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I agree with your points, but I'd really really like to avoid giving the impression of... glee? "Look at those unwashed unvaccinated Trump supporters, so good t

I agree with your points, but I'd really really like to avoid giving the impression of... glee? "Look at those unwashed unvaccinated Trump supporters, so good they'll be forced to do things our ways now!". I'm not saying you're doing it, I'm just piggybacking on your comment. I'm pretty much a high-modernist when it comes to vaccines - I think that having governments build sewage and create vaccines go into the same category of "damn useful for civilization". But it does involve curtailing liberties, and I just can't put it in a "fell good" category.

unilynx 5y ago
This subthread started about the EU. What does Trump have to do with this?
refactor_master 5y ago
I completely disagree. As we say with code, there’s freedom in restrictions. I, for example, don’t ever have to worry about my safety because the “freedom” of others have been curtailed on several points, and I deeply appreciate that. There’s no inherently moral good in limitless freedom. Especially because humans are far from rational agents that can reasonably act without boundaries. If you don’t want to be vaccinated or pay your taxes, you are, on some level, a danger to society.
- Thorrez 5y ago
  >I, for example, don’t ever have to worry about my safety because the “freedom” of others have been curtailed on several points, and I deeply appreciate that. Isn't is possible for someone to stab you? So in theory you could have some small degree of worry about your safety. Different people have different places they draw the line for an acceptable amount of worry vs an acceptable amount of freedom restrictions.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    > Isn't is possible for someone to stab you? In (most of) the EU, it’s illegal to carry a weapon of any kind unless you have a reason to do so (ie, going hunting). You can’t even carry pepper spray.
    - Thorrez 5y ago
      Interesting. But someone could break that law. So the law doesn't stop you from being stabbed.
      - withinboredom 5y ago
        The law doesn’t stop anything, at all. It just provides a framework for punishing people who break them.
        Thorrez 5y ago
        Not entirely. There are people at the boarder searching some cars that come in, and searching some mail. Laws could be passed increasing those searches, and even searching everyone's house regularly. This would reduce the risk that you get shot, because some illegal guns would be found in these searches. To take it to the extreme, the law could force you to live in a little cell locked away from everyone. This would prevent you from being stabbed by someone else (except one of the guards). Like I said, there's a tradeoff between security and freedom.
    - AstralStorm 5y ago
      By most of, it's about 50/50 and a bad law, since it almost never prevents abuse. I put it alongside band on specific melee weapons. (As opposed to gun control.) Use of it should constitute assault, which gets turned into legitimate self defense in various situations, just as if you were hitting someone. Some of those bans and laws are just reasons to jail or fine people and do not in particular help with safety. After all, anyone can have a knife or martial arts on them anywhere for legitimate reasons, and you better have means to defend against these.
    - anoncake 5y ago
thwarted 5y ago
This is getting stupid, if it wasn't already. Requiring vaccination is "curtailing liberties". Restricting movement due not being vaccinated is "curtailing liberties". No shit. One can either be part of society or not. Society has minimum requirements if one wants to participate. One is free—exercise their liberty—to live as a hermit if they don't want to do either of these things. That's the price of admission of getting the benefits, whatever they may be, of interacting with other people. Added bonus, the rest of us don't need to hear about hermits complaining about their liberties then too. Building sewage management infrastructure is not curtailing liberties. There is very little noise made about having to give up liberties because of the majority of other public works. Civilization decided that shitting on the sidewalk is not something that should be encouraged or condoned, so here we are with our sewage management infrastructure. We gain the freedom of not having to dig a hole and maintain an outhouse. No one is giving up any "liberties" by getting vaccinated, but it's more likely they are acquiring liberties by getting vaccinated. At the very least it's the liberty of reducing the risk of dying. This is all a "I don't want to do what you said I should do purely because you said it". Fine. The rest of us are at liberty to exclude or chastise these people.
- cigaser 5y ago
  In my country shitting on sidewalks, had higher priority than health or liberties. Dog walking was allowed, while exercise and outdoor activities were prohibited. Society already excludes many people due to expensive housing, education etc... Living as hermit in a van is not that bad. But society should not expect taxes from excluded people :)
- Guthur 5y ago
  But it's such a nonsense strategy, there is no way that this will provide eradication, covid is just too virulent and not deadly enough, it will remain in small pockets, remember there will be many countries that won't be able to afford this on going pharmaceutical tax. If it does provide protection vaccinate the at risk and be done.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    The aim is to prevent the virus from clogging up the healthcare system. Countries which vaccinated all the citizens they could(e.g. Israel) already achieved that. One dose of the Pfizer vaccine costs €16, while AstraZeneca's is less than €3. This is affordable by any measure.
HighlandSpring 5y ago
It's a shame your comment has been found to be polarising, I think your phrasing is quite moderate. Looking at social media it feels like too many people are celebrating because they've been given another opportunity to show how virtuous they are. They're not one of those people that oppose vaccines and progress, oh no. The clout associated with putting up pictures of you with a needle in your arm is probably the most off-putting thing I'd gotten to gawk at. My assessment is similar to yours. The situation just kinda is. We've had a novel viral agent, what followed is what you'd expect of a society that optimised for lack of novel viral agents. Now the viral agent is mostly gone and we have two new taxes to show for it: further encumberement of civil liberties and more revenue for the pharmaceutical industry. It's not a bad result but there's no big win to point at either
- radu_floricica 5y ago
  https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-lights https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-l... It contained a few key words/ideas, so it became immediately polarized. I guess given enough years we'll become inoculated against such failure modes, but meanwhile, it is what it is.
ryandrake 5y ago
Seatbelt laws curtail liberties, too, but most societies have decided that the good effects massively outweigh the small freedom inconvenience of putting a buckle in a latch and going about your day. Also, I bet you're vaccinated against polio. Do people feel their freedom has been limited because of being vaccinated against polio?

unilynx 5y ago

This subthread started about the EU. What does Trump have to do with this?

refactor_master 5y ago

I completely disagree. As we say with code, there’s freedom in restrictions. I, for example, don’t ever have to worry about my safety because the “freedom” of others have been curtailed on several points, and I deeply appreciate that. There’s no inherently moral good in limitless freedom. Especially because humans are far from rational agents that can reasonably act without boundaries. If you don’t want to be vaccinated or pay your taxes, you are, on some level, a danger to society.

