[jfengel]

the techniques to push things on people via social proof and whatnot smack of manipulation and people are rightfully suspect of that

The problem is that they're not suspect enough. They apply different standards to different sources of manipulation. If they were consistent in their suspicion, we wouldn't be having this problem.

[Natsu]

That's a fair point and you can and should press people for their sources and how they can validate them because that's a good point of comparison when you're able to point out ways that things can be checked and they're not.

For example, some people were nattering on about the vaccine remaining in the blood supply or whatever for years after and worrying that they would somehow acquire a vaccine that way. For that, you can point to the mRNA sequences on Github and tell them about the tests that can be used to detect them.

Meanwhile there's some incoherent nonsense about the vaccine making your arm magnetic and free radicals from someone on 4chan who claims to be posting 2nd hand info with no sources. You can give them a damn magnet and let them see that it doesn't stick to the arm they vaccinated you in.