Between robots and artificial intelligence, flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers: how did we get to this point?

We are living in a moment where we are faced, every day, with new scientific discoveries and new technological developments. But, on the other hand, we also have a strong current that proves the plausibility of informal theories like the idea of the social spring: that is, just as in physics, when there is too much pressure on one side of a spring, its material resists and pushes back with an equal and opposite reaction. In the social sphere, this has to do with ideologies and the battle waged between dominant narratives and those that oppose them.

If today we talk about robotics and artificial intelligence as major risks for our obsolescence in the world of work, on the other hand, we see a current of people from generations X and Y seeking a return to their roots as a way to distance themselves and detox from some of the toxic habits and premises we have agreed to in recent years.

At the same time that more people have been dedicating themselves to the rediscovery and revaluation of ancestral knowledge and religions that move away from the Catholic and/or Christian tradition, we also see a movement of distrust and rejection of what has been abandoned, that is, the secular discourse (though not entirely) of technology and science. From this arise manifestations and groups like flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers, the latter being, however, the most harmful to society precisely because they deal with a matter of survival that affects not only the group of adherents, but the entire population.

In a recent article published on the website Quartz, Suraj Patel tells the story of 18-year-old Ethan Lindenberger, who decided to get vaccinated despite his mother's protests. As indicated in the text, he and his siblings were raised on a narrative about the dangers of immunization, and one of the arguments, as he described in a Reddit post, was: “My parents think vaccines are some kind of government scheme. It’s stupid and I’ve had countless arguments about this subject.”

Upon turning 18, Lindenberger asked Reddit users for help so he could finally get his first round of vaccines against the flu, pneumonia, chickenpox, hepatitis A and B, HPV, meningitis, tetanus, and others. The case went viral and led the young man to testify before Congress in early March, leading two congressmen to propose a bill that would allow 14-year-olds to get vaccinated on their own volition, even if it goes against their parents' wishes.

This repercussion came at a very opportune time, as the state of New York was recently the scene of 200 confirmed cases of measlesIn the Brooklyn neighborhood alone, for example, there were 133 reported cases in October of last year, which adds to 12 other U.S. states that have also reported similar incidents in the first three months of this year. This news is surprising because, in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control had already declared that measles had been eradicated from the United States. This leads us to ask: what has happened over the last 20 years?

For Patel, the answer is simple: “a misinformation campaign about vaccines, amplified by social media, is what led many more people to not get vaccinated.” In the case of Lindenberger’s mother, her stance came precisely from information gathered in an anti-vaccine group on Facebook. As her son explains, “she thought vaccines were a government conspiracy to kill children.” But she is not the only one who thinks this: both Facebook and Amazon host dozens of groups spreading misinformation and pseudoscience to reinforce the hypothesis that vaccines are dangerous, that they cause autism, that they are a government plot, or that they cause the very diseases they are meant to prevent.

The fact is that, despite many doctors having already spoken out to explain why these claims are incorrect, these myths continue to hold sway on the internet, speaking louder and influencing people like Lindenberger’s mother who, despite being well-intentioned, ended up making a poor decision based on misinformation. Because of these developments, both governments and companies are already taking steps to remedy the situation.

In the United States, a judge suggested that when parents of unvaccinated children try to take their kids to a school that has experienced a measles outbreak, for example, they should not be allowed entry. Also in Italy, a new law went into effect this month to bar unvaccinated children under the age of six from attending school. As part of the measure, the government also has the right to fine parents.

The response was that some people began to claim that this was government overreach, that it was exceeding its jurisdiction, but what Patel argues is that this type of solution is similar to the requirements for getting a driver’s license or banning smoking on airplanes, as well as the prohibition of yelling firein a crowded theater, for example. For the journalist, “vaccine legislation operates in the same way.”

As for online platforms, companies like Facebook they are already taking some small steps by banning anti-vaccine information promoted through paid advertising, in addition to lowering its relevance in search results. In the case of Pinterest, the platform has blocked searches related to vaccination, and on Amazon, anti-vaccine documentaries have been removed from the catalog.

