9 ms·

Since someone just self-censored, I can only repeat that. As a young healthy individual, I'd much rather catch COVID then get vaccinated with a wide-spread mRN

Since someone just self-censored, I can only repeat that. As a young healthy individual, I'd much rather catch COVID then get vaccinated with a wide-spread mRNA experiment. In my childhood, I have been used by a doctor for an experiment without consent of my parents, and this cost me my remaining eye-sight. You can bash, downvote, laugh at, deminish, and in general say whatever you want about sceptics, our reasons to not want to be vaccinated are as valid as your reasons to want it are.

wobblyasp 6y ago
[citation needed]
- mlang23 6y ago
  You want a citation for my medical history? Or do you imply that I don't know about my own medical history? In any case, fuck you!
  - wobblyasp 6y ago
    No; I'm implying you have made an unverifiable statement that attempts to counter scientific evidence. It adds nothing to the conversation.
    - mlang23 6y ago
      No, I am sharing my personal experience to allow people lacking empathy like you to understand why sceptics might not be as happy with the current outlook as you are. I dont give a fuck about scientific evidence, personal experience is all that counts, for me, PERSONALLY!
      - boringg 6y ago
        I agree with your comment that while empathy is much needed especially as you had a very traumatic experience with, what sounds like, a rogue doctor. The commentator might be implying that your experience, while terrible, cannot justify denying the significant benefits accrued to the entire population. Personal experience is, of course, very important it cannot however guide general policy decisions for large populations. And, it should be noted, that if we all lived solely through the lens of personal experience we would still live in a what we would believe is a flat world and our scientific evidence would be scant.
        mlang23 6y ago
        Please dont try to belittle my experience by implying things you have no knowledge about. Rogue doctor? no. I was used for an experiment in the year 1986 by the head ophthalmologist of the biggest clinic in the second largest city of the country where I am from. I was supposed to be screened every 6 months. From one of these "screenings", I came back with signed of an invasive operation. Weeks later, I was 100% blind. It turned out that this ophthalmologist in chief did all sorts of malicious things. I even met another of his victims at my time in the school for the blind. And no, before you ask, he was never convicted for anything. This is not a backward country mind you. At least we believe we are not. And we have a socialized medical system, so we pay nothing for hospital visits.
      - dang 6y ago
        Hey, your comments today have been breaking the site guidelines super badly. We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you because you've posted good comments in the past, but could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, regardless of how wrong others are (or you feel they are), or how frustrating a situation is? We all have to do this because if we don't, the inevitable result is a downward spiral. It's clear that you've been through a lot and you're of course welcome to share your experiences. But it needs to be done without attacking others, without stoking flamewars, and so on.
        mlang23 6y ago
        I still need to adjust to the new world order where bringing up unusual perspectives intentionally is viewed as striking flamewars. I totally admit to having spet over a line by using swear words, and I apologize for that. As you have noticed, it is a tough time for anyone, however, that really shouldn't serve as an excuse. The truth is, that it is pretty hard to get your point across with english not being my first language, and that makes me frustrated when trying to make a point. In any case, thanks for the heads up, this thread has been enlightening enough that I will actually quit HN.
        dang 6y ago
        Swear words aren't a problem. The problem is breaking the site guidelines, such as by being unkind to other users.
        impendia 6y ago
        Hi mlang, One of the things I really like about this site is that personal attacks on others are a strict taboo. It seems increasingly common on the Internet to believe that personal attacks are okay, in some cases even virtuous. To each their own I guess, but personally I greatly prefer HN's model. If you choose to stay, I think that you will find that bringing up unusual perspectives is highly welcome here, as is disputing other people's points. But, for me at least, an accusation that any other poster lacks empathy will always be met with a downvote.
    - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
      Drench yourself in gasoline and light a match.
- rjkennedy98 6y ago
  The fact that this extremely dismissive comment can be upvoted makes me despair about ever fixing a broken healthcare system. Covid may have killed 250K in the US, but negative interactions with the medical system kill 150K year at the minimum each and every year. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su... This makes medical errors (which include negative effects of properly prescribed drugs) the 3rd leading cause of death in the US. More aggressive number such as Peter Gotzche's put that number even higher by including more nuanced side effects. He estimates that psychiatric drugs alone kill 500K people a year in the west. https://vimeo.com/178943789 https://vimeo.com/178943789 Doctors as a general rule are very bad at listening to patients and our medical system simply does not track drug efficacy or side effects. You might be in a privilege situation to have never had to experience this, but there are millions of people who have.
