I think the story of your anti-vax friend illustrates how badly we as a nation have been harmed by increasing anti-science, conspiracy-theory sentiment.

It didn’t start with covid, it’s been ramping up for a long time. But with covid, it’s proving itself extraordinarily toxic and dangerous.

I personally can’t imagine how somebody living in a society based fundamentally on science and effective technology could have such a stake in denying the effectiveness.

But I meet people like that all the time, people convinced life’s ordinary narrative is not what it seems.

They would rather believe in some kind of esoteric conspiracy explanation for things, even if the conspiracy is bizarre and unsupported by evidence.

I guess there’s probably a psychological reason for that, but until covid it rarely had very many life or death consequences.

Now it does, and I’m not sure if anybody knows what to do about it.