Vaccine acceptence or refusal?
What are the arguments for and against the responsibility that individuals might be thought to bear to accept a Covid 19 vaccine? What are the arguments for and against the right that individuals might be thought to enjoy to refuse a Covid 19 vaccine?
Comments (287)
For me, it has nothing to do with the vaccine or Covid, per se. Rather, it's more about my subjective, pre-judgmental view of what I perceive to be a stereotype of an anti-vaxer. I see them as Trump supporters, anti-intellectual knuckle-dragging, selfish, inconsiderate, disrespectful, bible-thumping conservative Republican, back-water haters who think they are "renegades", "rebels", cut from the same cloth as our founding fathers, out fighting for freedom, truth, justice and the American way. So naturally, I want them to mask and vax or die. Unfortunately, that's now how Covid or the vax works. So I shrug my shoulders and let things play out. I got the J&J one and done. The only side affects seem to be Bill Gates telling me to buy more MicroSoft Products. I haven't been able to figure that one out yet, but I'm dystopian-loving sheep so we're all good.
This is a new technology, fairly new anyway. Do you understand what the Pfizer vaccine does?
Bingo! And let that be a lesson to them! When Michelle Obama said to go high when they go low, I said not so much.
Quoting frank
I do not. Nor do I wish to invest the time or resources required to make myself an expert on the matter. Thus, I default to those who have made that investment. I know there's risk involved in that and I'm willing to take that risk.
Vaccines are tested on a specific timeline derived from past experiences with vaccine development.
If a problem appears with a vaccine, such as deaths of the recipients, it usually happens in the first couple of months.
We used that same timeline on a revolutionary vaccine. We didn't know if we'd given it long enough to show problems because we've never used this technology before. So it was risk, but it seemed to be worth taking.
So it's not just the multiphase test recipients who took the burden of testing it. It was all of us who have taken it so far. We're testing it. If you knew how bizarre the function of these vaccines actually is, it might help you understand what I'm saying.
If someone out there declines that risk, it's ok. Herd immunity doesn't require 100%.
This is a view that's in keeping with my devotion to life. I don't understand those who see politics instead of real people.
It might, but I've chosen not to know.
Quoting frank
I've heard it's like 70+% and we are not there yet, thanks to those who decline to take the risk. I don't think that is okay.
Quoting frank
If those who declined to take the risk were doing so based on the science, then I'd toss them a bone. But I believe most of them (enough to keep us from herd immunity) are declining based on politics instead of people. My test to show this was to bribe them and see just how valuable their alleged concern really is. Funny how many people go for the lottery, the sporting tickets, etc. They claim all this principle, or science, but when we are talking money, they change their tune. The question is, should society be paying people to do the right thing, while others subsidize them? If word gets out, people will refuse the vax just to get paid to do it. Again, it would have nothing to do with real people (other than themselves). Hell, they place their own loved one's at risk.
A lot of states are at around 50%, right. That plus immunity from infection has to put us pretty close.
"My body, my choice." Where have I heard that?
From what little I understand, Covid doesn't respect political boundaries, be it interstate in the U.S. or international. Early on they were saying that even if everyone one in the U.S. got the vax, it would do no good if the rest of the planet was ginning up a bunch of variants that could pierce the vax.
Edited to add: They were also saying that pre-vax, with just herd immunity from getting it. Some northern European country was trying the herd immunity idea and scientists said that wouldn't work due to variants.
So far the variants haven't been a problem. If the spike protein changes significantly, they would have to make another vaccine. That wouldn't take long, though.
Quoting James Riley
I think the conventional wisdom now is that this virus is here to stay. Like with the flu, a bunch of people will die every year from it.
I also heard that flu illness and death dropped precipitously into the toilet due to masking and social distancing related to Covid protocols. Some 33,000 lives saved? Yet the same morons that I detest were also against those protocols. I wonder, on the one hand, how many died due to morons, and, on the other hand, how many were saved by the people who followed protocol. What would it have been if everyone had decided to act like a moron?
Quoting frank
That's optimistic. Great. I also heard from a scientist that (my words, not his): "Covid-shmovid. This is not the big one. Not even close. The big one will not be Covid or a Covid variant. It will be more transmissible and more lethal by huge orders of magnitude."
Question is, given that Covid may or may not have been transmitted to us by animal vectors, will the "big one" be transmitted by animals or will it escape or "escape" from a lab?
I don't remember the specifics but he referenced a currently well-known and extremely lethal virus that just has not yet made the jump from animals to people and it has not yet become airborne even between animals. The idea was that something like that which already exists ends up mutating to cross species and become airborne, even wind-borne, transoceanic, etc. It doesn't need a lab. But if anyone did such a thing, they'd be fools if they were not already immune or had a vax. It will be so lethal and fast that there won't be time to respond after the fact.
That is a big factor, no doubt. But we don't invest in education they way we should, and we lack good leadership. If everyone was trained in analytic and critical thinking, then lies, propaganda and stupidity would be welcome as comic relief. As it is now, they are taken seriously. If we had real leaders, they'd confront cowards like Trump and confront anyone who would follow such a punk.
LOL. I thought I made that up myself. Turns out you can buy t-shirts.
:100:
You don't credit Trump's Operation Warp Speed with the development of a vax in record time? During most of 2020, Democrats said that no vax could ever be developed. Kamala Harris said that she would refuse to take any vax developed by Trump. Of course subsequently she has gladly taken that exact vax.
Operation Warp Speed
Why Trump's Operation Warp Speed is credited with helping race for COVID-19 vaccine
Like the ‘lab escape’ theory - this is now being reconsidered. But in March-April 2020, it sounded like one, due to the way Trump seized on it. See this story.
For what it's worth I like to look at the issue from a two-word perspective, the words being "certain" and "probable."
Considering the fact that vaccines have a long and illustrious history, let's begin there. I'm under the impression that those involved with vaccine research, development, and deployment know their stuff in a manner of speaking - well-trained, highly-experienced, not to mention very intelligent folk are part of vaccine projects and a Google search indicates that data supporting the immense benefits of vaccination campaigns are available for review/analysis at the click of a mouse button. Factoring this in, it would be the heights of stupidity to not pay heed to vaccine advocates' warning that disaster of unimaginable magnitude is certain if the global vaccination drive were to falter or halt.
On the flip side, those who voice concerns for civil liberties, their violation to be specific, seem to be worried about how mandatory vaccination could be the first insiduous step towards some form Orwellian authoritarian state of affairs. The problem, if it is one, is that this is far from certain. In other words, such a world, the one some who want to preserve their right to choose whether to take the vaccine or not want to prevent, is at best only probable.
The choice then, if choice is so important to us, is between a certain health catastrophe if one refuses the COVID vaccine and a probable political catastrophe if one accepts the COVID vaccine.
It's easy. It's about control, much like how the US and Britain gave up on owning the oil in the world, they now go for control.
You know how until ten years ago or until five years ago, you, the user, had control whether to have Windows updates or not. Not that has been taken away from you. If your computer is connected to the Internet, then you have no choice: Microsoft can and does update your system automatically, and you have no control over that.
So now the whole world's computing power (except for cell phones and Apple computers) is at the mercy of Bill Gates. If he says "do it", all the computers in the world can go from functioning machines to being useless pieces of metal junk.
How this escapes the minds of the most powerful people, the American public, can only be explained by knowing that they are either stupid, or else they are not stupid, but instead have blind faith in their government. After all, presidents don't lie, they are the mostes greatest all-Americanest boys.
Suicides have the choice, too, over their own lives.
Alcoholics have the choice too.
The choice becomes malignant if it leads to affecting the lives of others via one's choosing one's destiny.
A president can't and shouldn't and ought not to test whether the red button works by pressing it.
People who believe that the vax makes them sick, or it does not work, are allowed to believe that, as it is impossible to argue with reasons against the views of the stupid.
But those who believe that the vaccines work, and they choose to refuse to be vaxxed, due to a principle of holding individual freedom as the most sacrosanct of values, are not society people; they are individualists, and they should be FORCED to be cut off from all the amenities of living in a society, if they believe that their rights trump the needs of society.
You need to look at the data broken down by demographic. Young women have a much lower incidence of severe illness with COVID19.
Arguments for: protection of ones health, protection of fellow man, protection of the vulnerable, collaboration and cooperation, developing trust, facing group adversity with a group effort, civil duty (just as washing your hands and practising good hygiene also protects everyone else),
Arguments against: not all people can take a vaccine, healthy skepticism and the maintenance of unbiased, uncensored debate about technologies and their impacts/ democratic process, personal health autonomy, reservations regarding long term impacts of something that hasn’t been trialled for longterm effects, religious freedom for those where using a technology is against their way of life, philosophy or spiritual beliefs (think Amish - they don’t use modern appliance technology as they wish to remain close to the land, nature and simple life or Mormons not taking blood).
Acceptance of the fact that simply everyone will never agree about virtually anything.
Follow the money: Health insurance doesn't cover the costs of the treatment of the side effects of experimental vaccines (which is what all the covid vaccines are). That ought to tell you something.
If you get blood clots and then a stroke after the vaccination, and end up paralyzed for the rest of your life, along with becoming homeless because the bank took your house because you couldn't pay the medical bills -- well, this is just a fair and reasonable burden that a citizen should take upon themselves, right? The vaccine is, after all, "safe and effective".
(Oh, and you also can't get life insurance if you've been vaccinated.)
I wish I had the freedom not to be expected to go along with the hysteria of the provaxxers and I wish I had the freedom not to be expected to go along with the hysteria of the antivaxxers. But we don't live in a free world.
No, they can't. It's not possible to choose which vaccine one is going to be vaccinated with. At least in some parts of the world.
No, but a probable personal catastrophe if one accepts the COVID vaccine.
So what?
Statistical probabilities calculated for a particular observed group do not translate into the same probabilities for a particular person. They would do so only if the probabilities would depend solely on chance.
Instead, the actual probability for an event to occur to a particular person has to be calculated for that particular person, based on empirical data for that person. If that data is not available, the probability can only be calculated theoretically. Meaning, there's actually a 50% chance you'll die from a vaccine.
All this talk about "low risks associated with vaccines" is just a way to falsely inspire hope and optimism. And compliance.
My body, my choice. Their body, their choice.
Much like death, everyone handles it in their own way.
For me there is no right or wrong: just what people choose to do. Having said that: as long as everyone has had the chance to get the COVID 19 Vaccination and made their choice for themselves, then I will no longer allow my life to be guided by trying to protect the lives of others.
I have been Vaccinated and those around me who wish to have, the others have actively made the choice to not.
If someone comes down with COVID 19 now, I will feel empathy for them but I am a long way away from offering sympathy, UNLESS they were Vaccinated.
My husband was on a ventilator last May for 24 days and refuses to get Vaccinated. He was the one who said if you think masks are a bitch you should try a ventilator.
I can't believe it but it is his choice and his alone.
But he won't. He needs us more than we need him. They all do. But if he did, it would ultimately be a good thing. Now, where did I put my looting clothes?
That is true. I just see the usual time line as taking too long when you can't even get the stupid people to wear masks and social distance. If they did the simple things, then yeah, we could give the vaccine protocols more time. But we chose to take a risk. We take much greater risks every time we walk out the door.
What is this party line supposed to do??
It's supposed to get people to rethink their alleged thinking. Same with the lotteries, game tickets, etc. In other words, "risk" is not really the reason most of these people don't get the vaccine. They are either scared or petulant.
What an extremely uncharitable position to take!
I think many people who refuse to get vaccinated or who are skeptical about taking (experimental) vaccines are so because the medical and the political establishment are abusing their trust.
We are in the position where we're expected to trust our lives to people who don't have time for us, who don't listen to us, who treat us like cattle, who are misrepresenting statistical findings, who are cynical, and some of whom have a personal history of betraying people's trust.
Are you not scared to put your life in the hands of such people?
You are too charitable. If your analysis was applied by these same stupid people every time their leaders ginned up a war, then you'd have a point. But they fall right in line. So yeah, fuck them. Every time you get in your car and drive past someone, you have placed yourself in a position where you trust your life to people who don't have time for you, who couldn't care less about you, who's only care is that they don't get hurt so they stay in their lane and expect you to stay in yours.
They aren't smart enough to know if statistical findings have been misrepresented. Instead, they listen to those who are, but conveniently forget: There are statistics, and then there are damn lies. Fuck statistics, unless and until you are a statistician. The anti-vaxers are the ones that are cynical, not the folks pushing the vaccine. I don't know where you got that. The one's pushing the vaccine are optimistic as hell.
But to answer your question, no. I'm not scared. But then, I'm not a pussy, and I'm making a calculated risk like I do every time I go out the door.
Here’s the way I see it, pulling a page from the conservative Republican playbook: Trump once said he was a war time President in a war against an invisible enemy. Okay. The front-line troops are the nurses, doctors, health workers and then, behind them, are the essential workers. If you don’t wear a mask, social distance and get a vaccine, then you don’t support the troops, you are un-American and you should get the hell out. Fuck you, you commie traitor!
So, one might ask, if the military industrial complex and their conservative Republican cucks are wrong about all that in a shooting war, then why would the left be right about it in this war against Covid? The simple answer to that question goes right back to who was being called cynical and manipulative. Since when has the medical profession conducted itself like the military industrial complex? The Spanish Flu?
I could flesh out the analogy with more comparisons to how the war mongers conduct themselves as they wrap themselves in our flag to get boys killed, but I won’t belabor it. Those assholes want everyone to fall in line for them. Well, it’s time for them to step up. But yeah, crickets. Cowards. Get the god damn shot so we can move on. And if we all die because of it, good riddance, the Earth says.
My reference was to Leprosy and the Black Death. Here's a thesis you can argue with if you like. When the stakes are cultural survival, individual rights are irrelevant. When there is a disease like leprosy with no cure that is a slow, disfiguring, death sentence, we the civilised democratic decent religious or irreligious people, care more to keep our society healthy than the rights of lepers. This is a stronger imperative than war, because one can be defeated in war and survive.
... and we take an even greater risk when we don't walk out the door. (But take the window-route, for instance, or we tunnel.)
Basically we have to distinguish between "outdoor risks" and "indoor risks".
I got your reference; though, due to the nature of the interwebs, I wasn't entirely sure you were not being facetious. Sounds like you were being straight up, and, if so, I think we are in agreement. In defense of the opposition however, I would be willing to submit that part of our "culture" that we want to survive, is the individual right to be an asshole. I'd hate to lose that in preservation of the remainder of the culture generally. After all, being an asshole is about as culturally American as one can get. It's what makes us us, shooting people, telling "the man" to fuck off, and whatnot. We wouldn't want to become Europe, after all.
I do agree that we might be defeated in war and survive (somewhat, like Vietnam) but my point was, the health care professionals (not insurance, big pharma, et al, but doctors, nurses, etc.) generally don't come to us begging for our support and so, when they do, I think they have more credibility. What, with the Hippocratic oath and all, I think they've got a pretty good track record. Whereas the MIC has a habit of lying and killing for the bottom line, at least every ten years or so. Sure, some causes are righteous (killing fascists and slavery supporters), but even then the profiteers circle like a drug/insurance company and worse, pounding on the drums of war.
True. Hence my desire to see just how married the anti-vaxxers are to their risk analysis through the use of lotteries, money, and other incentives. If one is really concerned about one's life, then they would not get a vax in return for a Super Bowl Ticket, or a thousand dollars, or a free beer at the local saloon, etc.
Yes, it's unfortunate that valid conjectures and concerns were debunked in the minds of many simply because Trump touted them.
I'll just respond to your list of points in favour of the idea that individuals are morally obligated to accept the vaccines.
Here are some counterarguments. They are not comprehensively thought through, so I will welcome any good arguments against them.
Firstly, the idea of protecting one's own health: I would say that is, if anything is, generally thought to be up to the individual. On that basis alone, very few would condemn you for refusing a vaccine. Also, if there is any doubt as to a vaccine's safety, then it is necessary to undertake an assessment of the risk, in each individual situation, of the vaccine versus what it is designed to protect against.
As to protection of fellow man, if fellow man is vaccinated and the vaccine is effective, then fellow man is already protected, whether or not you decide to be vaccinated.
Same goes for the vulnerable, if they are vaccinated, which they should have been before you, if they agreed to be, and if not then they are vulnerable because they chose to be or because the authroities failed them.
Collaboration and cooperation: I'm not sure of what this is intended to suggest; do you mean that one should simply always collaborate and cooperate with any officially promoted course of action to "develop trust", "face group adversity with a group effort" and that this is your "civil duty"? Of course I have no argument against washing hands and practicing good hygiene, since those involve no risk to self or others, and can only be beneficial.
:100:
Not only unfortunate, but dangerous. While the remedy might be objective, impartial analysis and investigation into the merits of a contention, it would be a lot easier to do that if we didn't give a megaphone to a known dishonorable coward and liar. It sure makes the row harder to hoe when we have a dumbed-down electorate that will not consider the former because of a love for the latter. How will his truth ever have credibility when even a broken clock is right twice a day?
But you do have the freedom not to go along if not the freedom not to be expected to go along. And of course not everyone will expect you to go along. To my knowledge vaccination is not mandatory in any democratic nations at least. I haven't checked to see if it is mandatory anywhere else; although I think I heard somewhere that it is in one part of Spain.
