Coronavirus

I disagree with giving incentives to the people who are refusing to get vaccinated. It sets a bad precedent, and it's unfair to the people who already got vaccinated without having to be bribed.

It makes more sense to do the opposite, and take something away from these people, like the stimulus check, or maybe even their insurance shouldn't cover them if they get Covid and they're not vaccinated.

New York City just announced that as of Sept. 1st, people will need to show proof that they were vaccinated before going to stores, restaurants, museums, Broadway shows, etc. They even have an app for the vaccination card now to make it easy to keep your card on your smartphone.

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To further elaborate on my comment, those who already have gotten the vaccine would also get the next stimulus check.

In a sense that's what I had said, if someone didn't get vaccinated they wouldn't be getting the next stimulus check.
That's too harsh, I don't want to live in a country that would dictate something like mandatory Covid vaccines. I mean what next? No diabetes treatment for overweight people? No prenatal care for women who didn't use contraceptives and had an unplanned child? It's a real slippery slope.

And I agree with you about the stimulus check.


I'm not talking about the people with legitimate health issues that could prevent them from getting the vaccine. I'm talking about the average person who's refusing to get the vaccine.

Why is okay to offer these people money to get the vaccine, but not to take it away if they refuse to get the vaccine? If the vaccine is safe for them to get it if they're paid to get it, then it's also safe for them to get it if something is taken away from them.

There's no comparison of Covid to diabetes or prenatal care because those things don't affect the people around them. Covid is affecting everyone because they risk spreading it to other people, and as long as people are refusing to get vaccinated, we're getting closer and closer to the possibility of another wave of the pandemic, and another potential lockdown.

I agree about incentives to get vaccinated but I wonder how far it can be taken before it's considered discrimination.

I think the easiest way to be misunderstood is to obfuscate what you're saying. If you think some reasons are unreasonable, and being unreasonable is bad, then you're saying those things are bad. That's a straight syllogism, and it doesn't accomplish anything (or ward off misunderstandings) to obscure that.

Why not? If someone's being ignorant and reckless, that would seem to warrant some criticism (noting that criticism need not be spiteful).

Why make an exception for someone you're close to, particularly given that the behavior in question can spread to people you're close to, anyway?

Agreed, but the point is that advising them to listen to their doctor is virtually identical to advising them to take the vaccine. It's another example of essentially saying something, but doing it in an indirect way so there's a layer of deniability.

And it's more of a tragedy when those issues are easily preventable, but not prevented for irrational reasons.

The phrase "tell someone what to do with their body" is more a slogan than an argument. It sounds good, but it doesn't really hold up to scrutiny: telling someone not to jump off a bridge is "telling someone what to do with their body," too, but I'm guessing you don't find that unreasonable.

Here discrimination is a purely rhetorical, deliberately loaded term, used to elicit a knee-jerk feeling of victimhood. It's like calling quarantines "segregation".

Society does discriminate and segregate a lot (I wanted to build rockets for NASA but turns out they discriminate against those who aren't good at math, also I was a victim of tickets-based segregation when I tried to attend the concert for free). It has to be denounced when arbitrary and bigoted (the way we discriminate based on nation, race, gender, etc), but this doesn't mean that a society cannot draw line in, say, the most basic, extreme case : between carriers of a virus, potential carriers of a virus, and people immunized to a virus. It has consequences.

Manipulative words are used to frame a thing into what it isn't, exploiting the poetic fact that words come with luggage, with thoughts associations, with the evocation of their most common contexts of usage, etc. And it goes both ways, sometimes words are chosen specifically to avoid evoking what is actually going on, to artificially sanitize a situation by avoiding pointers to its dirtiest aspects. But words do not make the thing. They merely paint it, with more or less accuracy, rigor and honesty.

So, of course, loaded terms are and will be used to describe and demonize inconveniences, especially in such stupidly polarized situations. They should not pre-determine the analysis of a situation, and automatically make us treat it as if it warranted all the implications and analogies that the word is meant to smuggle in.

