Recently, I went on a birding walk with 2 friends in Bunn’s Creek park in Winnipeg. This is one of my favorite trails. It is right inside Winnipeg and follows a meandering creek. Bunn’s Creek of course.
Two young people smiled at us as they walked by and one of us made some comment about being old rebels. This attracted the attention of the two young people who came over to chat.
Very soon it became clear that these were two young rebels. In fact, the young man said he was an anarchist. He said, “I am young and healthy and have zero per cent chance of catching Covid-19 so I am not going to take the vaccine. I would rather take my chances with the coronavirus than the vaccine. The vaccine was developed in such a hurry and I am not sure it is safe.”
I expressed an opinion that he had more than zero percent chance of catching the virus. Just that morning a 13-year-old child died in Ontario from the virus. I have to admit though that so far, the chances of young people catching a serious illness are very low. But not zero. And the rates are rising with the new variants.
He said the long-term effects of the vaccines are not yet known because they have not been around long enough. So those of us who take the vaccines are agreeing to be laboratory rats for the vaccine trials. I admitted this argument has some merit.
He added that he thought the elites might be using the vaccine to gain social control over people so that eventually they could enslave the people. Or the elites might be using the vaccine to reduce the population by 80% so that they could enjoy a better world with those that are left. I didn’t say anything about such a hideous conspiracy theory, but I did tell him couple of things. First, I said I doubted that the elites wanted to reduce the population because they needed these people to buy their products and do their dirty work. They likely would want more peons not less. I also said that I resented people like him not taking the vaccine because it reduced the chances of our society achieving herd immunity, which could mean that we are stuck with this disease for a very long time. That would mean that we might not for a long time be able to do things we loved doing, like going to concerts. I also could have suggested that it was because of people like him that the coronavirus is getting a chance to evolve and mutate into more serious and deadly strains of the virus, that might even be able to get around the vaccines, putting many people at risk of serious harm.
We did not argue vehemently, but respectfully. Eventually, we agreed to disagree and left it at that. I know that if you want to convince people you have to talk respectfully. But actually, I thought his idea that elites wanted to reduce the population by 80% was nonsensical. Anyone disagree?