Arguing With Someone "Living Their Truth" about Word Definitions

The Irony Is not lost on me.

So I was arguing with more than a few people about definitions of terms again on Twitter. There’s a lot of that going on. I think it might be transmitted on social media. Yep, after a test, we determined this person is suffering from “Misplaced Meaning” effect.

We’ve been arguing about what is considered “vaccine” and what is considered “natural immunity.” Recently one person on Twitter told me that “all immunity is natural immunity.”

This is the “hybrid immunity” level of the narrative we have to deal with on a constant basis. Forget the fact that the actual reason for vaccination which makes more sense, to me at least, was to introduce a weakened or inert version of a pathogen to stimulate an immune system response instead of the possibility of natural infection and such a risk that natural infection presented.

Dr. Jon’s assertion (and I keep waiting for that next blues album release) is that “hybrid immunity is the best immunity” is of course, false. Talk to any vaccinated person and I doubt you will get “and I never got Covid ever again” or “I never got sick again.”

Now let me be clear here. You will find people on Twitter who claim because of the vaccine and combo of vaccine and mask, they have never been healthier or sickness-free in their entire life. I am just very skeptical that reality aligns with this narrative. And all those I know who are vaccinated have not suddenly become impervious to infection.

Neither have the unvaccinated.

But, in anecdotal fashion, you will find on Twitter many of us Bare-Faced Plague-Spreaders who will affirm they have never been sick since 2020. Again, I am skeptical. Not one case of the sniffles? Not a hacking fit after swallowing wrong? Not even a slight coughing fit in the morning?

The idea about hybrid immunity is they believe the vaccine augments the immune system, which was never the reason to get vaccinated, and really when you think about it sounds ridiculous. So somehow this is a magical elixir that somehow not only confers immunity but boosts it.

Well, it’s called a booster, for a reason.

Maybe it’s the “Popeye eating spinach” level of the narrative. I mean we were told all sorts of bull pucky growing up about how some things make us better. Whether it was shoes that could make us run faster, or body spray that would make us sexier, or that eating bread crust grew hair on our chest, we were told things, so they must be true, savvy?

It’s one of the “working as intended” aspects of the narrative. They are constantly redefining what it is we are talking about to avoid what we are talking about. You know, like redefining what a vaccine is, for instance. And attempting to redefine “natural immunity".”

I digress.

I was in the middle of one of my many interactions on Twitter when I received an accusation I do take seriously. Here is the substance of the argument leading up to the logical fallacy accusations.

The subject was regarding the bandwagon logical fallacy. The person was arguing that because there were a lot of papers and studies on the vaccine being safe and effective, it must be safe and effective. My response was:

”I wrote down on a piece of paper that the vaccine is safe and effective, therefore it must be true because it was written on paper.”

When he said that the bandwagon logical fallacy only applied to those who believe something without evidence I asked “You mean like how the virus was deadly?”

After He brought up that 7 million people supposedly died due to Covid-19 I brought up incorrectly filled-out death certificates, bad hospital protocols, and I also mentioned the sensational examples of such items as well. You know, car accident deaths, motorcycle deaths, gunshot wound deaths, all “marked Covid.”

The interesting notion here is that the “bandwagon logical fallacy” doesn’t extend to numerous studies on a subject. So if we all believed something, wrote it down on a piece of paper, and conducted massive amounts of studies on the subject to confirm our narrative, that wouldn’t still be the bandwagon logical fallacy?

I don’t see studies being done to confirm that PCR tests are accurately depicting deaths as Covid deaths. If you look up “Death Certificate Accuracy, Covid” in Pub Med, it reveals only 11 results. Doesn’t appear to be much interest in that data. As they say “The Science™ is settled.

Conduct or do deep dives on studies, and there is evidence of widespread problems with the methodology of studies, the data being manipulated, and of course, reading the studies themselves often reveal that the things purported to be the results of the study actually aren’t the results at all. Kind of like all those fact checks in Facebook that if you read the fine print find they are true…but that some detail was what was “checked.”

My question about the virus being deadly was not based on millions of studies, but rather on the assertion of “we didn’t know” early on in the pandemic and this predicated the ridiculous amounts of restrictions we had to endure in 2020 and beyond. Because of a lock-step like consensus, many countries fell in line and initiated similar policies regarding Covid.

And here’s where “Julia” steps in. Who stated after my asking the question,”You mean like how the virus was deadly?” that I was trying to shift the burden of proof using “invincible ignorance” fallacy.

For those playing at home, this is the definition of “invincible ignorance fallacy:

The invincible ignorance fallacy, also known as argument by pigheadedness, is a deductive fallacy of circularity where the person in question simply refuses to believe the argument, ignoring any evidence given. It is not so much a fallacious tactic in argument as it is a refusal to argue in the proper sense of the word. Wikipedia

When I read this definition, I realized this, in fact, is the response I get when I present the evidence I have. They will claim that the evidence is not credible. They will feign ignorance to the notions at all, sometimes even defining it as the aforementioned “dangerous misinformation.”

to be fair here. This is a common tactic on both sides. We both present evidence, and we both discard it. The only difference is that, as far as I can tell, I do read their links and the information they give me, they simply discard my evidence because although the data is from the CDC or the WHO or the ONS, they will still disregard it as it does not align with the narrative.

When confronted with this, Julia instead doubled down, by accusing me of “tone policing.”

I responded the only way I know how.

If I had been tone policing. I would use pejorative terms like “crying” or “whining” or “acting like a little baby” in my response. I would have added words that would be either intentionally or unintentionally triggering. How often does a constructive response erupt from “All you do is cry and whine and carry on about…”

Later on, because I was curious, I looked up their account bio. And this is what the account holder put in their description.

*Name blurred out to avoid anyone possibly harassing them.

This whole idea of “living your truth” means that you can redefine just about anything. Race, gender, are just the beginning. You can, apparently, also redefine the definitions of terms as well.

And why shouldn’t they?

If you can redefine what a woman is, you can redefine what words are. Even logical fallacies like “invincible ignorance” and “tone policing” can mean something different than what it actually is.

And it strikes me that this is one of the “working as intended” areas of cognitive dissonance. Many don’t want to appear “transphobic” so will go along with the person who wants us to call them a “she/her.”

Sorry, but no.

And maybe that’s why there appears to be this injection of “trans” into the Covid conversation. Because if you can get people to call men, women, and women, men, then you can also pathologize normal, and normalize pathology. You can also stop people thinking that words have meaning but rather are only important in meaning as to the person using them.

Think about the implications on communication. No matter what you say to a person “living their truth” they will hear what they want to hear.

And believing you are something you are not is a pathology. I can believe I am a bird all day long and twice during Mardis Gras, but in the end, if I try to jump off a roof and fly, it will not end well for me. Similarly, if a man believes he is a woman, until he can have a kid of his own, “Good luck with that, Junior.”

This is the world of the Upside Down we are living in, or they want us to live in. A dystopian world of climate change and coronavirus “Captain Tripps” darkness. Where the government figurehead is Charlie McCarthy, and there are unknown forces driving the country. Maybe Elon Musk’s self-driving technology?

A cavalcade of conspiracy theories can be postulated and dismissed.

George Carlin went on rants about word softening, and I think he would have a field day with the whole “Living Your Truth” BS.

”You’re not body positive….you’re fat!”

”You’re not between jobs, you are unemployed.”

”You are not “income challenged” You’re poor.

”You aren’t a woman…you’re a man dressed in women’s clothes.”

I have no idea what Carlin would have said about Covid, but I do know what he would say about germs, disease, and all this obsessive focus on cleanliness and safety.