It is becoming increasingly clear to me that those who would argue in favor of using government coercion to force people into getting vaccinated — Tzeentch

Technically, I'm one of those, but my reason for doing so is that making covid vaccination into an actual law would require a thorough vetting process and a safety net provided for the case of negative side effects of the vaccine and its failure. Which seems to be the best guarantee possible.

Also, it is unfair and dangerous to place the whole burden of responsibility on the people. matters of public health are a complex and urgent matter and shouldn't be left to individuals to decide about.

As things stand, people have as much protection against the negative side effects of the covid vaccine as they have for drugs they'd buy on the street, and as much promise of success.

Of course, but argumentum ex silentio is made on the basis of what isn't in canonical texts. That's the whole point. — TheMadFool

But to know what isn't in the texts, one has to read them first.

All I'm saying is that what I mentioned earlier - drawing conclusions from what was said and unsaid by the Buddha - is a perfectly legitimate hermeneutic technique.

Sure. And again: To know what isn't in the texts, one has to read them first.

Argumentum ex silentio is based on what isn't in scriptures (documents) - consulting them would be pointless.

Even I can tell that all of your questions so far have been addressed in the suttas. You yet have to come up with one that, to the best of my knowledge, isn't addressed in the suttas.

By the way, the previous post wasn't meant as a challenge; rather I felt you might find the concept of argumentum ex silentio interesting, you know, a cute tidbit of sorts.

Anything for a cute tidbit, eh!

The US armed forces are not exactly a pushover institute. Since the George Floyd riots, there had been friction between the military and the Trump team.
/.../ — ssu

I was much surprised by this at the time, and couldn't make sense of it.

In fact Milley has been quite consistent on his view that the armed forces won't get into politics. And if you think that he or the US armed forces will do anything and have a "yess suh, whatever you say suh!" attitude toward Presidents, please listen to the following clip that Milley gave in a speech during the chaotic last November 2020.

This is peculiar.

The country I live in, Slovenia, has been having a crisis as well. The right wing government issued a decree according to which most government employees would have to be either recovered or vaccinated in order to still come to work (with the decree, the government removed the T condition from RVT). The union of the police filed a motion to the constitutional court to assess whether the decree is constitutional or not. The constitutional court temporarily held back the enforcement of the decree, we're still waiting for its decision.

The salient point is that about 30% of the military and the police are not vaccinated and if these people would not come to work, the military and the police would be rendered defunct or at least seriously impaired. I am very much surprised by this, given that it always seemed like the military and the police are on the side of the current government (and the current government did put many of their own people in high positions in the military and the police).

Those who have actually studied at least some of the Pali Canon have some knowledge about which inferences are warranted or likely warranted, and which are not.

One learns this from studying many suttas and learning how they are interconnected, how one sutta can provide the context of or further detail for another sutta.

Those who have not studied the suttas simply don't have this knowledge. Some of those people instead have vivid imaginations and they rather invent things and make their own extrapolations from the little they do know.

Nobody is disputing their freedom to do so. It's just that what they're doing has no bearing on Buddhist doctrine.

I think the really ominous sign was people like general Flynn who insisted that Trump should get the armed forces involved. Luckily Trump is just a bully and wouldn't really go through (or in his ineptness incapable of doing so.) — ssu

This is the first thing I've read that sparks some doubt about Trump for me. Indeed, why didn't Trump get the armed forces involved after having lost the election!

Because you brought up the fact that people are having strokes. So while you may not make this argument yourself (as I would assume, given you’re vaccinated), I assumed you were bringing it up to demonstrate how others may be reasoning about this. If that’s not true, I wonder why you brought it up at all? — Xtrix

For one, because your position lacks empathy. And while you eagerly claim to empathize with others, it clearly doesn't matter to you whether the person you're supposedly empathizing with experiences you as empathizing or not. You have demonstrated on several occasions that you don't care how you are perceived by others, you don't care about how they feel about you.

Which, at the very least, is a strange position to hold for someone who wants to affect others (ie. get them to get vaccinated).


For two, I myself am not out of the woods. With the Janssen scandal now, who knows what lies in wait for those of us who got vaccinated with it. Of course I'm scared. And what do you have to offer to me as consolation? Luck?!! That it might just be my bad luck that I will get a stroke or some other bad side effect? To say nothing of the repugnant prospect of getting sick and debilitated despite being vaccinated.

