4 ms·

You felt compelled to speak out in their defense, but your choice of comparisons and rhetoric is precisely why I felt compelled to clarify as well and what made

You felt compelled to speak out in their defense, but your choice of comparisons and rhetoric is precisely why I felt compelled to clarify as well and what made me raise an eyebrow on the logic in it. That is to say I think you chose your example, and to make it in a intentionally hyperbolic way with things like "banned from civil society" and "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying" because you saw that it would make the most emotional impact to compare to your acquaintances' situation, but that's precisely where I felt it was becoming absurd. Having just now re-confirmed that levels of nasal virus drop faster in vaccinated people to make sure I'm not being illogical, the creation of laws that allow businesses, schools, and others to legally stop you from entering isn't "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying" the way you characterize it at all, like banning obese people due to their burden on healthcare costs would be. To me, it really does come off as a trying to point out the issues with mandates by drawing it to the absurd conclusion of excluding overweight people from society. So hopefully that clears up why I saw it that way, but maybe I'm incorrect definitionally. There are always going to be mandates or policies that conflict with what parents, or people in general want to do. To me that doesn't make it nasty or bullying, though they may feel horribly bullied if it affects them. If anything I'd say those feelings (and most examples of nasty bullying I've seen) extend from the acts of anti-science politicization of masks and vaccines, which in my opinion is a great disservice to the public. We now people who now feel like nasty bullies are creating new mandates in a nasty dystopian nightmare world, which I think is extremely unfortunate.

throwawaylinux 5y ago
I don't believe it does, and I think it's a fine analogy. I don't see why confirming levels of nasal virus dropping faster in vaccinated people would have anything to do with it. The actual question is the wide scale, end to end cost benefit analysis of all this and whether it justifies medical coercion. I've never seen anywhere that case has been made, certainly not made in a comprehensive and compelling way that you couldn't reasonably disagree with.
- Gabriel_Martin 5y ago
  I imagine the case would be different for different interests, but "a few hundred to a few thousand people die of covid every day" would be my go to if I were the one making it.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Compared with what? What exact measures would you propose, what benefit will they have and to whom, and what will they cost? Is coercing people into getting vaccinated by preventing them from travel, jobs, etc. going to save thousands of the willingly vaccinated who otherwise would have died? Where are the numbers? Do you understand the gravity of coercing people to get unwanted medical treatments, or at least if you don't think it's a big deal at least accept that many people actually do extremely strongly believe notions like the government staying out of their bodies and medical issues? And then can you logically make all these arguments and numbers in a way that they can not with similar arguments be applied to automobiles and related deaths, obesity and related issues and medical system load, etc etc? None of this has been thoroughly examined, litigated, justified and sold to the public on its merits as far as I can see. Still. It still has not been. There has been propaganda relentlessly pushed out there in the form of fear and urgency and appeals to authority rather than facts or evidence. There has been no room to question things or present different opinions -- people who dared to do have been attacked, bullied, fired, deplatformed, and censored.
    - Gabriel_Martin 5y ago
      > Compared with what? I really don't get what is the glitch here? You seem fixated on finding logical parallels to an ongoing response to a global pandemic, which is honestly getting quite repetitive to discuss. It's compared with the current level of deaths to vaccination rate given it's not going away.. The logical conclusion of unsurprising policies as a response to the novel coronavirus, or any highly transmissible zoonotic virus. Are we even on the same page here that less deaths is better from the perspective of public policy? Honestly your rhetoric, message after message gets so tiresome to engage with, by virtue of hyperbolic it is. "Relentless propaganda", "daring to have different opinions gets you attacked bullied fired etc etc". It's a national healthcare apparatus' response to a virus, nothing more or less. After reading it all, repeating it every which way, it's just not compelling to me. This doesn't need to be some hyper-emotional, hyper-politicized topic, where parents of young boys need to fearfully victimize themselves as patriot-martyr enemies of the fascist state. I'm getting to the point of having a kind of second-hand embarrassment at the characterization.

throwawaylinux 5y ago

I don't believe it does, and I think it's a fine analogy. I don't see why confirming levels of nasal virus dropping faster in vaccinated people would have anything to do with it. The actual question is the wide scale, end to end cost benefit analysis of all this and whether it justifies medical coercion. I've never seen anywhere that case has been made, certainly not made in a comprehensive and compelling way that you couldn't reasonably disagree with.

Gabriel_Martin 5y ago
I imagine the case would be different for different interests, but "a few hundred to a few thousand people die of covid every day" would be my go to if I were the one making it.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Compared with what? What exact measures would you propose, what benefit will they have and to whom, and what will they cost? Is coercing people into getting vaccinated by preventing them from travel, jobs, etc. going to save thousands of the willingly vaccinated who otherwise would have died? Where are the numbers? Do you understand the gravity of coercing people to get unwanted medical treatments, or at least if you don't think it's a big deal at least accept that many people actually do extremely strongly believe notions like the government staying out of their bodies and medical issues? And then can you logically make all these arguments and numbers in a way that they can not with similar arguments be applied to automobiles and related deaths, obesity and related issues and medical system load, etc etc? None of this has been thoroughly examined, litigated, justified and sold to the public on its merits as far as I can see. Still. It still has not been. There has been propaganda relentlessly pushed out there in the form of fear and urgency and appeals to authority rather than facts or evidence. There has been no room to question things or present different opinions -- people who dared to do have been attacked, bullied, fired, deplatformed, and censored.
  - Gabriel_Martin 5y ago
    > Compared with what? I really don't get what is the glitch here? You seem fixated on finding logical parallels to an ongoing response to a global pandemic, which is honestly getting quite repetitive to discuss. It's compared with the current level of deaths to vaccination rate given it's not going away.. The logical conclusion of unsurprising policies as a response to the novel coronavirus, or any highly transmissible zoonotic virus. Are we even on the same page here that less deaths is better from the perspective of public policy? Honestly your rhetoric, message after message gets so tiresome to engage with, by virtue of hyperbolic it is. "Relentless propaganda", "daring to have different opinions gets you attacked bullied fired etc etc". It's a national healthcare apparatus' response to a virus, nothing more or less. After reading it all, repeating it every which way, it's just not compelling to me. This doesn't need to be some hyper-emotional, hyper-politicized topic, where parents of young boys need to fearfully victimize themselves as patriot-martyr enemies of the fascist state. I'm getting to the point of having a kind of second-hand embarrassment at the characterization.