My mother long ago defining a gentleman as a man who never hurt anyone by accident ...
... and who is proficient at recognizing when it is appropriate (and effectively how) to hurt or help anyone deliberately. 'To gadfly or not to gadfly' – that is our aporia.
[ ... ] Winston Churchill remarked on acknowledging the need to "bash one's opponent on the snout." I am not advocating snout-bashing. But when do the gloves come off? When has civility run its course? How ultimately does right prevail over wrong, reason exhausted, if not by snout-bashing, whether metaphorical or literal?
Two thoughts. 1) What makes you think I want to be a gentleman? 2) If I were going to be one, I'd rather be one like Larry, Moe, and [Stooge name here] than whomever Tim Woods and 180 Proof are talking about.
Like @T Clark, I am not a gentleman. I try not to be simply awful and often succeed, but with less success than the putative Gentlemen achieves. Should a man aim to be a gentleman? They were "the lowest rank of the landed gentry", a step above the peasants. Aim higher, perhaps, for class supremacy?
Most of us came from peasant stock--go back a little ways--and most of us also came from the later working class, and/or are still. Not that peasants and workers are by nature slobs. I think of deep slovenliness as a feature of the better-off and way too-well-off classes. They can afford retainers to literally and figuratively clean things up for them.
ApollodorusOctober 02, 2021 at 23:09#6030180 likes
Winston Churchill remarked on acknowledging the need to "bash one's opponent on the snout." I am not advocating snout-bashing. But when do the gloves come off?
I tend to agree with Churchill.
However, if you ask me, I think the gloves should come off when dealing with China who is the real perpetrator.
The anti-vax crowd can be sorted out later should the need arise.
Hmmm. I don't really understand where this is heading but in the words of the now obscure 20th century philosopher Lana Turner, "A gentleman is simply a patient wolf."
... and who is proficient at recognizing when it is appropriate (and effectively how) to hurt or help anyone deliberately. 'To gadfly or not to gadfly' – that is our aporia.
In game theory, cooperation for mutual benefit is the most beneficial strategy. All nice guys, all finish mutually beneficially. In a room of wolves, dog eat dog rules apply and the nice guy gets eaten.
If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with.
Coupled with the threatening language - sheer frustration because one's will isn't being carried out: you are a powerless dictator, an inept tyrant, and you hardly find yourself out of company on this forum.
The seeds of tyranny live in all of us, but nowhere does it flourish quite like in the minds of arrogant intellectuals.
I think what was quoted was brilliant. I am going to start using it to discredit anyone who believes something I don't believe.
It can even be used to argue against those who don't believe in God, as you can see here:
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"To those continuing to fight against God:
"Your questions and demands for evidence will always outweigh whatever can be given, and will shift once the answer or evidence has been given. It's like whack-a-mole. That's why I encourage others not to get into the weeds, but to always keep in mind the bigger picture. It's not driven by good-faith assessment of the data -- it's picking and choosing data. It's the same tactic that Materialists use: poke as many holes as you can, identify apparent contradictions, mis-quote, tell half-truths, etc. When all else fails, shift to an entirely different question.
"What this all comes down to, ultimately, is the fact that this issue has been politicized. Like the issue of the spiritual change of the social climate, because it's been politicized there are all kinds of laymen, especially online, making claims about the Son, about Supernatural variation, about spiritual scientists, etc. You see them on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter. But they're all repeating things they've heard from their sources, and their sources happen to be completely and demonstrably wrong, and their arguments don't hold any water when analyzed in detail.
"The anti-Christs (forgive the label) are doing exactly the same thing. It's a mistake -- simple as that.
"If you're afraid to give God a shot and want to find reasons for not opening your heart to Him, even after centuries and billions of miracles, and after every major religious and spiritual organization in the world recommends prayer, then you'll certainly find reasons.
"If you're already convinced the religious establishment is untrustworthy, and that overwhelming consensus and advice can be ignored, then you'll find reasons for believing that -- and no amount of debate will change your mind, especially on the Internet.
"The question is: why so afraid of God in the first place? And why so distrustful of religion and divine intervention?
If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with.
Good point. There seems to be a tendency to grant or deny the right to bodily autonomy in line with our political agendas.
Deleted UserOctober 03, 2021 at 17:29#6032480 likes
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If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with.
I have no problem with you refusing to get vaccinated as long as you have no problem with being restricted in your behavior so that other people won't be infected.
Good point. There seems to be a tendency to grant or deny the right to bodily autonomy in line with our political agendas.
There is a long history of requiring vaccination before someone can participate in public life. The best example is the requirement that children be vaccinated against childhood diseases before they can attend school. All fifty states in the US have such requirements. These are not controversial or politically divisive requirements.
Bodily autonomy is good. Stand up for your rights but don't whine when your public access is restricted. It's not punishment, it is making sure that you face the consequences of your own behavior.
If someone has to 'make sure' of it, it wasn't a consequence was it, prior to the making sure?
The consequences of our actions are usually considered to be those things which result from them without someone having to intervene to make it so.
The consequence I'm talking about is the possible infection of other people, which result from failure to be vaccinated whether or not someone makes sure. Any further discussion in this vein probably belongs on the Corona virus thread. I probably shouldn't have stuck my nose in. How many times have I said that?
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ApollodorusOctober 03, 2021 at 19:56#6032960 likes
The first gentlemanly, expending their treasure of time and energy being more-or-less educators, thoughtful in presentation and argument, reasonable, sometimes even conciliatory.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
So what's the answer? Winston Churchill remarked on acknowledging the need to "bash one's opponent on the snout." I am not advocating snout-bashing. But when do the gloves come off? When has civility run its course?
If one has to ask such things, one never had any civility to begin with, and always fought bare knuckled anyway.
How ultimately does right prevail over wrong, reason exhausted, if not by snout-bashing, whether metaphorical or literal?
If you feel like you have to "be something" at certain times but not others you're simply not what you're trying to be and are an actor. So act as you deem necessary. The world is a stage some say, and after all the show must go on.
I'll re-interpret this as something along the lines of "when to not be a douche", you have your opinions and others have theirs. Personally I happen to know foul behavior only appeases and attracts foul people into your life and only a fool would be taken back at the realization that what you put out and the people who deem degeneracy to be acceptable end up being degenerates and foul in your own life are your own just desserts, ordered at a premium with the lion's share of your time and mind. Though, I suppose there's exceptions. All warfare is based on deception after all. You can't trim the diseased branches of a larger system from beneath it now can you.
I have no problem with you refusing to get vaccinated as long as you have no problem with being restricted in your behavior so that other people won't be infected.
That doesn’t sound like a fair compromise. Only the infected can infect others, and the infected are both vaccinated and unvaccinated. So why would you restrict their behavior but not the others?
Deleted UserOctober 03, 2021 at 23:34#6034050 likes
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I think he's channeling the attitude and spirit of one Jonathon Swift, author of "A Modest Proposal". Sometimes one needs to see the extreme of their belief to see not just the unseen potential volatility of it, but the potential strength of an opposing one. Which interestingly enough doesn't necessarily change the rationale of either. Key word being necessarily.
Edit: Energy is life. Active vs. inactive. Kinetic vs. potential. One demands attention as it is of the here and now, reality even. Though the other could easily end up being the attention of demand for an entire lifetime.
Aren't the unvaccinated about four times more likely to get infected? Whatever the statistics show exactly, it's just math and probabilities.
Perhaps. But those who are not infectious can never infect others. If we are to deign to enforce segregation we should segregate the infectious from the uninfected. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 00:31#6034340 likes
If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with.