In Brazil, beyond our problem with fake news (which is, in reality, a globalized issue precisely because it is an internet phenomenon), we have also historically gone through an event known as the Vaccine Revolt in Rio de Janeiro in 1904. This event occurred due to the passage of a law that mandated smallpox vaccination at a time when the disease, along with bubonic plague and yellow fever, was killing many people in the capital. In an article published in 2017 in IstoÉ, Cilene Pereira addresses this very update to the historical context.

Although there was not enough data at the time of the article on the impact of anti-vaxxers in Brazil, what could be indicated was a slight downward trend in vaccination coverage: in 2015, the rotavirus vaccine rate was 95%, dropping to 88% in 2016. In the case of polio, it decreased from 98% to 84% in the same period. One reason is that vaccines also have expiration dates, and if there is no demand, they are discarded. But Pereira also considers anti-vaccine groups on social media, identifying more than thirteen thousand people gathered on Facebook alone.

However, what the journalist highlights is that while it was the poor and those with less access to information who were most opposed to the immunization method during the Vaccine Revolt, today the scenario is the opposite: "It is higher among people from more affluent classes," as infectious disease specialist Guido Levi, from the Brazilian Society of Immunization, stated to IstoÉ. In the same text, Pereira also speaks with a couple who chose not to vaccinate their two children and to use as little medication as possible, opting instead for a diet they consider healthy. "Our body is a perfect machine capable of becoming strong and immune if cared for correctly," Priscila told the magazine. Although they gave their children the doses required by law, the couple decided not to go beyond that.

Among the arguments used by these anti-vaccine parents is the idea that there is not enough scientific support to justify that vaccines are, in fact, the best option for preventing diseases. This claim is false, and there is plenty of scientific evidence regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Furthermore, it has also been proven that there is no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and autism, as suggested by Andrew Wakefield in an article published in 1998. The researcher, in fact, was convicted of fraud, and the study was retracted from scientific literature.

As a result of this, the World Health Organization (WHO) published a list at the beginning of this year of the main global threats to human health and included anti-vaccine movements as one of the biggest alerts for 2019. For Katherine O’Brien, director of immunization at the WHO, a large part of this failure in immunization and the return of once-extinct diseases is precisely due to anti-vaccine groups that proliferate misinformation and pseudoscience.

In Brazil, there is data showing that half of the municipalities did not meet the vaccination target, which was also due to low vaccination coverage. As a result, cases of measles are already being reported in states such as Amazonas, Roraima, and Pará, where 83.3% of municipalities did not reach the vaccination target. Such negligence could lead Brazil to lose its measles elimination certificate, which was granted in 2016 by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).

"We have to reinforce the sense of community. Vaccination is also an act of citizenship; you aren't just protecting yourself. You are also reducing the risk of disease-causing agents entering the community. With many people vaccinated, the risk of this disease spreading is almost zero," explains Alexandre Chieppe, undersecretary of Health Surveillance for the State of Rio de Janeiro.

But none of this, even so, satisfactorily answers why we have reached this point where so many people have strengthened a firm belief in lies and distortions. As we have already explained here, the case of fake news can even be explained from a psychological perspective, which also extends to these other scenarios.

We are going through a moment of deconstructing absolutes and certainties, what some philosophers like Bauman called "liquid modernity," precisely because of this shapeless characteristic that slips away and, at the same time, is capable of adapting to any and every vessel. Such are the truths of our time: they are not solid and do not hold up; they adapt to any vessel—that is, to any person with some predisposition to believe in that narrative because it is capable of filling some void or doubt.

Although Bauman became known as the philosopher who published several books on this issue of liquidity, he was a critic of the dangers and consequences of this scenario, since when we break absolute truths and dismantle once-established institutions, we gain by breaking with the status quo, but we lose control of the helm: we sail through uncertain seas and begin to distrust the coordinates that were once a foundation, but today are also questioned. We question everything and answer nothing, which Vilém Flusser, in his book The Doubt, also points out as the problem of doubt that never ends and ends up no longer being a provocation, but rather a plunge into the immobility of ignorance.