About the health insurance angle: if that's true it's a bad sign and would seem to indicate that the insurance industry, who generally do very rigorously analyze and assess risk, must think there is a degree of risk that is unacceptable, to them at least.
Do you mean on these forums or in the public forum. If the latter, I agree that there is no open and rigorous public debate about this, or about anything else for that matter.
Risk is so hard to quantify for individual cases, though. That's why I can't see it as anything but a personal task for each individual to undertake on their own behalf; if they want to, of course.
Some of us already are Europe, alas.
Quoting frank
That's when 'the bodies pile high', isn't it?
It's easier to quantify if you offer incentives: $1.00? $10.00 $100.00? $1,000.00? $10,000.00? If no amount of money will get them to vax, then okay. Otherwise, when they take an offer, they've shown their colors.
:grin: I actually look up to and respect a lot of what I think of as maturity that comes from having two world wars fought in your back yard. It's gonna take us a while. "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else." Winston Churchill.
Its a good idea in principle, and I have no doubt it would work with many people, but it would likely be very costly in practice. If you started paying or rewarding people to be vaccinated, even those who were already in favour would jump on the bandwagon, and probably even those who already had been vaccinated would demand that they be paid retrospectively as well, out of fairness.
That's a great line!
No doubt. True colors. But how about a set fee of $10,000.00. That would be less than what it's been costing in shut down and probably way more than enough to get us to herd immunity. I can see all the Tumpettes getting in line as fast donny did.
Guys like him make me think it might be safe to start drinking again. Then I remember, he probably killed more brain cells than I started out with; so I reckon I'll just stay on the wagon and appreciate his wit from a distance.
The zombie apocalypse rule is that when you detect that your neighbor has been bitten, shoot them in the face. I know, I've seen a lot of the training films.
Any ethical choice in this must take into account the calculus of risks on either side. Of course there is also the general ethical question regarding the proper balance between individual choice and responsibility to society. It is perhaps telling that vaccination has not been mandated in any, or at least in no more one part of one that I am aware of, democratic nations.
In any case, you're welcome to start a discussion about the ethics of the issue; which would certainly be in keeping with the questions that are in the OP.
Edit: the underlined above is misinformed, see below.
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-mandatory-vaccinations-required-countries.html
In an argument for the vaccine, one might point to times in history that vaccines decreased or at least substantially reduced the spread of a given disease. In hopes of stopping the pandemic, one might presume that everyone ought to join in an experimental effort.
On the other hand, refusing a vaccine also has valid points. People who have had COVID can repeatedly come down with it. The coronavirus is that of the common cold and will continue to mutate; research likely will not be able to keep up nor predict the next strain. Those with some autoimmune disorders find that building immunity is impossible. In some cases, vaccines bring out even worse health issues from a previously existing autoimmune disorder.
Forcing the vaccine on everyone would be disastrous, mainly because it does put other's health at risk. It leads to the question, who's life is more valuable? Should the authorities, who do NOT know us nor our health problems, have the right to create havoc and anxiety in some, otherwise healthy, individuals' lives in order to POTENTIALLY save other sick people for a season? Should people be put at risk to soothe the rampage of the masses? Covid still seems to target the elderly, those with lung issues, or other similar issues, namely, those who are prone to other illnesses such as influenza.
Perhaps a better alternative to advocating for vaccines is to promote healthier lifestyles, which significantly reduce your chances of contracting not just COVID, but also a slew of other diseases. I have not seen one advertisement promoting exercise, reduction of sugar intake, or a balanced diet to help prevent COVID. Instead, I see people taking the easy way out by only wearing masks or promoting vaccinations instead of changing their unhealthy habits. If the authorities wanted to stop COVID, soda should be illegal, along with fast food, cigarettes, alcohol, candy, and other things that clearly impale our immune function.
Allow me to re-phrase: this is a philosophy forum, not a forum for the analysis of epidemiology.
What are the philosophical considerations? Have they been addressed?
Possible, yes. Probable, I don't know.
Lead the way then, tell us just what you think the philosophical considerations that have not been addressed are, and then show us how they can be addressed independently of any epidemiological considerations.
And by the way, Banno, the OP asks for arguments for and against individual's responsibility, and their right to refuse, to take the vaccines on offer, and I can see no reason why pragmatic as well as ethical considerations should not come into play, or even how ethical considerations can coherently be isolated from pragmatic ones.
Sure, but keep in mind that the vaccines you refer to have been tested, tried and have (mostly) proven safe and effective.
Quoting Ladybug
If that is the case, then it would seem the result would be that the vaccines will either not prove effective or they will have to be constantly tweaked, if that is possible in a timely enough fashion, and will need to be administered at least annually.
Quoting Ladybug
The word "other's" here seems to make this ambiguous; can you explain?
Quoting Ladybug
Yes, I agree, and I also have not seen much promotion of proactive and positive personal health choices in all this. The cynics would say that it's not being promoted because of vested interests in junk food and that there's no money in it etc., and that governments are firmly behind so-called "big pharma" making massive profits out of this venture (which according to some accounts they already have) and that this is why alternative, some would claim, very effective therapies (the latest being ivermectin, which it is claimed is being used in many parts of India with great success) are not being promoted, or are being actively discouraged, due to there being relatively little profit to be had by the pharmaceutical industry from them.
Now I'm not saying I believe any of that, but it is certainly an alternative narrative that should not be blithely dismissed, especially if there is any truth to its reported effectiveness (spectacular results are claimed by some) in India.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/05/elites-worried-covid-cases-india-plummet-government-promotes-ivermectin-hydroxychloroquine-use/
This does not look like a very attractive site to me, given that I have little sympathy for republicanism, but neither should it be dismissed on that account for that would be to commit the "ad hominem" fallacy, and in any case political affiliations are not good or bad per se, but a matter of personal conviction. Do not demonize your opponent, because to do so is to lose your impartiality of judgement.
Also this: https://www.financialexpress.com/lifestyle/health/covid-19-states-ignore-who-recommendation-on-ivermectin-heres-what-doctor-who-wrote-white-paper-on-the-drug-has-to-say/2231596/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism
You know I just happened to learn yesterday that China will now allow married couples to have three children. That's an increase from the two they were formerly allowed to have, which is itself an increase from the one kid they used to be allowed to have.
Based on your viewpoint, I assume you wholeheartedly support the right of the government to control who may reproduce and how many offspring they may have.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-57303592
And of course, "My body, my choice" is the supreme maxim of the individual. But the State has ultimate authority over the reproductive facilities of its subjects, I assume you would agree. If the State bans abortion, you must obey. If the State requires abortion, as China does once you've had the allowed number of offspring, you must obey.
Perhaps you would care to put your authoritarianism into context, lest I misunderstand you.
Or do I perhaps understand you far too well?
Anti-vaccination isn't really an individual position: it's a social phenomenon gestated among the paranoid, the insane, and the terminally stupid. Most anti-vaxxers wouldn't be anti-vaxxers if there wasn't a small but thriving anti-vaxxer movement. So it's more like a contract or a club: a group of foam-at-the-mouth right-wing lunatics who agree via the media that they'd rather die than behave with a minimal responsibility toward others cuz that's jus a step shy of communism. And I think we should support their efforts without irony. When the sensible and responsible are all vaccinated, we should oversell tickets to anti-vax and anti-mask rallies and let Darwin handle the rest. ;)
This is a huge, huge, huge lie. Chinese families had more than two children on the average per two parents. This is so easy to prove that you will fall off the chair.
Hungary has had a less-than-two-children society. Not because of enforcement, but due to parents' choice. This resulted first in a stagnation per number in the society, which in the last decade started to dwindle.
If, and only if, Chinese families had one or two children, like you and the rest of the math-stupid people claim, their numbers would have equalled the growth rate of Hungary. Because you guys with a North American education can't conceptualize the truth, that it does not matter whether you have a thousand people or a thousand billion, if each parent has two children, the growth rate should stay stagnant.
But you and a billion other math-imbecilic people can't understand this. You are blinded by the huge population of China, so to you it's no surprise that in sixty years China has doubled its population, going on fast to tripling it.
The Chinese are shrewd, and they know math. And they know the rest of the world hates math. This was a ridiculously easy sell for them.
So don't give me this crap that that the Chinese forced their population to have one, later only two children. This is a myth they threw in your face, my friend, and you bought it as it were cupcakes.
You seem to understand nothing that is farther away from you than the tip of your nose. Please see above for the support of my claim.
No. This is an interesting discussion and confirms that tribalism is almost unassailable.
I would have thought that working together to prevent the spread of a virus via masks and vaccination would mean that people will die in far fewer numbers.
The significant barriers to this are clearly the positions people hold on government and freedom and what counts as evidence.
Except you didn't. Also, I cited paranoia as an example among others, not the unifying trait. There's also insane people and idiots, remember? But tbh anyone who wilfully puts others in harm's way is not someone whose wrong opinion on other matters will rob me of much sleep.
On any major ethical issue, there is always vocal, indeed strident opposition to implementing change for ethical reasons, sometimes for maintenance of personal advantage, sometimes misguided antisocial principle. Slavery, colonialism, suffrage, civil rights, environmentalism... It seems so obvious to many that there is a clear ethical path that it's stupendous that so many would disagree.
Here's the thing: these people do not give a rat's arse who they hurt. They didn't care about the plight of slaves, the right to self-determination, the rights of women and other marginalised demographics, or whether they leave the world as a burning husk. And they sure as hell don't care if their need to feel special kills a bunch of people.
I can only go by the published literature on the subject. Perhaps you can point me to references to the contrary, in which case I will thank you for the correction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
Quoting god must be atheist
Can you see the profound distinction between parents' choice and government edict? That's the subject at hand: Statism versus liberty. Collectivism, which you seem to favor, versus individualism, which I favor.
Quoting god must be atheist
I'd be grateful for references. I've been reading about China's population control measures for decades. If the literature is wrong, or if there's alternative literature that I should be aware of, I would be happy to be educated on the subject. Of course "educated" is not the same as insulted, so if you can manage the former instead of the latter, have at it. Of course if you prefer to play the insult game I can do that too, but I find it tedious. Mostly when posters resort to insults, I just stop responding to them.
Quoting god must be atheist
If they've doubled their population in 60 years, by the rule of 72 that's a pretty low rate of population increase. Even if they tripled it it's a pretty low rate of increase. Perhaps you can run the numbers, since my pretty little head isn't capable of doing so.
Quoting god must be atheist
I'm totally confused. First, the conversation you and I were having was between collectivism and individuality; authoritarianism and libertarianism. The State versus the individual. This is an ancient and vibrant debate that goes back to the ancient philosophers. I'm glad to have the conversation with you.
But now you are claiming that China apparently does NOT and never has had strict limitations on reproduction; yet nevertheless their annual population growth rate, obtained from doubling the population in 60 years, amounts to 72/60, or 1.2% per year. That seems LOW, not high. If, of course, I managed to do the math right. But maybe you can correct me on that.
So your entire post doesn't make sense.
Quoting god must be atheist
Perhaps you can go over and straighten out Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy
And Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/one-child-policy
And Investopedia.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/120114/understanding-chinas-one-child-policy.asp
etc.
As I say, I'd be grateful to be educated on this topic if the sources I've been reading for decades are wrong.
And again, the original convo was the State versus the individual. You are claiming China is all-in for liberty and individuality? Really? You have a hard sell, but I have an open mind. Make your case.
I believe that. Simple people have no critical ability, and therefore they can't analyze meritfully the publications they read.
China had for decades a one-child policy, which was apparently relaxed to a two-child policy, then just this week was relaxed again to a three-child policy. By your own numbers, their population has doubled in 60 years, implying an annualized population growth rate of 1.2% per year. So you're not making much of a case.
It's not literature you need to see my point. It's brains. And nobody can give you brains beyond what you have already.
I am really at odds with you. There is a perfectly clear explanation that Chinese families on the average had more than two children each for many decades non-stop. Math don't lie. Since you can't understand the concept, I am incapable of convincing you. Don't even try.
To you. Since you don't know the first thing about math. It is not my fault. Go back to your high school and give hell to your principal, the math teacher and the school board.
I made my case. Your intellectual deficit in math makes it impossible for you to appreciate my case. Case closed.
This is a question. I don't argue with questions as they have no truth value. State your case in nominative sentences.
To wit, no state is all-in for liberty and individuality. If you want to bring an existing example of a state that is all-in for individuality and not at all for the state, please show me that system.
I think we found something to agree on. Nice chatting with you.
Where the heck did you get this cockamamie opinion? Not from me? You read into text like a bible-interpreter: with complete disregard to the actual content. You are not worthy arguing against.
For your information: all states have some degree fostering individuality, and some degree of fostering state interests. You are against that? Why? Please state your reason.
I will stipulate to being a math dummy, even among Americans, I am a dummy. But if a woman and man replicate themselves with two kids who grow and each have two kids (grandkids) and they grow and each have two grand kids before the original mom and dad die, haven't we had exponential growth?
I'll have to take your word for it, because, like I said, I'm no math guy, but I see we start with 2 people and end up with 16 in four generations. What am I missing?
No, you are right. I woke up this morning with my brain on, asked my wife and we worked it out on a piece of paper like some third graders. :blush: As a typical American, thinking of myself only, I was going from one to two, etc. Totally forgetting about the damn in-laws. And the wife.
I stand corrected. Carry on.
Interesting. Do couples want more than 3 children?
On behalf of Janus, thanks!
You can sit down. It's much easier to correct if you do.
That is not even remotely the point. The point is that in China, it's the State that says how many children a couple may have. They enforce, or enforced the rule (not clear if they still do this) with mandatory contraception and sterilization. It's the difference between authoritarianism and liberty; collectivism and individuality; coercion and choice.
When the two kids get born, then the two great-grand parents die. When the two kids have two kids, their grandparents die. When the two kids who had two kids have two kids, then the parents die. (Keeping the generations consistent.)
There is no exponential growth. Generations replace each other.
Your theory, James, would only work in a country of Vampires, where nobody ever dies.
That's what they told the rest of the world.
I they did that, there would still be 500 million Chinese, or fewer. Now everyone who reads this thread knows that. But no, you can't accept it, because you cited precisely a great number of FreeWorld Jourals that said the same thing that you bought, hook, line, and sinker. Whereas those who think for five minutes, will see that those who believe the FreeWorld journals are gullible, non-thinking, and incapable of allowing logical conclusions to enter their minds, once they have made it up.
This is the difference between brain-washed American individualism and shrewd Chinese external affairs propaganda.
Just yesterday I happened to run across yet another article about the subject. If you want to claim that everyone's been lying -- that there was no one-child policy -- well, I myself am a huge proponent of free speech, and I support your right to shout theater in a crowded fire. Peace, brother.
The 'One-Child' Policy Was Tyrannical in Theory and Brutally Oppressive in Practice
The claim that not being vaccinated spreads the virus does not hold up to science. Having been vaccinated does not prevent someone from spreading it, it reduces morbidity and mortality, not spread.
Do what you are comfortable with. Either way, you are the one that deals with the result.
Risk benefit analysis can only be done on available data, not on fear of theoretical possibilities of adverse reactions. Based on available data the benefits far outweigh the risks. We have seem a dramatic decrease in the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. The evidence indicates that not only the person getting the vaccine benefits but others do as well. We also know that the vaccines have been effective against variations and stopping the development of variations.
Quoting Book273
Quoting Book273
This type of argument is all too common. You reject the science when it does not conform to your beliefs and appeal to science when you think it supports them.
Well you have that tracking chip in you now. It might be interfering.
ha!
What measure do you use when, as you say, you do not believe the science? What measure do you use when the available data indicates that the vaccines are safe and highly effective?
Quoting Book273
Best practice is to get the vaccine.
Quoting Book273
So, you follow best practice, except you don't.
Quoting Book273
There is a difference between informed consent and uninformed consent. If the best advice you can give them is not to believe the science then they are properly informing them. What an uninformed patient wants should not be the deciding factor.
I taught, among other things, biomedical ethics before retiring.
My wife has a PhD in biochemistry and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over thirty years and now does consulting for the industry. She retired last year as vice president and head of regulatory affairs for a pharmaceutical company. My daughter has a PharmD. My son a Masters in Pharmacology. The vaccine and safety protocols have been a frequent topic of conversation.
You will always see too many red flags.
No, there are already consequences promised to those who have not been vaccinated. For example, in order to visit a restaurant or cinema, one has to provide proof of vaccination, proof of having been diagnosed with covid, or a negative test. In some companies, all employees had to accept the vaccine, or risk being fired. Discrimination is already taking place. Also, there is limited choice or none as to which vaccine to take. There is also shortage of vaccine. And scandals with using used needles (in order to get the most out of one vial).
All covid vaccines are experimental medications at this point, so from the perspective of health insurance, they are treated as other experimental medications.
This has to make one wonder how many cases of (possible) side effects of the covid vaccines have actually been underreported or misrepresented, in order to make health insurance pay for the treatment.
What I wish is that there would be more fairness and more opennes about the issue, and less hype.
Two examples of good practices:
When Iran started to vaccinate people, the government openly told people that they have an experimental medication that yet needs to be properly tested and that they're asking every citizen to help with the testing.
In Poland, when they started to vaccinate people, they also started a public fund to help those who would develop adverse side effects to the medication.
But instead, in so many places, the covid vaccines are touted as if they'd already be classical, approved, well-tested vaccines the taking of which requires no further justification or explanation.
