5 ms·

It's also worth pointing out there's a ton of talk without requisite risk. Put no-vaxers in a hospital with their check book on the line if wrong ie pay a patie

by scrubs 5y ago

It's also worth pointing out there's a ton of talk without requisite risk. Put no-vaxers in a hospital with their check book on the line if wrong ie pay a patient's med bills. Get flat earthers to pay for a satellite to take pictures on their dime. I'll bet a large percentage will walk from the challenge or suddenly get serious when they have real downside risk. Talking crap on tv or YouTube is what? Protected first amendment rights. Nothing more.

KittenInABox 5y ago
An unfortunate portion of people really give up everything to conspiratorial thinking, and losing it all actually makes them cling even more intensely because they literally have nothing else. So I don't think it'll work the way you think it will.
greesil 5y ago
The "no-vaxers" pay with their lives, self-valued at ~$10M USD. If the death rate is 1% then the expected value is $100K. Seems fairly pricey already. I'm not sure lack of skin in the game accounts for dodgy personal beliefs.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  Most deaths occurred before the vaccine was available.
  - defaultprimate 5y ago
    More excess deaths have occurred post-vaccine and vaccine adoption is not correlated with a reduction in excess death at the national level. https://www.usmortality.com/excess-absolute https://www.usmortality.com/excess-absolute
  - _yoqn 5y ago
    I don't think that's actually true. If the reported numbers are correct, the number of deaths in the US was around 250k when the vaccine became available and now it's 700k. That's 450k more after the vaccine despite being widely available for a bit over a year.
    - evan_ 5y ago
      The math is fuzzy since there were several months where even though the vaccine was technically available, you couldn’t just go get it at will. It’s unavoidable, though, that the deaths after will be higher than deaths before the vaccines were available, because one of those is an unbounded range.
    - jseban 5y ago
      There's also a lot of gymnastics involved in order to count all these covid deaths, and a constant withholding of actual absolute death counts. Most serious illnesses will compromise the immune system. A compromised immune system will make you more vulnerable to any infection. So the most common and most spread infection will then also naturally be the most common one to trigger death. If someone has aids, which is a decease that compromises the immune system, and then dies from pneumonia. Did they die from pneumonia or aids?
      - _yoqn 5y ago
        Yes, the assigned cause question a problem. And add to that the concept of "excess" deaths being a more telling figure than the causality number. So looking at a model of past deaths you can predict future deaths (roughly) and so assume the excess to that prediction is caused by COVID-19. The problem with that is researchers are saying that up to a third of those deaths could be being caused by health care displacement, not the virus directly. i.e. a trauma patient can't make it into the ICU because it's full of COVID patients. The statistics are a total mess in my opinion and any being professed with any exactitude should be taken with a grain of salt.
    - mymacbook 5y ago
      A year ago today on MLK day it was only available to those 75 and older. The vaccine in the US has not been available to the general public for a year! Healthcare providers yes, general public no.
- chrischen 5y ago
  Not everyone dies. A lot are unnecessarily burdening the medical system while paying no out of pocket costs.
  - fireflies_ 5y ago
    Would you be equally happy if you were sick enough to be hospitalized as you are when you're healthy? If not, that's a cost. I doubt the out-of-pocket medical costs are the most important part of this decision.
    - greesil 5y ago
      You guys are missing the point. The point is that people who are anti vax clearly have skin in the game by any measure. The point is not impacted by these little details, so don't go off in some flamewar here
      - jiggunjer 5y ago
        I think you're also missing a point: the anti people don't believe they have skin in the game. Any statistics you quote is just fake news.
        greesil 5y ago
        The point has wooshed over your head and flown into orbit. The original context was having skin (perceived or not) in the game and if it would always impact behavior. I'm not trying to convince anti vaxers of anything, just observing human behavior in general.
- whakim 5y ago