You mention drawing the line and that's what I'm asking. How much is ok to take away? Obviously there's a limit or we could just ship the unvaccinated out of the country.

Waste of time

Much of this has turned into identity politics and I don't like it. The unvaccinated as a group are reckless and ignorant some will say. I like to look at people as individuals.

If someone close to me is vaccinated, I'm not so worried. That's supposedly the point of vaccination.

I don't think it's identical at all. Doctors are supposed to inspire trust and I could be misinformed. The fact that we have the same information is besides the point. People should not take my word for it.

I'll pass on comparing tragedies.

It's not a slogan, it's how I feel about it. Not interested in the analogy.

If it's a waste of time to explain yourself, then it was a waste of time to express the idea in the first place. Yours and mine.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive. It's easy enough to say "yes, they're reckless and ignorant unless they have a good reason." With that, you simultaneously call out the reckless behavior but make reasonable allowances for individual circumstance. This is what we've been talking about the whole time.

Advising someone to do something is not the same as saying they should "take [your] word for it." But let's roll with that anyway: if the doctor tells them to take it, and they refuse, then are they being reckless and ignorant?

You haven't, though. You've had to make the same kind of comparison in deciding you'd rather avoid applying social pressure than make sure people get vaccinated, which means you've decided the tragedies that might result from that are worse than the others.

It's unfortunate that pandemics put us in the position of "comparing tragedies," but they do, and you haven't avoided it by taking this position.

Arguments don't go away just because you say "waste of time" or "not interested." I'm interested in it, and you should be, too, because it shows that the phrase doesn't hold up, however emotionally compelling it may sound.

I've been explaining myself even though my feelings are clear. You want to start having me use a word that I haven't used so this has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you. I don't have to explain myself by using words that you pick out so stop pretending that I am the problem here. The phrase "as it turns out" is clearly a phrase used in hindsight about something that has already happened. You either misunderstood it or wanted to play games. I am not going there with you again and it has nothing to do with my feelings on the issues. You can like it or not, and you can even come up with your own fantastical conclusions. At some point, unless you can't help yourself, you should come to the realization that this part of the conversation is an unnecessary waste of time.

Feel free to have at it. If I don't want to call people out, it's OK isn't it?

How about we roll with this; I'm not going to do either, and I'm not calling people out.

I haven't passed on comparing tragedies? So you're saying I have? I'm pretty sure I've said that everything about the pandemic, that every time someone has health complications, it was tragic. Try not to put words in my mouth. It happened before and it led to needless conversation that was a waste of time.

I said I wasn't interested in the analogy, but thanks for misrepresenting my words again. I'm also not trying to be emotionally compelling, at all.

Let me summarize my feelings on this-

My wife and I have been vaccinated.

I wish everyone would get vaccinated.

If someone asked me if they should get vaccinated, I'd say it's what I chose to do. You should do your research, consult your physician, and make your decision.

If someone decides against getting vaccinated, I don't need to know their reason, but I will not disparage them or act like I am morally superior.


Pretty clear right? Now if anybody is confused, feel free to ask me questions and I will entertain them. If anybody feels differently, that is your right.

I am all for restricting privileges.

To me, that draws the line between personal risk and endangering others.

If someone chooses not to be vaccinated, cool. They can sit in their house unvaccinated. If someone wants to be unvaccinated and go grocery shopping without a mask next to elderly/vulnerable people? Ha! NOPE.

I think I already said this, but I was called for jury duty last week and I was one of only three masked people (all of the courthouse employees were properly masked). As people were entering, unmasked, they were being asked if they were vaccinated, but not being asked to show any proof. It made me nervous. Given the low vaccination rate here, I find it statistically improbable that everyone who came in unmasked was actually vaccinated. (The two other people who were masked mentioned that, like me, they were vaccinated. So in a county with a low vaccination rate, 100% of the people who showed up to jury duty were vaccinated? Hmmm.)