Thorrez 5y ago
>I, for example, don’t ever have to worry about my safety because the “freedom” of others have been curtailed on several points, and I deeply appreciate that. Isn't is possible for someone to stab you? So in theory you could have some small degree of worry about your safety. Different people have different places they draw the line for an acceptable amount of worry vs an acceptable amount of freedom restrictions.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  > Isn't is possible for someone to stab you? In (most of) the EU, it’s illegal to carry a weapon of any kind unless you have a reason to do so (ie, going hunting). You can’t even carry pepper spray.
  - Thorrez 5y ago
    Interesting. But someone could break that law. So the law doesn't stop you from being stabbed.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      The law doesn’t stop anything, at all. It just provides a framework for punishing people who break them.
      - Thorrez 5y ago
        Not entirely. There are people at the boarder searching some cars that come in, and searching some mail. Laws could be passed increasing those searches, and even searching everyone's house regularly. This would reduce the risk that you get shot, because some illegal guns would be found in these searches. To take it to the extreme, the law could force you to live in a little cell locked away from everyone. This would prevent you from being stabbed by someone else (except one of the guards). Like I said, there's a tradeoff between security and freedom.
  - AstralStorm 5y ago
    By most of, it's about 50/50 and a bad law, since it almost never prevents abuse. I put it alongside band on specific melee weapons. (As opposed to gun control.) Use of it should constitute assault, which gets turned into legitimate self defense in various situations, just as if you were hitting someone. Some of those bans and laws are just reasons to jail or fine people and do not in particular help with safety. After all, anyone can have a knife or martial arts on them anywhere for legitimate reasons, and you better have means to defend against these.
  - anoncake 5y ago

thwarted 5y ago

This is getting stupid, if it wasn't already. Requiring vaccination is "curtailing liberties". Restricting movement due not being vaccinated is "curtailing liberties". No shit. One can either be part of society or not. Society has minimum requirements if one wants to participate. One is free—exercise their liberty—to live as a hermit if they don't want to do either of these things. That's the price of admission of getting the benefits, whatever they may be, of interacting with other people. Added bonus, the rest of us don't need to hear about hermits complaining about their liberties then too. Building sewage management infrastructure is not curtailing liberties. There is very little noise made about having to give up liberties because of the majority of other public works. Civilization decided that shitting on the sidewalk is not something that should be encouraged or condoned, so here we are with our sewage management infrastructure. We gain the freedom of not having to dig a hole and maintain an outhouse. No one is giving up any "liberties" by getting vaccinated, but it's more likely they are acquiring liberties by getting vaccinated. At the very least it's the liberty of reducing the risk of dying. This is all a "I don't want to do what you said I should do purely because you said it". Fine. The rest of us are at liberty to exclude or chastise these people.

cigaser 5y ago
In my country shitting on sidewalks, had higher priority than health or liberties. Dog walking was allowed, while exercise and outdoor activities were prohibited. Society already excludes many people due to expensive housing, education etc... Living as hermit in a van is not that bad. But society should not expect taxes from excluded people :)
Guthur 5y ago
But it's such a nonsense strategy, there is no way that this will provide eradication, covid is just too virulent and not deadly enough, it will remain in small pockets, remember there will be many countries that won't be able to afford this on going pharmaceutical tax. If it does provide protection vaccinate the at risk and be done.
- Tade0 5y ago
  The aim is to prevent the virus from clogging up the healthcare system. Countries which vaccinated all the citizens they could(e.g. Israel) already achieved that. One dose of the Pfizer vaccine costs €16, while AstraZeneca's is less than €3. This is affordable by any measure.

HighlandSpring 5y ago

It's a shame your comment has been found to be polarising, I think your phrasing is quite moderate. Looking at social media it feels like too many people are celebrating because they've been given another opportunity to show how virtuous they are. They're not one of those people that oppose vaccines and progress, oh no. The clout associated with putting up pictures of you with a needle in your arm is probably the most off-putting thing I'd gotten to gawk at. My assessment is similar to yours. The situation just kinda is. We've had a novel viral agent, what followed is what you'd expect of a society that optimised for lack of novel viral agents. Now the viral agent is mostly gone and we have two new taxes to show for it: further encumberement of civil liberties and more revenue for the pharmaceutical industry. It's not a bad result but there's no big win to point at either

radu_floricica 5y ago
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-lights https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLbkrPu5STNCBLRjr/applause-l... It contained a few key words/ideas, so it became immediately polarized. I guess given enough years we'll become inoculated against such failure modes, but meanwhile, it is what it is.

ryandrake 5y ago

Seatbelt laws curtail liberties, too, but most societies have decided that the good effects massively outweigh the small freedom inconvenience of putting a buckle in a latch and going about your day. Also, I bet you're vaccinated against polio. Do people feel their freedom has been limited because of being vaccinated against polio?