Thanks for your understanding that the messaging surrounding covid was a cluster from the getgo. In my opinion, it makes you appear a little more like someone who would be open to conversation than most even though there are fundamental aspects even about the messaging itself that I believe we disagree on.
I unfortunately was unwilling to spend an hour to watch the video you posted above. Did you watch it? What was the main take away?
In the 3min that I did watch, I already disagree with a key assertion put forth by the gentleman introducing the main speaker. He said that in the past, misinformation was countered by the developing of the licensed class - the experts. While I agree that developing of experts is good, I think he is coming from a different angle. An expert should be so well versed that they can teach others persuasively while not being defensive if their level of expertise is being questioned. I think he is suggesting that experts counter misinformation because everyone should just automatically defer to them because they've gone to school for a long time and should know their subject matter. See the difference?
So, there are a lot of people who think those pesky MAGATs have caused this problem by not automatically deferring to the experts (which is a totally wrong assumption that it was just that crowd who were questioning, btw). The misinformation is their fault.
I place a lot more blame on the experts because, after all, they are the experts and they had the intellect, resources, and ability to communicate the truth effectively so that a much greater percentage of people could have understood on gotten on the same page.
If you go to an "expert" and they can only appeal to authority (just trust me, I'm an expert), that is garbage. They should have their licenses revoked for saying that. Instead, they need to have a little humility combined with a little bit of ability to explain. This, IMO, eroded a lot of trust from the beginning. This was an important issue, and dissenting voices were shut down politically with force and power rather than with a spirit of good will - that a real expert would employ.
Relatedly, politicians, etc said a lot of stuff that was false and no one called them on it. This again eroded trust because it looked as though people cared more about being on the correct side of the debate and avoiding trouble rather than being clear and wanting the truth to be known. Though I was at times angry with doctors at times, I did feel sorry for them somewhat because simply to ask reasonable questions very easily could open themselves up for cancellation, etc. It's so wrong that this is the way it was.
ALL of the experimentation and findings should have been open to anyone who wanted to see it. I don't remember what it was that Pfizer hasn't wanted to make public for 75 years, but obviously everyone should trust whatever they're pumping out.
Needless to say, the very heavy handed approach to influence people to get vaxxed was extremely dumb. It smacked of a used car salesman "You MUST buy it now, or tomorrow the deal is gone!"
I am sure a counterpoint to be made would be that we didn't have time to educate effectively and get everyone on board, especially with the other side's misinformation campaign. Im retrospect, this view was horribly deficient and will continue to prove to be costly, and imo it should have been fairly easy to assess at the time (at least a lot better than it was).
I could go on. In short, it is not really the expertise of the credentialed class that is under suspicion (though it is). It is more their overall integrity. In fairness, the integrity of all of us together is lacking, but it is the leaders at the time that will bear the weight of this failure when historians look back.
