That said I'm a huge proponent of either vaccine. There is only one way for us as a nation to put down this pandemic and it's via vaccinations. I've lost too many friends and family members to his horrific illness and I've seen the suffering first hand. I find it incomprehensible that people balk at the only protection against it.
I have lost no one and know no one that has. And in my circle that is not unusual.
I respect everyones opinion with the vaccine. We are a divided nation right now because of this lack of respect.
That is all I want to say about that.
You're a pilot. You trained and have expertise. You know that anecdotal evidence is just that...anecdotal. And no amount of anecdotes should change your mind regarding the aeronautics, physics, chemistry, electronics, or metallurgy regarding flight, modern aircraft or how they fly.
I mean, I could tell you that it's my opinion that jets should run on cow farts and I shouldn't listen to big oil because they're just trying to sell me something.
But you'd know how jets work, why using methane would be a bad idea and why AVGAS or aviation fuel which is a kerosene mix is the preferred fuel.
And just because neither I nor anyone I know has been involved in a plane crash doesn't mean my opinions about flight operations or safety should hold any weight and certainly shouldn't hold more weight than the folks who design, build and fly the planes, right?
It's no different in medicine. Moreover, these vaccines are without a doubt the most transparently developed in literally the history of medicine. And it's not close. The peer review process was more public than ever. It's actually shocking. They also have the least amount of ingredients. It's kind of a wake up call for how vaccines can be developed quickly in the future.
And, I'll repeat... as someone who lost a child to an interaction with a vaccine, if anyone has a reason to be skeptical, it's me. So I've spent a TON of time looking into this.
Honestly, I miss the days when we at least respected expertise over opinion... hard earned knowledge and continuing education to ensure mastery of a subject was highly regarded and respected.
Flight? Damn right I want an expert pilot.
Surgery? Not getting it without one.
Anesthesia? Michael Jackson found out the hard way that you NEED one.
Lawyer? Not having a really good lawyer is like fighting a battleship with a feather duster.
Pandemic? Experts. NO question. Why would I listen to Facebook and people who know so little about science that they don't even know the fields that would study viruses, track their spread or develop a vaccine over the people who have devoted decades to this very task?
I think we're divided because at one point without the transparency and access to raw information like we have now, we were gatekept and gaslit and it was healthy to be skeptical. It's still healthy to be skeptical, but most either forgot how to do it properly or never learned...and simply not believing is not the same as being a skeptic.
People are gonna do what they're gonna do and believe what they believe and I do respect that people have opinions. But whether it's the water in Flint, the power grid in Texas, or vaccine creation and distribution... we doom ourselves to an idiocracy if we don't foster subject mastery aka expertise even as we insist on transparency and constant vigilance.
I don't think we're divided because people don't respect others opinions (they don't, but I don't think that's the reason). I think we're divided because we're a nation of 330M people all with different opinions and we've come to elevate opinions over objective fact, science, evidence, reason, logic, knowledge and subject mastery.
If the scale is Spock to Kirk, we went from a medium Spock to ULTRA KIRK, only augmented and then further magnified by social media in the last 50 years. I like Kirk... a lot... but honestly... we need more Spock right now. Less opinion, less "my gut says", fewer anecdotes and more fact, more science and more logic.
Just to find a balance, at least.
I mean... I want EVERYONE to be around when we win the Super Bowl at home this season!!! Who'd wanna miss that?