  - wobblyasp 6y ago
    I live in a country with socialized medicine. People trust the healthcare system since we "pay" 0$ for access. (pay in quotes since obviously taxes are significantly higher) And Drs. I know are great at listening! I'd honestly go as far as to say they listen too much at times; I don't tell a mechanic how to do his job, it's not my place to tell a Dr. how to fix me since I have literal 0 understanding of the human body. Again, maybe its a socialized medicine vs privatized medicine problem, but it absolutely boggles my mind the level of distrust in what should be a respected profession. My comments aren't meant to disparage, but point out that colloquial evidence is not a substitute for research and the scientific method. I will call baloney on people who spew it.
    - boringg 6y ago
      Having lived in both privatized and socialized medical systems I actually find that the privatized health care system was better at listening. It cost more money, but it was definitely better bar none. I think doctors are as good as their tools (education) and the feed back they get. They can only listen to what patients say, however most people aren't able to explain in detail what is going on. As well, western medicine tries to focus on specific locations/ailments and can miss the holistic portion of sickness. This challenge is compounded by the fact that many illness have similar symptoms and human bodies are intensely complicated. I don't trust a doctor 100% (many of my friends do) however I do put a fair bit of faith in their training. Anything serious requires more research on my own as doctors are fallible. The thought you raise that you shouldn't challenge or ask questions of what a doctor is telling you is quite alarming and I would wager that kind of laziness leads to poor health outcomes. As I said, doctors are human and are fallible, the research (i.e. human health systems) is not complete, and they are working on deeply complex issues that have incredible amounts of interactions that are unknown and incredibly challenging. That said - the doctor better be able to explain in a straightforward manner in order to gain trust. And any profession that you should just "inherently trust" allows openings for laziness, abuse and bad outcomes. Strongly disagree with you.
mchusma 6y ago
I think people should be given the choice. They should lift the ban now, so people can choose.
- SteveNuts 6y ago
  There are already states at 100% hospital capacity. How do you propose dealing with that with your method?
  - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    No there aren't you gullible faggot. Die.
- addicted 6y ago
  What is “the ban”?
- aioprisan 6y ago
  And should those people who chose to endanger others and get the virus themselves be denied medical treatment? We're getting to capacity in many cities now. If we want to talk about taking personal responsibility, then they should see it through to the end, and not burden our medical system with care if they knew the risks but ignored them for their own choosing.
  - mlang23 6y ago
    No worries. While I can not speak for others, I am 1. not afraid of needing medical treatment, and 2. if I did, I am willing to not accept any life prolonging measures. The things I have heard from people in the past few months saying to each other, dropping democratic freedoms left and right, gives no real reason to want and stay on this planet. If it hits, it hits. I can manage dying, I have managed living for 40 years in this society. Question is, can you life with the comment you just wrote?
    - aioprisan 6y ago
elicash 6y ago
There will likely be non-mRNA options, assuming they're also found to be safe and effective. I personally will be getting whatever comes first for the general population, on day one. But it'd be dishonest if I didn't admit having concerns over safety we might not be aware of at the time this is administered that would only be known many months or years later. That's overridden by the fact that I lost one family member to the virus and another who survived it but is already seeing long-term effects in her lungs from when she had the virus. She was just hospitalized again for those effects. If folks have more info about measuring long-term impacts of a vaccine, I'd love to hear it for the peace of mind. Again, I'll be getting the vaccine regardless, because of very clear long-term effects of the virus.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  I guess this is as good a place as any to ask: Do we have any other mRNA vaccines in circulation? If so, which ones? If not, how do we know that they're generally safe after only a few months of testing?
  - lukeramsden 6y ago
    > Although mRNA vaccines have entered clinical studies, there are currently no RNA vaccines approved for human use. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
  - t0mas88 6y ago
    No other mRNA vaccines in circulation as far as I know, only research so far in using them against fly and Zika (and probably others)
    - StavrosK 6y ago
      So how have we deemed them safe after only a few months of tests?
      - rimliu 6y ago
Tepix 6y ago
So you are "healthy" but on the other hand you are blind? How do you feel about inadvertently infecting others who are at high risk from Coronavirus? That's the big factor why people are angry about anti-vaccers. They are a danger for others who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons.