This is exactly how it is presented by some governments and people uncritically in favor of vaccination.
What does it matter to you if you end up terminally ill after the vaccine?
Do you really take solace in other people benefitting from the vaccine?
Are you willing to die for others?
Depends on one's current health and financial status.
The vaccines haven't been tested enough to show what they do to a person who is already immunocompromised due to some other health problem (such as genetic autoimmune diseases, preexisting infectuous diseases).
The public covid vaccine discourse allows for no such considerations.
I am. It's an old school thing.
Yet the official party line and the pro-vaccination slogans are "Think of others, get vaccinated!" and similar.
(Here the Croatian one, for example.)
You certainly don't sound like it. You're far too critical of others to still allow for the thought that you'd be willing to die for them.
Being critical of others does not in any way limit one's willingness to die for them. Again, it's old school, so you may not be able to understand it. LOL! You ever sit around and listen to a bunch of grunts complaining about people?
Except that in this case, the necessary information doesn't even exist yet.
But then what is "safe and effective" isn't the vaccine itself, but to a possibly considerable extent, faith healing.
Science doesn't drive these people. Just start offering money and 99% will cave long before the $ value they place on their life is finally reached.
I don't want you to believe anything. You asked, I answered. I've already put my life on the line, numerous times, for people I don't know, and if I did know I probably wouldn't like. It is a little disconcerting that the notion is incomprehensible to many, such as yourself, but "disconcerting" is part of the deal too, so I'm comfortable with it. Back in the day it wasn't such an anomaly.
Medical knowledge is never complete. Based on the information we have the vaccine is both safe and effective. That does not mean that no one will have a negative reaction, but the same is true of most things we put in our bodies, even things that have not harmed us in the past. There is a change that eating a cheeseburger or salad will kill you. You may be taking or have taken medications that are considered safe that in the future will turn out not to be so safe even though they went through clinical trials without these negative effects being noticed
This is a philosophy discussion forum, not the water cooler. You're jumping to the conclusion that the notion of sacrificing oneself for others is "incomprehensible" to me. On the contrary, I want to explore what a proponent of it has to say about it.
Based on the numbers it is certainly reasonable and well deserved optimism. Nothing I have said reflects a total faith in medicine. But I have much more faith in medicine than faith in placebos to fight the virus.
Oh well, in that case, you might try leading with that.
Instead of this:
Quoting baker
I took the vaccine, not for me, but for others, on the advice of others who know more than me.
I will confess, however, there was a certain (but not controlling) amount of contrarian political impetus. Where many of the stupid people refuse to vax because they are disingenuously contrarian (see $ post, above), I compared them to the people who advised the vax and decided to run with those I don't see as stupid.
I've also previously articulated my analysis based upon odds. And another analysis based on investment of time and resources making myself an expert on the matter.
But that is really all a digression. I want to honor your allegedly sincere curiosity about self-sacrifice.
So, what it really boils down to is a sense of honor, dignity, and integrity. There are tinges of Socrates and hemlock in there (that would be the honor), but I don't pretend to be that beholden to the state or my fellow man; just somewhat. Mine is more of an internal desire to be able to live with myself (that would be the dignity). But my agreement with the ideals and aspirations laid out in our organic documents plays on my sense of integrity. So I try to conduct myself in a way that allows me to sleep at night by forgetting what others think (hence my statement that I don't care if you believe me or not), and focusing on what I find myself in agreement with.
There are things out there that are greater than me, especially if viewed in the congregate. So, for example, while I believe all Republicans who have failed to publicly refute Trump have irrevocably branded the party and themselves (which makes me comfortable in holding the best to the standards of the worse; you have to watch the company that you keep), I see something in my fellow Americans worth dying for. Our founders had what I believe was an unwarranted faith in the people. But I am willing to subordinate my suspicions to their judgement. Notwithstanding their considerable flaws, I'm still in awe of what they created and what we try to honor. I don't believe I am the measure of all things and I try to contextualize my life as not worth living under certain circumstances. I'm also not afraid of the next adventure.
When you total all that up, you think "Hey, I'll take a shot. WTF?"
I've placed my life in the hands of men who could easily have killed me without consequence, and yet they did not. Even if they did not like me. Old school honor, dignity and integrity. Stepping up to the door and jumping out is like "Hey, Fauci, you bitch, give me a shot of that shit and let's roll this MFr!"
Yes. And you make me laugh.
I notice that I use the same rational approach to come to my position as others do theirs, albeit different positions, and I seem to catch hell for having a different stance. Seems weird; I am not bitching at anyone for getting the shot.
Who are those others? Just any member of Homo sapiens?
It wasn't for those who had to be hospitalized afterwards or even died.
What do you have to say to that?
Then why isn't it mandatory? What are there no laws stating that people must accept the covid vaccine, or else face dire legal and penal consequences?
I have nothing to say to that without specific details and statistics.
Mandatory where? Mandated by whom?
In medicine, a person can give no informed consent if they don't have a medical degree. It all comes down to trusting one's doctors.
Leaving aside for the moment that doctors don't actually give people the time to read the documents they are supposed to sign prior to some treatment.
Thank you for your service.
By law, the laws made by the government of a country.
If the vaccine is truly so very safe and effective and if it is truly the best practice to accept the vaccine, then why isn't this regulated by law?
I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S. it's like herding cats: a waste of time. You can try to appeal to their sense of community but that only goes so far when people are conditioned to hate each other. As usual, all the heavy lifting gets done by those who lift.
Wrong. Infectuous diseases (esp. those with potentially fatal outcomes) are a matter of public health, and therefore, cannot be left to the individual to decide about. They should be regulated at least by laws, but preferrably, by the constitution.
The focus on personal choice is nothing but an attempt to shift the burden of responsibility on the individual person, releasing doctors, science, and the government from responsibility, all under the guise of "respecting the individual's right to choice".
It is not clear whether you are denying the practice of informed consent or questioning the concept. The former is well documented. The latter is more problematic. Even people with medical degrees may not have the specialized expertise needed to be fully informed about a particular procedure. An internist does not have the knowledge or experience of a neurosurgeon.
Trusting you doctor can mean different things, but where there are viable options most will not make decisions for you.
The answer to that has more to do with politics than vaccine safety and efficacy.
You should have something to say to that. You should have something to say for those for whom the vaccine wasn't safe and effective. And there is a number of those for whom it wasn't.
If it would be in the nature of the vaccine to be "safe and effective", it would be so for everyone. But it clearly isn't. So something else is going on, such as that the vaccine is safe and effective, provided the person meets requirements x, y, z.
(My neighbor's relative ended up on the ventilator after receiving the vaccine. If she survives, I wonder what she'll say and whether she'll still trust the medical system.)
Exactly. Still, medical lays are being fooled by the medical system there is such a thing as "informed consent".
I'm questioning the concept.
Quoting Fooloso4
No, that's evasion.
If it's up to politicans to decide whether and where to build a nuclear power plant, whether to privatize sources of water, or whether it's okay to kill someone by an injection of potassium chloride, then why
not have them decide about medications, including experimental ones?
I cannot evaluate this without specifics. Were there underlying medical conditions? What was the cause of death? "a number" is statistically meaningless.
Quoting baker
That is not the way medicine works.
A person is not a statistic.
For the person who ends up with bad side effects, it does not matter if they are in the statistical minority.
Then why talk about it this way, as if it does work that way?
Why not say, "the vaccine is safe and effective, provided the person meets requirements x, y, z"?
Why the absolutist slogan, "the vaccine is safe and effective"?
Likewise. There is a real pro-vaccination hysteria going on. Which just goes to show how much importance faith has in applied medicine.
How so?? Vaccination doesn't stop you from being a spreader.
(In a twist of sad irony, it's a modern, egotistical vaccine that reduces morbidity and mortality, but not spread.)
Informed consent is not all or nothing.
Quoting baker
This is all regulated by agencies such as the FDA.
Political considerations include such things as freedom and compliance.
The safety of the vaccine though is.
Quoting baker
All drugs potentially have bad side effects. It is a matter of risk/benefit analysis.
Quoting baker
You have misunderstood what it means for a drug to be safe and effective.
You probably wouldn't understand. Those who sign a blank check for an amount up to and including their lives don't always pretend to know better than those they are willing to follow. You can end up getting killed in a righteous war against Nazis, or you can end up getting killed in some BS war for the MIC or oil or whatever. The sacrifice and the honor is in the signing; not in the motives of those who send you. You don't get to decide policy. Once signed, you let people like Baker protest the war in the rear with the gear and say things like "war is dangerous."
I chose to follow the advice of people and institutions who I trust know more than "Baker" on the internet. After all, Baker hasn't devoted his life to the study of infectious diseases, vaccines, and this new product. Instead, he/she reads shit, tries to make him/herself informed, and ends up thinking he/she knows better.
People like Baker seem to think they are entitled to 100% safety guarantees in life. I imagine they spend a great deal of time hiding under the bed.
No, it's not simple. You are simple if you think that a no-brainer requires law enforcement. If it were a no-brainer, there would be no need for law enforcement. Besides, if a law is all it took, then we would have no crime. Doh! I don't know if you live in the U.S. or not, but a great number of people are armed to the teeth and you can't make them do shit if they don't want to. Many law enforcement officers won't enforce if they don't feel like it, and even if you tried "cutting off" access to goods and services, people will set up and support their own side. Finally, the federal government lacks the authority to tell states what they have to do (see Florida, where they are instituting a $5k fine to anyone who requires proof of vaccination). What are you going to do? Send in the Marines? Yeah, it's very simple. LOL!
You state this as if it is a fact. It is not. How effective it is at preventing the spread of the virus is still under review. One thing is clear, where vaccination rates are high covid rates have decreased significantly.
:D Sure the damn conspiracy theorists
I have no idea what that says.
If, however, someone is living in close proximity with other people, i.e in cities and more saturated communities, they cannot. By placing yourself in a crowded area, you will have a mandatory responsibility for other people's well-being. If you are a risk by just existing and taking part in social and other interactions within a society, you will have a demand on you to lower that risk. You cannot demand to be part of a large crowd of people if you are at risk of infecting them without knowing it. Therefore you have to take the vaccine, it's not a choice.
You already made the choice by settling in a crowded area.
However, the vaccine for COVID-19 is actually not preventing the spreading of the virus. It prevents you from getting seriously and mortally ill.
Face masks protect others.
Vaccine protects yourself.
So in this case it doesn't matter if you get the vaccine or not. Maybe a little as we've seen a slight lowering of the spread due to the vaccine. So there might be some effect, but it's generally for protecting yourself. This means that if you refuse the vaccine you are at risk of becoming seriously sick.
So, if you are at the risk of dying, refuse the vaccine, and become a strain on medical personal, then maybe we can see it as putting yourself at an unneeded risk, and as a consequence, you take the place of someone who actually needed that care.
However we twist and turn it, vaccines help fight the suffering and in some ways block the spread. It is immoral to refuse the vaccine if you live in crowded areas, but it's even more immoral to get the vaccine and then just live recklessly without regard of the risk of spreading anyway.
The moral action to do, if you live in a city especially, is to get the vaccine but still follow the precautions CDC and similar organizations around the world have put out.
Refusing will risk other people, but mostly yourself, but even if you get seriously sick or even die you will block other people who actually needed medical care but couldn't because you didn't get the vaccine and became ill.
The risks of the vaccine are statistically low and most people pushing the seriousness of these risks don't have the necessary knowledge to analyze statistics or follow biased opinions with little care for actual reality.
So through a personal choice, declining the vaccine, one could become a drain on the system, taking the place of someone who needed the care. Correct? Like the smokers that need respiratory therapy, or the cardiac patients that are obese and smoke, or the alcoholics that need to be stabilized from GI bleeds or rampant high sugar levels...Oh wait, 95% of those are also based on a personal decision, so I guess they are also taking the place of someone who needed the care. I couldn't agree more! No treatment for anything that resulted from a personal decision! No addictions therapy, no cardiac care (unless based on genetic problem), no treatment for smoking related complications, No orthopedic surgeries for anyone that is obese, etc. This could also solve the problem of healthcare costs! I love this approach. Also, I will likely have no job once it is in full swing, but hey, small price to pay.
Lastly, this approach will result in huge mortality rates eh. Just saying, a lot are gonna die.
Except the minor detail that Covid-19 has put a strain on the hospitals to be able to care for enough patients. You are comparing the treatment of people in times when there are beds available.
And you're also doing a black&white fallacy here. Not taking the vaccine will put a strain on communities with a lot of people in close proximity. Whatever the consequences of the vaccine, it helps fight the virus. So comparing that to people who only hurt themselves by their choice is not the same thing as something that potentially can be lethal to others based on the choice of the carrier.
The best way to fight the pandemic is to vaccinate and keep the restrictions until it's contained. And the core of the argument is really that if you want to reap the benefits of living in close proximity to others, i.e live in a city and being close to other people with living standards according to it, then you cannot say no to a vaccine because it affects others, not just you. If you live alone in the forest, you are not really part of the herd immunity equation, so you are free to do whatever.
The moral idea here is that if you want to be part of a community, to be part of a crowd, and live in close proximity to others, you also have a responsibility to not risk other people's health. It's the same reason why, in your example of smokers, we have stronger laws around smoking, so people don't get secondhand smoke that can put their health at risk.
A person who chooses to not get the vaccine but still wants to go out and party and be around other people is not only a selfish person, they are actually dangerous. A person who disregards restrictions, who carelessly doesn't care about preventing the spread of the virus by all means necessary, is in my book someone risking manslaughter. It's just that laws and logic surrounding pandemics are seriously underdeveloped.
I see no difference between a person pushing a giant boulder down a slope that "might" kill someone in the valley, and someone who disregards restrictions and attempts at fighting the spread of the virus. If a link can be drawn between the act of carelessness and someone dying, they are guilty of manslaughter. If the vaccine is indeed (not fully confirmed yet) blocking the spread compared to not having the vaccine, then deciding to not take the vaccine and keep living like there was no pandemic is reckless behavior that should be considered as serious as driving under heavy influence or playing around with giant boulders over the valley. Stupid behavior that only affects the stupid person should be considered their choice, even if it hurts them (as long as the behavior isn't done because of mental disabilities that need treatment). But behavior that affects other people, hurts them, kills them, regardless of causal proximity, should never be accepted and should be considered a crime.
Like driving a car? What about having children?
How does that relate to this? You drive a car as a form of transportation, you have children for the continuation of our species. None of these are the same as denying vaccines but still benefitting from society. You do not drive around ignoring the dangers, we even have licenses that prevent people from driving without knowledge, and people who ignore this are committing a crime. And having children, how is that hurting others in the same fashion as these issues about people ignoring vaccines?
Analogies need to keep within the same kind of actions, not stretch things into a fallacy. Denying to take a vaccine is to ignore the dangers towards others if you exist in close proximity to them. It would be like driving with a blindfold, which is a crime. Driving with a license, following the traffic rules, having a child and caring for it to the best of your ability and raising that child to be a morally balanced person is in this case considered the same as following the restrictions and getting a vaccine.
Mitigating the risks does not change that. One could also claim to have attempted to mitigate the risks of them not being vaccinated.
To be clear, there is no necessity for driving a car or having children; those are merely products of our desires.
For the survival of humanity and for people to be able to expand and move around, they are a necessity. If people stopped driving we would have a hard time functioning as a society and if people stopped having children humanity would die out. Just because something isn't necessary when society is oversaturated does not equal an absolute unnecessary status of these things. It's a fallacy of the extreme.
Quoting Tzeentch
Getting the vaccine and following restrictions are the same as mitigating risks with the other examples.
Quoting Tzeentch
Not in the same manner as denying a vaccine and recklessly expose themselves to other people. It's the same as someone deciding to put on a blindfold and driving on a sidewalk that was assumed to be free of people. It's knowing about the risks of hurting others and still doing it. Driving normally and having children is not even in the same ballpark in terms of causality.
Quoting Tzeentch
What do you mean by this? I have clearly stated that denying the vaccine but still going out into the public and taking part in society is an active choice of ignoring the dangers of hurting or killing others. There's no rational argument to be made that someone who doesn't take the vaccine then tries to mitigate the following dangers as existing unvaccinated in public is a risk. That would mean locking themselves in their apartment and never seeing anyone. They are a risk if they live in a place where interactions are unavoidable. And I also said that it's fine if people who won't get the vaccine live by themselves far away from other people as the risk of hurting or killing others is so low that it ends up being in the same statistical number as the ones who the vaccine doesn't have an effect on. As long as the people who don't take the vaccine don't use hazard suits while they are out they aren't mitigating anything.
Societies have functioned without cars for millenia. They are not necessary at all.
Quoting Christoffer
Yes, and?
People don't have children in some sort of sacrifice to the human endeavor. They have children because they desire to have them.
Quoting Christoffer
All these things can be said for driving and having children. You're simply labeling one as reckless and the other as somehow acceptable because of a form of cosmic necessity, which I will argue is nothing other than a guise for desire; not much different from a desire not to be vaccinated.
I'll propose something radical: if one is afraid that being sneezed on will kill them, they're the one who should be isolating themselves.
Seeing one's own fear as a legitimate basis to dictate how others should exercise their right to bodily autonomy; now that is immoral; no less immoral than pressuring a woman into how she should or should not have an abortion.
