The &quot;Other side&quot; is many things. Some are scared, as you point out. Others simply don&#x27;t believe authorities anymore. They had their trust broken enough many times, and so they assume that anything that&#x27;s being pushed on them is someone&#x27;s corrupt attempt at making money.<p>A good example would be anti-vaccination movement. If you talk to them and try to actually listen, it becomes clear that it&#x27;s not about science at all. It&#x27;s about the background assumption that (corrupt people in) governments and corporation seek to make money and don&#x27;t mind hurting ordinary people in the process. Mainstream science is obviously in cahoots with the corporations and&#x2F;or the government.<p>Obviously, throwing papers at anti-vaxx crowd doesn&#x27;t work. Science is already complicated enough that most people can&#x27;t really grasp the details of things they hadn&#x27;t spend years on studying. People on both sides - a lot of pro-vaccination people trying to explain science to antivaxxers are actually fooling themselves by thinking they understand what they&#x27;re talking about. They may be saying the right words, but often for totally wrong reasons.<p>What&#x27;s most scary in this is that the &quot;Other side&quot; is totally justified in their lack of trust. I mean - between media exposing corrupt politicians and doctors every day, companies trying to scam you on everything, and several fields of science turning out to be mostly made of bullshit - I sometimes wonder why do <i>I</i> trust the mainstream opinion. I like to tell myself it&#x27;s because of the general knowledge and broad understanding of scientific principles I acquired over the years that let me sanity-check claims. But honestly, a big part of it may be simply because I grew up to trust authorities, and my trust hasn&#x27;t been destroyed completely yet.