5 ms·

When I was growing up, they counted anyone who got vaccinated against something as a "success." So if 80 percent got vaccinated for X, they bragged about that.

When I was growing up, they counted anyone who got vaccinated against something as a "success." So if 80 percent got vaccinated for X, they bragged about that. These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices. It's a dramatic change in attitude and it's very scary stuff because people are increasingly fine with "We shall just force the minority to get vaccinated and make their lives hell if they continue to resist." It's really, really scary stuff and most people don't seem to recognize how and why it's scary stuff.

throwaway22032 4y ago
In my view it's tantamount to abuse, because ultimately what it does is erodes trust. If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you. The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal. I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell. It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells. People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. The problem is, at least for many societies, that we don't operate on "you get to choose, but you have to live with the consequences". If you choose not to get vaccinated because you want to avoid becoming a walking 5g transmitter programmed by Bill Gates, and you get sick and need emergency care, you're not going to be denied because you made the choice and knew the risk, which has implications for everyone else, because emergency care is limited etc etc.
  - throwaway22032 4y ago
    You're not understanding my point. Shouting people down, restricting their movements, trying to put them out of a job etc. is abusive behaviour. It works if the force is sufficient enough. That doesn't make it right.
    - luckylion 4y ago
      Sure, and I wasn't a fan of the approaches they used, but I do understand them. The alternative is either to accept their willful ignorance that will have life-threatening impact on third parties that weren't willfully ignorant, or to cut them off from societal institutions for anything that follows from their decisions. At least in Germany, that was the debate, and the folks who didn't want to get vaccinated didn't favor living with the consequences either. It's pretty much why we have mandatory retirement programs, because we don't trust the population at large to make smart decisions and we don't want them to rely on society after the consequences of their decisions manifest.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwaway22032 4y ago
        I'd love to go further into this but I feel that the attitude I expressed in my first post is coming into play here. I'll give you a short description, I guess. You're throwing around terms like "willful ignorance". It may not be conscious on your part, but that's patronising behaviour, and I don't feel a sense of goodwill there. I'd love to be able to elaborate further and enter into a proper discussion but I'm just tired.
        luckylion 4y ago
        What term would you prefer for something that just looks ignorant and no other explanation is given for why the person does it even after information has been shared with them?
eastbound 4y ago
The unvaccinated played the good role of scapegoat. “Our policy won’t be effective unless 90% people vaccinate” “Only 85% vaccinated, so this wave is because of THEM, they are killing YOUR grandmother.” It helped channeling public anger at something. It’s textbook Machiavel, I was surprised people didn’t see through that, I wish people read more ;)
nwiswell 4y ago
Basically every nation already uses force to deter certain forms of socially problematic behavior. If you habitually litter, for example, you'll receive a fine. If you don't pay that fine, you're going to end up with a bench warrant. There is an implicit threat of force. Same for graffiti, smoking in public places, etc. Vaccine uptake is not actually compulsory under threat of force, and in that sense I have trouble seeing the "dramatic change in attitude".
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  "Do this or you will be unemployable" doesn't sound like force to you?
  - nwiswell 4y ago
    > doesn't sound like force to you? Not by the state, no. And withholding a job offer is certainly not force. We generally accept that there are a lot of things that will make you unemployable, like having a swastika on your forehead. It's up to the business owner / recruiter / whatever to determine what the reasonable rejection criteria are. If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. FWIW (anecdata): my (large) company never mandated vaccines at any point, and neither did any of the companies where my friends work. And I'm in California, so I doubt there was really any place in the US where it made you truly unemployable (with the possible exception of frontline healthcare workers), even if some people were "forced" to change jobs.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
      > If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. It depends on the job. If someone can't get vaccinated; and they also want to work with other medically vulnerable people; then they're in the same position as someone who is legally blind and wants to drive a taxi-cab. i.e. While they may want to do it, and it might hurt their feelings to deny them this, it is inadvisable to everyone involved for them to make the attempt. A virus doesn't see our reasons, it just sees warm unvaccinated hosts.
ilyt 4y ago
> These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices. Well, because most of those didn't... and so 99% of people that decided to not get vaccinated screwed over the 1% that couldn't
jeffbee 4y ago
Historically there was never a vaccine with only 80% adoption rate, in the U.S at least. Anyone would have considered that a failure for the polio vaccine. All the major vaccines are 90% coverage or better, or at least they did until recent years.
retrac 4y ago
It's a bit strange here in Canada. 92% of the population in my province has had at least one COVID shot. And disproportionately many who haven't, are children. And we can probably exclude a couple percent of people who are genuinely medically advised against getting it, and the hyper-needle-phobic. So we're talking... about 1 - 4% of the adult population maybe, who could realistically be called antivaxer? They are irrelevant socially, politically, epidemiologically. But at least with the slice of media I consume, everyone seems quite concerned about them.
hotpotamus 4y ago
When I was growing up, you had to get your vaccines to go to school or join the military or participate in many aspects of society and anti-vaxers were seen as a fringe minority.
- TrevorJ 4y ago
  I don't think conflating childhood vaccines with the Covid vaccines is fair, to be honest.
- yucky 4y ago
  Which of those vaccines still resulted in most of the recipients still getting infected like we see with Covid? You can't compare the MMR type vaccines to Covid, they're not remotely similar in efficacy.
- HKH2 4y ago
  Yeah, you got immunized.
- taolegal 4y ago
  Except those were vaccines that weren't used in such a rushed manner.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I imagine I'm somewhat older than you. "Antivaxer" was not a term I knew as a child. That came later.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    That the term didn't exist would suggest it was a fringe belief, wouldn't it? This isn't something where I have a lot of knowledge of history, but I do follow the scientific skepticism movement a bit, and they would probably place the modern pre-covid vaccine denial movement as starting with a discredited paper by Andrew Wakefield in the early 90's that suggested that vaccines were causing greater incidences of autism. I certainly remember at the time that it was seen as a fringe belief and actually not particularly associated with one one end of the political spectrum or other. I think the modern analog would be the flat earth movement. It's certainly clear to me that this has changed though.

