So any epistemological proofs for reason? — Trinidad

What proof are you talking about? You asked if there were anything that "examines" reason and logic, if that is the foundation for atheism. And the answer is epistemology. What proof is it you are after?

This was site of Nietzsche's 'inversion of values' - not the strong fooled by the weak, but a translation from morality inherent to the structural relations of the kinship tribe, to objectivised social values, attributed to God. Thus, the natural obligation upon anyone hacking away at the pillars of moral authority is that they have some adequate alternative - and this politically correct secular relativism is neither one thing nor another. — counterpunch

Nietzsche's inversion of values refers to how Christianity reverses the natural into the opposite. It stems from his contempt for Christianity. Stating the moral system is based on "the contempt of man". The fear I'm referring to is the fear that when a structural moral system is dismantled, however faulty it is, will eventually create a great nihilism within the people if they do not actively examine ethics and form new systems in its place. And what have we've been doing throughout the 20th century? It's exactly this. It was even fueled by the examination of moral decay in Nazi Germany. Almost the entire part of post-WWII philosophy around ethics has revolved around figuring that shit out.

I would raise Stalin and Mao as examples of atheist societies butchering their populations on a scale that make Hitler look like an amateur genocidal nutter! Exactly that, and they're actual examples - to compare to your purely hypothetical atheist societies, you claim are always more peaceful. Would you care to name these havens of veritable enlightenment? — counterpunch

Here comes the classic guilt by association that is such a drag to always have to explain. The Stalins and Lenins and communist leaders who conducted murder and terror on their people did so under a kind of religious worship of themselves. They didn't build upon an atheist foundation, they built their society around themselves. These are dictators who don't have much to do with Marxism or atheism. Narcissistic personalities who brainwashed their people into a pseudo-religious politic surrounding themselves as deities. Much like how North Korea and Kim Jong Un act right now. I don't see much atheism going around these people. The only thing is that they don't have any old religions present, but that's not the same as an atheistic foundation for their society. I even touched upon this in this very thread in a previous post that you might have missed.

Would you care to name these havens of veritable enlightenment? — counterpunch

So this becomes the guilt by association. The classic theist argument that because they claimed to be atheists or built upon it, therefor atheistic societies are evil. It's a stupefyingly bad conclusion that is a giant fallacy. Check how heavily secular societies in the world today fare against heavily religious ones, there's your answer and data.

I have the data on my side of this argument.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201410/secular-societies-fare-better-religious-societies

As University of London professor Stephen Law has observed, “if declining levels of religiosity were the main cause of…social ills, we should expect those countries that are now the least religious to have the greatest problems. The reverse is true."

That's some myopic logic, don't you think? I cannot accept that's how this question presents itself to people. I think maybe, that's how you post-rationalise your deeper motives, but I cannot imagine someone becoming familiar with epistemology and logic, before encountering the concept of God, and so concluding "the burden proof is with the theist, and that shall be an end of the matter!" Well, it's not the end of the matter because God is a concept that serves a wider social and political purpose - and logic aside, it's probably not wise to undermine that concept without even understanding its function! — counterpunch

The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. Otherwise I will, in classic terms, claim there's a teapot revolving around the sun between Venus and Mercury. You can't say there's not, you have to prove there's no teapot there! Burden of proof is on the one claiming something, claiming gods existence needs to be proven, the burden of proof is still on theists making claims that they can't prove. This is basic stuff.

I cannot imagine someone becoming familiar with epistemology and logic, before encountering the concept of God — counterpunch

Not in nations that are heavily religious, which I would say even the US is considered to be. In nations like Sweden, many grow up secular, without any concepts of God other than fairy tale concepts of the bible in the same manner as pantheon stories of the Greeks. So what you imagine is irrelevant, we have secular nations in the world where God isn't as common as in religious countries so the concepts in epistemology can definitely come before any concept of God. What you describe is just a projection of your own situation, not the truth.

Well, it's not the end of the matter because God is a concept that serves a wider social and political purpose - and logic aside, it's probably not wise to undermine that concept without even understanding its function! — counterpunch

I understand its function, where it comes from, how religion and belief evolved, but God and religion is still irrelevant to humanity if we have good non-religious ethics system in place (which we have) and live our lives with self-reflection, skepticism, and a sense of logic and rational reasoning.