Your fear is not my fear.
Yes, everything is solved by going back to the stone age. Include removing horses and all forms of transportation. This kind of argument in relation to vaccinations is a fallacy of the extreme. It has no relevance.
Quoting Tzeentch
So it's just ok to do fallacy to the extreme when you do it, but if I point out the same kind of extreme there are all of a sudden nuances? Ok...
Quoting Tzeentch
You are all over the place now. No you can't say that this is the same. Not taking the vaccine and going out in public is reckless. Driving normally is not, having children is not. Your argument is built upon making those things extreme. Not getting a vaccine and going out in public is already the extreme. The only way to make your examples extreme would be driving under the influence, driving with a blindfold, giving a child a loaded gun. They won't end up hurting or killing anyone 100% of the time, but the risk is reckless and dangerous. Driving normally and having children is nowhere close to actively dismiss the vaccine and then live socially as normal. It's only rational for those who don't understand how the spread works.
Quoting Tzeentch
How is this in any way rational for anyone other than stupid anti-vaccers? This kind of argument ignores all the science and all the dangers of the pandemic. Seriously.
Quoting Tzeentch
This is not even remotely close to being a rational argument. Listen carefully to what the conclusion is: Those who actively decide not to get the vaccine and then socialize as normal are a reckless risk against the people they meet.
By ignoring a vaccine and then ignoring restrictions in society during a pandemic, you will risk other people's health. You do it against them. Abortion is about your own body, anything that is about your own body is not the same as risking other people. Bodily autonomy is irrelevant if you risk hurting or killing other people.
How in any rational form can you compare something like hurting yourself only with the risk of hurting others through reckless behavior?
I urge you to understand this difference before just throwing out examples like that.
I am taking the ideas you are proposing and taking them to their logical conclusions.
You seem to believe sometimes it is fine for people to suffer as a result of one's desires and sometimes it is not.
So far you have been unable to explain what the determining factor is.
Quoting Christoffer
And the body of one's unborn child, of course.
Quoting Christoffer
Of course it isn't. The flu kills hundreds of thousands every year but we don't infringe upon people's rights to bodily autonomy because they may carry the flu.
The funny thing is, he was unmistakenly right: interactions with other people could kill him. I wonder how the world would have reacted had he proclaimed that from now on, all the world should take measures to accomodate his fears so he could live normally. I'm sure it would have been the source of much hilarity.
No, you are not taking them to a logical conclusion. Not getting the vaccine and risking other people is an active choice against the scientific logic and knowledge of the pandemic. By driving a car normally you do not actively do something reckless. Stop pretending there's a logical connection between the two.
Quoting Tzeentch
So you're gonna do an argument to the extreme again. Stop trying to bait things, this has nothing to do with the conclusion I've done about the vaccine. Want to have a philosophical debate about abortions start another thread.
Quoting Tzeentch
Covid-19 isn't the flu. If you don't have knowledge about the disease this pandemic is about, then how can you make logical arguments about it? Covid-19 has a higher mortality rate, the only reason we haven't seen higher numbers is because of how the world has been fighting the pandemic. If we had been going about our days normally we would have an extreme situation. Just look at the surge in India where they literally burned bodies in the street.
I have no interest in arguing with uneducated people. There's no point.
But even so, if we view vaccines generally. The conclusion I've made is the same. You say:
Quoting Tzeentch
That is the same as saying that if I decide to go out and throw sharp rocks at other people, it's not my responsibility or moral issue because if people are afraid of being hit by rocks they should just stay home and not go out when I'm out. Their fear is not my fear, so I don't care.
It's fundamentally stupid logic.
Whenever you step behind the wheel, you are actively accepting the risk of killing someone. The risk is small, sure, but your label of 'reckless' or 'not reckless' is obviously subjective.
Quoting Christoffer
I did not claim otherwise.
Quoting Christoffer
Except that not throwing rocks does not incur any risks for the thrower. So it is not the same.
No, you don't take reckless action. All actions in the world have risks, but taking an active reckless action is not the same as taking an action that has potential risks. Ignoring the pandemic, ignoring the vaccine is actively a direct reckless choice.
Quoting Tzeentch
You directly compared it to the flu.
Quoting Tzeentch
What risks? Are you talking about the stupid anti-vaccer propaganda and people being illiterate on reading statistics about vaccine risks? But it still doesn't change my conclusion. Just because you are afraid of the vaccine and don't get it doesn't mean you can also enjoy social life like other people who got it. Your choice is either to get it and be able to socialize or you don't get it and isolate yourself. Any other choice of socializing after actively refusing the vaccine is a reckless act against other people, period. You haven't logically addressed this point at all.
As I said, I have no interest in debating with the uneducated. If this is gonna be about philosophy, facts matter. And you can get hit by your own rocks, there's always a risk, you say so yourself with the examples about driving and having children. This is why you are all over the place, you don't have a consistent counterargument to my conclusion, it's grasping at straws. Getting struck by your own rocks is close to the same probability of getting complications from the vaccines. Learn statistics.
Explain the difference, then.
Quoting Christoffer
Of course. I did not state it was the flu, however.
Quoting Christoffer
And you, of course, a self-styled expert in all matters concering facts.
Quoting Christoffer
I've actually asked you some pretty straightforward questions which you've been avoiding.
On a philosophy forum few people will be impressed by these sorts of proclamations of victory.
I just did, in that very text.
Choosing to drive is not a reckless act, but choosing to refuse a vaccine and then socialize normally during a pandemic is a reckless act. One is an act that can have risks, one is a reckless act that can have direct serious risks.
It doesn't get any clearer than that. And ignoring the difference between an act and a reckless act is the problem. We make actions all the time that can risk someone else, but we know the risks of those actions and take precautions to not end up with those risks. Doing a reckless action that can risk someone else but we know of those risks and do it anyway, is immoral.
It's crystal clear.
Quoting Tzeentch
So you just... compared the two... because of reasons... seriously, this is just ridicoulus.
Quoting Tzeentch
The facts of the pandemic are out there in publications. And there are a lot of publications about diseases and vaccines, statistics, biases, and fallacies in general. Facts matter and statistical facts about the vaccine risks matter. Failure to use those logically when arguing about the Covid-19 vaccines is a failure in logic. If you want to ignore this, go to some reddit forum, I don't have time for sloppy wannabes of philosophy. You either use logic, facts, and reason or you are just puking out irrelevant opinions and there's enough of that going around.
Quoting Tzeentch
I've been pretty clear, but you ignore simple logic because of the fallacies and biases you seem to have. I haven't avoided questions, I've pointed out the fallacies in your reasoning and you ignore those and you actively avoid trying to accept simple logic because it doesn't fit your narrative. It's crystal clear what you're doing in the way you are presenting your arguments. Just as an example, your comparison with the flu that you then point out that you didn't state that Covid was the same as the flu, but still use as a comparison to make... what point exactly? Why make the comparison to the flu? For what reason? You are the one who isn't straightforward.
You just try to prove your opinion, without regard for addressing to the science of the pandemic, to the logic of my conclusion, and when challenged you just go all over the place trying to find a way to question that logic.
The logic is pretty straightforward: Making a choice of ignoring the science of the pandemic and vaccines in order to refuse to get a vaccine but still choose to socialize without regard for restrictions and regulations that exist to stop the spread, you are then actively making a reckless action that can hurt or kill other people.
That is a logical statement and there's no getting around that. You need to disprove the logic behind it and there's nothing about driving cars or having children that disprove that logic. You make vague comparisons that really don't change the logic of that statement.
On a philosophy forum, few people will be impressed by your sloppy philosophical scrutiny. I'm asking for better philosophical debate around the subject, but you discuss this with the same level of logic and knowledge as any other anti-vaccer out there. That makes it impossible for you to reach the philosophical scrutiny needed for the discussion to be a philosophical one.
When you step into a car, you may crash into someone. How is that not direct and serious, and not just as much of a reckless action as interacting with people without being vaccinated?
Quoting Christoffer
Because both cause many deaths, yet the flu is accepted as normal, yet in the case of covid-19 people start questioning fundamental human rights like bodily autonomy.
Quoting Christoffer
There's a reason I didn't respond to the rest of your post. :kiss:
The choice to "drive a car" is not the same as crashing into someone. Driving a car means you know the risks and follow the rules. To refuse a vaccine and then choose to break restrictions, you choose to not follow the rules and instead choose to "drive recklessly". If you choose to drive intoxicated, or with a blindfold, you choose in the same way to drive recklessly.
The choice "to drive" is the same as choosing to follow restrictions, vaccinate yourself and follow the rules of the pandemic.
This is the social code of a pandemic. The same as a driving license and the rules of the road is the social code of driving.
If you break those, you are reckless. You can choose to drive recklessly or you can choose to drive normally. You can choose to live in the pandemic according to the rules set to prevent spread, or you can choose to break it and be reckless.
It's crystal clear.
Quoting Tzeentch
They are fundamentally different in mortality rate, so that's why we have these restrictions and vaccines. You fail to understand the science behind it, but you can't argue against it, or you will argue against the science itself. They are not the same.
If I slap you with my hand and then slam you with a sledgehammer, that's two different types of hitting you, but the consequences are fundamentally different. If you only have the choice to use gear in order to prevent damage to yourself, you would probably choose to have body armor when I hit you with the sledgehammer. You argue that both hits are the same, so why would you need body armor if a slap and a sledgehammer are fundamentally just me hitting you? That's your logic right there, examine it.
Quoting Tzeentch
The reason being you don't have an argument and haven't counterargued the logic yet. You tiptoe around it with zero philosophical insight or apparent knowledge about the subject at hand. So we're at a standstill until you can grasp the basics of this.
And similarly, not being vaccinated and breaking regulations is not the same as killing or even infecting someone with covid-19.
Essentially what you're saying is, "I agree with the rules and therefore everyone that doesn't follow them I label as reckless." Of course, anyone who disagrees on the science or the rules you would probably regard as being wrong, because you think the science is conclusive: it isn't.
Anyway, fine. You're putting a lot of faith in whoever made those rules.
People may not agree with the rules. They may not have faith in whoever makes the rules. They may weigh things against each other and have different ideas as to what acceptable risks are. There's a subjectivity to all of this that you are not taking into account, that I am trying to make clear to you.
Quoting Christoffer
Different? Yes. Fundamentally different? Up for debate. Where I live it certainly is not fundamentally different from a heavy flu.
Quoting Christoffer
No, that's your logic. Don't put words in my mouth.
Quoting Christoffer
I don't think we're at a standstill. You are, however, conducting yourself like a child.
It's the same as driving recklessly, with a blindfold, or intoxicated. How can you not understand this? Or maybe you just don't want to.
Quoting Tzeentch
The rules are based on scientific knowledge and facts. To say that the science is inconclusive is not the same as the science saying that there is a pandemic, that the virus kills, hurts or cause serious harm and is deadlier than normal flu viruses. These are scientific facts, and disagreeing with them is disagreeing with reality itself. Just ask any citizen of India what they think of the smell of burning bodies if you don't agree with "the science". The scientific consensus on the deadliness and seriousness of this virus is absolutely conclusive. Just because people think they understand how science works and think they have the academic background to understand publications, doesn't mean that they actually understand them. There's no serious scientist in the world right now saying with any form of verification that this virus is harmless.
To disagree with the scientific consensus surrounding Covid-19 is not rational in any way and is the way of the moronic anti-vaccer movement.
If you are of the idea that this virus is harmless and the scientific community isn't clear on how serious this pandemic is, then you are fucking clueless and there's no point in even trying to make a philosophical argument with someone like you. Because you disagree with fundamental facts and can't even enter the question we are actually discussing.
Quoting Tzeentch
And you are a conspiracy nut if you believe the restrictions are there for any other reason than to stop the spread of the virus.
Quoting Tzeentch
There's no subjectivity in science. The virus is dangerous, the way it spreads is proven and the vaccine is one more tool and weapon to battle this pandemic. People who disagree with this have a hell of a challenge to prove otherwise and so far they've only proven themselves to be morons. And an infected moron who runs around in a crowd of people thinking his covid-19 infection won't hurt or kill the people around him, should be treated the same as anyone driving around recklessly, intoxicated or with a blindfold. If they also make a lot of people sick, some of them dying, that person is guilty of manslaughter. There's no mystery here, it's crystal clear.
That you subjectively think otherwise is irrelevant. You don't give a shit about facts, you don't understand the science, you don't understand statistical analysis of different risk levels. I'm glad that we have serious restrictions so that people who are morons don't have the freedom to risk other people's lives with their stupidity. I'm fed up with the morons of this world thinking their idiotic ideas are a foundation everyone else should live by.
I don't care for anyone's opinion if that opinion has nothing to do with rationality, logic, facts and reason. It's just noise and bullshit. I'm glad society listens to the experts of their field. I'm glad the conspiracy nuts aren't the ones deciding the rules.
Quoting Tzeentch
It's not up for debate. Learn statistical analysis and understand that your single location is irrelevant as a statistical data point. You really show off your inability to understand basic science and the data we have about the pandemic.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, it's your logic. It's literally the same kind of logic. You compare the flu with Covid-19, it's like comparing a slap and a sledgehammer. You are just uneducated about this virus, simple as that.
Quoting Tzeentch
No, I'm desperately trying to explain simple fucking logic to a moron, that's what's going on. Someone who uses the current surrounding of his living location as proof of how Covid-19 isn't very different from normal flu. Someone who seemingly interprets the current scientific research of the virus in his own way, concluding the level of conclusiveness the research is at. Who disregard the actual facts we already know, who fail to understand statistical comparisons between vaccine risks and risks of the virus. Who doesn't think that someone who don't give a fuck about restrictions and getting the vaccine is in his right to break against everything and go around coughing on people because it's "up to them if they should fear it or not".
It's just stupid. With your level of logic and relation to facts and science, you fit right in with the other intellectual lowlives on Reddit who think they are educated experts while they spread anti-vaccer bullshit.
I'm done. I'm tired of this forum and how my will to discuss philosophy always gets hijacked by people like you.
No, it isn't. Is there no such thing as common sense and using one's own judgement in your world view?
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
You are ignoring the fact that science has been wrong numerous times during this pandemic. Remember how Covid-19 was initially ranked among diseases like Ebola, something which was in hindsight clearly wrong?
That is fine. That is how science works.
Science also tells us the restrictions and vaccinations come at a cost, and opinions on whether the costs weigh against the benefits of (some of) the restrictions vary. But you seem to have a low tolerance of opinions other than your own.
Quoting Christoffer
I do care about facts, but I may weigh those facts differently than you.
Quoting Christoffer
That's your issue, isn't it? What are you doing on a philosophy forum if you're incapable of accepting that people can look at the same facts as you do and come to different conclusions, let alone have a normal discussion about it.
"There is no subjectivity in my science".
Quoting Christoffer
Maybe you wouldn't burn yourself out if half your post wasn't angry ranting.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out. :kiss:
Common sense without rational thought is irrelevant and does not function well with reality. It's also the common thing people fall back on if they lack the capacity to actually do the work of rational reasoning, which is... well, the foundation of philosophy. So I don't care much for opinions from people who just say their opinions without any care for being rational or logical. It's just noise.
Quoting Tzeentch
Science is not "wrong", anyone who says this does not understand the scientific process. It's about chopping away little at a time to reach as close to the truth as possible. The reason people think science has gotten things "wrong" is because we've never had this level of media coverage of every slight discovery or hypothesis by scientists. Every discovery has been translated by stupid journalists who simplify something down to barebone clickbait headlines and then people get confused when things turn around. It's the same thing every time when people don't understand science or the scientific process. Time and data is the most important thing when researching. Back when this whole thing started there was very little data and very little spent time on analyzing that data. At the moment, both data and time are much better and more accurate than before. But the conclusion that has survived is still that this is a dangerous virus that has a higher mortality rate than other more common corona-type viruses.
The dangers have never been in question, we're more accurate now than ever about Covid-19. Your way of speaking about the process of research on this virus just shows how little you actually know about how science and the scientific process works. So you just say "oh, it's been chaos and no one knows really anything". This is simply not true and it's an extremely low-quality premise in philosophy to point out.
Quoting Tzeentch
You don't know how it works, clearly.
Quoting Tzeentch
This has nothing to do with the logic of how someone breaking restrictions actively becomes a danger towards others. People's opinions are irrelevant if we have a virus that kills and someone just doesn't give a fuck about it. That person is hurting and killing others through reckless behavior. That we have a cost to restrictions has absolutely nothing to do with the logic of that. So once again, you show a failure to understand what this is all about.
Quoting Tzeentch
Facts are facts. The fact is that we have a virus with a high mortality rate. The fact is that restrictions and vaccines are tools and weapons to fight the pandemic. The fact is that the risks of vaccines have extremely low risks of side effects and even in those cases, those vaccines have been managed to even lessen those side effect risks even further. The fact is that the risks of serious damage and death by the virus are much larger than any risk of serious side effects.
These are facts supported by publications, they are facts of decisions being made, they are facts about statistical risks.
If you are unable to read into these facts and understand what they mean, that does not mean you "weigh those facts differently", it means you are cherry-picking facts or opinions or whatever supports your conclusion. A conclusion that still does not counterargue what I've concluded about the moral choice of someone not getting the vaccine and then ignoring restrictions putting other people in danger. You seem to be unable to understand any logical throughline here.