  I'm not sure this holds because humans in general are pretty bad at reasoning about low-probability, high-magnitude events. People will deal with a ~1% chance of $10M very differently to a guaranteed $100k. (To be clear, I also don't believe that "lack of skin in the game" totally accounts for faith in conspiracy theories.)
  - causi 5y ago
    People will deal with a ~1% chance of $10M very differently to a guaranteed $100k. Money is a very bad medium to talk about probability and human reasoning because doing so supposes that all dollars are worth the same when in reality they are anything but. Your last dollar is more valuable than your hundredth dollar which is more valuable than your thousandth dollar which is far more valuable than your millionth dollar. Giving someone ten million dollars does not make a hundred times as much difference to their lives as giving them one hundred thousand.
    - whakim 5y ago
      I was actually typing something like this in addition to what I already wrote, but I didn't think it was totally applicable in the context of the GP's statement. For the vast majority of folks an unexpected bill of $100k and an unexpected bill of $10M are likely to be equally ruinous.
    - greesil 5y ago
      People trade health at low and high probabilities for money all the time. That's the model that produced the $10M number in the first place.
  - greesil 5y ago
    The $10M number came from people already not taking into account low probability events. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life VSL
- IAmEveryone 5y ago
  People are extremely bad at making decisions involving small probabilities. Plus, of course, the same people tend not to believe the data on deaths. There are even stories of people using their last breaths to again state that they do not believe viruses (or this virus, specifically) exists.
- kqr 5y ago
  The people who refuse (or elect out of) vaccinations I've spoken to don't agree on that 1 % number. Or they think the vaccinations cause greater damage, meaning abstention is still a net positive. Framing it as them knowingly sacrificing the equivalent of $100 k for no good reason ("belief!") is dishonest to the complexity of the problem.
  - greesil 5y ago
akira2501 5y ago
Assuming everyone should make medical decisions based purely on individual or even shared monetary grounds is a type of "flat earth" thinking of it's own. It attempts to fit a pre-conceived view onto the world, that "no-vaxers" must be dumb the same way "flat-earthers" are and this helps you rationalize away digital content you personally disagree with without having to engage with it.
- IAmEveryone 5y ago
  The payment wasn't an argument that money is the only valid objective in decision-making. OP used it to illustrate that these believes are weakly held, "virtue signaling" for a crowd with different virtues, so to speak. I believe unvaccinated people seeking medical treatment from the same "elitist establishment" they had nothing but scorn for is a somewhat more obvious demonstration of the same principle.
  - firstlink 5y ago
    > I believe unvaccinated people seeking medical treatment from the same "elitist establishment" they had nothing but scorn for is a somewhat more obvious demonstration of the same principle. Many people, whether anti-vax or not, would like to be able to receive medical advice and treatment from a person of their own choosing. But this is illegal, at least in most places HN commenters are likely to be found. So "seeking medical treatment from the same 'elitist establishment'" is nothing more than "seeking medical treatment, legally".
    - igorkraw 5y ago
      This is a nonsequitur dragging in unrelated politics, the original point is: the bulk of anti-vaxxers would not commit to a world where they are isolated and left to die if they catch COVID for all the "it's just a flu" talk. I don't agree with GP on wishing it was a thing, but this is bad arguing
  - native_samples 5y ago
    They aren't weakly held, as evidenced by the large number of people who refuse to take them even when they are being fired, prevented from leaving their country or excluded from all public events. The analogy is actually flawed for a different reason: it simply sets up a one way bias. If you want to force people to put a price on their beliefs, get rid of all the subsidies for vaccines and all the liability for the manufacturers. Make people pay for their own shots and then allow those who get injured to sue the manufacturers for damages. Well, we could do that but actually we don't have to. We already know what the outcome is: the outcome is there are no COVID vaccine manufacturers at all, because complete legal immunity to damage claims was a mandatory criteria for them to sign contracts with governments. Liability allowed = no vaccines. So the market spoke already, and it seems to suggest the opposite of what's being implied above.