Congratulations, Tzeentch...you have been successfully propagandized. You seem to have subliminally bought into the ("democratic"?) concept that the species of monkey called "homo sapiens" is naturally possessed of "inalienable rights" of any description. Whence flows such an apparent inherency? Does a baboon have rights? A gecko? A snail? Do any of the ants I step on regularly have the right not to be stepped on by myself; am I a felon for so violating said rights?
Truth is, there are no "inalienable rights"; this concept is a fiction, best suited to fanatical French revolutionaries and "activists" of various types (yes, that most prolific of hypocrites, Jefferson, was wrong in his assertions within the Declaration). It is utterly illusory, a fiction imposed upon the mass consciousness by government in order to ensure an orderly society which facilitates commerce, and more importantly protects the State's basis of power: popular support.
As a matter of fact, so-called "rights" in general, do not exist in nature. All of our assumed "rights", human, civil, or otherwise, which are assumed to exist in human societies, are bestowed by fiat from the prevailing power, in the current age, whatever national government has jurisdiction over a particular person. If the prevailing power changes (and this can happen in a multitude of ways), then the "rights" granted people change with it. This means that all assumed "rights" of people are qiute particularly alienable, characterized by great changeability. If tomorrow there occurs a global thermonuclear war, and afterwards I am left alone on the planet with my good buddy "Bubba" (you know the guy...one's hypothetical prison cellmate in the nightmares), I will be sure to have whatever and only those rights that "Bubba" says I have...my previously assumed "rights" will have been alienated from myself. Might makes right, and "rights" flow from temporal power, and as such there is nothing inalienable about them.
In brief: I can accept the fact of "rights", but only as unnatural, artificial, and provisional conceptions. We should not be using the idea of "inalienable rights" in making our deliberations. Not that this materially changes your assertion as alluded to above, @Tzeentch, but one should be careful of introducing erroneous concepts into otherwise valid arguments.
Metaphysician UndercoverOctober 04, 2021 at 00:31#6034350 likes
Reply to NOS4A2
Yeah, right, that would be ideal. We really should have done that right from the start, locked down all the infectious people, allowing all the healthy people to run where they please, and congregate freely. Then the virus would be confined, and soon eradicated as the infectious people either died or became noninfectious. But the disease is insidious, so we have to play the odds.
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 01:16#6034460 likes
My mother long ago defining a gentleman as a man who never hurt anyone by accident...
This is a really succinct, really full, really nuanced, and really subtle definition. Basically, I take it to mean that a "gentleman" is a man who is ever thoughtful and aware. I can find no fault with this, particularly as it leaves plenty of leeway for intentionally hurting those who subjectively appear to deserve it. Your mom seems to have "known what time it was".
One can be a gentleman and, out the other side of the mouth, write authoritarian and paternalistic piffle. So long as his strength in manners and dignity override his cowardice in emotion and thought, he can do no harm. Even Marquis de Sade was a gentleman.
Some people have no decency and they don't deserve to be treated decently. They are just assholes.
Name one person who has no decency. It's clear everyone is mixed. Some people have sunk more into their greedy selfish side, some have risen higher toward their selfless side.
But if such absolute categories help you to sleep at night...well, I can't argue the importance of sleep!
Oh come now, how can we or at least expect others to identify with, let alone vote for someone or something they deem 'non relatable'.
It may be a shite show but at least the performers are entertaining enough to detract from the hopeless nature of what is or at least could easily be. Easy counter though, it's a downward and destructive spiral of who can exhibit/inspire the most immoral and unscrupulous behavior in not just themselves but in others while still being able to look at the man in the mirror at the end of the day. Opposing view, which is hard for the non-theist (and even then) to grasp is, we may miss it if/when it's ever gone.
The most destructive idea Man ever came up with was that people fall into the categories of good or evil.
Animals are not good or evil. Its easy to recognize, if a dog is disagreeable it probably had disagreeable experiences that made it distrustful or cynical of others.
Or it has rabies. Or its starving and will kill anyone for a meal.
Nature or nurture. What other cause could there be?
If you think humans are any different, its probably because you are holding onto archaic religious concepts of a soul.
Depends. Humans can be far more cruel to humans than animals, since they don't usually label animals as evil when they are maladjusted. I'd rather be treated like a dumb animal than judged as a evil human and treated accordingly.
You know in some cultures people are stoned to death for adultery.
I bet they use the same kinds of arguments used in this thread for when it is justified being un-gentlemanly.
I'd rather be treated like a dumb animal than judged as a evil human and treated accordingly.
That's not what he asked. Dumb animals get eaten or if deemed 'dangerous' by humans are put down. 'Evil' humans are either legally liable as criminals or not. Though mob rule and even individual vendettas do offer a plethora of equally undesirable outcomes.
You know in some cultures people are stoned to death for adultery.
Heh, yeah there's this one culture called humanity. I've seen much worse happen to people who commit adultery, and not just toward the women either. I suppose it may support your argument but, you don't often see that in the animal kingdom. It's overshadowed by the constant stench of indiscriminate death.
I notice you capitalize 'man', giving some sort of recognizable distinction. Others do this by allocating the belief of a soul. You have much in common with those you wish to differentiate yourself from.
I notice you capitalize 'man', giving some sort of recognizable distinction. Others do this by allocating the belief of a soul. You have much in common with those you wish to differentiate yourself from.
Reply to Yohan Likewise, you aversion towards classic moral categories such as good and evil is probably due to some mistake in your education, or perhaps some brain deficiency.
I'm all for vaccines, but this doesn't help either.
I think there is something like hazing going on with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and such. They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing.
Further insulting or attacking them will only make it worse. In my experience, the best way to convince someone who is on the fence not to take the vaccine is to try and shove it down their throats. People are very hesitant to accept sound arguments when they are delivered rudely or condescendingly. And much more hesitant if delivered by force.
If you willfully participate in the ostracization of people for exercising their inalienable right to bodily autonomy, you were never a gentleman to begin with.
Stop ostracizing people for exercising their inalienable right to free speech, it's ungentlemanly!
I think there is something like hazing going on with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and such. They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing.
You can play nice with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and the likes -- it's doable as long as you don't give a shit -- but they won't play nice with you, because they care. One cannot be rabidly anti-consensus without a little grievance. They don't just calmly review the consensus opinion to conclude "Hmm not sure I can agree with that". No, they have chosen their camp in what they see as one of the most important battle of mankind, and they attack the other camp aggressively, and anyone defending it. Because they care.
They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing.
In what way do you think pro-vaccers avoid this situation? Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong.
It's a good analysis of entrenched positions, but I don't see how it applies only to one side here, and if anything the pro-vaccers have a hell of a lot more to lose in admitting it if they ever felt they might actually have been wrong.
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it's doable as long as you don't give a shit -- but they won't play nice with you
I've had one conversation with one where I was the hostile one and they actually were pretty reasonable. He ended up citing me a post with 50 studies I haven't read. But in every other point we argued he admitted when he was wrong and was pretty reasonable. I haven't read those studies in depth, but I've skimmed them, and they were grasping at straws as far as I could tell.
They don't just calmly review the consensus opinion to conclude "Hmm not sure I can agree with that". No, they have chosen their camp in what they see as one of the most important battle of mankind, and they attack the other camp aggressively, and anyone defending it. Because they care.
Worth asking just what, exactly, they care about. I'll wager they do not know, and can only at best rant at any such question.
It's hazing. They don't care about anything specific. But after paying the "price of admission" which consists of denying reality, there is no way they're leaving that camp.
Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong.