But even if we aren’t, it’s a bit disingenuous to say “it’s not my business” and walk away. What exactly are you arguing about on here, then? You go on about “pro-vaxxers” and how bad they are at communicating, but you’re answer is: don’t communicate at all?

I expect the vocal pro-vaccers to offer something of substance that is relevant to people. Ie. that is assessed as relevant by the people, not merely by the vocal pro-vaccers. So far, your camp has offered nothing of this kind.

Getting vaccinated will not bring an added quality to one's life.
— baker

It will.

Only in the administrative sense in countries where there are mandatory covid passports, and being vaccinated makes some things easier as far as those passports are concerned. And in a social sense, insofar as one is trying to avoid being ostracized by one's pro-vaccer friends, family, and acquaintances.

But vaccination itself has no directly observable positive effects. One doesn't get a boost of energy from it; if one already has covid symptoms, getting vaccinated doesn't cure them.

Perhaps if some time after vaccination, one were to deliberately get exposed to the infection and then observe that one hasn't fallen sick, then that could bring added quality to one's life.

But beyond that, the added quality to one's life brought on by vaccination is symbolic and potential at best.

Also, what’s the consolation for the millions who have died of coronavirus?

You need consolation for those people?

It seems as though people just want to argue for argument's sake. That's fine -- but not when we have literally millions of people refusing vaccinations during a pandemic because of anti-vaxxer claims and massive amounts of misinformation/manufactured doubt. — Xtrix

Except that you're not actually asking them why they refuse to get vaccinated.

The discussion was about people refusing the vaccine out of fear of risks like stroke and death. Those risks are minuscule -- no matter how you slice the data. They remain so. — Xtrix

Those minuscule risks don't simply translate into minuscule strokes or minuscule deaths.

You play hard to please. The data is never good enough for you. — Olivier5

Actually, this is part of the standard problem of how statistical data based on large studies is presented by doctors to individual patients. It appears to be a "scientific" way to foster faith.

We don't give a rat's ass. — Olivier5

Riiight.

A brilliant attitude to have for the purpose of fostering trust and encouraging people to act in a way you want them to act. Really.

Risk analysis is not perfect, but it's a damn sight more complex than the naïve presentation of national prevalence statistics we see posted here masquerading as serious analysis. — Isaac

Not just here at the forums. More importantly, it's being fed to us by the government. What is worse, we can not communicate with the government, the government does not discuss with us.

If these orders entail those things you say are “definitely effective” then why aren’t they associated with reduced mortality? — AJJ

Some EU countries have been trying to scare people into getting vaccinated by making it a policy to publish the daily covid numbers (infected, hospitalized, dead) along with the percentage of the unvaccinated in those numbers.

Too bad that the percentage of the fully vaccinated who get infected, hospitalized, or who die keeps growing.

Just the other day on the Croatian news, the reporter said "Of today's 18 coronavirus deaths, as much as 13 were unvaccinated". No, adding that "as much as" doesn't make it more egregious, but it does make the other number more egregious.

Tell me now.

Correct. A lot of Chinese goods are made in prisons and concentration camps. — Apollodorus

But you see no fault in Westerners eagerly buying those goods?

But for Westerners in general to be so naive as to believe that China is the benefactor of the world, seems incomprehensible to me. — Apollodorus

Greed can make people believe all kinds of crazy things.


Make no mistake: I despise China, but I find less fault with China than with the Westeners who in their greed gobble up whatever China throws at them.

So the Westerners cry foul now, with the coronavirus? Why didn't they cry foul when they eagerly imported from China anything from cheap plastic toys to computer chips??!

While I don't think China has leaked the coronavirous, I think they're laughing at the greedy Westerners for being such idiots to eagerly buy trash that even China's poor wouldn't gladly do so.

People do things because they consider them worthwhile, in line with their value system and such. Not because something would be a low risk or a high probability of success.
— baker

Fine— and people should get vaccinated for the same reasons. It’s simply irrational not to, at this point. — Xtrix

"Oh, look, a guy on the internet said that it's irrational not to get vaccinated! So let's just all get vaccinated!"

- said noone ever.

Can't you see that calling people "irrational" (etc.) is _not_ serving your purpose (which is to get them vaccinated)?


For the most part, I'm amazed at the uproductive strategies and tactics that the vocal pro-vaccers use, ostensibly to get people vaccinated. Why does someone insist on spitting into the well like that?!