rocqua 6y ago
I don't want to fully argue that you should be forced to be vaccinated. I do however, want to point out that vaccination isn't just meant to protect you from getting COVID. It is also meant to prevent you from spreading COVID to others. Hence an argument "It's my safety so it should be my choice" is wrong, because it is not just your safety at stake here. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be your choice, but it does mean that there is a public stake in whether people get vaccinated. Certain people have medical reasons for opting out. I could see you having psychological reasons for the same. But that doesn't necessarily extend to "anyone can refuse vaccines for any reason".
radoslawc 6y ago
I'm with you on this one. I feel like many people these days are overly manifesting 'trust' in newly developed medicines or vaccines just not to be called anti-vaxers ('I saw this facebook post...' researchers kind) or worse ('vaccines contain microchips so that lizard people can control our minds' kind). When in fact there is no data at the moment to support their safeness. Also claims and data from clinical trials produced by company which develops medicine itself is not really convincing until it gets verified with independent trials. Not like there were no frauds in clinical trials: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340084/#S2title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340084/#S2titl...
- klmr 6y ago
  > When in fact there is no data at the moment to support their safeness. That’s patently untrue. We have data, from the phase III trials. Is the data final? No. But it’s good evidence for general safety. As for long-term problems, we have good theoretical reasons (based, in turn, on experimental data) to suspect that no such risks exist. In fact, we know quite a lot about how foreign RNA behaves in cells and while there are potential mechanisms to cause issues (most importantly strong immune reactions), there are no known plausible mechanisms to cause long-term problems. We can’t fully exclude the possibility of long-term averse effects, but we do have data supporting the vaccines’ safety (both direct and indirect, experimental data), and most experts are confident that there won’t be any such effects — confident enough to put their own health on the line: many are enrolled in the ongoing trials.
  - radoslawc 6y ago
    I'm sorry I guess I wasn't precise. I meant in general I feel like a lot of people would take any untested drug just to not be named anti-vaxer. But to your point, as I wrote trial data from company that produces said vaccine (given that it's for sure high pressure case and stakes are pretty high) that hasn't been verified by external entities is not convincing to me. And shouldn't be to anyone, isn't peer review and repeatability a part of scientific method?
awinder 6y ago
Something like 150-175K people are testing positive per day, if you really wanted to go get coronavirus, pretty sure you could make it happen. If the point of the comment is to make other people feel the same in order to justify your feelings — then screw you.
- zests 6y ago
  Maybe the point of the comment is to share their own experiences with the medical system and describe how often they get attacked for sharing their experiences? I do not think the proper response to such a comment is to attack them for sharing their experiences and tell them to "screw [themselves]". If I were to take a minute to share my own feelings I'd say that the responses to that comment have proven its point. I am glad that they were able to openly share their experiences and I do not feel the need to censor them or attempt to censor them with personal attacks. I would say that the people making personal attacks are making it easier to empathize with the parent comment and are making themselves look rather foolish. Try to take a moment to put yourselves in their shoes. Tell me that if you were blinded by the medical system you would continue to trust it.
  - awinder 6y ago
    Right, I understand the pull towards individualism, and I default towards it. We are in a pandemic. We’ve been here for months. It’s not a time for individualism, and in fact, poorly expressing individualism will merely reinforce collectivism. That’s the root problem. If I was blinded by the medical system, I’d shut the hell up in a global pandemic, because it’s not all about me.
    - wavepruner 6y ago
      Assuming we're all USA citizens here. We've lived in an individualist society that has left behind people like the OP. Almost no one, if anyone at all, argued for collectivism to undo the bad thing that happened to them. You're argument seems to be that now that something bad has happened to enough people, it's time for collectivism. That is one massively bitter pill to swallow for all the people who have been left behind in the past and had to fend for themselves. And why does it have to be all about what you want? Because you are part of a majority? Does that make it okay to steamroll other people, because you, as a member of the majority, have more value? Because more people agree with you, and you add all those people together, and you have more value than a minority? Do you not see how your argument has been used to justify all the terrible things that have been committed against minorities in the past? All of this could be moot though if these vaccines are truly 95+% effective. Not everyone will need to get it for herd immunity. The most likely scenario seems to be a combination of natural immunity and vaccine immunity before we even have enough doses to give everyone.