That's not what I'm saying. To be pro-vax has no upfront cost. To be antivax has a huge upfront cost. It comes with ostracization and belittlement. After paying that, there is nowhere to go except further in the rabbit hole.
I'm not saying antivax people are antivax because if they're wrong there is a price to pay, I'm saying they're antivax because they already paid a huge price. It's hazing. Members that go through hazing to join a fraternity rarely ever leave, and will defend it with their dying breath. Otherwise that humiliation was for nothing.
then the rest of us either have to endure the effects of that stupidity - in a pandemic unnecessary sickness and death - or fight it.
Or what I think is the best approach: Passive resistance.
Don't argue with them. Don't make a big deal about it. Just don't let people into your establishment if they're antivax.
People will commit to any ridiculous position in an online argument but once their livelihood is threatened, it's a whole different story. They make all these "arguments" but really, I think the main reason most antivax are antivax is laziness (and staggering irresponsibility). I bet you if McDonald's required you to be vaccinated to get food form there, the number of vaccinations in the US would skyrocket. A rational argument won't remove laziness or irresponsibility, creating an actual consequence will.
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And why. Like, why do some people spend such a large part of their life arguing that Pi is a rational number, or that perpetual movement ought to be possible, or that there's no such thing as climate change? What's the motivation? In my experience, and I have a lot of experience with dissenters, there is always at the start of it some sense of scandal, as perceived by them. What's the big scandal for CC? Maybe this idea that Western science and technology (a good thing, right?) are killing the world. What's the big scandal with the Holocaust? Maybe the very idea that them gooooood white folks, who invented civilization as we know it, could do such an awful thing, and that them baaaaaad Jews be presented as victims.
So what's the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? That ought to be the question.
So what the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? That's the question.
Problem, reaction, solution.
Its part of the plan to destroy the economy to make way for a new economy, usher in a fourth industrial revolution, and eventually a technocracy.
I'm sure you will be vehemently defensive of the elites plans every step of the way, up to and including when they want to microchip every man woman and child for our "safety"
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 14:20#6036800 likes
And where have we got? The reasonable get vaccinated; it's the right thing to do for - as a practical matter - everyone. And there was a time when most folks in the US did the reasonable and right thing. But now the stupid hold sway with outrageous and absurd conspiracy theories and ideas. It's a call to battle. Sometimes the stakes are a joke in themselves and sometimes deadly serious.
I don't even understand the issue that people, both people in government and folks on this site, are having at this point in time. The vaccine is readily available. Those of us who are not plagued by excessive suspicion or conspiracy theorism have been vaccinated (even those of us, like myself, who were never particularly worried about this bullshit virus in the first place), and have had our loved ones vaccinated. As for the rest of the population, what's the concern? They've made their decisions based upon their own irrational fears. If they catch it and die, or spread it to their own loved ones who die, well then... (gigantic shrug). Know what I mean? Just open everything up, and let all of these die. I do not consider this an inhumane stance. As for me, I'm fairly confident in the vaccine; if the girl was fine enough, I'd stick my tongue down her throat even if I was sure she had the virus. Of course, I think I had it before I was vaccinated, and it really "wasn't shit"...basically, a chest cold in my case.
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They've made their decisions. If the catch it and die, or spread it to their own loved ones who die, well then... (gigantic shrug)
I agree with that. Vaccination must remains a choice and cannot be made mandatory for the general public. They can antivaccinate all they like, for what I care. Medical professionals are another matter.
is it not the case that the madness is controlled before treatment commences?
My thinking is, you cannot treat the madness if you don't know the cause of the madness.
So what's the big scandal with COVID? Any idea? I note that AIDS had its fair share of dissenters too, so there could have been perhaps a similar "scandal" with AIDS, and I remember that it included the crazy idea that the HIV virus was fabricated (by the CIA, of course). So maybe the idea that new virulent diseases can appear or evolve naturally, as predicted by Darwinism, is the big "scandal" here? The idea that nature can change radically, evolve, and treat us as mere food. I don't know.
Deleted UserOctober 04, 2021 at 14:44#6036920 likes
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Thanks for the clue. Yes, the fear of being dependent on labs and lab technicians for regular shots, that may protect you but also may affect you. Artificialization of life on a massive scale, moving to scary transhumanism. We're getting close to the core of the neurosis, I think.
On the basis of what (sound) argument? In the US children have to go to school and to go to school they have to have been vaccinated.
That is true, in France and Italy as well, and COVID may be put on the list. And children do stay out of school if their parents don't want to vaccinate them for, say, measles. This said, the habeas corpus principle implies that you cannot force an adult to take a medical treatment that he doesn't want to take.
And given the realities of Covid, your "don't care" means you're good with your friends, family, even yourself getting possibly very sick, even dying - because some other people are stupid.
Yes but you cannot control everything, and it's not all about me and my dear ones. People need to make a living, kids need to mingle, and people are allowed to be stupid... My family and friends are vaccinated. I trust that we all wash hands and wear masks as need be... To the degree that we might still catch the virus and get sick, it will be chalked up to shit that happens.
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Reply to tim wood I understand it as a law principle that says that your body is yours to decide about. I cannot decide to alter your body in any way, because it's yours not mine.
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Reply to tim wood I'm just not going to invite him at the barbecue, as simple as that. That is something I can control, but I cannot control my neighbors' medical treatments. I have to share society with people who disagree with me on many things.
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 15:24#6037150 likes
given the realities of Covid, your "don't care" means you're good with your friends, family, even yourself getting possibly very sick, even dying
But, Tim, this only pertains if you lack confidence in the vaccine. With as reasonable a man as you appear, all your loved ones should have their heads screwed on right, and so should be vaccinated already. As for the kookoos who think that someone might be putting mercury, or anything else harmful into the vaccine, they are writing their own script... Both you and I know that the only reason the Biden Administration appears to be having an existential crisis right now, is the consideration of "optics", they cannot politically be viewed as lacking concern for anybody. This is just typical political behavior.
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what makes you think your body cannot be altered against your will?
Article L. 1111-4 of the French Public Health Code, which stipulates: “that no medical act and no treatment can be practiced without the free and informed consent of the person and this consent may be withdrawn at any moment.” And I trust a similar article must exist in Italian law because they always ask me to sign all sorts of consent forms.
To be pro-vax has no upfront cost. To be antivax has a huge upfront cost. It comes with ostracization and belittlement. After paying that, there is nowhere to go except further in the rabbit hole.
I see, yes that is a good point.
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 16:09#6037300 likes
Reply to tim wood, I can respect that; we have a fair difference of opinion.
The invitation here is to think reasonably and realistically. Try it.
Reasonably and realistically, I will probably get COVID at some point, and I hope that being vaccinated will reduce the impact. And I'm not going to get all angry because somebody didn't get vaccinated. But that's just me. You do your thing.
So the contingent/indeterminate v. the apodictic. 2+2=4 and that's an end of it, and somtimes the Germans are better and sometimes the Brazilians. The question here being if there is anything apodictic about Covid vaccination. And I think there is.
Then find me the fully qualified mathematician employed as a professor in mathematics at a bone fide university who claims that 2+2 does not equal four. If you can do that, you can establish that there can be apodictic claims which are nonetheless opposed by such experts in their field. Otherwise, I think the onus is on you to demonstrate that despite this quite relevant and substantial difference, the issue of Covid vaccination is nonetheless apodictic.