throwaway22032 4y ago

In my view it's tantamount to abuse, because ultimately what it does is erodes trust. If you're shouting at someone to do something over and over again, eventually they just stop listening to you and try to get away from you. The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. Otherwise you're acting as a parent. You're not treating them as an equal. I'm sure that some people will take issue with my specific use of the term "abuse", but it meets the definition as far as I can tell. It even goes down to the point that people (who disagree) just stop talking about it completely because they're always walking on eggshells. People flip out, tell you you can't go to XYZ or do XYZ, etc. It's just like, okay, whatever man, I'll say whatever you want me to say for an easy life. Doesn't mean I believe it or trust you.

luckylion 4y ago
> The correct way is to explain to them the reasons that you feel it's good for them, or for those around them, and then let them make the decision. The problem is, at least for many societies, that we don't operate on "you get to choose, but you have to live with the consequences". If you choose not to get vaccinated because you want to avoid becoming a walking 5g transmitter programmed by Bill Gates, and you get sick and need emergency care, you're not going to be denied because you made the choice and knew the risk, which has implications for everyone else, because emergency care is limited etc etc.
- throwaway22032 4y ago
  You're not understanding my point. Shouting people down, restricting their movements, trying to put them out of a job etc. is abusive behaviour. It works if the force is sufficient enough. That doesn't make it right.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Sure, and I wasn't a fan of the approaches they used, but I do understand them. The alternative is either to accept their willful ignorance that will have life-threatening impact on third parties that weren't willfully ignorant, or to cut them off from societal institutions for anything that follows from their decisions. At least in Germany, that was the debate, and the folks who didn't want to get vaccinated didn't favor living with the consequences either. It's pretty much why we have mandatory retirement programs, because we don't trust the population at large to make smart decisions and we don't want them to rely on society after the consequences of their decisions manifest.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway22032 4y ago
      I'd love to go further into this but I feel that the attitude I expressed in my first post is coming into play here. I'll give you a short description, I guess. You're throwing around terms like "willful ignorance". It may not be conscious on your part, but that's patronising behaviour, and I don't feel a sense of goodwill there. I'd love to be able to elaborate further and enter into a proper discussion but I'm just tired.
      - luckylion 4y ago
        What term would you prefer for something that just looks ignorant and no other explanation is given for why the person does it even after information has been shared with them?