wobblyasp 6y ago

[citation needed]

mlang23 6y ago
You want a citation for my medical history? Or do you imply that I don't know about my own medical history? In any case, fuck you!
- wobblyasp 6y ago
  No; I'm implying you have made an unverifiable statement that attempts to counter scientific evidence. It adds nothing to the conversation.
  - mlang23 6y ago
    No, I am sharing my personal experience to allow people lacking empathy like you to understand why sceptics might not be as happy with the current outlook as you are. I dont give a fuck about scientific evidence, personal experience is all that counts, for me, PERSONALLY!
    - boringg 6y ago
      I agree with your comment that while empathy is much needed especially as you had a very traumatic experience with, what sounds like, a rogue doctor. The commentator might be implying that your experience, while terrible, cannot justify denying the significant benefits accrued to the entire population. Personal experience is, of course, very important it cannot however guide general policy decisions for large populations. And, it should be noted, that if we all lived solely through the lens of personal experience we would still live in a what we would believe is a flat world and our scientific evidence would be scant.
      - mlang23 6y ago
        Please dont try to belittle my experience by implying things you have no knowledge about. Rogue doctor? no. I was used for an experiment in the year 1986 by the head ophthalmologist of the biggest clinic in the second largest city of the country where I am from. I was supposed to be screened every 6 months. From one of these "screenings", I came back with signed of an invasive operation. Weeks later, I was 100% blind. It turned out that this ophthalmologist in chief did all sorts of malicious things. I even met another of his victims at my time in the school for the blind. And no, before you ask, he was never convicted for anything. This is not a backward country mind you. At least we believe we are not. And we have a socialized medical system, so we pay nothing for hospital visits.
    - dang 6y ago
      Hey, your comments today have been breaking the site guidelines super badly. We ban accounts that do that. I don't want to ban you because you've posted good comments in the past, but could you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules, regardless of how wrong others are (or you feel they are), or how frustrating a situation is? We all have to do this because if we don't, the inevitable result is a downward spiral. It's clear that you've been through a lot and you're of course welcome to share your experiences. But it needs to be done without attacking others, without stoking flamewars, and so on.
      - mlang23 6y ago
        I still need to adjust to the new world order where bringing up unusual perspectives intentionally is viewed as striking flamewars. I totally admit to having spet over a line by using swear words, and I apologize for that. As you have noticed, it is a tough time for anyone, however, that really shouldn't serve as an excuse. The truth is, that it is pretty hard to get your point across with english not being my first language, and that makes me frustrated when trying to make a point. In any case, thanks for the heads up, this thread has been enlightening enough that I will actually quit HN.
        dang 6y ago
        Swear words aren't a problem. The problem is breaking the site guidelines, such as by being unkind to other users.
        impendia 6y ago
        Hi mlang, One of the things I really like about this site is that personal attacks on others are a strict taboo. It seems increasingly common on the Internet to believe that personal attacks are okay, in some cases even virtuous. To each their own I guess, but personally I greatly prefer HN's model. If you choose to stay, I think that you will find that bringing up unusual perspectives is highly welcome here, as is disputing other people's points. But, for me at least, an accusation that any other poster lacks empathy will always be met with a downvote.
  - FriendlyNormie 6y ago
    Drench yourself in gasoline and light a match.
rjkennedy98 6y ago
The fact that this extremely dismissive comment can be upvoted makes me despair about ever fixing a broken healthcare system. Covid may have killed 250K in the US, but negative interactions with the medical system kill 150K year at the minimum each and every year. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_suggests_medical_errors_now_third_leading_cause_of_death_in_the_us https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/study_su... This makes medical errors (which include negative effects of properly prescribed drugs) the 3rd leading cause of death in the US. More aggressive number such as Peter Gotzche's put that number even higher by including more nuanced side effects. He estimates that psychiatric drugs alone kill 500K people a year in the west. https://vimeo.com/178943789 https://vimeo.com/178943789 Doctors as a general rule are very bad at listening to patients and our medical system simply does not track drug efficacy or side effects. You might be in a privilege situation to have never had to experience this, but there are millions of people who have.
- wobblyasp 6y ago
  I live in a country with socialized medicine. People trust the healthcare system since we "pay" 0$ for access. (pay in quotes since obviously taxes are significantly higher) And Drs. I know are great at listening! I'd honestly go as far as to say they listen too much at times; I don't tell a mechanic how to do his job, it's not my place to tell a Dr. how to fix me since I have literal 0 understanding of the human body. Again, maybe its a socialized medicine vs privatized medicine problem, but it absolutely boggles my mind the level of distrust in what should be a respected profession. My comments aren't meant to disparage, but point out that colloquial evidence is not a substitute for research and the scientific method. I will call baloney on people who spew it.
  - boringg 6y ago
    Having lived in both privatized and socialized medical systems I actually find that the privatized health care system was better at listening. It cost more money, but it was definitely better bar none. I think doctors are as good as their tools (education) and the feed back they get. They can only listen to what patients say, however most people aren't able to explain in detail what is going on. As well, western medicine tries to focus on specific locations/ailments and can miss the holistic portion of sickness. This challenge is compounded by the fact that many illness have similar symptoms and human bodies are intensely complicated. I don't trust a doctor 100% (many of my friends do) however I do put a fair bit of faith in their training. Anything serious requires more research on my own as doctors are fallible. The thought you raise that you shouldn't challenge or ask questions of what a doctor is telling you is quite alarming and I would wager that kind of laziness leads to poor health outcomes. As I said, doctors are human and are fallible, the research (i.e. human health systems) is not complete, and they are working on deeply complex issues that have incredible amounts of interactions that are unknown and incredibly challenging. That said - the doctor better be able to explain in a straightforward manner in order to gain trust. And any profession that you should just "inherently trust" allows openings for laziness, abuse and bad outcomes. Strongly disagree with you.