So you empathize more with anti-vaxxers and their concerns than those who are suffering and dying from COVID. Figured as much. Which is why you're a complete waste of time, and probably deserving of the contempt you so quickly project onto others while engaging in it yourself. — Xtrix

You get an A+ for emotional reasoning, that's for sure.

They can't relate to my concern, but perhaps to the injustice of a no opt out game.. — schopenhauer1

I suspect they would relate to that injustice only if they would be on the losing end of the no opt out game.

Because generally, many people are perfectly fine with unjust, uneven, unequal arrangements -- as long as they are not on the losing end, or at least far enough from it.

As long as a man has a wife and children to beat, or at least a dog to kick, he can find ways to be okay with being bullied by his boss.

Moreover, many people perfer to arrange their relationships with other people in a way that is unjust, uneven, unequal to others, but beneficial to themselves. Many people don't mind having slaves (and would probably prefer to have slaves).

So, it doesn't look like there are many people who can relate to your concern.

What role, if any, do the machinists of the long-running anti-vaxxer machines play? Do they assume any responsibility (of avoidable suffering/death)? Do they care about the consequences of their yelling? I don't recall them telling the friends/families of ☣ victims that they're sorry anyway. — jorndoe

The onus is on those who want to persuade others.

The terms of engagement stopped being equal the moment you express the expectation that some other people should be different than they are. So the onus is on you.


And let's not kid anyone: You don't care about the wellbeing of the vocal anti-vaccers. You don't want them to get vaccinated for the sake of their own health. You want them to get vaccinated for your sake, so that they wouldn't be a threat and a burden to you and your camp. They know that, and they're returning the disfavor.

Ask yourself where does this compulsion to disagree come from. — Olivier5

You should ask yourself that.

I agree with plenty of people on plenty of things.

That’s now the third time it’s been explained. But please don’t let that stop you from repeating lies. — Xtrix

You're not "explaining" it, you're merely stating it. Still waiting for a link to the covid vaccination law.
(And even if the US has one, many other countries don't.)

The legal option of a wrongful termination lawsuit is a false hope
— baker

You mean where you live? It's not a false hope here. — frank

You mean there is a country on this planet where suing your employer will not end badly for you in some way?

Firing someone for not being vaccinated, here in the US, is completely legal — both in wording and in reason. — Xtrix

Is there a law in the US -- and do name it, post a link to it! -- according to which covid vaccination is mandatory?


The issue in some EU countries is precisely that: Covid vaccination is not mandated by law, so the whole burden is placed on employers.
State/federal law is one thing, company policy is another thing.

So he must be he and I must be me? Why seek to move the immovable with this thread then? — Hanover

Is it immovable?

Are you slothful by nature, but have managed to overcome your sloth philosophically?

Anyways, no this isn't about me not cleaning the dishes or wanting to do "my fair share.." The whole point is that it is unjust to be put in a situation where you cannot opt out unless you die of /degradation/ or suicide.. — schopenhauer1

As noted above, some people do believe, by default, that life is a blessing and worth living. Such people cannot relate to your concern.

You could perhaps specify your point and instead of making a wholesale indictment against humanity for procreating at all, focus on pointing at the fault of producing children while failing to instill in them the belief that life is a blessing and worth living.

I think this is the point that people fail at the most: Showing and teaching others that life is a blessing and worth living.

While many people will eagerly criticize anyone who is in any way pessimistic about life as such, they are quite unable (or just unwilling?) to persuade them otherwise. They'll even go so far as to claim that something is genetically or otherwise physiologically wrong with the pessmist and dismiss them.

If you're the guy who waits for others to clean his dishes, and we all do have dirty dishes, you're not the roommate any of us want, especially if you try to justify your sloth philosophically. — Hanover

You're missing his point. His gripe is with those who made him, who made him exist (and more generally, with people making other people exist, and thus, suffer).

A hava nagila kind of person takes for granted that life is a blessing and worth living. But clearly, not everyone is like that. More importantly, whether a person will have a fundamentally positive outlook on life or not appears to be beyond a person's immediate control. It appears to be something that one must be born or raised with, but isn't something that can be learned later on in life.

justify your sloth philosophically.

Are you slothful by nature, but have managed to overcome your sloth philosophically?

I want very much to like this, but there are times when informal fallacies are useful - like appeals to authority or ad hominem when it is so much more trouble to show why the person is wrong. If an informal fallacy gets you to the same end with more expedience, I question why they shouldn’t be given the same status as any other heuristic. — Ennui Elucidator

Indeed.