The concept of it being necessary is only true for those who cannot imagine a society without it. But some people live their life without it, both on the micro and macro level. This is an undeniable fact. I live my life like this, I have friends living their life like this, and Sweden is considered a secular nation with a very high quality of life. Compare that to heavily religious nations in the world. Check the link I provided.

It's not wise to overvalue the importance of religion without knowing how secular and less religious societies fare.

Where is the epistemological justification for rationality? — Trinidad

Epistemology is reasoning and logically examining the nature of knowledge and how to know. It was an answer to this:

Where is the logic and reason to prove that logic and reason are better than experience and belief — Trinidad

In epistemology, that's much of what the main questions are about. It examines how we know things, how we can be certain. In any attempt, within an epistemological discussion, to try and justify experience and belief as being superior to reason and logic, it fails. It's the answer to your question.

Have you not read your plato? The meno? — Trinidad

Have you read any of the philosophers past the enlightenment era?

Epistemology has no foundations,no conclusions. So you just have faith in reason.
In reality you are worshipping the ideological biographies of dead philosophers. — Trinidad

You make no sense now. I question how much you actually know about philosophy.

Epistemology you say? Is there any agreement or conclusions in that field of philosophy?
If not,your whole post is moot.
And to be honest,you sound just as dogmatic and ill informed as a fundamentalist. — Trinidad

I don't see an argument here? Just, "oh, you don't have any answers within epistemology, so you are wrong", and "you are just an ill-informed fundamentalist."

I don't care how I sound or people view me. Make your argument.

You are committing the no true Scotsman fallacy. — Tom Storm

You don't seem to know what the true Scotsman fallacy is. If I define atheism as having a foundation of logic and rational reasoning instead of just a lack of belief in God, that incorporates everyone with a belief that doesn't have a logical foundation for it. Hence, it includes these people. The Scotsman fallacy is if I just say "they aren't true atheists" and don't provide any foundation for that claim, which I have.

Atheism is without theism. It says nothing about any other irrational beliefs the person might hold. — Tom Storm

"It says"? What says? The dictionary? If I question the common definition or layman definition of atheism as being incomplete and include all types of belief and not just God in the equation, then who cares what "it says". I say, I question and I argued for it. What you do is the same kind of "bible says" argument here. But about atheism.

The ideal atheist may well be someone who privileges reason and holds to no superstition but that is a wholly separate matter. — Tom Storm

The ideal atheist is in my argument the normal atheist. People are prone to label themselves however they want. But if someone says they're now an atheist when stopping to worship god but starts to worship dead deities, new age, or fortune-telling, they are not really doing anything but replacing one faith with another. It doesn't work when defining what atheism is.

Most of the critiques of religion arise right out of a moralism which was given to western culture by the Jews. The Christians then became the leading salesmen of such moralism (not to be confused with being morally superior). So many atheists think they can just pull the plug and walk away from these thousands of years of history. It doesn't work that way. — Foghorn

No, they can't, we all live under the weight of history, good or bad. But what does that prove? You basically just say that we are a product of history. Ok, so what? Doesn't mean that moral philosophy isn't better than morality from a religious text. It more or less means that we ditch the books and find out for real what was good or bad in old teachings, or invent new ones where bad and old ones lacked.

But I can't stop thinking like a Catholic, that is, being interested in the kinds of things Catholics are interested in (thus my comments here) because that doesn't arise from my personal choice, but from many centuries of Catholic DNA up my family tree. That's built in. We don't just turn it off with the flip of a switch. — Foghorn

This I absolutely agree with. This is why I think it's good that the bloody history of religion is going out the door so that new generations can grow out without being programmed into this. But it also doesn't mean that we lose history. We can find interest in the old pantheons of the greek and those stories fine, we can find the pantheon of the Edda to be wonderful, without having belief in those things. The same is true about Christianity, Islam etc. Nothing of these religions will be lost, or erased. I think that we might even have more appreciation for the cultural mark on history if we leave the faith behind. I'm neither Christian or Muslim, but when I was in the Anna Sofia mosque in Istanbul, it was a profound experience seeing Christian and Islam design and art in that vast architecture. The experience can be enormous even if faith and belief in God is gone.

Except, if you are an atheist, your life is not based on logic and reason. At least not that part of it.

Atheism is not reason. Atheism is an ideology which competes with religious ideology. — Foghorn

Ok, explain how I cannot live my life like this, this will be interesting. Because I'm very well acquainted with self-reflection. Shoot.

