.
I mean, I'm curious, who knows if I'm in the next Flint Mi. They trusted it too.
And one day all the microplastics they're putting in my balls will finish the job. Matter of time.
You're really married to this "forcing the covid issue" thing huh? I already said you can trust all the literal gods that made the vaccine they've been venerated by Christ yadda yadda who cares, is this my sixth time saying that? I can repeat myself a seventh time but honestly if it hasn't sunk in yet I don't think it's going to.
But in any case "you don't want a flu shot? Why don't you quit eating then?"
Ok you got me, feel better sport?
That's the neat thing, scientists from all around the globe are saying the same thing. No need to trust your gvmt.
But it is! Do you trust the food you eat? Who knows what could happen… If you take any medications at all, you must trust in some part the whole supply chain. If you drive a car, especially a new model, you trust the designers, engineers, and QA to make something that won’t kill you. Do you fly? Do you enter your banking or financial info into any computer?
I’m not saying we should blindly trust anyone, especially not a single person, but we have to trust the experts at least some, in every field. And when those experts all basically agree… What else is there to do? Or society is built on trust.
For some.
No, it's all full of microplastics and chemicals and Monsanto scientific horrors. I still have to eat, but I know it's killing me slowly. You shouldn't trust that any more than your scammy mechanic.
Yeah medications never have unintended side effects that come out years later, and nobody has ever put potassium cyanide in Aspirin bottles, great example.
Yeah like a Tesla, huh? New as hell, burning people alive in crashes. Recalls happen all the time, and often don't when they should, you're sure there won't be one for yours?
Hell no.
Very limited, never stored, one device I don't do anything sketchy on. Usually I just go to the bank, like, the building.
Even people who aren't lying to you may be wrong, it can happen at any level of knowledge or expertise.
And just to remind you, I'm not talking about "vaccines," I'm talking about "just trust me bro" w.r.t most things.
Whut? You got it all backwards I guess
So... I am supposed to know not to trust the covid vaccine and also blind trust is good?
Is that what you mean by backwards?
Cause I said "I don't necessarily think [skepticism] is the best course of action regarding this current topic which is the covid vaccine, but blindly trusting people regardless of expertise isn't always the best thing to do."
"Backwards" of that would be... y'know... trust everyone except this vaccine... so... ?
Care to elaborate?
Edit: OH did you mean like this?
We've got years of data showing they are safe at this point and given the massive deployment, serious issues would have become apparent by now.
!remindme 2 decades
Make that 80 years, just to be sure.