From your link:

For example, I may advance a proof of some assertion, and my adversary may refute the proof, and thus appear to have refuted the assertion, for which there may, nevertheless, be other proofs. In this case, of course, my adversary and I change places: he comes off best, although, as a matter of fact, he is in the wrong.

If the reader asks how this is, I reply that it is simply the natural baseness of human nature. If human nature were not base, but thoroughly honourable, we should in every debate have no other aim than the discovery of truth; we should not in the least care whether the truth proved to be in favour of the opinion which we had begun by expressing, or of the opinion of our adversary. That we should regard as a matter of no moment, or, at any rate, of very secondary consequence; but, as things are, it is the main concern. Our innate vanity, which is particularly sensitive in reference to our intellectual powers, will not suffer us to allow that our first position was wrong and our adversary's right. The way out of this difficulty would be simply to take the trouble always to form a correct judgment. For this a man would have to think before he spoke. But, with most men, innate vanity is accompanied by loquacity and innate
dishonesty. They speak before they think; and even though they may afterwards perceive that they are wrong, and that what they assert is false, they want it to seem the contrary. The interest in truth, which may be presumed to have been their only motive when they stated the proposition alleged to be true, now gives way to the interests of vanity: and so, for the sake of vanity, what is true must seem false, and what is false must seem true.

The question is whether we should fully give in to the natural baseness of human nature, whether we should deem it absolute, the only thing that matters.

Although not fully explicated here, the thought is that the way that speak of truth is neither about coherence nor correspondence, but about achieving our ends. — Ennui Elucidator

Agreed.

It would be nice, however, if the realist would cease their reproach of logics that don’t meet their aesthetic based upon the faulty belief that logic is about the state of affairs.

Unless this belief (or, to the point: asserting this belief) is part of the realist's strategy to achieve his ends.

It's not like it is really possible to distinguish between a religious preacher who claims to have the Truth, the How Things really Are, the State of Affairs, from a realist who does the same (they just differ in what they state that Truth to be).

I am suggesting quite the opposite - that if truthmakers are states of affairs, then logic should not be faulted for its failure to ensure rTruth. — Ennui Elucidator

It seems that for all practical intents and purposes, (formal) logic is a response or reaction to what is intuitively felt as wrong thinking. In other words, for many practical intents and purposes, the history of logic is the history of addressing informal logical fallacies (and then explicating principles of proper ways of thinking).

The issue is relevant when it comes to persuasion, when one person tries to persuade another person to accept the proposed view and act accordingly.

Ideally, fending against informal logical fallacies should protect one against being duped (and, if one is very nice, make one refrain from duping others).

To do something about the polarization of politics is the problem. The political discourse is just spiraling out of control. It's like people are just waiting for the next clash to ensue. — ssu

This isn't just in the US, it's a global trend. Polarization (and simplificationism) appear to be the logical consequences of democracy.

Democracy wasn't born out of some deep mutual respect people would have for eachother, but is merely one of the options for what to do when there is no hereditary monarchy (or its equivalent) in place.
Don't forget that the original motto of the French Revolution was Liberté, égalité, fraternité ou la mort.

You don't think there's a fundamental difference between how information was searched for and reached us before Google and Facebook and now? We've got record numbers of people believing the worst things without any ability to even listen to opposing views. — Benkei

Sure, in absolute terms, those numbers are increasing, but in relative terms, percentagewise? You don't have any actual data for this, do you?

We've got /.../ people believing the worst things without any ability to even listen to opposing views. — Benkei

Do you know of any time in human history when this was not the case?

I don't. Sure, the superficial methods change over time, as technology changes, but the underlying principles are the same. Pick any actual time in human history, any actual year and place, and research whether people in that year and place had free access to all information.

Was there ever a time when the distribution of information was not in one way or another targeted?

NOS, he was just an inept leader.
— ssu
Who tried to kill the United States of America. — tim wood

Here's a thought: Instate Trump as the rightful POTUS, under the condition that he tells people to get vaccinated. Ha!

In particular, I am looking for an argument as to why anyone should feel compelled to accept classical logical (or minor variations) as somehow more useful as a heuristic than any other logic. — Ennui Elucidator

Indeed, why not make Eristische Dialektik our Bible?

My inclination is to say simply that we can choose whatever logic suits our purpose. DO you thin this somehow incompatible with realism? — Banno

Trump and Trumpistas are realists then?