mchusma 6y ago

I think people should be given the choice. They should lift the ban now, so people can choose.

SteveNuts 6y ago
There are already states at 100% hospital capacity. How do you propose dealing with that with your method?
- FriendlyNormie 6y ago
  No there aren't you gullible faggot. Die.
addicted 6y ago
What is “the ban”?
aioprisan 6y ago
And should those people who chose to endanger others and get the virus themselves be denied medical treatment? We're getting to capacity in many cities now. If we want to talk about taking personal responsibility, then they should see it through to the end, and not burden our medical system with care if they knew the risks but ignored them for their own choosing.
- mlang23 6y ago
  No worries. While I can not speak for others, I am 1. not afraid of needing medical treatment, and 2. if I did, I am willing to not accept any life prolonging measures. The things I have heard from people in the past few months saying to each other, dropping democratic freedoms left and right, gives no real reason to want and stay on this planet. If it hits, it hits. I can manage dying, I have managed living for 40 years in this society. Question is, can you life with the comment you just wrote?
  - aioprisan 6y ago

elicash 6y ago

There will likely be non-mRNA options, assuming they're also found to be safe and effective. I personally will be getting whatever comes first for the general population, on day one. But it'd be dishonest if I didn't admit having concerns over safety we might not be aware of at the time this is administered that would only be known many months or years later. That's overridden by the fact that I lost one family member to the virus and another who survived it but is already seeing long-term effects in her lungs from when she had the virus. She was just hospitalized again for those effects. If folks have more info about measuring long-term impacts of a vaccine, I'd love to hear it for the peace of mind. Again, I'll be getting the vaccine regardless, because of very clear long-term effects of the virus.

StavrosK 6y ago
I guess this is as good a place as any to ask: Do we have any other mRNA vaccines in circulation? If so, which ones? If not, how do we know that they're generally safe after only a few months of testing?
- lukeramsden 6y ago
  > Although mRNA vaccines have entered clinical studies, there are currently no RNA vaccines approved for human use. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_vaccine
- t0mas88 6y ago
  No other mRNA vaccines in circulation as far as I know, only research so far in using them against fly and Zika (and probably others)
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    So how have we deemed them safe after only a few months of tests?
    - rimliu 6y ago

Tepix 6y ago

So you are "healthy" but on the other hand you are blind? How do you feel about inadvertently infecting others who are at high risk from Coronavirus? That's the big factor why people are angry about anti-vaccers. They are a danger for others who cannot get vaccinated for medical reasons.

