Has Fear-mongering outlived its usefulness ?

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I think the opposite approach is needed.

Physical force should be used on these people.

There's a certain level of civil disobedience that shouldn't be tolerated.

Most of these people are cowards who'll cave in an instant.

The ones that aren't should be treated as an example.

If we can't acknowledge the rational moments when personal freedoms should be ignored for the greater good, there is no value in freedom. Freedom works if and only if you close the door on it, when the time calls.

I'm very very much a freedom loving guy, but things like a global pandemic are exactly the kinds of examples where your freedoms should be rescinded.

In times of war or crisis your freedoms have to go out the window. Societies cannot function if they rely exclusively on volunteers in time of crisis.

Keep in mind I'm very much pro military draft, when its a war against someone like an Adolf Hitler etc.

Taxation is theft in real terms but it is a theft our society is dependent on if we don't want to go into chaos.

But again freedom is the ultimate thing to protect, you just gotta know when the exceptions kick in.

It is quite literally fear mongering.

The primary concern over the last 12 months hasn't been the death rate, it's been the hospitalization rate.

The fact certain media agencies rarely talk about hospitalization rates and obsess over death rates is half the problem.

The primary issue during covid has been the excessive burden placed on the medical system by covid.

It's very likely more people have died because they can't get access to proper medical care than it is because of the pandemic itself.

There's a massive amount of cancer surgeries etc that have been canceled.

But talking about covid deaths gets far more clicks than talking about nurses working 36 hour stretches because there's no one that can help them.

If we're not talking about hospitalization rates we're talking about something entirely different.

Telling a chain smoker they might die isn't a powerful argument. Telling them they might clog up the medical might get some compliance.

I've seen a lot of fear-mongering over the vaccine.

What "scare tactics" has anyone ever used?

The govt just tells it like it is: IF too many folks get covid, and get severe covid, it will swamp the hospital system, and no one will be able to get into an ER. So to prevent that we all gotta get jabbed.

Is that a "scare tactic"? I call it "talking us like were adults".

I guess that you all would prefer that the goverment tell you that the vaccination fairy will leave money under your pillow?

Or to have a herd of pink my little ponies tell you that "immunization is magic"?

Come to think of it maybe that would work.

Very little, IMO. They've not always been 100% honest, but scare tactics I've not seen. There was some playing down of the Astra-Zeneca's slight inferiority over other vaccines, claims that it wasn't inferior in any way at all, and saying it was a simple choice between a tiny risk of dying of blood clots and a bigger risk of dying of Covid, because they'd ordered a bucketful of it and didn't want to have to tip it down the sink, and Boris had already gone and hailed AZ as an example of superior post-Brexit British technology (which was nonsense - UK research staff aren't 100% thoroughbred British by a long chalk, and there's nothing superior about AZ). But none of that amounts to scaremongering. Sometimes they were quite the reverse - I gather the "eat out to help out" initiative was later found to have spread Covid. Then there was the idea that wearing masks would give people the confidence to go back to work. We're living in a capitalist society. Of course they're going to sacrifice some of us for the benefit of business and enterprise.

You may be right about the methods that might work, too. I suspect the masses don't think very hard, so any swaying of public opinion may work a lot better if they use celebrity endorsement and silly appeals to the emotions. I think they were offering £100 shopping vouchers to young people who got the jab at one stage.

Cant accuse them of mincing words!

I dont know if that qualifies as a "scare tactic". But it is a bit hamfisted.

But too much honesty is better than too little.

I would have phrased it more ...inclusively...than that. Something like "if you're vaxxed thanks for being a team player, you are now part of the solution, and not part of the problem. If you're not vaxxed its not too late to join the winning team and to get vaxxed."


But the statement isnt going to cause me to march on the Whitehouse under the banner of "DOWN WITH FRANKNESS AND HONESTY in government".

^
It wouldn't have worked on me - I'd just have spotted the attempt to appeal to emotion via referring to this "winning team," rolled my eyes, and dismissed it as another attempt to insult my intelligence with thinly-disguised trickery. Though I have some sympathy for governments. I strongly suspect that the first political party to offer nothing but the objective truth, whole and nothing but, would rapidly get ignored by all but a select few. So I would imagine your suggestion would have worked. It just seems such a shame (to me) that people are susceptible to these things.

Appeal to fear, is a very common tactic. Used in Public relations. Mainly anti cigerate warning, anti drunk driving, and even the aids epidemic, in the 80's, here in UK, had advertisements. Any kind of health hazard, or public concern gets this treatment. Yes, I would call it a scare tactic. This is nothing new.

Not at all.  Fools make me feel sad.

Except all these scare tactics are true. Just because you were lucky to not get cancer or because you were lucky to not crash into a building or to even hit a person and to even not crash your car doesn't make smoking and drunk driving safe.

Just because the Covid was a lot like having a very bad cold and I slept all day long doesn't mean it's not as bad, I was just very lucky my immune system was able to fight it and not leave me any permanent damage.

So what happens if the building was on fire you were in and you were all informed there is a fire in the building, vacate the building. Lot of people leave but you would stay and then before you know it you are trapped in the fire and you are now dead.

It's a shame people out there don't take "scare tactics" seriously. Then they have lost their life and I have a hard time feeling sympathy for them because serves them right for being stupid by not listening. This is how I feel about anti vaxxers.

There is a difference between a building on fire and a disease with a <1% case fatality rate. Forget fires, a better example might be a vicious stray cat found inside the building. It might scratch you and that scratch might get infected and if you are old or infirm that infection might kill you. Choose your adventure:

a) Business as usual.
b) Lockdown everyone in the building and administer anal swabs, call swat with helicopter support. Blow up the cat with a rocket launcher and roll out untested experimental anti-scratch medicines to everyone. Get everyone out of the building then burn it down, just to be sure. Phew, that could have been a disaster. Oh yeah and as for that guy calling this a stupid idea, let's ruin his career and make sure he is banned from all social media.

Gee . . . those goalposts must be heavy.

Not as heavy as those sunk costs you carry.

If COVID has a 1% case-fatality rate, this means 10 times as many people die from it than from the flu, which has a 0.1% case-fatality rate. If COVID has a 0.5% fatality rate, that means 5 times as many people die from it than from the flu.

There are still about 2,000 people a day dying from COVID in the US.