Quoting Tzeentch
Philosophy requires you to create a reasonable and rational argument. If you fail to do that you are not conducting philosophy, you are just venting opinions. That is not philosophy. If you cannot back your conclusions up with anything more than "I have my opinion and I interpret things however I want", then it is I that need to ask the question what you are doing on a philosophy forum? Go to reddit if you need to vent opinions. I ask for rational arguments from you and you provide nothing of the sort.
Quoting Tzeentch
What do you even mean by this? I can't even begin to try and understand this low-quality bullshit.
Quoting Tzeentch
Maybe you could start acting like you are on a philosophy forum instead of just venting opinions? You're today's poster boy for "low-quality posts" and you get the correct response accordingly.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8088823/
http://outbreaknewstoday.com/ivermectin-is-highly-effective-as-a-safe-prophylaxis-and-treatment-for-covid-19-comprehensive-review-12291/
What a crock of shit. I assume you justify rape as saying that those who refuse to engage in consensual sex are against the continuation of humanity and are therefore guilty of complicit genocide, therefore, for the security of procreation, must be made to procreate regardless of their opinion on the matter?
And that pretty much captures your stance. Also nothing to do with ethics. Bravo.
Could it be due to the fact that, for safety reasons, no health organisation fast-tracks new medicines in under two months on the say-so of some initial findings from a middling journal paper? Or that, knowing how mammoth a global vaccine rollout is, that changing course at this stage would be impractical when the current course appears to be working okay?
Nothing of this is based on beliefs. It's like if you are in a position where you don't know if the pain in your back is serious or just some aching muscles. And instead of asking the experts in the field of medicine to reach a consensus about what it might be, in order to really know if it's cancer or something, you turn to a community of online self-proclaimed experts who are fundamentally uneducated, who are unable to reason past their biases, who analyze statistics and data without having any kind of education on how to properly do so and then trust their words completely.
It's the anti-vaccers who force beliefs onto others because they are afraid. It's like literally what they do. Because they don't go by the broad consensus in science on a topic, they cherry-pick their sources to support their fear-based arguments. It's actually pretty ironic that by pointing out that we should support our stance surrounding the pandemic and vaccines, on the science behind it, the proper analysis of the statistical risks and respecting other people's lives by following precautions that block yourself from accidentally spreading the virus to people who can literally die if you are not careful, it's instead me that gets criticized for forcing a belief out of fear. I'm actually laughing out loud at this because I cannot even comprehend the lack of logic that this kind of counterargument has.
I hold the stance that we need to listen to the consensus of science and we need to get past human error, biases, and fear to judge the course of action in order to fight this pandemic. There's nothing in this that even remotely follows the idea that I'm forcing my "belief" of fear onto others. How is this remotely true? Where's your support that positions your point of view as rational reasoning and not fear-based in comparison? Give me a fucking break.
Quoting Book273
Care to explain what this has to do with any of this? What sources do you go by to form your stance about not taking the vaccine? Or should we just "thank you later"?
Quoting Book273
This is a textbook example of what is called an appeal to extremes fallacy. You would fail basic philosophy with this kind of reasoning.
And to try and answer this because I'm not sure which quote you are referring to as I believe you just emotionally react and didn't read everything I've written in here:
Opinions don't matter if the following practice means an increased danger to other people. The question posed in this thread is about the vaccine. Anti-vaccers have "opinions" on why not to take the vaccine. And I've never said they can't have opinions.
What I've been saying is that if someone, an anti-vaccer probably, has the "opinion" that the vaccine is dangerous and refuses to take it, that is absolutely in his or her right. However, the vaccine is there to help fight the pandemic, it's there so that risks of infecting others through socializing and taking part in other social situations/encounters in society are greatly reduced and the dangerous consequences of the infection are reduced. So if someone refuses the vaccine they need to understand that they cannot be part of the equation of fighting the pandemic. They need to isolate themselves or live far away from dense populations in order for them not to be at risk of spreading the virus. This is just basic logic. If you choose selfishly, you have to be by yourself if the crisis is affecting an entire population.
If someone refuses the vaccine, and turns out to be the source in a super spreading event, and as a consequence people infected by that person ends up seriously ill with many of them dying. That person has effectively and willingly refused a way to prevent such a thing. If a person refuses the vaccine and then ignores restrictions and precautions, they are absolutely doing an immoral act. The logical causation from the active decision of refusing the vaccine to taking part in a risky act of socializing during a pandemic is unquestionably immoral. Any objection to this logic needs to be supported by something other than anti-vaccer's appeal to emotion and fear. Because there's no statistical support or data that can change the moral nature of such an act. Period.
Quoting Book273
Maybe you should include the entire quote instead of, you know, take things out of context.
Quoting Christoffer
This was a response to a point that the restrictions and vaccines come at a cost. What those costs specifically are, wasn't actually pointed out, just that "people have opinions". And even if it's true that costs need to be balanced between each other, the argument was made as to for some reason position the risks of vaccine as high, which there is no broad data for whatsoever. The risks of the vaccine are extremely lower than the risks of the virus. And the deadly risks of an unchecked full-blown pandemic are extremely higher than the risks of restrictions. That's not to say that there are health risks involved with isolation and consequences of restrictions, but in comparison with an unchecked pandemic, it becomes clear what risk aversion is the best course of action and best for as many as possible.
But as I pointed out, if you include the context of what I wrote from which you quoted me, I pointed out that the cost comparison of restrictions and vaccines have nothing to do with the moral evaluation of someone who refuses vaccine and then still socializes and in turn becomes at risk of spreading the virus. It's not immoral to refuse the vaccine, it's not immoral to socialize past restrictions if vaccinated, but to refuse a vaccine and then socialize is definitely immoral as you cannot guarantee the safety of the people you meet. If you refuse the vaccine, break restrictions, socialize with others or go into public spaces and infect others that later die because of your act, that is, without a question, an immoral act.
Quoting Book273
Why would colchicine be safer than the vaccine? There's not enough data to conclude that it helps. What's your logic behind this?
And maybe explain how you morally handle and justify your refusal of the vaccine. I'd like to hear what your plans are going forward. You will refuse the vaccine and... then what? Are you gonna break the restrictions? Are you gonna go out in public? Socialize with people who are unknowing about your refusal?
Because if you only think that you will protect yourself and refuse any chance of blocking yourself from spreading the virus, you are effectively helping to spread the virus if you get infected and do so. How is that not immoral? How can you justify such an act against other people who don't know if you are infected? Please educate others on your ethical stance in this, because the way you write you just sound like you care for yourself and not others, and that's not really what ethics is about now... is it?
But this is not true. The Astra Zenica vaccine had extremely minor risks of blood clots and it was pulled instantly in most nations in order to evaluate further if it's safe or not.
What I see is that people don't know how to interpret statistics correctly. Most people fail at math, but statistics is not only math, it's logic and also requires situational data and a lot of further parameters for a correct interpretation.
The problem is media and social media. While normal media simplify complex data down to click-bait headlines, social media runs these headlines and people become afraid. This pandemic is the best example of the extreme knowledge polarization between the educated experts, scientists, analysts, and the common people who have no knowledge of how to interpret the data researchers publish and how that misinterpretation or skewed conclusion grows into mass panic. This is why I have little respect for uneducated people's "opinions", because if I had a cent for every bias, fallacy, and inability to fact check correctly when people pose their "opinions" I would be a billionaire today.
The vaccine manufacturers and reviewers of those vaccines take extreme care towards making vaccines safe. There's no interest in releasing unsafe vaccines. Even if you cynically think that they only think of revenue and public reputation, those are the first things to go if they released something unsafe. It's in literally no one's interest to release a faulty vaccine and in everyone's interest to carefully review how things go.
And then there's the talk about side effects. All substances you take have side effects, food, fluids, medication whatever. The main question is the severeness of the side effects and the risk of them. If you take a medication that has a 1 in a million chance of a serious side effect, that's a pretty safe medication compared to what you probably get out of it, i.e treatment. Vaccines have side effects, Astra Zenica's had serious ones, but by April 7, 20 million doses had been administrated and 19 had fatal blood clots. Compare that to the burning piles of bodies in India due to the failure in containing the pandemic. And Astra Zenica's vaccine was even pulled, only to be used in age groups that had no side effects at all. While other vaccines showed little to no such side effects.
People just don't understand basic statistical awareness and this fuels the fear that fuels the anti-vaccer bullshit. I would guarantee that the majority of things that people consume during one day consist of substances that have even greater damaging effects on their health and lifespan, but no one care to think about that because people are just uneducated and form opinions out of that lack of knowledge.
It's like the whole meme and old gag of getting people riled up and afraid of Dihydrogen monoxide.
As an example of its use
I absolutely love the response to this meme and joke. It's one of the best ways to show how easily fooled people are and how severe the consequences are because of people's stupidity and lack of critical thinking. And all anti-vaccers fall under this. It's so fun seeing these people shoot themselves in the foot but also very obvious as to why emotional "opinions" just don't matter in a pandemic.
You are comfortable rolling up your sleeve for the vaccine, good for you. I, and many other educated individuals, are not so keen. Perhaps in five years, or ten, maybe. You do not know the long term effects of it, no one does, not even those that make it. We also don't know the long term effects of Covid.
So my choices are: A) Trust in my body to do what it has always done by responding appropriately to new pathogens and trust in the health of others' to do the same; B) Allow myself to be injected with something new, that has had testing time that numbers in months rather than years, to protect me from another new thing that has been known of for less than two years, which we also know not much about. I go with option A. The second just seems too risky. The speeches attached to the vaccine are very snakeoil salesmanish.
You are espousing the position that I should take the vaccine, or hide away, for the health of the species. I say that I should not take the vaccine, nor hide away, for exactly the same reason; the health of the species. I have done the research, I have read the monographs, I have listened to the experts explain the value and then go back and change what they said as new information arose (multiple times). I remain unconvinced, therefore elect to not be vaccinated. I see the data, not what I want to see, but what is there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Journal_of_Therapeutics
And it's too early to tell how effective the vaccines are at this stage. Cases are on the rise again in the UK despite more than 70% of the population having had the first shot of vaccine..
Those who are vaccinated will, according to your argument, be safe. The only people at risk will be others who have chosen not to have the vaccine. Of course if the vaccines are not effective then those vaccinated will also be at risk, but then...
We have to respect people's right to decide what goes in to their own bodies. Some people will make poor decisions about that, this is nothing new.
I would reserve social condemnation for those who won't wear a mask when that is ordered. It's such a tiny burden, to decline it is to raise one's middle finger to the rest of society.
And now, please greet my inner fascist! No shit, those stories about people who get in to fights with flight attendants about masking gets my blood boiling. Mr. Fascist says, take them to the nearest door, hand them a parachute, and push them out. After all, they have 30,000 feet to figure out how to use the parachute.
Ok, so maybe, maybe, maybe that's a tad extreme. But really, we put up with way too much shit from such people. How about, ban them from all airlines for life? Ok, I guess I can live with that.
So are millions of others. I guess they are all idiots in your eyes.
Quoting Book273
So, because you are educated, as you clearly point out, you know the difference between an mRNA vaccine and for example the swine flu vaccine that had serious consequences?
Your "education" in this matter is not a foundation of proof that there will be serious consequences five years from now. Not only that, there are documented cases of serious problems for people who survived Covid that might last for years or their entire life. So you compare an outright guess based on your "educated" opinion. Remind me again what education you use as a foundation for your evaluation here? Or are you referring to anecdotal evidence through emotion based on the swine flu debacle and not really about how these vaccines actually work? Further disregarding actual documentation of long-term Covid complications that are far more serious than anything even remotely reported about the vaccines. So even if you survive Covid, there's a high risk of complications. That needs to be evaluated against any wild guesswork about speculative five-year consequences of an mRNA vaccine that no one who worked on the swine flu vaccine says is even remotely possible because of the basic differences in how these vaccines work.
Quoting Book273
Do you mean to die if you are unlucky? Or get serious complications?
Quoting Book273
Wait, you say we don't know much about Covid but you dismiss the dangers of it and trusting your own body to respond to it in a predictable way? Compared to vaccines which have been extremely tested due to the importance of finding one and thousands of people have worked on and even more people have gone through human trials for and even more data compiling now that millions have gotten it? You mean to say that your logic is that because there are some unknowns left, you evaluate the risks of something documented to have a high mortality rate and that can create serious illness if survived as being lower risk than the vaccine with less risks documented? Nice logic there. Are you also thinking like that while driving? Only driving off-road because there's risks involved with having oncoming drivers going the opposite direction. Maybe you will hit them! You cannot use the roads they are unsafe, look at the statistics of deaths in traffic! Let's go off-road into uncharted territory so to avoid all other cars. Oh no, didn't see that hole in the gound
Quoting Book273
I thought you were educated? Where do you get the education to spot snake-oil salesmen's speeches?
All I see is someone speculating and having emotional opinions based on fear. I see very little signs of any education... at all. And your risk assessment is extremely flawed and not very rooted in the research surrounding the virus. You have higher risks from Covid than any vaccine, but you flip it and think Covid is less dangerous. Maybe go to India and ask the burning bodies what they think about the dangers of the vaccine.
Quoting Book273
Oh, for fuck sake.
Quoting Book273
You have no idea what you are talking about. You have concluded that people should just interact with each other normally, not isolate and battle anything, not vaccinate at all because that will lead us to better health.
What are you smoking? The mortality rate is high and the only reason we do not see this in practice is that we've introduced restrictions and regulations in society to block extreme spread. With the Delta variant getting stronger at 70% higher infectious risk, it's even worse to break restrictions.
What fucking education are you referring to? Cherry-picking points that only prove your point?
You make conclusions about how people should act based on the fact there are still some questions left unanswered about the virus. That's NOT a foundation for any conclusions that we should just open up and not give a damn about restricting the spread.
Seriously, you Quoting Book273
This is the scientific process. You know, to examine, conclude, examine again, modify, adapt. The scientific process is about chopping away at something until the truth becomes more clear. This is why we have words like hypothesis and scientific theory (not to be confused with common tongue "theory"). Experts talk about their recent findings, media are uneducated and blow things up with click bait headlines. But if you know what the scientific process is about, you would understand WHY they change the conclusions they make, especially as everyone races against time to figure the virus out.
If you don't even understand how science works, how can anyone take your "education" seriously? This is getting seriously stupid.
Quoting Book273
No, you clearly don't. You don't have the knowledge of statistical analysis, you don't have an understanding of the scientific process and you don't understand how to evaluate risks. You don't see data, you have an opinion and you pick data to support that first.
But nothing of this has anything to do with the immoral act of endangering other people by disregarding the vaccine and disregarding restrictions. You are just trying to justify for yourself why you don't want the vaccine or need to follow restrictions, but even you admit to not knowing all the consequences of Covid in an unchecked outbreak.
So if you go out, unvaccinated, unknowing if you are a carrier, right into a public space in close proximity with other people and infect someone who later dies... you are guilty of manslaughter. Why wouldn't you? You disregard all health recommendations, all recommendations from actual educated experts and you disregard the potential hazard risk of infecting other people, even though there's tons of info supporting the dangers and how it spreads. By disregarding all of this and put other people at risk of getting infected, you actively cause someone else to die.
Even if there were more unknowns about the virus and even lesser mortality rate, it's still immoral to break what has become socially accepted norms of living in order to prevent damage and death onto others.
It's like the most basic example of ethics you can come across and you fail any sort of rational reasoning behind your stance. No one cares if you infect yourself through being careless, no one cares about idiots causing themselves harm, it's not about that. It's about them causing others harm. You cannot justify your own behavior in the light of risking other people. You either follow the same restrictions and regulations as everyone else or you are an immoral agent that should be judged accordingly. You can refuse the vaccine, but that requires you to follow the restrictions when vaccinated people can go out in public normally. If you don't get the vaccine, you have no right to the same level of freedom, because you are still a risk when you don't have the vaccine. It's just basic fucking logic here that you try to justify with extremely poor philosophy and rational reasoning. Why are you even on this forum if this simple logic goes over your head.
Or people who can't get the vaccine because of allergic reactions and such. There are many people who can't get vaccines. But maybe the anti-vaccers think they are collateral damage for "the greater good of human health". Maybe some dihydrogen monoxide will help anti-vaccers think better, maybe not.
I'm with you. The respect for people's opinions goes far, but there's a limit. When we have a clear situation where these idiots' behavior can harm or even kill other people, it's not up for debate anymore. Seriously, why should we respect someone's opinion if the following behavior out of that opinion is a great risk to someone else's life?
Just like my example with driving with a blindfold. If I sit in my parked car and put on a blindfold, that's my "opinion", if I drive with the blindfold that's me applying that opinion to behavior. If my opinion is to support the idea of people driving blindfolded, but my practical appliance of that opinion is to only do it in a parked car, then there's no problem. If I, however, put on the blindfold and start driving down the road, that is not an opinion anymore, it's a practical reality where the risks happen outside of my opinion. That means the consequences are real. Even if I, in my stupidity, don't believe that driving with a blindfold will kill anyone, I will still risk other people's lives and my belief doesn't matter when I eventually hit and kill someone because that is a real risk that everyone except me, agrees upon.