There is no free lunch. Some problems are simply unsolvable—but must be dealt with. — Leghorn

How?

I don't seem to have trouble, out in the real world, I don't find even my worst critics have so totally misinterpreted the things I say as to make them appear almost opposite on any given issues. And then there's here... — Isaac

There's that saying -- "People of substance don't post much on internet forums."
I agree with this, and its obviously ironic implication.

In face to face interactions, people tend to consider the tone to be more important than the actual words, and it's the tone they actually respond to, not the words. Then they take this communication habit online, except that now, since the tone is obviously missing, they fill it in on their own, based on their own prejudices and biases. This can explain the frequent misinterpretations and misrepresentations.

Another factor is that when people communicate online, they often communicate from the privacy of their homes, their bedrooms, sometimes, dressed in their pajamas (or not even that). This is akin to allowing (hostile) strangers into one's privacy and vulnerability. This is bound to have important psychological implications for communication, among other things.

Online communication would probably look quite different if everyone would post from their offices, fully dressed and presentable, with laced shoes.

Good for you!

Why must we view scientistic capitalist apparatchiks as the ideal of humanity?

Sure, you can massage the terms to make them synonymous, but what have you really achieved by doing that other than establishing an eccentric usage of terms? — Janus

It's not uncommon that we develop a theory (based on some evidence) and then this theory allows us to see (further) evidence that supports it. It's why we have sayings like "Hindsight is 20/20".

The history of science shows that it may be rational to be wrong, yet not irrational to be right. In a letter to Mersenne, Descartes raised the question whether ‘a stone thrown from a sling, the bullet from a musket or the arrow from an arbalist have greater speed and force in the midst of their flight than in the beginning’, suggesting that this is indeed the ’vulgar belief’ but adding that he had reasons for thinking differently. Clearly, in 1630 the vulgar belief was rational. In the case of a man or a carriage, nobody would contest that the greatest speed is achieved some time after the beginning of the movement, and there was every reason to conceive of the movement of a projectile in the same way. It took the genius of Descartes to reconceptualize movement as a state rather than as a process. One should not say, however, that the belief at which Descartes arrived by his astounding mental leap was irrational, since his theory, as it were, enabled one to perceive the evidence that supported it. The vulgar theory was rational in view of the facts known to it, that of Descartes by virtue of the novel facts it enabled him to establish. I am making the banal point that the relation between belief and observation is a two-way one, rather than the one-directional inductive process suggested by such phrases as ‘the most rational belief given the available evidence’.

From Jon Elster, Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality

That is an extremely vulgar remark. This is a philosophy forum, it might do you some good to read some more about the subject before launching ad hominems. Objective idealism is a perfectly sound and sane philosophical outlook, even though it is a minority view. — Wayfarer

Ooops, that hit a nerve.

I myself am actually in favor of idealism, my view is much in line with the Buddha's on this. But I am also painfully aware how alienating this view is, how counterproductive to fitting in in society. A person committed to exploring idealist views has a lot to contend with, going against the flow of society. Sadly, this can sometimes end very badly for them.

In the US you can sue for wrongful termination. — frank

Which is extremely difficult to prove, and even if the person wins the case in court, their career in the industry, or altogether, is probably over. Employers know that. Employers don't like potential employees with a track record of suing their employers.

The legal option of a wrongful termination lawsuit is a false hope.

The aim or purpose of looking for such a formulation being what?
— baker

Understanding. — Banno

To what end?

Merely to satisfy curiosity?

If we start from the position that humans act purposefully, oriented toward a goal, then understanding is merely a means to an end, not the end itself.

(People possibly do philosophy for the purpose of relieving that specific inner tension that they feel. So, philosophy as a means to find inner peace etc.)

Typical non-answer. — 180 Proof

That should be read, obviously, as "In my opinion there can be no final solution to the problem of suffering". So, as I have said, if Buddha says there can be a final solution to suffering then I disagree with him. If you agree with what you have imputed to Buddha and think there can be a final solution to the problem of suffering, a solution that would completely end all suffering for all time, a solution other than the total extinction of the world (which could not be effected anyway), then what do you think that solution could be? — Janus

/.../ How, then, could the Buddha not have believed in reincarnation, and how can one accept reincarnation to be true without believing in the incorporeal self, aka "the soul"? — Michael Zwingli

Start new threads, as the above is off-topic here. See you there.

If only our phones could text and call without the internet. — Michael

But then one would have to communicate with real people!