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Reply to tim wood I didn't quote the whole article. It's rather long and detailed. The section on minors says the following:
[I]The consent of the minor or adult under guardianship must be systematically sought if he or she is capable of expressing his or her wishes and participating in the decision. In case the refusal of treatment by the person with parental authority or by the guardian could have serious consequences for the health of the minor or the adult under guardianship, the physician will provide the necessary care.[/i]
In short: the parents give consent for their kids, in consultation with the kids, but the doctor must overide the parents if they refuse a treatment that would in the doctor's judgment be life-saving.
An imposition of a Covid vaccine, shown to save lives and reduce both incidence and severity of an otherwise incurable and contagious sickness seems reasonable.
I'm not even sure that would be constitutional in France.
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But there are people out there pushing the odds against you and yours for no decent, good, or reasonable reason. I'm not at all sure anger should be the animating spirit of response, though it be often a clue, but perhaps a more reasoned attention that at some point, as required, directs and insists and imposes.
Why yes, a more reasoned attention is precisely what I am trying to provide here, and in other discussions I may have in society. I often fail at it but I'm only human.
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Indeed I hold it is. There is the issue of the greater good against a pandemic. No question about either - no reasonable question, at any rate. The pandemic is real, the benefits of the vaccine are demonstrated. And the validity of general vaccination as a strategy against disease well-established. The argument is over, and was over when it began. All that remains is the whining, and the news routinely reports that ceases when the whiner or his get sick or die.
I wasn't asking you to confirm your opinion. I'm not conducting a poll. This is a discussion forum, I was asking you to support it, not repeat it.
Indeed I hold it is. There is the issue of the greater good against a pandemic. No question about either - no reasonable question, at any rate. The pandemic is real, the benefits of the vaccine are demonstrated. And the validity of general vaccination as a strategy against disease well-established. The argument is over, and was over when it began. All that remains is the whining, and the news routinely reports that ceases when the whiner or his get sick or die.
Do you want the vaccine to be perfect? It isn't, and the point is that it does not have to be. Is a bulletproof vest perfect protection from a shooter? No. But does that mean you should not wear one? Certainly not!
“Indeed I hold it is. I am right. I am right - I am right. I am right. And I am right. I am right, and I am right. I am right.
Am I right? I am right. Am I right? Am I? I am right!”
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 17:15#6037630 likes
So the contingent/indeterminate v. the apodictic. 2+2=4 and that's an end of it, and somtimes the Germans are better and sometimes the Brazilians. The question here being if there is anything apodictic about Covid vaccination. And I think there is. And thus anti-vaxxing is a taking from me for no good reason something that is mine. And that leaves no room for respect, nor is fair.
We are in general agreement about this. I think that the only point of disagreement between us revolves around the issues of confidence in the efficacy of the current vaccines, and probably the danger posed by this virus in general. With respect to these, I think that no pretense of apodeicticity can be made. I may not be as conversant with the efficacy studies as yourself, but my confidence is derived from a general surety that the FDA would not allow vaccines onto the market which endangered people by severely lacking efficacy, in conjunction with an impression that the danger from this virus was somewhat overblown from the start. We're not exactly talking about the Bubonic Plague here; nobody is driving up the streets crying "Bring out your dead!". Sure, many died in 2020, but many people worldwide die of the flu in any given year. I myself think that everybody should just get the damned vaccine; I can't imagine why they don't just walk into a CVS or Walgreen's and do so, especially as many of those who are so deathly afraid of the vaccine have spent the last year sitting on the couch in front of the television set, collecting a fattened unemployment check and eating all kinds of fattening crap that is going to cause them to die prematurely of heart disease. Thus far, since the late fall of 2019, a period of nearly two years, 701,000 people have died of COVID in the U.S. Each year, an average of 660,000 people die of heart disease in the U.S. There is the matter of perspective.
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You question the reality of the pandemic? You question the efficacy of the vaccine(s)? You question the general hazard to the well-being of the community and its several members that unvaccinated people represent?
No, yes and yes. But his has nothing to do with the line of argument. This is not "write some things we think about Covid", it's a supposed to be a discussion. You know... you say something, I say something in response, you say something in response to that...have you come across that type of thing before?
You claimed that the issues around the Covid vaccination were apodictic, like 2+2=4. I said that 2+2=4 benefits from every single mathematics professor in the world agreeing with it - a crucial part of what makes it apodictic.
Since this is not the case with issues around the Covid vaccine, you seem to have redefined 'apodictic' to mean 'things I think are true'. I'm enquiring about your grounds for that redefinition.
If you'd rather not bother actually supporting the claims you make, but just vent whatever happens to occur to you, then I suggest you try Twitter.
The physician, as agent for the state acting in the interests of persons refusing care, the state will provide the care
Only in the case of children. And note also the the whole para starts with a mention of the kid's own consent, given legal status here right off the bat ("in case he or she can consent). The article is not meant to force rationally mature kids to take a medication they clearly reject by themselves. It is meant to protect unwitting kids from wako parents.
a general surety that the FDA would not allow vaccines onto the market which endangered people by severely lacking efficacy,
On June 7, the FDA approved aducanumab for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The drug received accelerated approval because it showed it could reduce the rate of amyloid plaque on scans. What remains uncertain is whether this reduction in plaque means Alzheimer's patients live longer or better lives -- and notably, the totality of the clinical trial data do not show that. Moreover, the drug has various side effects and a whopping price tag: $56,000 a year.
In response to the FDA's approval, three members of the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee who opposed approval of the drug, quit the panel in protest. Aaron Kesselheim, MD, JD, MPH, a Harvard professor called the drug "problematic," and argued that there was little evidence it would help patients. Writing in The Atlantic, Nicholas Bagley, JD, and Rachel Sacks, JD, MPH, estimate that if the drug is prescribed to just one-third of eligible patients, it would cost Medicare $112 billion a year -- a massive figure that dwarfs any other medication.
Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 17:29#6037760 likes
Reply to Isaac sure, but we are talking about a vaccine here, not a pharmacological therapeutic, a series of vaccines which have evinced a certain definite efficacy.
Last year the FDA said it was “committed to use an advisory committee composed of independent experts to ensure deliberations about authorisation or licensure are transparent for the public.”1 But in a statement, the FDA told The BMJ that it did not believe a meeting was necessary ahead of the expected granting of full approval.
Kim Witczak, a drug safety advocate who serves as a consumer representative on the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee,4 said the decision removed an important mechanism for scrutinising the data.
Diana Zuckerman, president of the National Center for Health Research, who has also spoken at recent VRBPAC meetings, told The BMJ, “It’s obvious that the FDA has no intention of hearing anyone else’s opinion.
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Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 17:38#6037790 likes
a recent review showed that design problems in the HPV vaccine trials, most of which were led by academics but sponsored by industry, made it difficult to evaluate the extent to which the vaccine prevented cervical cancer
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Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 17:42#6037830 likes
Reply to Isaac I do not deny the existence of arrogant prevarication and certainly even of graft within such agencies as the FDA, but I think given the high-profile nature of the COVID epidemic, most if not all of that type of "hanky-panky" was surely forestalled.
I think given the high-profile nature of the COVID epidemic, most if not all of that "hanky-panky" was surely forestalled.
Why would you think that? What would be the comeback on the FDA if the vaccine was not as effective as they claimed? They're hardly going to be taken out and shot are they? The main aim is the revolving door into a well-paid consultancy job with one of the major pharmaceuticals. So long as that's not at risk, I don't see why they'd take any more care here.
There is too much at stake, politically. The FDA is part of the Executive Branch, which is now headed by a man who, unlike former President Trump, is highly concerned about optics.