And even so, spreading such ideas so that someone eventually does it can be harmful. This is why there are cases where people are convicted because they incited dangerous behavior in others. It's the entire reason Trump was criticized for the Capitolium attack. He didn't do it, but he incited part of it. So what about anti-vaccers and those pushing ideas of breaking restrictions, if people follow that or if they follow their own ideas, shouldn't that be considered in the same manner as driving blindfold or getting someone else to do it?
I don't think it's fascism to position yourself hard against reckless behavior. If someone starts waving a gun around and there's a risk of it going off and kill someone, you shoot that person down. That's not fascism, it's survival, it's protecting others. How is protecting others from harm or death, fascism? Shut the idiots down, there's nothing to be gained by tip toeing around such reckless behavior.
Hey thanks for bringing that up! I had forgotten that crap. I work for the same outfit now as I did then. Then it was mandated that I get that vaccine or lose my job. I needed the money as my kids were young, so Daddy stepped up and did as directed. In a nutshell, that sucked royally. Now they aren't mandating this vaccine as they did the H1N1 vaccine. Likely because a full third of the staff would go home, and hospitals can't run on 2/3 of staff for any length of time. They assured us it was safe then, much the same as this vaccine. All full of doom and gloom then too. And a whole lot of not much was the result.
Quoting Christoffer
There ya go! Restrict all them anti-vaxers! They are evil bastards that won't listen to what we want! Damn all those who will not obey! ( I am out of torches, you will have to make your own for the Anti-vaxer march)
It is unfortunate that humans appear to be truly unable to accept each other's choices without railing against them. I am not asking everyone that has had a vaccine to stay away from other people in case the vaccine has some unknown communicable side effect. Worth noting: being vaccinated does not prevent catching Covid, or prevent spreading Covid eh. It reduces the severity of the illness, and may reduce transmission ( not solidly proven yet, but it seems to be working out that way).
So the vaccine has unknown long term side effects, decreases illness but does not prevent it, decreases transmission (lets just go with it) but does not prevent it, and....I forgot why I should get this again. The sales pitch falls flat.
Suppose each flight had a bouncer, like in a night club? If one raises a stink about a mask, the pilot sends back this 300 pound NFL linebacker Mr. Muscle Dude to discuss it.
Not at all.
Anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. mRNA vaccine is not the same as that vaccine, which was my point. The disease is also different. Covid is extremely worse than the swine flu. But you conclude that because of your anecdotal fallacy they are the same disease and the same kind of vaccine. Lack of logic reasoning... again.
Quoting Book273
They are a potential risk for others. If they, through their stupidity, risk other people's health or even cause death, I think we need to protect society from their behavior. It's about protecting people from dangerous behaviors and reckless acts. I don't see them as evil, they are just morons who need to be restricted in order to protect others. Freedom of speech for them is not the same as a practical reality. Sitting in a parked car with a blindfold is not the same as driving with a blindfold.
So what's your point?
Quoting Book273
Choices that affect yourself or don't risk other people's health or lives are not the problem here. It's when choices and acts risk other people's health or even cause them death. That you are unable to understand this simple difference is mindblowing and a foundation to your lack of logical reasoning.
Quoting Book273
In that sentence, you say that it does not prevent spreading Covid, but in the same sentence, you say that it may reduce transmission. In the same fucking sentence. Good job logic brain, you are truly educated!
Quoting Book273
That phrase positions there to be unknown long-term side effects. There are no data to suggest any of that. You cannot deduce such a conclusion. And then there's the fact that Covid has documented long-term side effects, maybe you should add that to your risk assessment.
Quoting Book273
If it lowers the transmission, it lowers the R0 rate, so it helps prevent spread. Even if it doesn't block it, it prevents a lot of it, the more people who get vaccinated. It looks like you don't even understand what you are talking about yourself. Do you know what a black and white fallacy is? Lowering transmission rates lowers the spread rate, it doesn't have to be either blocking spread or not blocking to be effective in creating herd immunity.
The vaccine thing I disagree with. There is no way to determine who is vaccinated and who isn't, who can be but chooses not to and who can't be (for whatever reason) but would if they could, without requiring everyone to share way too much personal information. Sure some people won't mind, others won't care, but many will object, and I feel that they should be respected when they say "I should not have to tell you that."
I like Florida's position: $5000.00 fine for any business requiring vaccination information from customers. Just awesome.
Any evidence that contradicts your position you deem irrelevant. Just pathetic.
Careful, the Karen might infect Mr Muscle Dude and the surrounding ten passengers. Better to just send in the hazard team and bubble-boy Karen as quarantine (also lowers the volume of her "opinions" about free speech)
Read my post again. I already agreed that it's up to each person to decide for themselves on the vaccine. If they were smart they'd get it, but it should be legal to be stupid.
https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19-vaccine-wont-have-long-term-side-effects
Quoting Book273
We know in the short term it can cause sickness, hospitalisations, and deaths – at a rate higher than any known side effects from the vaccine.
You're arguing with yourself here. You agreed that the customer must comply with airline regulations, but then change your position in regards to all other businesses.
You live in a society, you play by their rules. If you don't live in society, you can do whatever. Same logic.
You risk people on the plane, you risk people in society. Same logic. Get it?
Quoting Book273
Why is that awesome? If you are to interact with people and knowing who's vaccinated makes it safer to conduct business, it should be perfectly fine to ask about that information. Why is this a bad thing? They risk other people's health and therefore such information is a good way to make things safer.
Quoting Book273
It's an anecdotal fallacy you philosophical illiterate. You are on a philosophy forum and you can't even understand basic fallacies. Fucking moron. I even linked to a description of what anecdotal fallacy means and you still react like this.
I'm still wondering what moderators mean by "low-quality" posts. I guess I'll never find out.
It can also create a total loss of smell and taste, distorted smell and taste that could be permanent. It can cause exhaustion that lasts for months, some speculate years. Damage to the lungs can be permanent, meaning they will likely not give you enough oxygen until fully healed, which might never happen due to scarring of the tissue. Damage to the heart that poses a higher risk of heart disease in the future...
I can go on, there's a long list of potential and direct side effects after recovery that are extreme and way worse than anything ever reported about the vaccines.
If you wish to have a debate, you will have to first find someone who hasn't already expressed support for your position.
@Christoffer @Book273 @Foghorn
So far. Give it a few years eh. Let me know then.
The country you live in also demands things of you as a citizen. Just because it's your country doesn't mean it's yours. They can demand that you get the vaccine and fine you whatever you want if you don't. Don't like, move to a country that give you some other freedoms or vote for those who will give you that freedom. But bitching about things because you don't like them is not giving you the right to dismiss them in the society you live in. You are not the king, you are an irrelevant speck compared to a whole nation.
Quoting Book273
Why not, if you are to sit in-doors with a lot of other people and eat your cheese burger, you are a potential risk to others if you aren't vaccinated. So making sure everyone in-doors are vaccinated is a valid thing to make sure.
You cannot argue around the fact that unvaccinated people pose a risk to others. Even if the transmission is lowered and the spread rate is maybe only 50% lower, it's still enough to warrant vaccines for people that get boxed into a room with others.
Your right to not get the vaccine is not giving you the right to be close to others in public spaces. In public among other people, your rights are based on how you exist in relation to the group, if you pose a risk towards them, then you don't have any rights to do whatever you want. This is basic logic.
Quoting Book273
This means nothing in this context.
Quoting Book273
So you work in healthcare and don't get the vaccine. This is seriously getting dangerous in my opinion. If you work in healthcare, you work close to people who might be open to serious harm or death if they get infected. You don't care about restrictions and you don't care about getting vaccinated. This is almost up for us to report you as a danger in society as your opinion, just like my example with the blindfolded driver, has been put into practice (driving blindfolded).
I would urge you not to work with what you do if you don't care about restrictions or getting the vaccine. I'm dead fucking serious here, you are a potential health risk for real.
Quoting Book273
Maybe you should check in on people with long-term covid complications. We know these exist, there's zero evidence of any long-term vaccine side effects. You compare something that will actually exist in the future with something that might exist in the future as long as everything goes according to what you say.
Smoking has been banned in many public spaces, so the logic applies. And alcohol is also banned in public spaces, while not affecting others as much, any dangerous act upon intoxications is a crime. So the logic holds fine.
In fact people drink together in pubs! And cigarettes are only disallowed in confined spaces.
And what of people who drink and smoke in groups together inside? Is that considered acceptable health risk?
Well, exactly, we are talking in public right? Not specific locations for the purpose. It's still illegal to drink alcohol in many public spaces, nowhere did we mention pubs here. And smoking in public is sometimes prohibited outside certain shops or restaurants.
My point is, there are definitely regulations surrounding smoking and alcohol that are based on how those things affect other people. There are no restrictions on how they affect the user. This is probably how it should be. As long as you don't harm or pose danger to others, it's ok.
So in the case of restrictions and vaccines surrounding the pandemic. If you don't pose a danger to others, it's fine. If you don't get the vaccine, fine. But if you go out, unvaccinated into public spaces, and pose a risk of them getting infected, then that should be restricted.
That people get confused about what moral rights to have when A) affecting yourself, compared to B) affecting others, is pretty mind-blowing. You affect yourself, fine, do whatever - affect others, get in line and follow the law, restrictions, and rules of society. That's what society is. Anyone who thinks they are above society and doesn't need to follow what is collectively agreed on is either fine to move somewhere else, isolate themselves, or face the consequences of breaking against these things.
It's like the most basic form of ethical logic here, and I don't understand how on a philosophy forum this logic is misunderstood or downright not getting through the skull of some.
You are suggesting the unvaccinated to stay home?
Yet drinkers and smokers do go out together and congregate together. People can decide themselves about the alleged risks of certain activities.
If you follow your paranoid logic there are risks in old people driving,crossing the road,air travel,etc,etc.
When it comes to morality many of us don't take lectures or orders from authoritarian or paranoid types.
If your soo scared or worried,you stay home.
Funny,I thought vaccines protected you,so what you worried about?
When there were multiple other vaccines in the rollout. That's not what we're talking about here: Janus' idea is that we should stop that rollout altogether and go a whole new route with under-tested medicine.
Quoting Janus
Irrespective, it's proposed application to Covid is new. Stopping an already successful vaccine rollout to try a whole new approach that maybe would work would be nuts.
Someone smoking in the proximity of others is not at direct risk of getting sick. An unvaccinated person who carries the virus can infect and hurt or kill other people at that very instant.
People can clearly not decide or understand the risks in this pandemic. How else do you think people have gotten sick and died? Do you think it just magically happen?
Unvaccinated people should follow the restrictions and regulations that we have to battle the pandemic. Until they are vaccinated there's no going around this fact. And because some people can't get the vaccine due to things like allergies, if an unvaccinated person just don't give a shit and walk out into the public and infect one of these people, that is a direct consequence of their action to disregard the restrictions set in place to block the spread.
To compare this to drinkers and smokers in how that would affect others is really not the same thing. I don't understand what is so hard to understand about this? If you don't care about the actions set in place to battle the virus and you disregard it all and go out into a crowd, all it takes is a cough or even talking to another person too close. If that person gets complications from the virus, it's either death or damage that could be permanent, like the scar tissue people reportedly some patients have got on their lungs. Do you really mean that smoking and drinking are in any shape or form comparable to this? Seriously?
You have swallowed the government and media narratives to a tee.
Answer me this,in what previous time did we ever social distance or wear masks to prevent colds?
Yet we still here and i have zero fear of covid.
This whole corona fiasco is an IQ and paranoia test.
In what way? People are burning bodies in India, a relative of mine died and the statistics are through the roof about people dying even when we have restrictions in place. What the fuck do you think would happen if we didn't have any restrictions or countermeasures in place? Seriously, you don't know what is going on? Do you think this pandemic is some conspiracy narrative by the government? What proof do you have of that? What kind of reasoning are you doing to conclude it to be so?
Quoting Trinidad
It's not a common cold you stupid fuck. I give up, I don't know why you are on this forum and I don't understand how moderators tolerate this level of low-quality posts.
Your just ranting.
If you trust your media and government then lock yourself in buddy.
I'm talking about persons.
In that case, for a particular person, the probabilities can only be calculated theoretically, not empirically. Which makes for a lot less optimistic numbers.
More importantly, people don't make decisions based on a risk/benefit analysis, but based on their values, ie. what they consider important.
Always blame the person, eh?
You could say that bleach is "safe and effective" -- provided one is a flat glass surface.
Medicine is ignoring the very people it is supposed to help.
Quoting Fooloso4
What do you mean?
I'm talking about the discriminatory practices that are already taking place: such as being required to get vaccinated, or else get fired. The foundation of such discriminatory practices would need to be legalized, but it isn't.
Quoting Fooloso4
It doesn't matter. As long as it is possible that one ends up with a stroke and paralyzed and homeless after getting vaccinated, this is all that matters to one.
Making sure to keep the discourse ever so superficial, eh?
Who's advocating that?
Actually, it must be great to feel so confident that luck is on one's side. Getting the vaccine, thinking, "Oh, surely I'm so great and so lucky that I will not get the side effects!"
Remember, the Iron Lady said there is no society.
No no no. If you're so eager to talk about risks and probabilities, then you need to present the above claims in terms of probabilities, so that we get the full picture.
You say, for example "Not taking the vaccine will put a strain on communities" -- as if this were 100% certain. But is it? Calculate the probability. Otherwise, all you have is ideology.
I'm guessing that the probability of getting a bad case of covid is about the same as getting bad side effects from the covid vaccine, at least in some areas.
Then why are there laws against stealing and killing, for example, if those are no-brainers?
Something being a no-brainer doesn't mean it needn't be made into a law. If society wishes to enforce various types of discrimination against people, based on whether they are vaccinated or not, then there needs to be a legal basis for this.
The probabilities are statistical based on empirical evidence.
Quoting baker
On the contrary. In places where vaccination numbers are high new cases, hospitalization, and death has dropped dramatically.
Quoting baker
What they consider to be the risks and benefits is based, at least in part, on their values.
Quoting baker
If you do not understand how the terms are being used then it is up to you to understand them before denying that the vaccines are safe and effective.
Quoting baker
Medicine, used in the broad sense of medical research, development, and availability, is helping people.
Quoting baker
I means that one does not have to be an expert in the field to be informed.
Quoting baker
It is a safety protocol. We will have o wait and see whether it is ruled discriminatory.
Quoting baker
What matters to one is not what matters to all.
They are for people with no brains.
Quoting baker
True. There are many people with no brains, so they need laws.
Quoting baker
On the other hand, we could ostracize, consequence, cancel the dummies. But instead, we have dummies passing laws making it a $5k fine to ostracize, consequence or cancel dummies.
Quoting baker
You are correct. I apologize.
P.S. A Trumpette I know had a sig line on his web site years ago. It was an old John Wayne quote that said: "Life is hard. It's even harder when you're stupid." This guy never followed protocols and didn't vax. He just died of Covid. It was a long, hard, miserable death. Hard on his family too. Some of them followed protocols and vaxed. So, life is not only harder when you're stupid, but stupid people can make life hard for smart people too. Oh well, stupid is fixed now. Smart is still hurting. I don't know if laws would have helped, but a healthy dose of ostracization, consequence and cancel might have done the trick.
Finally, I hear most folks are asymptomatic and don't even know they had it when they did. They spread it and kill people. Fuck them. They also make for variants that could bypass the vaccine or be more contagious or be more deadly. Fuck them.
And governors who make it a crime to ostracize, consequence or cancel? Fuck them.
I'm leaving for a while to do some other shit and only came back because I received an email saying you replied. Adios.
What is wrong with you??? Are you a robot???
If you get the serious negative side effects of the vaccine, how will you cope with them? How will that affect your trust in science? Do you really think you will be able to take solace in the fact that the vaccine has helped other people, but not you?
Read the thread
Quoting baker
People pushing the dangers of vaccines often don't know how statistics work or how to interpret them. In comparison to the virus, what dangers are you talking about? Like, we have a virus that is not only high in mortality rate, it also possesses a high risk of damaging tissue (like the people who's got scar tissue on their lungs that may be permanent) while others still haven't gotten their taste and smell back a year after infection. The list is long of all the health problems that relate to covid-19, but some are stuck arguing about side effects of the vaccines... What exactly are the side effects that possess such a high risk that contracting covid is considered preferable?
Because as I see it, the risks of the vaccine are blown out of proportion by people who really don't know how to read publications properly.
Quoting baker
So, you mean to say that all the data from hospitals around the world that are barely managing their limit of ICU patients and the places where it breaks the limit and covid cases start dying in the streets, like we have in India... is not a strain on communities compared to if most of the population was vaccinated.
What do the reports say you mean? Based on them, based on how things are going around the world, do you not think that it's a logical conclusion to say that if people take the vaccine, we will relieve the tension and strain that communities live under when they're not vaccinated and the spread is uncontrolled?
Please explain what you mean by being 100% certain. I'm 100% certain that my logic is sound here, right? You have a society that struggles to contain a virus, people are dying, others are getting seriously ill. Then a vaccine comes along and eases that strain and stress on society. What is not logical about this? Please elaborate.
Quoting baker
What are you basing that conclusion on? You are guessing, based on... what exactly? You are free to read UN and WHOs daily reports, you can look up publications and check statistics about it. The health issues you can get from Covid are documented literally everywhere, and you could probably check with the local hospital about the different cases of long term covid problems. But side effects from the vaccine range in 1 in about 1-2 million for the worst offender of side effects (Astra Zenica had serious side effects for 19 people of 20 million doses in UK), while the other vaccines do not have any reports of such side effects.
