That company X or Y has done something in the past or even many bad things isn't reason enough to not use their products when they are safe and effective. You know one computer or cellphone maker that hasn't been sued? One car maker that never did anything shoddy? Should we express blanket mistrust for all car and cellphone makers and stop using cars and cellphones? — Olivier5

Where have I advocated blanket mistrust?

Just to be clear, a non-absolutist (ie relativist) and non-essentialist (ie pragmatic, result-oriented) view of dishonest behaviors within pharmaceuticals would be to say something like this: "pharmaceuticals can do bad things (eg lobby for a dangerous drug) and good things (eg develop safe and effective vaccines). We should try and discourage them to do the former by using the law to its fullest extent against them when they do bad things, and also encourage them to do the latter, by purchasing their vaccines when they are safe and effective.

You will have recognized the time-honored stick and carrot approach, an excellent way to get incremental progress over time.

"pharmaceuticals can do bad things (eg lobby for a dangerous drug) and good things (eg develop safe and effective vaccines). We should try and discourage them to do the former (via the law) and encourage them to do the latter, by purchasing their vaccines when they are safe and effective. — Olivier5

WTF? Do you 'encourage' people not to commit crimes by rewarding them when they don't?

Do you 'encourage' people not to commit crimes by rewarding them when they don't? — Isaac

Nope, you encourage them to do the right thing.

Nope, you encourage them to do the right thing. — Olivier5

By rewarding them?

When they do the right thing, yes. Carrot and stick.

So can you give me an example from outside of the corporate world where we reward people financially for not committing crimes?

Let me take an example that an ex-behaviorist can understand.

Imagine you have a donkey -- let's call it Buridan -- and Buridan doesn't want to move while you want him to come with you to the market. You can do a number of things, among which hitting it with a stick (on his rear end), showing off a delicious carrot (on his front end) or a combination of the two.

The combination of the carrot and stick, of an incentive at one end + a disincentive at the other end, is generally more effective (provides a stronger cumulative incentive) in producing from Buridan the desired behavior than just using one technique without the other.

It works also for human beings, but more metaphorically (most people are not that into actual carrots) and this, my friend, is the essence of the so-called "carrot and stick approach" to management.

It is hard to understand from your standpoint, I guess. That would be because you see these folks as inherently evil and thus the only righteous action is to punish, punish, and punish them some more...

So can you give me an example from outside of the corporate world where we reward people financially for not committing crimes?

Nope.

So what's special about pharmaceutical companies that you think it's a sensible policy for them when for the rest of the population the threat of criminal prosecution is considered enough. Why do you advocate treating these corporations more favourably?

I never said any such thing. I said they should be rewarded for doing the right thing. There's an important difference between doing the right thing and not doing wrong things, no?

I said they should be rewarded for doing the right thing. — Olivier5

Possibly. So how do you get from there to 'anyone who disagrees with this strategy must be suffering from some mental illness'?

Possibly. So how do you get from there to 'anyone who disagrees with this strategy must be suffering from some mental illness'? — Isaac

Because the carrot and stick strategy is balanced, effective and just, while using only the stick is imbalanced and has perverse effects. Your incapacity to understand this very simple point of pragmatic thinking stems from a dark place: the will to punish someone seen as inherently evil.

It is sinister.

To be clear...

I asked

why you think my view 'paranoid'. — Isaac

You said

Because of its essentialist and absolutist angles. — Olivier5

Then explained that...

a non-absolutist (ie relativist) and non-essentialist (ie pragmatic, result-oriented) view of dishonest behaviors within pharmaceuticals would be to say something like this: "pharmaceuticals can do bad things (eg lobby for a dangerous drug) and good things (eg develop safe and effective vaccines). We should try and discourage them to do the former by using the law to its fullest extent against them when they do bad things, and also encourage them to do the latter, by purchasing their vaccines when they are safe and effective. — Olivier5

So anyone who disagrees that pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for making vaccines (a type of product they actually chose to make anyway) by purchasing their vaccines, is absolutist and essentialist and therefore paranoid.