rocqua 6y ago

I don't want to fully argue that you should be forced to be vaccinated. I do however, want to point out that vaccination isn't just meant to protect you from getting COVID. It is also meant to prevent you from spreading COVID to others. Hence an argument "It's my safety so it should be my choice" is wrong, because it is not just your safety at stake here. That doesn't mean that it shouldn't be your choice, but it does mean that there is a public stake in whether people get vaccinated. Certain people have medical reasons for opting out. I could see you having psychological reasons for the same. But that doesn't necessarily extend to "anyone can refuse vaccines for any reason".

radoslawc 6y ago

I'm with you on this one. I feel like many people these days are overly manifesting 'trust' in newly developed medicines or vaccines just not to be called anti-vaxers ('I saw this facebook post...' researchers kind) or worse ('vaccines contain microchips so that lizard people can control our minds' kind). When in fact there is no data at the moment to support their safeness. Also claims and data from clinical trials produced by company which develops medicine itself is not really convincing until it gets verified with independent trials. Not like there were no frauds in clinical trials: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340084/#S2title https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4340084/#S2titl...

klmr 6y ago
> When in fact there is no data at the moment to support their safeness. That’s patently untrue. We have data, from the phase III trials. Is the data final? No. But it’s good evidence for general safety. As for long-term problems, we have good theoretical reasons (based, in turn, on experimental data) to suspect that no such risks exist. In fact, we know quite a lot about how foreign RNA behaves in cells and while there are potential mechanisms to cause issues (most importantly strong immune reactions), there are no known plausible mechanisms to cause long-term problems. We can’t fully exclude the possibility of long-term averse effects, but we do have data supporting the vaccines’ safety (both direct and indirect, experimental data), and most experts are confident that there won’t be any such effects — confident enough to put their own health on the line: many are enrolled in the ongoing trials.
- radoslawc 6y ago
  I'm sorry I guess I wasn't precise. I meant in general I feel like a lot of people would take any untested drug just to not be named anti-vaxer. But to your point, as I wrote trial data from company that produces said vaccine (given that it's for sure high pressure case and stakes are pretty high) that hasn't been verified by external entities is not convincing to me. And shouldn't be to anyone, isn't peer review and repeatability a part of scientific method?

awinder 6y ago

Something like 150-175K people are testing positive per day, if you really wanted to go get coronavirus, pretty sure you could make it happen. If the point of the comment is to make other people feel the same in order to justify your feelings — then screw you.

zests 6y ago
Maybe the point of the comment is to share their own experiences with the medical system and describe how often they get attacked for sharing their experiences? I do not think the proper response to such a comment is to attack them for sharing their experiences and tell them to "screw [themselves]". If I were to take a minute to share my own feelings I'd say that the responses to that comment have proven its point. I am glad that they were able to openly share their experiences and I do not feel the need to censor them or attempt to censor them with personal attacks. I would say that the people making personal attacks are making it easier to empathize with the parent comment and are making themselves look rather foolish. Try to take a moment to put yourselves in their shoes. Tell me that if you were blinded by the medical system you would continue to trust it.
- awinder 6y ago
  Right, I understand the pull towards individualism, and I default towards it. We are in a pandemic. We’ve been here for months. It’s not a time for individualism, and in fact, poorly expressing individualism will merely reinforce collectivism. That’s the root problem. If I was blinded by the medical system, I’d shut the hell up in a global pandemic, because it’s not all about me.
  - wavepruner 6y ago
    Assuming we're all USA citizens here. We've lived in an individualist society that has left behind people like the OP. Almost no one, if anyone at all, argued for collectivism to undo the bad thing that happened to them. You're argument seems to be that now that something bad has happened to enough people, it's time for collectivism. That is one massively bitter pill to swallow for all the people who have been left behind in the past and had to fend for themselves. And why does it have to be all about what you want? Because you are part of a majority? Does that make it okay to steamroll other people, because you, as a member of the majority, have more value? Because more people agree with you, and you add all those people together, and you have more value than a minority? Do you not see how your argument has been used to justify all the terrible things that have been committed against minorities in the past? All of this could be moot though if these vaccines are truly 95+% effective. Not everyone will need to get it for herd immunity. The most likely scenario seems to be a combination of natural immunity and vaccine immunity before we even have enough doses to give everyone.