So, before you counter-argue with a "guess" or "opinion". Please explain what side effects you are referring to and how you compare the vaccine to the health problems of covid-19.
When I refer to UN, WHO, hospital personnel, epidemiologists and researchers as the source for the premises for my conclusions I'm being called a fearmonger who buy into the "government propaganda". But the most common denominator when it comes to vaccine critics is that they "guess" a lot and have "opinions" that rarely have any logical foundation or sources. Numbers are thrown around, guesses about statistical risks, anecdotal "evidence" that covid isn't serious because "I didn't get it or had it serious" or that it's just "lies by the government" and into absurdum.
Where are your sources for your guesses? I beg for you to provide any kind of legitimate source that support your guess of the probability of side effects from the vaccine being equal to the dangers of Covid, because not only is that wrong, it's a hilarious lack of observational ability when you even take a basic look at the global situation and the effects of the vaccine.
That doesn't matter now, does it? If you get side effects because of that super unlucky lottery, then that is not any empirical evidence that the vaccine is worse than covid. Is this how you treat logic? That if something happens to you, then the statistics are wrong? Seriously?
What about the people who get seriously ill by Covid? People who die or get such damage to their lungs that they can't even walk 5 meters before getting out of breath? You think they take solace in stupid people advocating to not take the vaccine so that it gets harder to fight the spread? Do you think they like people who refuse the vaccine and go out and breaking restrictions without any thought in their tiny brains that they might infect someone else? You think these people don't want to beat anti-vaccers up for pushing back on something that might have been a help to prevent their health problems now?
You totally miss the suffering Covid is causing, thinking there's any statistical relevance to the dangers of the vaccine that in any way could be compared to the severity of Covid. A case of one person getting side effects of the vaccine is insignificant to the statistics here. It's like literally failure at understanding basic statistics and science.
Quoting James Riley
This pandemic has made it clear to me that idiots are far more common than I previously thought. And since idiots are actually posing a risk towards other people who might get seriously ill, I'd say there's nothing holding back protecting people at risk. If someone is beating someone up on the street, people stop it and help the victim. But if someone is acting recklessly and don't give a shit about restrictions and laws or the vaccine, goes out and cough in people's direction... I don't see any reason why shutting them down hard is a problem? It's clear that we need harsher laws for situations like a pandemic. Idiots roaming the streets in this way is like having blindfolded drivers driving around and there's no law against it.
If you get coronavirus and get seriously ill, how will you cope with that? How will that affect your trust in antivirus fear?
If I got seriously negative side effects from the vaccine I would cope as best I could. I would still think I made the right decision.
Please present comparative statistics.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/massachusetts-covid-cases.html
Quoting Fooloso4
And WHO has extensive information that's constantly updated with new data and research.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters
CDC also has a lot of global gathering of data as well as research publications.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/index.html
PNAS also features up to date publications on numerous types of topics related to covid.
https://www.pnas.org/search/Covid-19%20content_type%3Ajournal
Maybe the anti-vaccer side could present their data now? Maybe anything other than "My experience is..." and "I don't believe that..." and "According to my own research..." and "How would you feel if..." etc.
It's remarkable that the low quality of such posts is ok on this forum. If the topic is scientific, which this clearly is, then the scientific and philosophical quality needs to be high. The anecdotal, emotional, biased and fallacious posts should not be allowed. That's what Reddit, Facebook, 4Chan etc. are for.
Thanks. I would think that anyone who challenged the numbers would first look to see what they are. It is not as if this information is not readily available.
Try searching on the WHO site for statistics showing the numbers of adverse reactions to the vaccines. Good luck with that!
Try searching on the WHO site for statistics showing the decline in cases of Covid where Ivermectin has been administered compared to neighbouring regions where it has not. I couldn't find any such.
So, what reason do I have for believing that the WHO is not a propaganda machine?
See Christoffer's post above.
In about a year...actual herd immunity. And minor population control.
Now Ebola...That goes pandemic, I will likely get the vaccine. 70% mortality rate gets your attention.
Scale up the statistics and do a projected death toll and include all "long-covid" health problems that for some are permanent and you'll see that it's not a damn flu season. When people say that Covid-19 isn't that bad because we don't see any major problems in society, they seem to forget that the restrictions and actions taken have already suppressed a lot of what the virus would have caused if nothing were done. And there are further reports that herd immunity for this virus isn't as clear-cut as the uneducated critics might think. Lots of people who got the disease got it again in a short period of time and had even more severe problems the second time. And let's not forget that the Delta variant of the virus is around 70% more effective and can have even more severe effects on someone's health.
People who criticize restrictions, vaccines, and actions taken to battle this virus and its mutations don't know what the fuck they're talking about. If you aren't a researcher yourself, the only course of action is to listen to the scientists and experts in this field and gather enough data to understand the broader perspective and severity of it. You simply don't understand how to interpret data and the reports given.
Maybe because there's no evidence other than conspiracy theories for it? The lack of something on their site is not "evidence" for them being a propaganda machine. You can get national data over what you are looking for if you do some digging.
Maybe you can provide evidence for why WHO is a propaganda machine instead of a global coordinator for health and medical science?
Quoting Janus
Maybe the data set is too low to be able to conclude anything at this time? If you dig around in the data and reports you'll see that there's data supporting slowing the spread, even though it's not at the level of totally blocking. Then you have national reports from different CDC organizations around the world reporting on statistics of vaccine levels and change in spread rate. But since the data is still being collected, there's not finalized statement on it, just like how science should work.
No, they're not. You can easily compare nations who prepared badly or who didn't have effective actions in place. Like in India where they had to burn piles of bodies because they didn't have the right precautions in place.
You are also contradicting yourself with that conclusion. Because if it's hard to prove what "would have been", then how do you know the world "would have been fine" if we didn't have the restrictions and precautions that we have right now? You're not making any sense.
Quoting Book273
That's a bullshit analogy. You do know there's data and facts behind the restrictions and actions taken? It's just that you are too lazy to actually read up on those things and you compare that to yourself having an idea for fraud.
Quoting Book273
Yes, I could have, relatives have died of it, or I could have had severe effects, like co-workers who can barely walk 5 meters without having to catch their breath because their lungs are permanently scarred and fucked up.
You cannot conclude like that with bullshit premises.
Quoting Book273
Yes, but the risk is much lower. What's your point?
Quoting Book273
No, it's not, you are just superbly bad at understanding basic logic.
Quoting Book273
I don't care about what you think about yourself. You don't prove to us that you are educated on this matter, you don't prove you understand either the logic of what is being said or the facts that actually exist. The fact that you "don't care" already shows the level you're at.
Now, can any moderator please explain what a low-quality post is? Why are we tolerating conspiracy nuts on this forum?
You are clinging to the premise that public health is entirely correct and that they are completely trustworthy. Maybe they solidly believe what they are peddling. I completely understand that you believe them.
However, public health in the 20's and 30's also supported eugenics as a viable heath initiative. This is true for many countries at the time. The most infamous, and the one that resulted in the end of publicly supported eugenics, were the Nazis, master race and all that. It was wrong, but at the time was a supported theory.
Other initiatives also supported by public health include racially separated bathrooms (theory of the time being that non-white people spread disease), removing children from transient peoples (gypsies, etc) as transient people were clearly of lower breeding.
Yep there are some epic fails in the history of public health, mostly based on the politics and perspectives of the time, not based in science. We should question what is going on. IF the answers hold up, great. If not, following directions might not be the way to go.
I would say it is because what we find intolerable, but nevertheless have to tolerate, is our inability to persuade others about matters that are so obvious to us that no persuasion should be necessary. What we are being invited to suppose is that something obviously true in our view may be clearly false in somebody else's. Further, they may not be insincere, stupid or mad. It's a big challenge but worth taking on.
Not in philosophy. I've been pointing this out in other threads as well. This forum is supposed to be a place that A) Tolerates almost all kinds of topics and at the same time B) Demands higher quality rhetoric and philosophical scrutiny to discuss those topics.
It's why this place doesn't have the name "Reddit" or "Facebook", "4Chan" etc. and instead is called "The Philosophy Forum". It's even in the rules of the forum that people need to have a higher level of discussion here than just normal "internet debate". It's the reason I gravitated to this place and not some other forum because I can expect better quality here. Now, sure, if it's an open forum there's always gonna end up being people joining that aren't up to this task and of course, there has to be some stretching, otherwise, it would be tediously boring... but constantly pushing unsupported conspiracy theories, extreme bias, and fallacy after fallacy should be shut down more than I experience on this forum. There are probably nutcases joining this forum every hour, but I wonder how someone gets to hundreds or thousands of posts before they get banned, get a warning, or similar.
But that's enough of that derail of this thread. Back to topic.
Do you have any evidence to support this claim that you cannot trust public health? You have provided nothing of the sort. As long as there's no evidence of them lying and being a propaganda machine, you are just bullshitting because you believe it is so.
Quoting Book273
How are the crimes of the Nazi regime or the practice of eugenics in any way or form related to modern public health that's constantly reviewed and is consistent of thousands of individual institutes that work independently but review each other and peer-reviewing publications of others?
This is conspiracy-level bullshit premises that is in no way any evidence for WHO being a propaganda machine or conducting any of the things you speak about around the Nazi regime. Seriously.
Quoting Book273
The same answer applies to this.
Quoting Book273
Exactly, so what politics is there that govern ALL THE DIFFERENT CDC AND WHO EQUIVALENT INSTITUTES AROUND THE WORLD? Is it not that these institutes today actually are run by scientists in global collaboration? So that no single nation governs over scientific practices or has the power to initiate unethical practices without consequences.
Your knowledge of the scientific community and world is astonishingly low.
Quoting Book273
You don't do any of this! You question something without even a single strand of evidence to support that critique, you just mash together Nazi public health with WHO and think that means we need to question what is going on. This is fucking conspiracy rhetoric, it's basically a textbook answer of what that is. If you want to ask the question of if WHO has hidden agendas, then you can't state that as facts or take action based on that belief, you need to gather evidence that logically, as a sum of facts, show that it is indisputably true that WHO has other agendas. If not, then you cannot and should never continue as if that belief was true. It's like basic fucking philosophy here, how to arrive at a logical conclusion.
Why are you even on this forum if this is the level of arguments you put together? It's not even close to having any rational relevence.
I have given examples of when public health has had less than scientific approaches; if you want solid examples of this, look them up. There were pamphlets written in the early 20's and 30's explaining the rationale behind segregation policy. The eugenics policies aren't exactly hard to find, look them up too.
They were wrong, but were supported at the time.
At no point have I suggested any conspiracy theory, that is all you. If you disagree with this claim then it should be easy to locate exactly where I claim a conspiracy is underway. Don't paraphrase: quote me.
It is unfortunate that to every example I have given to support my position you counter with some version of "irrelevant." or "prove it".
Also, I am not yelling at you, nor swearing, nor seeking the moderator to intervene on my behalf, nor am I questioning your place on this forum.
I suggest that people make up their own minds and determine their own course of action; as close to informed consent as they can achieve, and not blindly obey (unless they want to). That is all. Why this infuriates you is beyond me. People thinking for themselves should be a good thing, correct?
That WHO or other public health has a hidden agenda of some sort:
Quoting Book273
Quoting Book273
That you don't recognize what's a conspiracy theory or not is not surprising as it's exactly how those things go.
Quoting Book273
And I answered you on that, they are irrelevant comparisons to modern public health, read what is written.
Quoting Book273
I did and your examples I have also countered, you just ignore it, you ignore the simple logic I provided to counter it and you don't care. So stop spamming the same thing over and over.
Quoting Book273
Because you need to fucking prove your point dumbass. And you cannot just dismiss the counterarguments you get and just spam the same thing over and over. The reason that they are irrelevant is that they have no internal logic to them, they are just loose connections between historical events and totally different practices of public health today, especially in nations that collaborate with other nations.
You just say things, you claim something and when asked to support it you draw loose connections that are irrelevant. Get educated.
Quoting Book273
Why would you? I've provided tons of logical arguments and links to facts etc. You just say things and you get posts removed by moderators on the basis of your posts being low quality. It's not like I argue about your place on this forum because I can't argue against you, it's that I argue against you and you just don't care to provide any logical follow up to those counterarguments, you spam the same thing again and the low quality of your posts (referring to the specifications in the rules of this forum) implies that you simply don't belong here. Either you step up and increase the quality of your arguments or you leave and join a forum without these kinds of guidelines. If you cannot understand this simple fact then, of course, you don't understand why I question your place here.
Quoting Book273
People are stupid, most of them have zero ability to logically conclude anything, review facts, or come to conclusions that are sound. I don't agree that people shall "make up their own minds", people should know their limits, they should know when they don't know all the facts to make a conclusion. The problem today is that people learn to value their own opinions in such narcissistic ways that they ignore every kind of method to actually arrive at any kind of truth. So no, they should not "just make up their own minds", especially during a health crisis. They should sit down and shut the fuck up and let the ones who are actual experts run the show. If they didn't care to educate themselves and take the necessary time and effort to become experts themselves, they are in no position to conclude anything if it's not logically reasonable beyond such knowledge. There are too many people thinking their opinions matter or are important, they aren't, most people don't know anything and their conclusions are laughably inaccurate. In a health crisis, that should not be a driving force, facts and science should, expertise and knowledge. "Thinking for themselves" is not equal to understanding the facts and arriving at conclusions that are sound.
People today learn that they are limitless, but the fact is most are so limited, by education or just mental capacity that they are unable to actually be of any help, and when they try to involve themselves they are mostly in the way of people far more suited for the tasks. Not because they offer help, but because their actions are actually in the fucking way of people who need to work with these things.
The amount of time and energy that people in these fields, people like scientists, researchers, medical staff, and so on, need to apply to stupid narcissists standing in their way to fix this pandemic is astonishing. Just as an example, the projected vaccination of the US is not meeting its goal because of anti-vaccine movements being strong in certain states. While all the regular, intelligent, and morally balanced people are getting vaccinated, helping each other, and push for an end to the pandemic, these fucktards and their "thinking for themselves" helps to keep this pandemic alive.
People need to understand their place. The blue-collar worker who isn't educated in medical sciences and acknowledges that they shouldn't conclude anything about that kind of science and instead listen to the consensus answer of experts is an epistemically responsible person that I look up to just as much as the highly educated scientists and researchers working in these fields. I don't like uneducated people who speak like they are the world's experts on things they don't understand even the basics of. And if they go further and acts upon that narcissistic delusion, they need to be shut down, like any other Karen on a plane. The anti-expert mentality of the last few years needs to stop.
I think this is one of those cases where if we all do what we want then the collective outcome is worse. Like, that beautiful mind movie. So, on the individual level for everyone hesitancy is rational. Personally, I see it through social contract theory; where if you choose to live in society you ought do what keeps the society alive. The last person to get vaccinated probably won't need it, but we don't know who that is so the only successful approach is over-vaccinating the required number of people. I think we have the right to make selfish decisions and be held accountable for them, so in some sense I agree.
If you know that you must have already done the digging in which case you should be able to provide the links.
As to the WHO being a propaganda machine: if you think they have no vested interests, the least of which not being support of the pharmaceutical industry, and that they don't suppress information that threatens those interests, then you are simply naive in my view.
Quoting Christoffer
So...big brother knows best eh. Scary stuff.
Quoting Christoffer
Applicable to you my friend.Quoting Christoffer
And yet...you are still posting. Most of your rant is fully applicable to you as well eh. Or is that another irrelevant detail that you will overlook in defense of your position?
It is refreshing to hear someone actually come out and just say that people should not make their own decisions and just follow the leader, because the leader knows best. Appallingly ignorant and short sighted, but refreshing none-the-less.
There would be no United States if people had listened to what you are pushing. No one can rebel in your philosophy of obedience. How dreary.
So, for arguments sake, I will go off the deep end here and dive into a theoretical worst case scenario: Strictly hypothetical.
- As per social contract theory, I and my fellow citizens ought to do that which keeps the society alive. Agreed.
Therefore, as per the current narrative, we all roll up our sleeves and get stabbed as required. Yay us. We achieve 98% vaccination rate as desired. We have done our duty to society.
However, as there are no long term effects known, ten years later it turns out that the Mrna technology resulted in a genetic mutation which results in a pronounced decline in fertility, not in us that were vaccinated, but in our children. The already decreasing birthrate decreases to the point that without some form of drastic technological intervention the species will be functionally extinct within 100 years.
Under that scenario, the social contract theory would have us hide in caves rather than get the vaccine.
We do not know the long term effects of this vaccine, this virus, or the technology of the vaccine. It's all pretty new stuff, perhaps mild caution is in order.
That is really all I am saying.
True, we can't know now what we'll only discover in future. On the other hand, there are effectively infinite unseen outcomes of anything. By your own reasoning, you should probably kill yourself in case you case a bus crash in five years, killing dozens. But what if that doesn't happen and you're actually key to a peaceful interplanetary federation and the continued existence of the human race.
This is why ab rectum what-ifs are not something you can act on: for every what-if that leads you one way, there's another what-if that leads you in the opposite direction. A lot of anti-vax bullshit relies precisely on selective counterfactual futures: regard the what-ifs that support my position; disregard the ones that don't.