This is not about balance. It's about claiming someone who doesn't agree with a very specific economic strategy you happen to prefer must be mentally ill

So anyone who disagrees that pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for making [safe, effective] vaccines (a type of product they actually chose to make anyway) by purchasing their vaccines, is absolutist and essentialist and therefore paranoid. — Isaac

Yes. Good summary.

Since the vaccines are effective, it is in our short-term interest to buy them anyway. Long-term, it incentivizes pharmaceutical to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future.

If on the other hand we say: "these people are inherently evil, hence we should not buy their safe and effective vaccines, or only buy as few of them as we possibly can", we shoot ourselves in the foot by depriving ourselves of these effective and safe vaccines, and by giving pharmaceuticals no incentives to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future. So this would be perverse.

I can't put it in simpler words.

Since the vaccines are effective, it is in our short-term interest to buy them anyway. Long-term, it incentivizes pharmaceutical to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future.

If on the other hand we say: "these people are inherently evil, hence we should not buy their safe and effective vaccines, or only buy as few of them as we possibly can", we shoot ourselves in the foot by depriving ourselves of these effective and safe vaccines, and by giving pharmaceuticals no incentives to produce more safe and effective vaccines in the future. So this would be perverse. — Olivier5

This is not about which strategy you advocate and why. It's about you being so utterly unable to see another perspective that you're prepared to claim anyone who disagrees with you must be mentally ill. Can you seriously not see anything wrong with that?

Well, I didn't exactly say that. To be fair I said that this was a pragmatic, balanced, time-honored and generally effective strategy. I didn't say that anyone rejecting it is crazy, but simply that this would be the most rational, balanced and effective manner to move forward in a non-essentialist manner. I also predicted that you would struggle with the idea, because you have an essentialist view in which the pharmaceuticals can do noting right.

I didn't say that anyone rejecting it is crazy, — Olivier5

To be clear...

I asked

why you think my view 'paranoid'. — Isaac


You said

Because of its essentialist and absolutist angles. — Olivier5


Then explained that...

a non-absolutist (ie relativist) and non-essentialist (ie pragmatic, result-oriented) view of dishonest behaviors within pharmaceuticals would be to say something like this: "pharmaceuticals can do bad things (eg lobby for a dangerous drug) and good things (eg develop safe and effective vaccines). We should try and discourage them to do the former by using the law to its fullest extent against them when they do bad things, and also encourage them to do the latter, by purchasing their vaccines when they are safe and effective. — Olivier5


So anyone who disagrees that pharmaceutical companies should be rewarded for making vaccines (a type of product they actually chose to make anyway) by purchasing their vaccines, is absolutist and essentialist and therefore paranoid.

We're not discussing economic strategy here. We're discussing your dismissal of alternative perspectives as paranoid and crazy.

We're not discussing economic strategy here. We're discussing your dismissal of alternative perspectives as paranoid and crazy. — Isaac

I am saying that not using an effective vaccine would be irrational, counterproductive and perverse both in long term and short term.

Because the carrot and stick strategy is balanced, effective and just, while using only the stick is imbalanced and has perverse effects. — Olivier5

To be sure, you'll need to explain what exactly you mean by the "carrot and stick strategy". Reward and punishment?


In the original scenario from which the idiom comes from, a carrot on a rope was tied to a stick and the stick tied to the back of the donkey, so that the carrot was dangling in front of the donkey without the donkey ever being able to reach it. This was a strategy to get donkeys to carry and pull heavy loads: the promise of a reward. Whether the reward was ever actually delivered is questionable, as the implication is that the donkeys were stupid and did hard work even though never actually being rewarded for it.

I am saying that not using an effective vaccine would be irrational, counterproductive and perverse both in long term and short term. — Olivier5

So now it's just effective? Whatever happened to the holy mantra of "safe and effective"?