eastbound 4y ago

The unvaccinated played the good role of scapegoat. “Our policy won’t be effective unless 90% people vaccinate” “Only 85% vaccinated, so this wave is because of THEM, they are killing YOUR grandmother.” It helped channeling public anger at something. It’s textbook Machiavel, I was surprised people didn’t see through that, I wish people read more ;)

nwiswell 4y ago

Basically every nation already uses force to deter certain forms of socially problematic behavior. If you habitually litter, for example, you'll receive a fine. If you don't pay that fine, you're going to end up with a bench warrant. There is an implicit threat of force. Same for graffiti, smoking in public places, etc. Vaccine uptake is not actually compulsory under threat of force, and in that sense I have trouble seeing the "dramatic change in attitude".

TrevorJ 4y ago
"Do this or you will be unemployable" doesn't sound like force to you?
- nwiswell 4y ago
  > doesn't sound like force to you? Not by the state, no. And withholding a job offer is certainly not force. We generally accept that there are a lot of things that will make you unemployable, like having a swastika on your forehead. It's up to the business owner / recruiter / whatever to determine what the reasonable rejection criteria are. If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. FWIW (anecdata): my (large) company never mandated vaccines at any point, and neither did any of the companies where my friends work. And I'm in California, so I doubt there was really any place in the US where it made you truly unemployable (with the possible exception of frontline healthcare workers), even if some people were "forced" to change jobs.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
    > If there's a reason someone can't get vaccinated, like an allergy, I'd consider it a moral obligation for the prospective employer to take that into account. It depends on the job. If someone can't get vaccinated; and they also want to work with other medically vulnerable people; then they're in the same position as someone who is legally blind and wants to drive a taxi-cab. i.e. While they may want to do it, and it might hurt their feelings to deny them this, it is inadvisable to everyone involved for them to make the attempt. A virus doesn't see our reasons, it just sees warm unvaccinated hosts.

ilyt 4y ago

> These days, we count anyone who didn't get vaccinated as a failure and bellyache about that 20 percent that "won't cooperate" and malign them as problem children who don't have a good reason for their choices. Well, because most of those didn't... and so 99% of people that decided to not get vaccinated screwed over the 1% that couldn't

jeffbee 4y ago

Historically there was never a vaccine with only 80% adoption rate, in the U.S at least. Anyone would have considered that a failure for the polio vaccine. All the major vaccines are 90% coverage or better, or at least they did until recent years.

retrac 4y ago

It's a bit strange here in Canada. 92% of the population in my province has had at least one COVID shot. And disproportionately many who haven't, are children. And we can probably exclude a couple percent of people who are genuinely medically advised against getting it, and the hyper-needle-phobic. So we're talking... about 1 - 4% of the adult population maybe, who could realistically be called antivaxer? They are irrelevant socially, politically, epidemiologically. But at least with the slice of media I consume, everyone seems quite concerned about them.

hotpotamus 4y ago

When I was growing up, you had to get your vaccines to go to school or join the military or participate in many aspects of society and anti-vaxers were seen as a fringe minority.

TrevorJ 4y ago
I don't think conflating childhood vaccines with the Covid vaccines is fair, to be honest.
yucky 4y ago
Which of those vaccines still resulted in most of the recipients still getting infected like we see with Covid? You can't compare the MMR type vaccines to Covid, they're not remotely similar in efficacy.
HKH2 4y ago
Yeah, you got immunized.
taolegal 4y ago
Except those were vaccines that weren't used in such a rushed manner.
DoreenMichele 4y ago
I imagine I'm somewhat older than you. "Antivaxer" was not a term I knew as a child. That came later.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  That the term didn't exist would suggest it was a fringe belief, wouldn't it? This isn't something where I have a lot of knowledge of history, but I do follow the scientific skepticism movement a bit, and they would probably place the modern pre-covid vaccine denial movement as starting with a discredited paper by Andrew Wakefield in the early 90's that suggested that vaccines were causing greater incidences of autism. I certainly remember at the time that it was seen as a fringe belief and actually not particularly associated with one one end of the political spectrum or other. I think the modern analog would be the flat earth movement. It's certainly clear to me that this has changed though.