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Explain? Say, the FDA claim the vaccine is 95% effective,but it turns out they were overplaying their hand and it's only 60% effective, less after six months. What political fallout are you anticipating? Won't the FDA just blame the rush, the emergency, the limited data they had to work with... I'm not following what it is you think would be at stake.
We have an organisation with a proven track record of approving drugs which later turn out to be largely ineffective or whose effectiveness is found to be overstated, an organisation heavily lobbied by the industries who benefit from these approvals, whose data is provided by the organisations who benefit from these approvals and which has a demonstrable revolving door of cushy consultancy jobs as reward for good behaviour. They're tasked with testing the effectiveness of a vaccine, but unlike their usual vaccines, this one is set to be a veritable gold mine for the pharmaceuticals and they have a whole slew of excuses already lined up for why they fluffed the approval. You're suggesting that in those circumstances it's less likely that they'd give an overly confident approval?
Deleted UserOctober 04, 2021 at 18:03#6037910 likes
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The similarity between 2=2+4 and Covid vaccination was the question. The properties they share. We could do Bullet-proof vests in the case of being shot at if you like. Find me an professor in gunshot wounds at a bone fide university who claims that you'd be better off without the vest.
To repeat, I'm asking you what properties these matters share such that they can both (all) be referred to by the same term in some sense.
Deleted UserOctober 04, 2021 at 18:13#6038010 likes
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Certainty. And in each its own sense, but still certainty. Your mother loves you. Your girlfriend loves you. Both certain. But the same kind of certainty? Are you safe in a sinkable boat, as opposed to being in the sea? Yes. Are you safe in an unsinkable boat as opposed to being in the sea? Yes. Both the same, at the same time both different. And so forth. Work out the rest for yourself.
You're associating the Covid vaccine response to things like 2+2=4, wearing a bulletproof vest, and (in other places) the earth being flat, and other such clearly true matters. But these matters differ from the case of Covid vaccinations in one key way (that way being crucial to their veracity). No-one disagrees with them. Not one professor of geology will claim the earth is flat, not one battle-medic will claim bullet-proof vests are worse than nothing, not one mathematician will claim 2+2=4...not a single one.
There are dozens of properly qualified experts, professors in relevant fields employed at bone fide universities who disagree with the Covid response to various extents. I don't see how you can claim certainty (rhetorical or otherwise) when there's disagreement among the experts on the matter.
How would science progress if the theory of only a few experts were to be treated always as a certain falsity?
Deleted UserOctober 04, 2021 at 18:34#6038130 likes
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Then you simply do not understand the difference, a failure of understanding having nothing to do with any current or any past issue. Ask your experts not what the vaccine is, but whether taking it is better than not taking it, both in terms of individual and family well-being, and the well-being of the larger community. And the consensus becomes, yes, it is better to take it.
Consensus was not the claim. Certainty was.
So demonstrate the necessary link between consensus and certainty.
Start by listing the factors that make a theory more certain.
Then show that theories which benefit from consensus necessarily (or even mostly) have greater values in these variables than theories which do not.
That would support your argument. Anything less is just assertion.
An imposition of a Covid vaccine, shown to save lives and reduce both incidence and severity of an otherwise incurable and contagious sickness seems reasonable.
That you are unable or unwilling to provide any semblance of consolation for those damaged by the covid vaccines shows your cold, hard heart.
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Michael ZwingliOctober 04, 2021 at 21:42#6038830 likes
Before the common peasants employed the term gentleman, it was exclusively used by nobility. The theme of the gentleman always was superiority. Originally, superiority by birth - later it became superiority by virtue. I think this shows to this day and anyone who desperetaly tries to identify and present themselves as a gentleman likely has a superiority complex hidden somewhere inside them.
It shows in this discussion as well. Be it pro- or anti-vaccination. There is nothing gentle in this approach. It's all about denouncing the other which in turn pronounces ones own superiority.
When do the gloves come off? I think force only ever is justified in self-defense. This is not a case of self-defense though. Vaccination offers protection to the vaccinated, hence there is no need for the vaccinated to go ballistic against the unvaccinated.
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Comments (149)
+3 virtue points for trying.
... and who is proficient at recognizing when it is appropriate (and effectively how) to hurt or help anyone deliberately. 'To gadfly or not to gadfly' – that is our aporia.
DON'T GET VACCINATED! :clap: :mask:
Why do I think of this whenever I read either one of you post about "gentlemen."
It doesn't. If it did, being moral would be mere common sense prudence.
Two thoughts. 1) What makes you think I want to be a gentleman? 2) If I were going to be one, I'd rather be one like Larry, Moe, and [Stooge name here] than whomever Tim Woods and 180 Proof are talking about.
1) But you are a gentleman, good Sir.
2) But you are also a stooge (often the butt of your own joke), good Sir.
I'm brilliant, articulate, modest, amusing, deeply insightful, and, generally, right. But I am not a gentleman.
It is most gentlemenly to be agreeable so I will agree to disagree, thank you very much.
Like @T Clark, I am not a gentleman. I try not to be simply awful and often succeed, but with less success than the putative Gentlemen achieves. Should a man aim to be a gentleman? They were "the lowest rank of the landed gentry", a step above the peasants. Aim higher, perhaps, for class supremacy?
Most of us came from peasant stock--go back a little ways--and most of us also came from the later working class, and/or are still. Not that peasants and workers are by nature slobs. I think of deep slovenliness as a feature of the better-off and way too-well-off classes. They can afford retainers to literally and figuratively clean things up for them.
I tend to agree with Churchill.
However, if you ask me, I think the gloves should come off when dealing with China who is the real perpetrator.
The anti-vax crowd can be sorted out later should the need arise.
Hey! I am significantly less a gentleman than you are.
In game theory, cooperation for mutual benefit is the most beneficial strategy. All nice guys, all finish mutually beneficially. In a room of wolves, dog eat dog rules apply and the nice guy gets eaten.
Excellence in good quote finding.
I would like to apologize for any un-gentlemanly behavior done by other anti-vaccers on that thread.
It is a deeply sensitive topic, and we are not all emotionally self-aware enough to deal with difference of opinions.
Coupled with the threatening language - sheer frustration because one's will isn't being carried out: you are a powerless dictator, an inept tyrant, and you hardly find yourself out of company on this forum.
The seeds of tyranny live in all of us, but nowhere does it flourish quite like in the minds of arrogant intellectuals.
As a gentleman of fortune myself, I prefer kicking them in their private parts.
It can even be used to argue against those who don't believe in God, as you can see here:
---------------------
"To those continuing to fight against God:
"Your questions and demands for evidence will always outweigh whatever can be given, and will shift once the answer or evidence has been given. It's like whack-a-mole. That's why I encourage others not to get into the weeds, but to always keep in mind the bigger picture. It's not driven by good-faith assessment of the data -- it's picking and choosing data. It's the same tactic that Materialists use: poke as many holes as you can, identify apparent contradictions, mis-quote, tell half-truths, etc. When all else fails, shift to an entirely different question.
"What this all comes down to, ultimately, is the fact that this issue has been politicized. Like the issue of the spiritual change of the social climate, because it's been politicized there are all kinds of laymen, especially online, making claims about the Son, about Supernatural variation, about spiritual scientists, etc. You see them on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitter. But they're all repeating things they've heard from their sources, and their sources happen to be completely and demonstrably wrong, and their arguments don't hold any water when analyzed in detail.
"The anti-Christs (forgive the label) are doing exactly the same thing. It's a mistake -- simple as that.
"If you're afraid to give God a shot and want to find reasons for not opening your heart to Him, even after centuries and billions of miracles, and after every major religious and spiritual organization in the world recommends prayer, then you'll certainly find reasons.
