The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
So, I appreciate the case you've made (and the story), but I got to thinking:
Are you sure the memes and shaming are what caused the change in behavior? Wouldn't the simpler, more likely reality be that when kids started dying and getting really sick, enough people changed their minds and herd immunity got better and the status race around anti-vaxxing waned in popularity?
Like, I vaguely recall hearing that the DARE (anti-drug-use-amongst-kids program in the United States a few decades ago) initiative, despite its intention had no effect or the opposite of its intended effect. Isn't that true of many of those public awareness campaigns (and today many of them use coopted memes?) Are you sure that isn't the case with the SoCal anti-vax stuff?
I'm open to the idea that civil arguments aren't always the right approach. I do want to at least have a rationalization for my position, then I can start making convincing arguments and poking fun (ridiculing?).
Do you have any particularly good zingers you would use to ridicule someone who is complaining about the harry potter stuff? (I realize this sounds insensitive, but I would imagine there are some good ones, and the likelihood that I will use them against my friend(s) is low. It's possible that some of the zingers might have kernels of interesting arguments)
I'll admit I'm not omnisciently certain about that version of history I relayed. But the problem with DARE is that it told people wildly exaggerated lies, from a position of authority. Then people tried some pot, realized they didn't kill their friends and destroy their life, and figured that heroin was probably fine too. The anti-vax stuff was also fairly exaggerated, but in a more defensible, joking manner. Also, it was coming from a stance of higher status, well-off STEMlords ripping into their friend's housewives for being gullible and negligent. Basically, I think in those situations, mean girl tactics worked better at manipulating behavior than out-of-touch lectures from the principal.
I might go with variations on the Read Another Book memes. Treat caring about Harry Potter at all as low-status and childish.
I wish you the best of luck. If you have any success, with any approach, please let us know.
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