What's more effective than wild guesses is the facts we have, short of omniscience as they may be, and right now the facts tell us that your probability of infecting yourself and others -- of realistically killing people -- is a lot lower if you get vaccinated. Picking and choosing invented scenarios to forgive yourself for the people you have a very real chance of killing is not compelling.
I am not anti-vax. Not at all. However, much like I do not buy the latest, newest model of anything, I will let them work out the kinks before accepting this latest piece of technology.
If you actually bother to understand the text I'm writing, I'm talking about the need for experts to be behind the steering wheel and not have morons pulling that steering wheel while the experts are trying to drive. It's dangerous and stupid. It's not about "Big Brother", stop trying to make my argument into something that it's not and understand what I write.
Quoting Book273
The difference here is that I acknowledge the experts around me and refer to them to conclude what they are actually knowledgeable about. If I make arguments that refer to source material that they produced, then I'm taking the epistemically responsible path of arguing logic out of that knowledge. The difference between me and you is that you just have opinions, you think you know best, but have little to no foundation for that logic. The same goes for every other person who does the same. Armchair experts are called that based on them thinking they know best. The reasonable thinker, however, never position themselves to know past their own knowledge and instead include the consensus of experts into the arguments. So you are comparing apples to oranges while you don't understand the difference.
Quoting Book273
Read above.
Quoting Book273
Again, read what the fuck I'm actually writing. What "leader" are you referring to? If you're gonna strawman the argument at least try to talk about something I actually write.
Quoting Book273
Oh, another unrelated comparison. Read what I fucking wrote stupid.
No, you're only using their exact rhetoric, wild speculative bullshit, fear-mongering, and total ignorance of the science. It's like a racist who says they're not racist. The proof is in the pudding.
Quoting Christoffer
There it is. Never gets old eh, back to the old "irrelevant" position. So your position is that it's ok to rebel, maybe, but not now, and not against this, because....it weakens your position?
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
Contradicting yourself their eh. Just saying, pick a direction and stick with it. Either we don't understand our place and should "shut the fuck up" and let someone else take over, (big brother) OR it's not about big brother, which invalidates the first bit.
Quoting Christoffer
Also; just because you put in parenthesis doesn't make it a quote. I have not used the phrase "would have been fine."
Ghandi rebelled eh. Peacefully, and effectively, but he still disagreed with the powers that were and changed his world.
Mother Theresa worked around the restrictions placed upon her, effectively rebelling against those who would stop her from doing what she thought was right.
You are doing what you think is right. As am I. We will both be ignored by history, and yet, one of our positions will be more accurate than the other, such is the way of things. We are rebelling. Good for us.
Or would you rather someone had told Ghandi Quoting Christoffer
Seems like a bankrupt plan.
You are comparing rebelling against a government fighting for the freedom to fighting scientists and experts who try to fight a pandemic. You're so far off the map now that you've fallen off and you can't even realize it. This is why your comparison is irrelevant. If you can't understand why such a comparison is irrelevant and not valid as a premise to your conclusion, then you're purely delusional.
I cannot argue against something that has no relevance or is unable to follow as a counterargument to what was actually written. You've said nothing of relevance to the point that was made.
Quoting Book273
No, because Big Brother is about a government who spies and controls the people. I'm talking about experts in the field of science and coordinators of medical staff and people fighting the pandemic. I'm referring to morons not being in the steering wheel and instead letting the experts in their fields steer what they have knowledge about. You are talking about government control, it's not the same thing. Are you mentally unable to understand the difference here? You are pretty much proving my point by this extreme inability to understand even the simplest thing.
Quoting Book273
You are advocating against restrictions and relevant actions taken to fight the pandemic and your logic was assuming things would have been fine while then saying this:
Quoting Book273
So, you are basically speculating a scenario that doesn't have any modeling or valid assumptions behind it other than your wild speculation and irrelevant comparisons between apples and oranges, while criticizing a scenario that has a valid foundation of logic based on the facts we actually have about the virus, calling that "hard to prove" because it's out of modeling and assumptions.
If you are only using your uneducated wild speculation as a foundation for what you think would have happened to the world and then dismiss scenarios that actually have facts and knowledge as a foundation, I'd call that a contradictory argument from you, and my parenthesis was to sum up your stance in order to show why your logic failed. I guess it's impossible to, even when it's staring you in the face.
Quoting Book273
Why do you keep bringing up rebelling political injustices when that has nothing to do with the problems of morons standing in the way of experts trying to fight a pandemic? It's like you're unable to understand what we're talking about here? What the fuck has Gandhi to do with Karen's screaming that they don't want facemasks? Or armchair experts spreading stupid bullshit that creates confusion while scientists and experts try to educate the people and stop the pandemic?
Quoting Book273
And one more again
Quoting Book273
You are not acting upon the knowledge that we have. You are acting like a moron and have zero foundation as to why. The fact is that you have less probability of being accurate because you don't have any rational deduction behind the things you write. I keep asking for it, but you make historical comparisons to things that have nothing to do with the current situation or problem.
Quoting Book273
Seems like you should sit down.
yep. And then say irrelevant, or anecdotal. Either way, whatever you dislike, you dismiss.
Quoting Christoffer
Nope, not ever. You are projecting again. I think the pandemic response will result in more damage than the pandemic would have if there had been no response at all. Check the WHO site for anticipated deaths due to starvation, lack of TB diagnosis and treatment, etc. as a result of all the border closures and crap resulting from the pandemic response. Last I checked the numbers were about 50,000,000.
So, globally, we scrap upwards of 50,000,000 to cover a pandemic that has taken 3.9 million so far. Seeing as I am a population control kinda guy, I am liking your math here. However, since I am also an environmental supporting type...hating the response even more.
Where I work we are seeing adverse reactions to vaccine at 1:5. Not monster life ending stuff, but still, 1:5. Hard to support that. But hey, it's anecdotal right? So ignore it and carry on.
The OP asked for reasons regarding Vaccine yes or no. I am saying no. Do what you like based on the data. Unless you are frontline, your data is filtered. I am taking the data I see, anecdotal as it is, and working from that. And No is what I come up with.
Are you dense? Did you read what I wrote? That you are comparing apples to oranges? Are you unable to understand that such comparisons aren't relevant and not a logical correlating foundation to what you actually concluded? Can you understand this now or should we dance around your inability to understand this simple thing some more? You haven't presented valid premises for your conclusion, fucking get that already. It doesn't matter if you think this yourself, I have deconstructed the argument you've made and showed how it makes no logical sense to compare in the way you do, but you continue like a parrot along the same line of thinking. You are simply just proving yourself to be just stupid now.
Quoting Book273
Projecting? Isn't you thinking that the pandemic response is more damaging than if we'd not done anything at all... exactly like assuming things would have been fine? Are you actually fucking stupid right now in not understanding that those two basically mean the same thing?
Quoting Book273
And you are comparing that to what estimate of death tolls for the virus? Here's your actual argument in philosophical terms:
p1: The seriousness of the virus is not high
p2: The consequences of the pandemic response leads to many deaths (around 50 000 000) due to other global health problems
Therefore, the pandemic response is more damaging than not doing anything at all.
p1 is an assumption you have no supporting evidence for or can point out to be true. It's your own assumption that you have just "guessed". So by that alone, your argument falls. p2. is probably true if you remove the number. However, because you also point to a number of 50 000 000, you need to support that number with relevant statistical linking data. You cannot quantify that data as a direct relation to the pandemic response. You need to establish a direct link to that number, otherwise, you cannot quantify how many deaths are a causation of the pandemic response (this is a classic causation/correlation fallacy). Your conclusion relies on p1 being correct and that the serious consequences of p2 is both directly linked to the pandemic response and that they are worse than anything could be if p1 was false.
So once again, with this extremely low-quality induction, tell me again why you are on this forum?
Quoting Book273
Yes, it's an anecdotal fallacy... again. You think that fallacy exists for everyone else but doesn't apply to you or your argument? You even acknowledge it yourself to be anecdotal but don't understand why it's a fallacy? What level of stupidity are you on?
Quoting Book273
But you have no data! You make a correlation/causation fallacy, you use anecdotal evidence, you speculate the severity of the virus without any facts behind it. "Do what you like based on the data" is epistemically irresponsible and also plain wrong. You do what is best according to actual data and understanding that data. This means you need to understand both the action to take and you need to know how to interpret the data. You are unable to do both. The way you describe it is selfish and dangerous to others. Stupid people thinking they know best without actual education, knowledge, or ability to interpret statistical data is the problem I'm speaking about. They need to sit down and stop being so loud.
Quoting Book273
And this is why you are stupid and don't belong on a philosophy forum. Being on the frontline means you also have data filtered as you are only seeing ONE part of a whole, ONE sample of data that is limited and only in context to that situation. It's the exact opposite of the scientific method, the exact opposite of any kind of method of logic to arrive at what can be concluded true.
And once again not able to understand what the anecdotal fallacy is and why it exists.
Quoting Book273
Without any philosophical scrutiny whatsoever. You don't even attempt to follow any kind of philosophical methods needed to arrive at a sound conclusion. You just have an opinion based on anecdotal experience. And without the capacity to understand statistics you think you have support for that opinion, without ever logically create an argument around it.
I'd like to see you actually create an induction argument around your conclusion. Please do that, because you are still on a philosophical forum, so this is a valid request. Put forth the argument and I'll run through why the logic doesn't work.
Is that what the reasonable thinker does? I am no expert in anything but from what I've seen, its the brainless thinkers that tend to buy into experts' so called expertise. I have also seen many examples of experts getting it wrong and leading the brainless followers into shitty situations, which should make anyone with two shits for brains skeptical about anything any expert might claim. Of course, I didn't get my opinion from an expert, so you will probably reject what I'm saying here.
Is it "buying into"? Or is it compiling the consensus conclusions of people who have studied most of their lives on subjects and science that we only grasp a fraction of? Whenever someone says "so called" expertise my alerts fire up. What is "so called"? If you haven't studied viral diseases, epidemiology, vaccine methods, RND and DNA behavior, and so on at any time in your life, how are you in a position to question these experts' results? And I am well aware of the appeal to authority fallacy, that's why I'm saying "consensus", because a reasonable thinker looks at the results of many within a field of knowledge that the thinker isn't an expert within, and then draws conclusions out of that collectively formed knowledge. And I've yet to see any "brainless thinkers" who buy into expert ideas in any negative ways. It's rather that these "brainless thinkers" buy into pseudo-experts who aren't really knowledgable in their fields but possess a biased opinion that they push with an expert's rhetoric. Hence why the scientific method requires peer reviews and second opinions. The "reasonable thinker" understands this and guards against acquiring biases of their own.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Of course, therefore consensus. If one expert says something, you can conclude that if you are not an expert in the same field, that person might know more than you and you should take note of the knowledge presented. But in order to reach a conclusion that more and more chips away and reveal the truth about something, a consensus needs to be formed among many experts.
Being skeptical is good, but just as handling any knowledge requires rational thought, skepticism requires rationality as well. "Being a skeptic" doesn't mean someone is intelligent or rational. Most conspiracy nuts are highly skeptical. It's how you manage skepticism that is key. I am an extremely skeptical person, which requires me to be smart about how to tackle a certain topic. I need to form an opinion unbiased by myself and with support from facts. The only way to do so is to include experts into forming that opinion with me reviewing the logic of many expert sources and truly understand their conclusions before forming one.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
No, I get your point. But I point out that caution needs to be taken if the opinion comes from emotional experience or anecdotal evidence. In any form of arriving at truth, excluding yourself means that both anecdotal and emotional experience is almost always irrelevant to forming a rational and sound conclusion.
The logic of what you're saying is that you shouldn't just listen to someone and take their word as truth. This is true, it's the foundation of "appeal to authority". But just accepting an expert's word is not the same thing as listening to experts and forming an opinion.
The key here is not revolving around any "expert", it's how you treat new knowledge and ideas; If you take anything at face value, you aren't really being epistemically responsible. The same goes for just rejecting everything any expert says. The path to take is to acknowledge your shortcomings in knowledge and only speak as someone who knows when you actually know something. The path is to listen to experts and analyze the truth value without biases of your own. If you have one expert who will earn a fortune on convincing you about a certain "truth", then you naturally have to be very skeptical and wary of any underlying agendas. But if you have 10, 50, 100, or more experts saying the same thing, in different labs, in different nations, independent of each other and with totally different personal goals, all while you have zero knowledge of their field of expertise. Then what is the rational path? To dismiss them all and form your own opinion based on emotional or anecdotal evidence instead? Or listen to everyone, even the ones not involved with the consensus these experts provide? No, in that case, the only two options to have are to either become an expert yourself (a real expert based on education, not an armchair one) or to actually conclude the truth of the consensus.
But then we have those who talk about science as "changing its mind" around different topics. That people present theories that are then rejected and changed. This is true, a topic within science is always changing when new data is presented. This is nothing strange to the ones understanding the process. As mentioned earlier, the process is about chipping away at something until the most likely and clear truth emerges. This is the reason behind what "hypothesis" means and the confusion of what a "scientific theory" is compared to the common idea about "theory". If someone looks at experts and expects that they tell the truth they don't understand how things work, just as much as someone who rejects anything an expert says. Listening to experts requires understanding the process by which they arrive at knowledge. Understanding that if a hypothesis is presented, that isn't pure truth, if a scientific theory is presented that is as close to pure truth as possible with the data set that exists. But with new data, it can change. That doesn't mean the expert is "failing people" with knowledge. It means that if they arrive at new conclusions, the consensus needs to shift and the people need to change their set of facts to work according to new findings.
People just don't like change. They want to get "one" truth" from an expert and when that "one truth" is changed they blame the experts for not knowing "the truth". This is what's degenerate about society right now. People want to know the truth, experts form a consensus and people either A) dismiss that consensus because it's a discomfort in their lives and they won't comply with it out of that, or B) they accept the consensus and get angry when the consensus changes, even though it's totally logical and in-line with the scientific process, or C) They accept the consensus and understand that it can change, adapting accordingly.
Petty people can't accept uncertainty. They collapse under the idea that they need to accept an uncertain factor in their lives. Maybe it's because many in the western world haven't lived in a war in the same way as older generations. They don't have experience with uncertainty. They want control, they want a clear way forward and when that is not possible they collapse into moronic behavior.
So, what is a reasonable thinker? Someone who is morally balanced and can survive any intellectual challenge. Someone who is epistemically responsible, who listens, who forms opinions around consensus results, facts that by human measurements can be considered to be true. Who do anything in their power not to form opinions out of biases, who explain their position without fallacies.
There are experts and then there are those who gather knowledge to form a whole picture. If the expert is the spear, the archer, the soldier, the "compiler" of knowledge is the one forming a picture out of different facts presented by these experts. This is what philosophy is for me. Compiling the knowledge of others who are specialized, into a complete picture. Collaboration in its best form. If a specialized expert forms broad perspectives, they fail. If a "compiler" forms a broad perspective without listening to experts, they fail.
The reasonable thinker is the one who listens to a knowledge consensus, studies the fringe results of combined large sets of facts, and form conclusions out of that. I cannot see a human be any more truthful to the world outside their own mind than that. Anyone who "just have an opinion" without anything more than that, is in my opinion not helping anyone but their own sense of ego. A narcissist of the modern age, irrelevant to arrive at any kind of truth or constructive position for anyone, including themselves.
Are you a zombie or something??! is there nobody home there??
I'm not saying that if something happens to me, then the statistics are wrong. Oh god. I'm talking about the way a person handles or is supposed to handle the possibility of experiencing negative side effects of medical treatments.
Here, I started a thread: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11268/trust-in-medicine-despite-potential-or-experienced-harm-malpractice-or-betrayal
Quoting James Riley
So, have you wirtten your last will and testament and had it properly legalized? Have you gotten all your affairs in order and cleaned out your house?
It's literally disproven by actual numbers of deaths getting lower when vaccination numbers get higher. So please provide a source for such a specific number.
Quoting baker
Subjective, singular, personal, and emotional experiences are irrelevant when making moral arguments about vaccines, which is what this thread is about. Morality has more to do with what we do against others than our own personal experiences. If someone experiences extreme side effects they might scream at the world "WHY!?" but for all the ones who survive because of the vaccine and the pandemic fading away along with the suffering; all those millions or billions of people who were helped by population immunity and the vaccine will be the sum of the morality around vaccines.
If someone is suffering, the world shouldn't suffer because of that. This doesn't mean we should aim to let some suffer, but the statistics of suffering from the vaccine is blown out of proportion to the suffering of the virus. It's pure anti-vaccer propaganda rooted in irrational fears formed as factual arguments and "news" from such sources. As some US states now face a problem with not being able to vaccinate enough people due to a high number of anti-vaccers present in those states, it becomes apparent that the spread of false statistical interpretations to push an almost religious agenda is becoming rather dangerous. Anti-vaccer propaganda is not something harmless, it is right now actively pushing back the end of the pandemic and risk introducing even worse mutations. It is morally degenerate to oppose vaccines in light of the suffering Covid-19 creates and anyone who's not educated, too stupid or indoctrinated into anti-vaccer propaganda should be shut down when spreading bullshit about the science behind the vaccine.
If you think I'm a zombie for misinterpreting your argument, then maybe elaborate or expand further. I'm no mind reader, I can only read the things you actually write. But good that you started a new thread that's about the things that this thread isn't about.
Yes. And updated periodically as situations change.