The problem is that "such ideas" are arguably, the foundation of society; and here's where the atheist must falter - short of an alternate higher power in which to invest ultimate authority. — counterpunch

I have not problem living as an atheist in a society that doesn't rely as much upon any religion or God as nations like the US does. Many theists are blinded by the idea that religion and God is a foundation for which a fragile society is built upon. It's the Nietzchian fear of nihilism. But in a society that isn't as heavily relying on God or religion, society works anyway. In Sweden, there's not a lot of Christianity as any kind of foundation. Traditions like Christmas and Easter aren't celebrated with any God "present", but instead celebrated for celebration's sake, no underlying values are forced upon the people, they celebrate as a chance to have a good time with their friends and family. Religion has disappeared from the celebration and it has become something else, only having words linger from the religious roots.

So there's no reason for any religious foundation at all. Moral philosophy can easily replace commandments, and probably do a better job at it since it's always under scrutiny without being called heresy.

The only people who think that a society can't exist without a religious foundation, are the ones within such a religious framework. It's a usual theist argument that society needs religion and faith, but every time we have true atheism as the foundation in society, it's actually a lot more peaceful and rational. The common counterargument from theists then points out Leninist and Stalinist communism as an example of atheistic societies, but this is just false. Not only is it a simplification of Marxism, since Lenin and Stalin corrupted those ideas, but the key factor is that both Stalin and Lenin replaced God as a religious figure.

science doesn't actually rule out the existence of God. — counterpunch

As I've said, atheism is about logical reasoning as a foundation, not proving God's lack of existence. If anything, in philosophy, the burden of proof is on the theist side and has been forever. Agnosticism acknowledges the possible existence of God, without any logical reasoning behind it, that's not atheism. Which is a key point as to why I say that atheism has nothing to do with a lack of belief, it has to do with logic, reason, and being rational as a foundation. Anything supernatural, religious or similar isn't even on the table for atheists because there's no rational reasoning behind it. Being agnostic requires you to entertain a part of faith in God as a possibility, which doesn't exist for an atheist.

Any method which declines to challenge it's own fundamental assumptions is not philosophy, but instead merely ideology. It's not reason and logic to refuse to examine and challenge the qualifications of reason and logic. — Foghorn

That's what epistemology is. The true philosophical antithesis of theism.

In atheism the core (blind faith in reason) is very rarely touched. Most atheists don't even know it's there. There's typically far more doubt honestly expressed in theism than in atheism. — Foghorn

No, because everything is eventually explained by "God" or religion in some way. "Blind faith in reason" also doesn't exist, it's the very foundation of epistemology to question how we reason. To say that atheists have blind faith in reason is straw-manning the concept of atheism.

religion is more realistic than atheism about the human condition, and more compassionate in serving that reality. This not because theists are smarter, but only because they've been doing their thing far longer. — Foghorn

It's only realistic for primal people that try to figure out the world without any way of rationally explain what is happening around them. That theists have been doing it for far longer is also a fallacy and not in any support of any conclusion you make. We can actually say that rational reasoning is older since most current religions are younger than western philosophy. But the people of power in religion throughout history snuffed out anyone challenging that power. This is why the world has moved towards wide atheistic adoption in such a short span of time because the enlightenment era was more powerful than the church and other religious institutions. By 2035 it's expected by metrics that over half the world's population will be atheists. So if religion and theism is more "correct" for the human condition, why have the atheistic worldview exploded in numbers, and will continue exponentially? When lifting the fact that this is happening globally in many different religions and worldviews, it kind of speaks to the opposite of what you are saying about the "human condition".

Maybe it's just that religion is easier to use to control people's knowledge and also is easier to adopt when there's no explanation for an unexplained event. So in a world where these things were more common, religion was more common. In the age of reason we live in today, the old truths start to crumble easily.

Here's the evidence...
To this day, religion continues to thrive in every time and place. It's been doing so for thousands of years. That is, religion is a "creature" very well adapted to it's environment, the human mind. Natural selection is demonstrating the power of religion to anyone willing to listen to the evidence. — Foghorn

This is not evidence at all. As per what wrote above. People are prone to pattern-seeking in their environment, we are easily fooled by what we don't know. That doesn't mean we are "made for religion", it just means we are stupid until we find mental tools to bypass those biases and fallacies when thinking of the world. And we did, it took some thousands of years to fine-tune those tools and we've just begun to use them. The enlightenment era was like inventing the wheel, we invented rational tools that wiped away the necessity for religious views as factual.