"If you're already convinced the religious establishment is untrustworthy, and that overwhelming consensus and advice can be ignored, then you'll find reasons for believing that -- and no amount of debate will change your mind, especially on the Internet.
"The question is: why so afraid of God in the first place? And why so distrustful of religion and divine intervention?
"It seems to me it's a selective skepticism.
Buddha was not a gentleman, was he?
Good point. There seems to be a tendency to grant or deny the right to bodily autonomy in line with our political agendas.
I have no problem with you refusing to get vaccinated as long as you have no problem with being restricted in your behavior so that other people won't be infected.
There is a long history of requiring vaccination before someone can participate in public life. The best example is the requirement that children be vaccinated against childhood diseases before they can attend school. All fifty states in the US have such requirements. These are not controversial or politically divisive requirements.
Bodily autonomy is good. Stand up for your rights but don't whine when your public access is restricted. It's not punishment, it is making sure that you face the consequences of your own behavior.
If someone has to 'make sure' of it, it wasn't a consequence was it, prior to the making sure?
The consequences of our actions are usually considered to be those things which result from them without someone having to intervene to make it so.
The consequence I'm talking about is the possible infection of other people, which result from failure to be vaccinated whether or not someone makes sure. Any further discussion in this vein probably belongs on the Corona virus thread. I probably shouldn't have stuck my nose in. How many times have I said that?
True. But those that are vaccinated are supposed to be protected?
And I don't see why China should get away with it when that is where the problem originated.
Quoting tim wood
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
? C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology
Thus proving that might makes right.
If one has to ask such things, one never had any civility to begin with, and always fought bare knuckled anyway.
Might makes right, hm? Might makes right.
Make that: wannabe intellectuals.
I'll re-interpret this as something along the lines of "when to not be a douche", you have your opinions and others have theirs. Personally I happen to know foul behavior only appeases and attracts foul people into your life and only a fool would be taken back at the realization that what you put out and the people who deem degeneracy to be acceptable end up being degenerates and foul in your own life are your own just desserts, ordered at a premium with the lion's share of your time and mind. Though, I suppose there's exceptions. All warfare is based on deception after all. You can't trim the diseased branches of a larger system from beneath it now can you.
That doesn’t sound like a fair compromise. Only the infected can infect others, and the infected are both vaccinated and unvaccinated. So why would you restrict their behavior but not the others?
They are about your right to despise others and to kill them for not complying with your ideas about how they should be.
Aren't the unvaccinated about four times more likely to get infected? Whatever the statistics show exactly, it's just math and probabilities.
I think he's channeling the attitude and spirit of one Jonathon Swift, author of "A Modest Proposal". Sometimes one needs to see the extreme of their belief to see not just the unseen potential volatility of it, but the potential strength of an opposing one. Which interestingly enough doesn't necessarily change the rationale of either. Key word being necessarily.
Edit: Energy is life. Active vs. inactive. Kinetic vs. potential. One demands attention as it is of the here and now, reality even. Though the other could easily end up being the attention of demand for an entire lifetime.
Perhaps. But those who are not infectious can never infect others. If we are to deign to enforce segregation we should segregate the infectious from the uninfected. It would be the gentlemanly thing to do.
Congratulations, Tzeentch...you have been successfully propagandized. You seem to have subliminally bought into the ("democratic"?) concept that the species of monkey called "homo sapiens" is naturally possessed of "inalienable rights" of any description. Whence flows such an apparent inherency? Does a baboon have rights? A gecko? A snail? Do any of the ants I step on regularly have the right not to be stepped on by myself; am I a felon for so violating said rights?
Truth is, there are no "inalienable rights"; this concept is a fiction, best suited to fanatical French revolutionaries and "activists" of various types (yes, that most prolific of hypocrites, Jefferson, was wrong in his assertions within the Declaration). It is utterly illusory, a fiction imposed upon the mass consciousness by government in order to ensure an orderly society which facilitates commerce, and more importantly protects the State's basis of power: popular support.
As a matter of fact, so-called "rights" in general, do not exist in nature. All of our assumed "rights", human, civil, or otherwise, which are assumed to exist in human societies, are bestowed by fiat from the prevailing power, in the current age, whatever national government has jurisdiction over a particular person. If the prevailing power changes (and this can happen in a multitude of ways), then the "rights" granted people change with it. This means that all assumed "rights" of people are qiute particularly alienable, characterized by great changeability. If tomorrow there occurs a global thermonuclear war, and afterwards I am left alone on the planet with my good buddy "Bubba" (you know the guy...one's hypothetical prison cellmate in the nightmares), I will be sure to have whatever and only those rights that "Bubba" says I have...my previously assumed "rights" will have been alienated from myself. Might makes right, and "rights" flow from temporal power, and as such there is nothing inalienable about them.
In brief: I can accept the fact of "rights", but only as unnatural, artificial, and provisional conceptions. We should not be using the idea of "inalienable rights" in making our deliberations. Not that this materially changes your assertion as alluded to above, @Tzeentch, but one should be careful of introducing erroneous concepts into otherwise valid arguments.
Yeah, right, that would be ideal. We really should have done that right from the start, locked down all the infectious people, allowing all the healthy people to run where they please, and congregate freely. Then the virus would be confined, and soon eradicated as the infectious people either died or became noninfectious. But the disease is insidious, so we have to play the odds.
This is a really succinct, really full, really nuanced, and really subtle definition. Basically, I take it to mean that a "gentleman" is a man who is ever thoughtful and aware. I can find no fault with this, particularly as it leaves plenty of leeway for intentionally hurting those who subjectively appear to deserve it. Your mom seems to have "known what time it was".
One can be a gentleman and, out the other side of the mouth, write authoritarian and paternalistic piffle. So long as his strength in manners and dignity override his cowardice in emotion and thought, he can do no harm. Even Marquis de Sade was a gentleman.
Some people have no decency and they don't deserve to be treated decently. They are just assholes.
Name one person who has no decency. It's clear everyone is mixed. Some people have sunk more into their greedy selfish side, some have risen higher toward their selfless side.
But if such absolute categories help you to sleep at night...well, I can't argue the importance of sleep!
Trump?
“You know, it really doesn`t matter what (the media) write as long as you`ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
? Donald Trump
Oh come now, how can we or at least expect others to identify with, let alone vote for someone or something they deem 'non relatable'.
It may be a shite show but at least the performers are entertaining enough to detract from the hopeless nature of what is or at least could easily be. Easy counter though, it's a downward and destructive spiral of who can exhibit/inspire the most immoral and unscrupulous behavior in not just themselves but in others while still being able to look at the man in the mirror at the end of the day. Opposing view, which is hard for the non-theist (and even then) to grasp is, we may miss it if/when it's ever gone.
The most destructive idea Man ever came up with was that people fall into the categories of good or evil.
Animals are not good or evil. Its easy to recognize, if a dog is disagreeable it probably had disagreeable experiences that made it distrustful or cynical of others.
Or it has rabies. Or its starving and will kill anyone for a meal.
Nature or nurture. What other cause could there be?
If you think humans are any different, its probably because you are holding onto archaic religious concepts of a soul.
So you would like to be treated like an animal?
Depends. Humans can be far more cruel to humans than animals, since they don't usually label animals as evil when they are maladjusted. I'd rather be treated like a dumb animal than judged as a evil human and treated accordingly.
You know in some cultures people are stoned to death for adultery.
I bet they use the same kinds of arguments used in this thread for when it is justified being un-gentlemanly.
