Seriously, the quality of their arguments to dismiss the truth is truly amusing. Your brother's "I would not trust anything from a man with the name Byram Bridle" reminds me of my friend's response to
a forum link I shared in a group chat we're both members of on Telegram. She responded that she didn't trust anything shared by moms on Mumsnet. Never mind that the original poster worked in a hospital, and doctors and nurses do have children too.
I guess what Laura once said is true: the most effective way to avoid seeing the truth is to kill the messenger - or his character. Which is what your brother and my friend are doing.
I don't think high IQ and working intellect are any indication of whether someone has the capacity to see through the BS. I have a personal friend who is a member of Mensa, very smart, a covid believer and a global warming alarmist. If a mind doesn't want to see the truth it will not, no matter how capable of it it is. Selection and substitution of data (among other issues) doesn't seem to be an alignment affecting average thinkers only. It is present and doing well in both the highly intelligent and those of mediocre intellect alike.
Yes, my highly educated, high IQ brother is very similar, filled with contempt for anyone looking at ANYTHING outside the mainstream narrative. If it's not in the mainstream news, it's simply not worthy of any examination, much less a conversation about it. He believes that we all have to do our part, get jabbed and everything will magically go back to normal, and those of us resisting the vax are selfish and holding others back! Meanwhile, the labourer who was doing some building work in my house and I had a conversation and within 2 minutes it was clear he understood EVERYTHING about the scam. I agree, from what I've seen, the more educated people seem to SEE a lot less!
Dealing with this reality avoidance is shaping up to be OUR lesson, to allow them to get on with it as they choose. I've had waves of sadness, frustration, and helplessness watching one by one many of the people I love get vaxxed. None of them had any pressing requirement to take it yet. All that matters to them is possibly getting their freedom back, going along with the majority, being a "good" citizen - it's simply too much for them to question the whole thing, the implications of that, AND have the backbone to resist social pressure.
This whole thing has really ripped the blinders off in the sense that people we never dreamed would fall for the whole scam are not who we thought they are. (Though there have been a few pleasant surprises in the other direction). All those years ago the C's talking about those who ignore and shut out reality, those who do not SEE, well that's exactly what we are all experiencing.
But, as has been said many times , they are actually simply expressing where they are in terms of the learning cycle. They are at where they are at, and nothing we do or say can change that. It could even be for some that they need to take the vax and have whatever personal experience that causes in order to progress and grow in knowledge. I often have to remind myself lately that it is not STO to determine the needs of others.
Part of the process, for me at least, has been trying to take a step back, trusting that even as this nightmare unfolds, Cosmic Mind does know what it's doing. The cycle is ending, and it ain't pretty. It never was going to be any other way, and we knew that, and now we have to endure it as bravely and stoically as we can.