by scrubs 5y ago

KittenInABox 5y ago

An unfortunate portion of people really give up everything to conspiratorial thinking, and losing it all actually makes them cling even more intensely because they literally have nothing else. So I don't think it'll work the way you think it will.

greesil 5y ago

The "no-vaxers" pay with their lives, self-valued at ~$10M USD. If the death rate is 1% then the expected value is $100K. Seems fairly pricey already. I'm not sure lack of skin in the game accounts for dodgy personal beliefs.

ipaddr 5y ago
Most deaths occurred before the vaccine was available.
- defaultprimate 5y ago
  More excess deaths have occurred post-vaccine and vaccine adoption is not correlated with a reduction in excess death at the national level. https://www.usmortality.com/excess-absolute https://www.usmortality.com/excess-absolute
- _yoqn 5y ago
  I don't think that's actually true. If the reported numbers are correct, the number of deaths in the US was around 250k when the vaccine became available and now it's 700k. That's 450k more after the vaccine despite being widely available for a bit over a year.
  - evan_ 5y ago
    The math is fuzzy since there were several months where even though the vaccine was technically available, you couldn’t just go get it at will. It’s unavoidable, though, that the deaths after will be higher than deaths before the vaccines were available, because one of those is an unbounded range.
  - jseban 5y ago
    There's also a lot of gymnastics involved in order to count all these covid deaths, and a constant withholding of actual absolute death counts. Most serious illnesses will compromise the immune system. A compromised immune system will make you more vulnerable to any infection. So the most common and most spread infection will then also naturally be the most common one to trigger death. If someone has aids, which is a decease that compromises the immune system, and then dies from pneumonia. Did they die from pneumonia or aids?
    - _yoqn 5y ago
      Yes, the assigned cause question a problem. And add to that the concept of "excess" deaths being a more telling figure than the causality number. So looking at a model of past deaths you can predict future deaths (roughly) and so assume the excess to that prediction is caused by COVID-19. The problem with that is researchers are saying that up to a third of those deaths could be being caused by health care displacement, not the virus directly. i.e. a trauma patient can't make it into the ICU because it's full of COVID patients. The statistics are a total mess in my opinion and any being professed with any exactitude should be taken with a grain of salt.
  - mymacbook 5y ago
    A year ago today on MLK day it was only available to those 75 and older. The vaccine in the US has not been available to the general public for a year! Healthcare providers yes, general public no.
chrischen 5y ago
Not everyone dies. A lot are unnecessarily burdening the medical system while paying no out of pocket costs.
- fireflies_ 5y ago
  Would you be equally happy if you were sick enough to be hospitalized as you are when you're healthy? If not, that's a cost. I doubt the out-of-pocket medical costs are the most important part of this decision.
  - greesil 5y ago
    You guys are missing the point. The point is that people who are anti vax clearly have skin in the game by any measure. The point is not impacted by these little details, so don't go off in some flamewar here
    - jiggunjer 5y ago
      I think you're also missing a point: the anti people don't believe they have skin in the game. Any statistics you quote is just fake news.
      - greesil 5y ago
        The point has wooshed over your head and flown into orbit. The original context was having skin (perceived or not) in the game and if it would always impact behavior. I'm not trying to convince anti vaxers of anything, just observing human behavior in general.
whakim 5y ago
I'm not sure this holds because humans in general are pretty bad at reasoning about low-probability, high-magnitude events. People will deal with a ~1% chance of $10M very differently to a guaranteed $100k. (To be clear, I also don't believe that "lack of skin in the game" totally accounts for faith in conspiracy theories.)
- causi 5y ago
  People will deal with a ~1% chance of $10M very differently to a guaranteed $100k. Money is a very bad medium to talk about probability and human reasoning because doing so supposes that all dollars are worth the same when in reality they are anything but. Your last dollar is more valuable than your hundredth dollar which is more valuable than your thousandth dollar which is far more valuable than your millionth dollar. Giving someone ten million dollars does not make a hundred times as much difference to their lives as giving them one hundred thousand.
  - whakim 5y ago
    I was actually typing something like this in addition to what I already wrote, but I didn't think it was totally applicable in the context of the GP's statement. For the vast majority of folks an unexpected bill of $100k and an unexpected bill of $10M are likely to be equally ruinous.
  - greesil 5y ago
    People trade health at low and high probabilities for money all the time. That's the model that produced the $10M number in the first place.
- greesil 5y ago
  The $10M number came from people already not taking into account low probability events. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life VSL
IAmEveryone 5y ago
People are extremely bad at making decisions involving small probabilities. Plus, of course, the same people tend not to believe the data on deaths. There are even stories of people using their last breaths to again state that they do not believe viruses (or this virus, specifically) exists.
kqr 5y ago
The people who refuse (or elect out of) vaccinations I've spoken to don't agree on that 1 % number. Or they think the vaccinations cause greater damage, meaning abstention is still a net positive. Framing it as them knowingly sacrificing the equivalent of $100 k for no good reason ("belief!") is dishonest to the complexity of the problem.
- greesil 5y ago

akira2501 5y ago

Assuming everyone should make medical decisions based purely on individual or even shared monetary grounds is a type of "flat earth" thinking of it's own. It attempts to fit a pre-conceived view onto the world, that "no-vaxers" must be dumb the same way "flat-earthers" are and this helps you rationalize away digital content you personally disagree with without having to engage with it.

IAmEveryone 5y ago
The payment wasn't an argument that money is the only valid objective in decision-making. OP used it to illustrate that these believes are weakly held, "virtue signaling" for a crowd with different virtues, so to speak. I believe unvaccinated people seeking medical treatment from the same "elitist establishment" they had nothing but scorn for is a somewhat more obvious demonstration of the same principle.
- firstlink 5y ago
  > I believe unvaccinated people seeking medical treatment from the same "elitist establishment" they had nothing but scorn for is a somewhat more obvious demonstration of the same principle. Many people, whether anti-vax or not, would like to be able to receive medical advice and treatment from a person of their own choosing. But this is illegal, at least in most places HN commenters are likely to be found. So "seeking medical treatment from the same 'elitist establishment'" is nothing more than "seeking medical treatment, legally".
  - igorkraw 5y ago
    This is a nonsequitur dragging in unrelated politics, the original point is: the bulk of anti-vaxxers would not commit to a world where they are isolated and left to die if they catch COVID for all the "it's just a flu" talk. I don't agree with GP on wishing it was a thing, but this is bad arguing
- native_samples 5y ago
  They aren't weakly held, as evidenced by the large number of people who refuse to take them even when they are being fired, prevented from leaving their country or excluded from all public events. The analogy is actually flawed for a different reason: it simply sets up a one way bias. If you want to force people to put a price on their beliefs, get rid of all the subsidies for vaccines and all the liability for the manufacturers. Make people pay for their own shots and then allow those who get injured to sue the manufacturers for damages. Well, we could do that but actually we don't have to. We already know what the outcome is: the outcome is there are no COVID vaccine manufacturers at all, because complete legal immunity to damage claims was a mandatory criteria for them to sign contracts with governments. Liability allowed = no vaccines. So the market spoke already, and it seems to suggest the opposite of what's being implied above.