That's not what he asked. Dumb animals get eaten or if deemed 'dangerous' by humans are put down. 'Evil' humans are either legally liable as criminals or not. Though mob rule and even individual vendettas do offer a plethora of equally undesirable outcomes.
Quoting Yohan
Heh, yeah there's this one culture called humanity. I've seen much worse happen to people who commit adultery, and not just toward the women either. I suppose it may support your argument but, you don't often see that in the animal kingdom. It's overshadowed by the constant stench of indiscriminate death.
I notice you capitalize 'man', giving some sort of recognizable distinction. Others do this by allocating the belief of a soul. You have much in common with those you wish to differentiate yourself from.
And what? That's evil?
As I said, ignore evil at your peril.
True.
Quoting Olivier5
Keep your primitive notions of good and evil if they help you sleep at night.
Yes, I think you are evil. Even though I know, on some level, you are just a product of nature and nurture.
I'm all for vaccines, but this doesn't help either.
I think there is something like hazing going on with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and such. They paid a very heavy price by disagreeing with the obvious and looking stupid to the majority. So now they can't go back and admit they were wrong. Or all that suffering and humiliation would be for nothing.
Further insulting or attacking them will only make it worse. In my experience, the best way to convince someone who is on the fence not to take the vaccine is to try and shove it down their throats. People are very hesitant to accept sound arguments when they are delivered rudely or condescendingly. And much more hesitant if delivered by force.
Quoting Tzeentch
Stop ostracizing people for exercising their inalienable right to free speech, it's ungentlemanly!
You can play nice with anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and the likes -- it's doable as long as you don't give a shit -- but they won't play nice with you, because they care. One cannot be rabidly anti-consensus without a little grievance. They don't just calmly review the consensus opinion to conclude "Hmm not sure I can agree with that". No, they have chosen their camp in what they see as one of the most important battle of mankind, and they attack the other camp aggressively, and anyone defending it. Because they care.
In what way do you think pro-vaccers avoid this situation? Without prejudice, if you've been campaigning to inject your whole community with something which you later suspect is either unnecessary or worse, harmful, aren't you in exactly the same boat? Aren't you going to pay an even heavier price for admitting they were wrong.
It's a good analysis of entrenched positions, but I don't see how it applies only to one side here, and if anything the pro-vaccers have a hell of a lot more to lose in admitting it if they ever felt they might actually have been wrong.
I've had one conversation with one where I was the hostile one and they actually were pretty reasonable. He ended up citing me a post with 50 studies I haven't read. But in every other point we argued he admitted when he was wrong and was pretty reasonable. I haven't read those studies in depth, but I've skimmed them, and they were grasping at straws as far as I could tell.
Quoting Olivier5
Quoting tim wood
It's hazing. They don't care about anything specific. But after paying the "price of admission" which consists of denying reality, there is no way they're leaving that camp.
That's not what I'm saying. To be pro-vax has no upfront cost. To be antivax has a huge upfront cost. It comes with ostracization and belittlement. After paying that, there is nowhere to go except further in the rabbit hole.
I'm not saying antivax people are antivax because if they're wrong there is a price to pay, I'm saying they're antivax because they already paid a huge price. It's hazing. Members that go through hazing to join a fraternity rarely ever leave, and will defend it with their dying breath. Otherwise that humiliation was for nothing.
Or what I think is the best approach: Passive resistance.
Don't argue with them. Don't make a big deal about it. Just don't let people into your establishment if they're antivax.
People will commit to any ridiculous position in an online argument but once their livelihood is threatened, it's a whole different story. They make all these "arguments" but really, I think the main reason most antivax are antivax is laziness (and staggering irresponsibility). I bet you if McDonald's required you to be vaccinated to get food form there, the number of vaccinations in the US would skyrocket. A rational argument won't remove laziness or irresponsibility, creating an actual consequence will.
And why. Like, why do some people spend such a large part of their life arguing that Pi is a rational number, or that perpetual movement ought to be possible, or that there's no such thing as climate change? What's the motivation? In my experience, and I have a lot of experience with dissenters, there is always at the start of it some sense of scandal, as perceived by them. What's the big scandal for CC? Maybe this idea that Western science and technology (a good thing, right?) are killing the world. What's the big scandal with the Holocaust? Maybe the very idea that them gooooood white folks, who invented civilization as we know it, could do such an awful thing, and that them baaaaaad Jews be presented as victims.
So what's the big scandal in COVID, as seen by dissenters? That ought to be the question.
Problem, reaction, solution.
Its part of the plan to destroy the economy to make way for a new economy, usher in a fourth industrial revolution, and eventually a technocracy.
I'm sure you will be vehemently defensive of the elites plans every step of the way, up to and including when they want to microchip every man woman and child for our "safety"
I don't even understand the issue that people, both people in government and folks on this site, are having at this point in time. The vaccine is readily available. Those of us who are not plagued by excessive suspicion or conspiracy theorism have been vaccinated (even those of us, like myself, who were never particularly worried about this bullshit virus in the first place), and have had our loved ones vaccinated. As for the rest of the population, what's the concern? They've made their decisions based upon their own irrational fears. If they catch it and die, or spread it to their own loved ones who die, well then... (gigantic shrug). Know what I mean? Just open everything up, and let all of these die. I do not consider this an inhumane stance. As for me, I'm fairly confident in the vaccine; if the girl was fine enough, I'd stick my tongue down her throat even if I was sure she had the virus. Of course, I think I had it before I was vaccinated, and it really "wasn't shit"...basically, a chest cold in my case.
I agree with that. Vaccination must remains a choice and cannot be made mandatory for the general public. They can antivaccinate all they like, for what I care. Medical professionals are another matter.
Quoting tim wood
My thinking is, you cannot treat the madness if you don't know the cause of the madness.
So what's the big scandal with COVID? Any idea? I note that AIDS had its fair share of dissenters too, so there could have been perhaps a similar "scandal" with AIDS, and I remember that it included the crazy idea that the HIV virus was fabricated (by the CIA, of course). So maybe the idea that new virulent diseases can appear or evolve naturally, as predicted by Darwinism, is the big "scandal" here? The idea that nature can change radically, evolve, and treat us as mere food. I don't know.
Thanks for the clue. Yes, the fear of being dependent on labs and lab technicians for regular shots, that may protect you but also may affect you. Artificialization of life on a massive scale, moving to scary transhumanism. We're getting close to the core of the neurosis, I think.
That is true, in France and Italy as well, and COVID may be put on the list. And children do stay out of school if their parents don't want to vaccinate them for, say, measles. This said, the habeas corpus principle implies that you cannot force an adult to take a medical treatment that he doesn't want to take.
Yes but you cannot control everything, and it's not all about me and my dear ones. People need to make a living, kids need to mingle, and people are allowed to be stupid... My family and friends are vaccinated. I trust that we all wash hands and wear masks as need be... To the degree that we might still catch the virus and get sick, it will be chalked up to shit that happens.
But, Tim, this only pertains if you lack confidence in the vaccine. With as reasonable a man as you appear, all your loved ones should have their heads screwed on right, and so should be vaccinated already. As for the kookoos who think that someone might be putting mercury, or anything else harmful into the vaccine, they are writing their own script... Both you and I know that the only reason the Biden Administration appears to be having an existential crisis right now, is the consideration of "optics", they cannot politically be viewed as lacking concern for anybody. This is just typical political behavior.
Article L. 1111-4 of the French Public Health Code, which stipulates: “that no medical act and no treatment can be practiced without the free and informed consent of the person and this consent may be withdrawn at any moment.” And I trust a similar article must exist in Italian law because they always ask me to sign all sorts of consent forms.