And that actually comes around to another problem: many people who are unvaccinated are also not good about masking. So that brings up that moral element to me, again. You are making a choice (which, fine, is your choice), but you are also refusing to engage in a behavior (which does not have medical risks) to mitigate the additional risk you now pose to others? I mean, I have a teammate who is unvaccinated, but at least he has the decency to have erected desk shields around his desk and he sits behind them and masks when you go to talk to him.

What are your thoughts on mitigating spread, avoiding future mutations and herd immunity?

Dying words: "Lyme...was a leaked....military bioweapon...*urgh*"

We do have to lightly dance around the politics of the 'culture war' aspect of all of this. I do happen to believe that this segment of vaccine resistence far outweighs mere skeptics, or at least provides a lure for their confirmation bias. Anyway, I've wondered why those who are so delicate about their health, regarding the vaccine's sdie effects, are also so reluctant to wear masks in a pandemic. Seems expedient.


(Also, what a poorly written artcle. What does "capitalism" have to do with anything? Some people have to find a way to put their ornaments on every tree.)

I was wondering about it while reading it, but there is a reflection about people who deliberately push anti-vaccine falsehoods for financial profit. So the idea is that the race for individual profit at the expanse of moral imperatives or the common good is an ideology that enables, favors and encourages such manipulations.

Yeah. Let's put it like that. I wouldn't try to defend my right of carrying an explosive belt through the "I do what I want with my own body" argument, unless I lived as a very remote hermit.

But statistics, risks, probabilities are hard to process, both subjectively (we're biased by phobias, psychoses or the unreal feel of abstractions) and objectively (we evaluate cost/benefits by comparing apples and oranges) and a different analogy would be smoke. Passive and active.

I used to defend the rights of smokers, because most of my friends smoked and did so very respectfully (not smoking when we were inside, spontaneously changing place when they noticed that a change of wind was carrying their smoke towards me, even if I didn't care much or hadn't noticed it myself, etc). So I didn't like them to be increasingly treated like pariahs as if the mere whiff of distant scent was a death warrant for anyone in the surrounding kilometre. And I restrained from uselessly nagging them about their costly and dangerous habits.

But my very best friend died of cancer ridiculously young, and I wonder if I would have prevented anything by harassing him about that. So, two aspects there. The cost/benefit evaluation for the people around (at which distance, in which setting, the passive heath risk is sufficient to justify annoying smokers), and the relation to unwitting or badly evaluated self-harm (health issues are a cost for society, death is a cost for the loving circle, and there's also the too easily discarded argument pure altruism even though we live in a "**** them, they're not my problem, to each its own" culture).

All is a matter of degree, and such degrees are difficult to assess. I'd situate Covid somewhere between smoke and explosive belt, but it's hard to pinpoint the perfect attitude in contrast with these.

It's a very political issue, actually. Because it touches perceptions of personal and collective responsibility, and these are what divide the "left" and the "right".

Your feelings are clear, but my responses aren't about your feelings: they're about the actual implications of your position.

Far from being unnecessary, I think it's emblematic of exactly what I've been talking about: trying to say things without really saying them. I feel like I'm talking to a politician.

It depends. Sometimes we have a moral obligation to call out recklessness. I'm sure you can imagine situations where you would, yeah? I'd give an example but then I'd be at risk of making another uninteresting analogy.

It didn't happen before, and it's not happening now. And yes, you have compared tragedies via your actions, as I just explained:

You've had to make the same kind of comparison in deciding you'd rather avoid applying social pressure than make sure people get vaccinated, which means you've decided the tragedies that might result from that are worse than the others.

If you say you won't exert social pressure on people to get vaccinated, you're necessarily saying that you prefer the tragedy of them passing on the disease to the tragedy of them feeling pressured into getting the vaccine. That's what your actions say, and that's what matters. How you label something does not change its meaning.

It's not misrepresentation to point out what your words or actions actually mean. It's like you're saying something is "the opposite of good," but then say you never called it "bad."

"I'm not interested in the analogy" is a total brush off. The analogy takes your stated principle and shows a situation in which it seemingly does not hold. To address this you can either dispute the premise (and say you wouldn't tell someone not to jump off a bridge) or you can modify the stated principle to account for that situation. Just not being "interested" is like saying "I'm not going to explain the seeming inconsistency." Which is your right, but that's where I'd get off this train.

