see if you agree — Srap Tasmaner
I presented an argument that your distrust of pharmaceutical companies is a reason for no one to get vaccinated, and is inconsistent with a belief that some people should. You tried to manage this inconsistency in your first response by resenting the fact that some people should trust vaccine vendors. — Srap Tasmaner
I was trying to argue that distrust of pharmaceuticals is a reason for as few people as possible to get vaccinated. — Isaac
But you have to link up distrust with "as few people as possible" in some specific way. Is it because the vaccine might actually be poison and you want as few people as possible to be poisoned? Is it because the seller is making money per dose, and you want them to make as little money as possible? — Srap Tasmaner
What difference could other thoughts about pharmaceutical companies make here? There's no room for "You need the vaccine, but ..." and no need for "You don't need the vaccine, plus ..." — Srap Tasmaner
to counter the (otherwise reasonable) all-in-it-together argument which might have everyone taking the vaccine to show solidarity with the group who actually need to. — Isaac
to show solidarity with the group who actually need to. — Isaac
Three weeks ago President Biden announced plans to require Covid-19 vaccinations — or, in some cases, weekly testing as an alternative — for most U.S. workers. There were immediate predictions that the move would backfire, that it would only stiffen vaccine resistance. Indeed, some surveys suggested that as many as half of unvaccinated workers would quit their jobs rather than take their shots.
But such threats are proving mostly empty. Many state and local governments and a significant number of private employers have already imposed vaccine mandates — and these mandates have been very successful. Compliance has been high, and only a relative handful of workers have quit or had to be fired.
To understand why vaccine mandates seem to work so well, we need to think about the real nature of vaccine resistance. Most of the people refusing to take their shots don’t really believe that the vaccines contain tracking microchips or that they have severe side effects.
Instead, everything we’ve seen suggests that many vaccine resisters are like the people who in the past raged about seatbelt laws and bans on phosphates in detergents, or more recently refused to wear masks. That is, they’re people who balk at being asked to accept what they imagine to be a cost or inconvenience on behalf of the public good. (In reality, getting vaccinated is very much something you should do on purely selfish grounds, but as I’ll explain in a minute, that information may not be getting through.) And as I’ve noticed in the past, political rage about public health rules seems, if anything, to be inversely related to how onerous these rules really are.
True. But those that are vaccinated are supposed to be protected? — Apollodorus
And I don't see why China should get away with it when that is where the problem originated. — Apollodorus
That the enthusiasm of the vocal pro-vaccers is unfounded.As someone who’s taking the vaccine already, what exactly are you driving at here? — Xtrix
I don't know what "get away with it" means in this context. What do you suggest we do? — T Clark
143 strokes out of 10 million shots for the Pfizer vaccine, last I checked. Which is much better than the strokes caused by COVID infection — and still extremely rare any way you slice it. — Xtrix
Part of the problem is insisting on looking at the matter from the perspective of large numbers, large populations, and then expecting that individual people will be convinced and soothed by this.
If you are the one who gets the stroke after the vaccine, it does not matter to you if so many millions didn't get one. It's still you who is now paralyzed. — baker
Not at all. It is doubtful that even professional statisticians think of their life choices in terms of odds.I wonder how useful this observation is. Isn't understanding and managing the odds how life is negotiated for the most part? — Tom Storm
Do you ever reflect on risk before crossing the road or eating seafood? I'm pretty sure you don't.All of life is a risk. Simple daily activities like crossing a road or eating seafood can kill you if you have bad luck.
Was it really "bad luck"?If you're the one with the bad luck, you can be understandably dismayed but isn't this the price of being a fragile corporeal creature in an incoherent and dangerous world?
Take them to court, impose sanctions, anything is better than nothing. Otherwise the regime will think that it is untouchable and this can only make matters worse IMO. — Apollodorus
Do you ever reflect on risk before crossing the road or eating seafood? I'm pretty sure you don't. — baker
If the world is really incoherent and dangerous as you say, then there is no reason to believe that anything (whether vaccines or levers) can make any difference. Except maybe magic. — baker
I have no objection. I'll go along with that if you'll go along with mandatory vaccination. — T Clark
You don't have to reflect on risk when you get vaccinated either. — Janus
Really?? So then what -- do you get anxious? If you do, what do you tell yourself to calm down and compose yourself?I sure do and when I get in a car. — Tom Storm
This is a philosophy forum. More precision is fully warranted.I'm obviously using luck in the conversational sense.
I don't believe that.Life is risk
Of course. But this still doesn't make it a gamble. There is cause and effect. Given that some causes are currently not known, some phenomena might indeed seem random, without causes and conditions. But this seeming doesn't make them so.and you may be dead by morning...
The point being?An example - a friend died of lung cancer at 40. She didn't smoke. My grandfather smoked 2 packets a day for 70 years and never got sick. He died in his sleep at 96. Human experience in a nutshell. This is why I use words like luck or incoherent. Feel free to suggest an improved nomenclature, but you can't avoid the point.
Unfortunately, I can't go along with mandatory vaccination as that sounds too much like an infringement of human rights. It would be inconsistent to condone here what I condemn in China. — Apollodorus
Besides, if you have no objection, then you don't need to make your approval conditional on my going along with mandatory vaccination. — Apollodorus
Krugman’s argument is a stupid one. The fact that governments have in the past regulated this or that activity isn’t an argument that they should keep on doing so, that they should force companies to mandate vaccines, that they should violate someone’s bodily autonomy and their right to make one’s own medical decisions, and so on. — NOS4A2
False analogies and appeals to tradition are the few arguments they have left. — NOS4A2
Absent any coherent argument they have state coercion, the last resort of the weak. — NOS4A2
Of course many people will comply when the government threatens to end their livelihood. Cruelty and coercion may be successful, sure, but achieving success through these means only serves to illustrate how their other efforts until then were utter failures.
People are getting strokes from the covid vaccines, they are dying from the covid vaccines.
What do you have to offer to the survivors and their close ones? — baker
Really?? So then what -- do you get anxious? If you do, what do you tell yourself to calm down and compose yourself? — baker
Life is risk
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that life is a gamble in any way. — baker
The point being? — baker
This is a philosophy forum. More precision is fully warranted. — baker
As someone who’s taking the vaccine already, what exactly are you driving at here?
— Xtrix
That the enthusiasm of the vocal pro-vaccers is unfounded.
That the hatred and contempt that the vocal pro-vaccers show for everyone who doesn't share their enthusiasm is unjustified. — baker
143 strokes out of 10 million shots for the Pfizer vaccine, last I checked. Which is much better than the strokes caused by COVID infection — and still extremely rare any way you slice it.
— Xtrix
Part of the problem is insisting on looking at the matter from the perspective of large numbers, large populations, and then expecting that individual people will be convinced and soothed by this.
If you are the one who gets the stroke after the vaccine, it does not matter to you if so many millions didn't get one. It's still you who is now paralyzed. — baker
Do you ever reflect on risk before crossing the road or eating seafood? I'm pretty sure you don't.
— baker
You don't have to reflect on risk when you get vaccinated either. — Janus
Then why are those who want people to get vaccinated feeding us that line???
Why are high government officials, epidemiologists, public advertisements, and so on telling us that the risk of something going wrong is low, and that therefore, we should get vaccinated? — baker
Why are high government officials, epidemiologists, public advertisements, and so on telling us that the risk of something going wrong is low, and that therefore, we should get vaccinated? — baker
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