Si you got your two shots, huh? Any plan for a booster?

I have been the one pointing out at such fake disagreement promoted here by people like you, as in this post you were quoting.

So you're vaccinated against COVID, Baker? — Olivier5

Yes, I am. Do I feel safe, do I feel protected from covid? No. I wish being vaccinated would help, but I don't have faith that it does help.
I'm also not willing to test it, such as by knowingly exposing myself to the infection.

The Janssen vaccine with which I was vaccinated was originally estimated to be 67% effective, but later, was estimated to be much less. To me, this simply isn't grounds for optimism or for thinking that the battle, much less the war is won.

Vaccination might help a bit, but I don't place faith in it. I certainly don't have the kind of enthusiastic, confident, optimistic attitude toward it the way some vocal proponents of vaccination expect me to have.
This is a major point of disagreement between myself and them.


A poster here said that they feel safe now that they're vaccinated. How this person has come to that conclusion is not clear. Because even in the most optimistic scenario, the Pfizer vaccine is estimated to be only about 66% effective, which is quite a drop from the originally proposed 95+% . To say nothing of the side effects.

I am saying that not using an effective vaccine would be irrational, counterproductive and perverse both in long term and short term. — Olivier5

Right? So where have I suggested we shouldn't make use of the vaccine?

Any plan for a booster? — Olivier5

No. Given the side effects I experienced, no. I don't have the health and the energy to be an experimental rabbit for people who don't care whether I live or die.

where have I suggested we shouldn't make use of the vaccine? — Isaac

If we make use of their vaccines, we have to pay them for it, thus rewarding the good work done and incentivizing the future production of safe and effective vaccines. That's agreed then?

You're incorrigible! — Isaac

Who told you?

The spectre of mandates now is absolutely not something which requires some kind of psychologising bullshit explanation in terms of politics. — Isaac

Mandates have been around for decades, without much fanfare or controversy. The reason they’re controversial now is 1) the anti-vaccine movement, starting around 1998, 2) years of right wing undermining of science, media, fact, and truth, and 3) politicization.

This is why it’s not a surprise where the unvaccinated are found: counties that voted for Donald Trump.

If this were truly an issue of evidence and truth, of good faith argument, this wouldn’t be the case. It’s politicized, pure and simple. There’s nothing “psychologizing” about it.

And yes, I’m talking about— and have been from the beginning — the United States.

you?

It’s not new technology.
— Xtrix

So the CDC are lying? — Isaac

No, the CDC said just what I said: the technology has been around for decades. I’ll quote them again— from your source:

Researchers have been studying and working with mRNA vaccines for decades.

To bring up “newness,” implying they’re somehow unsafe because of their newness, is extremely misleading — and you know it.

The vaccines are safe. This has been shown repeatedly. Playing word games and making implications about their newness to embellish their risks is exactly in line with anti-vax bullshit.

The vaccines are safe and effective. Mandates are completely legal and justified— as seen from court cases— and are also effective, as we’re now seeing.

So much for all the smoke that’s been blown. But continue blowing it, by all means.

Vaccination might help a bit, but I don't place faith in it. I certainly don't have the kind of enthusiastic, confident, optimistic attitude toward it the way some vocal proponents of vaccination expect me to have.
This is a major point of disagreement between myself and them. — baker

A minor disagreement, when you think of it.

When in fact there isn't much we disagree on. I can think of really just one thing we disagree on: and that is the vehemence with which scientific claims should be held and the ethical status that should be ascribed to them. — baker

We agree on that too, if you deigned to read what I said instead of rushing into accusations.

All I ever did was call for more caution. For this, several posters immediately classed me as an anti-vaccer, as irrational, evil, and such. — baker

Then take some responsibility and be more clear next time. I’ll do the same with my abrasiveness.

Incidentally, I never called you “evil.”