I see, yes that is a good point.
Reasonably and realistically, I will probably get COVID at some point, and I hope that being vaccinated will reduce the impact. And I'm not going to get all angry because somebody didn't get vaccinated. But that's just me. You do your thing.
Then find me the fully qualified mathematician employed as a professor in mathematics at a bone fide university who claims that 2+2 does not equal four. If you can do that, you can establish that there can be apodictic claims which are nonetheless opposed by such experts in their field. Otherwise, I think the onus is on you to demonstrate that despite this quite relevant and substantial difference, the issue of Covid vaccination is nonetheless apodictic.
[I]The consent of the minor or adult under guardianship must be systematically sought if he or she is capable of expressing his or her wishes and participating in the decision. In case the refusal of treatment by the person with parental authority or by the guardian could have serious consequences for the health of the minor or the adult under guardianship, the physician will provide the necessary care.[/i]
In short: the parents give consent for their kids, in consultation with the kids, but the doctor must overide the parents if they refuse a treatment that would in the doctor's judgment be life-saving.
I don't know what the situation is in Italy.
I'm not even sure that would be constitutional in France.
Why yes, a more reasoned attention is precisely what I am trying to provide here, and in other discussions I may have in society. I often fail at it but I'm only human.
I wasn't asking you to confirm your opinion. I'm not conducting a poll. This is a discussion forum, I was asking you to support it, not repeat it.
“Indeed I hold it is. I am right. I am right - I am right. I am right. And I am right. I am right, and I am right. I am right.
Am I right? I am right. Am I right? Am I? I am right!”
We are in general agreement about this. I think that the only point of disagreement between us revolves around the issues of confidence in the efficacy of the current vaccines, and probably the danger posed by this virus in general. With respect to these, I think that no pretense of apodeicticity can be made. I may not be as conversant with the efficacy studies as yourself, but my confidence is derived from a general surety that the FDA would not allow vaccines onto the market which endangered people by severely lacking efficacy, in conjunction with an impression that the danger from this virus was somewhat overblown from the start. We're not exactly talking about the Bubonic Plague here; nobody is driving up the streets crying "Bring out your dead!". Sure, many died in 2020, but many people worldwide die of the flu in any given year. I myself think that everybody should just get the damned vaccine; I can't imagine why they don't just walk into a CVS or Walgreen's and do so, especially as many of those who are so deathly afraid of the vaccine have spent the last year sitting on the couch in front of the television set, collecting a fattened unemployment check and eating all kinds of fattening crap that is going to cause them to die prematurely of heart disease. Thus far, since the late fall of 2019, a period of nearly two years, 701,000 people have died of COVID in the U.S. Each year, an average of 660,000 people die of heart disease in the U.S. There is the matter of perspective.
No, yes and yes. But his has nothing to do with the line of argument. This is not "write some things we think about Covid", it's a supposed to be a discussion. You know... you say something, I say something in response, you say something in response to that...have you come across that type of thing before?
You claimed that the issues around the Covid vaccination were apodictic, like 2+2=4. I said that 2+2=4 benefits from every single mathematics professor in the world agreeing with it - a crucial part of what makes it apodictic.
Since this is not the case with issues around the Covid vaccine, you seem to have redefined 'apodictic' to mean 'things I think are true'. I'm enquiring about your grounds for that redefinition.
If you'd rather not bother actually supporting the claims you make, but just vent whatever happens to occur to you, then I suggest you try Twitter.
If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.
Prishon? I have missed you....
Only in the case of children. And note also the the whole para starts with a mention of the kid's own consent, given legal status here right off the bat ("in case he or she can consent). The article is not meant to force rationally mature kids to take a medication they clearly reject by themselves. It is meant to protect unwitting kids from wako parents.
Or, if you'd prefer, there's the FDA approval of the HPV vaccine where...
Quoting Rees CP, Brhlikova P, Pollock AM. Will HPV vaccination prevent cervical cancer? J R Soc Med2020
Why would you think that? What would be the comeback on the FDA if the vaccine was not as effective as they claimed? They're hardly going to be taken out and shot are they? The main aim is the revolving door into a well-paid consultancy job with one of the major pharmaceuticals. So long as that's not at risk, I don't see why they'd take any more care here.
Educate me then. What is it that links 2=2+4 and the issues around the Covid vaccination. What properties do they share such that both are apodictic?
There is too much at stake, politically. The FDA is part of the Executive Branch, which is now headed by a man who, unlike former President Trump, is highly concerned about optics.
Explain? Say, the FDA claim the vaccine is 95% effective,but it turns out they were overplaying their hand and it's only 60% effective, less after six months. What political fallout are you anticipating? Won't the FDA just blame the rush, the emergency, the limited data they had to work with... I'm not following what it is you think would be at stake.
We have an organisation with a proven track record of approving drugs which later turn out to be largely ineffective or whose effectiveness is found to be overstated, an organisation heavily lobbied by the industries who benefit from these approvals, whose data is provided by the organisations who benefit from these approvals and which has a demonstrable revolving door of cushy consultancy jobs as reward for good behaviour. They're tasked with testing the effectiveness of a vaccine, but unlike their usual vaccines, this one is set to be a veritable gold mine for the pharmaceuticals and they have a whole slew of excuses already lined up for why they fluffed the approval. You're suggesting that in those circumstances it's less likely that they'd give an overly confident approval?
The similarity between 2=2+4 and Covid vaccination was the question. The properties they share. We could do Bullet-proof vests in the case of being shot at if you like. Find me an professor in gunshot wounds at a bone fide university who claims that you'd be better off without the vest.
To repeat, I'm asking you what properties these matters share such that they can both (all) be referred to by the same term in some sense.
You're associating the Covid vaccine response to things like 2+2=4, wearing a bulletproof vest, and (in other places) the earth being flat, and other such clearly true matters. But these matters differ from the case of Covid vaccinations in one key way (that way being crucial to their veracity). No-one disagrees with them. Not one professor of geology will claim the earth is flat, not one battle-medic will claim bullet-proof vests are worse than nothing, not one mathematician will claim 2+2=4...not a single one.
There are dozens of properly qualified experts, professors in relevant fields employed at bone fide universities who disagree with the Covid response to various extents. I don't see how you can claim certainty (rhetorical or otherwise) when there's disagreement among the experts on the matter.
How would science progress if the theory of only a few experts were to be treated always as a certain falsity?
Consensus was not the claim. Certainty was.
So demonstrate the necessary link between consensus and certainty.
Start by listing the factors that make a theory more certain.
Then show that theories which benefit from consensus necessarily (or even mostly) have greater values in these variables than theories which do not.
That would support your argument. Anything less is just assertion.
A gentleman is supposed to be different than ordinary people in some important way. Hence the word "gentleman".
But here you are, proposing that one should behave exactly the way ordinary people do.
A bit of unrealistic goal. I think Sartre said somewhere that the human condition involves making decisions based on insufficient information.
If something can be taken from you, it was never yours to begin with.
That mankind has allowed brute capitalism to be the norm of human relationships.
That you are unable or unwilling to provide any semblance of consolation for those damaged by the covid vaccines shows your cold, hard heart.
Remind me never to argue a point with you, Tim.
It shows in this discussion as well. Be it pro- or anti-vaccination. There is nothing gentle in this approach. It's all about denouncing the other which in turn pronounces ones own superiority.
When do the gloves come off? I think force only ever is justified in self-defense. This is not a case of self-defense though. Vaccination offers protection to the vaccinated, hence there is no need for the vaccinated to go ballistic against the unvaccinated.