If you want to talk about misrepresentation, let's address the constant restatement of things in emotionally charged terms to make them sound worse: nobody said vaccine advocacy had to involve disparaging people, or acting "morally superior." In fact, I specifically said criticism did not have to be spiteful.

Why do you keep explaining your position? I'm not confused about your position. I think there are issues and inconsistencies with it, and I've been explaining why. And your response has mostly been to restate it and then say it's how you feel.

Don't worry, I doubt that irresponsible, reckless, and morally corrupt people would show up for jury duty.

No I'm just kidding but I've thought about this many times in a variety of places.

As far as proof goes, I wonder if that could become controversial. I'll preface it by saying I live in liberal Massachusetts. I heard part of a rant this morning, that like having to show an id in person to vote, it's also racist to require an id to get vaccinated or to have to show evidence of vaccination. I don't know if this idea gains any steam but it'll be interesting to see since people like to make different claims depending on their agenda.

Yes, this is like what we've learned about the 'negative engagement' in social media, where the platforms, or their algorithims, have learned that people tend to engage more freely with negative content. It's a logical extension of demagoguery, where a person's attention can be manipulated through emotional arousal, usually negative emotions (fear, anger, jealousy, shame, guilt). But I don't think that such emotional exploitation is exclusive to a political party. Plenty of liberals are addicted to daily woke-shaming exercises on twitter, for example. I also don't think it's exclusive to capitalism itself, even if it has proven to be wildly profitable. But this hasn't prevented these methods from also being effective at social control in other political and economic environments. And what would we call the similarly profitable pitch by corporations to, however disingenuously, try to appeal to more charitable areas of what could be called the culture war, as we've seen with supports for voting rights and trans rights and environmental justice? Would this writer call this 'culture war capitalism' because it's also profitable to engage these audiences in this way?

I think I can summarize pretty much everything I'm saying with two short points, in the interest of brevity:

1. Whether you use a word or not, you can still take a position that expresses the same idea as that word. Example: if a politician says taxes can't go down or stay where they are, you can say they want to raise taxes even though they haven't literally said that.

2. Similarly, a decision not to speak up or to be passive is still an expression of priorities, and therefore still a comparison between things. Example: if someone thinks their friend is marrying an awful person but says nothing, you can say they prefer the risk of their friend being unhappy to the risk of ruining their friendship with a difficult conversation, even if they haven't literally said one is worse than the other.

In the first case the politician could say "I never said the word 'raise'!" But they said other words that mean the same thing. And in the second case the person could say "they're both bad, I never compared them!" But they did, because they had to choose whether the action was worth the cost, and decided it wasn't, a decision only possible by comparing the two.

I don't think it's meant as a party lines matter, but more globally (as both liberals and conservatives operate within capitalistic structures and culture) as the recognition that we live in an "everything goes" society where truth and falsehoods are mere commodities to be monetized for individual profit in an "everyone for himself" global war.

As opposed to a system where cultural values would sanctify honesty, where the common good would be a factor in our decisions, and where institutions would prevent media outlets to cynically bull**** for profit as a business model. Which would require to set moral priorities elsewhere than "freedom to make more money with whatever at hand".

Again, collective responsibility (individuals caring for society as a whole, society caring for individuals) vs individual responsibility (all out war of everyone against everyone, neo-darwnism, everything goes, swim or sink and may the most ruthless win). And which different freedoms get crushed for the benefit of what.

Oh Yoda will love this turn of the discussion.

Anyway, in short : What she means isn't "they are the capitalists so of course they'll resort to this, unlike us", but "we live in a capitalist socioculture which is, ideologically and structurally, the perfect environment for profit-driven misinformation enterprises". But as usual, it's a criticism of capitalism that doesn't explicit what a sound alternative would look like exactly (that is, in this context, how and how safely an objective truth/honesty verification institution would operate - which is a genuine and increasingly important question).