In my view you make a common mistake by trying to include a whole world view under the rubric of atheism. It only pertains to theism, nothing more. Over 30 years I've certainly met more than my share of atheists who believe in fortune telling and astrology. The idea that logic or reason is involved is a myth. It pertains to those atheists who are theorised. — Tom Storm

If someone believes in something in the same way as believing in God, then however you define atheism it fails to apply to them. Lack of belief? Nope, they believe in astrology and fortune-telling. Reason and logic as a foundation? No, they don't question the legitimacy of astrology and fortune-telling.

Whatever these people say about themselves, they are not atheists. It's like racists who say "I'm not a racist" when they clearly are. I don't see a reason to muddy the waters of what defines an atheist, because that's a smörgårdsbord for theists to muddy the waters of definitions.

If we are to have a clear definition of atheism it needs to be what I propose. Anyone who believes in something without any logic or rational reasoning for it, is simply not an atheist. Otherwise, what would an atheist be called in contrast with the concept of the spaghetti monster? I can't be an atheist and believe in that. Atheism is a consolidation of all reason and logic against any kind of belief in something that doesn't have that as a foundation, regardless of God or fortune-telling nonsense.

Where is the logic and reason to prove that logic and reason are better than experience and belief — Trinidad

Epistemology is an entire field for that. Try it.

And most atheists do not live their lives purely by logic and reason. That's impossible. — Trinidad

No, it's not. Having a hypothesis is not having belief. If I say I "believe" in something, I do it because I have sufficient data supporting that there's significant reason to do so.

It's only impossible for those who have been taught otherwise. I have no problem living my life based on logic and reason. It doesn't change that I can feel emotions and have experiences that are profound, I just don't apply fantasy concepts to those things. If people grow up with religious concepts I understand that this is a problematic way of thinking, but our upbringing wires our brains and unwiring them is not easy at all. Saying that atheists can't live by logic and reason is like saying people can't live by religious ideas, they can, and so can atheists live by not applying fantasy to the unkown.

And the believers in rationality just assume rationality can explain everything. Whence and why this faith? — Trinidad

No, they don't, they accept that there are things yet to be explained, but they don't produce fantasies to explain things for them before they have any evidence of truth or logic for a deduction. They accept things to be unknown. We don't know what dark matter is, we've seen a presence of something. A theist might conjure up fantasies that dark matter is God for some reason, but an atheist just accepts that we don't know yet what dark matter is. Both can look at the dark matter as mysterious, but one of them doesn't jump to conclusions.

How you describe rationality and reason is the common strawmanning that theists do in order to undermine the legality of atheistic concepts. But there are no problems living with rational thought, reason, and logic. None.

I don't think that's entirely accurate but it is true for some atheists. There are, of course, many different kinds of atheist, with different approaches and views. Some believe in astrology and magic. — Tom Storm

This implies that atheism is only in opposition with the concept of "God" and the belief in one or a pantheon. But I wouldn't call someone who believes in astrology an atheist. It's the same kind of belief system, just not focused on the concept of God.

It's just not philosophy, that's all. — Foghorn

I agree that theism shouldn't be considered philosophy because philosophy should require reason and logic as the foundation. Atheism works in this sense since it's founded on thinking with reason and logic.

In philosophy, it's as if we have five people who are all claiming to be correct about five different topics. Four of them get questioned by a moderator, and they are forced to logically explain why they think they are correct. Every little detail of these four people's arguments is scrutinized to the core, chopping away until the most logical conclusions are made by each of these four people. The fifth person then claims something without any kind of rational logic behind it and the moderator of this event just says "ok". The other four ask why the fifth person didn't get the same kind of rational scrutiny and treatment and the moderator replies, he's a theist.

This is why I don't think irrational belief, religion, and theism have any place in philosophy. It's the very antithesis of what philosophy aims to do. Theism is like a bubble of philosophy, a playground for the special children where the rules are totally different and everyone else just has to accept it, occasionally invite them out of that bubble and accept that irrationality and lack of logic.

Atheism is simply accepting logic and reason over belief and experience. Even an atheist can experience religious-like feelings, awe, mystery and so on, but the key difference is that the atheist doesn't accept anything as true or logical until there are sufficient logical conclusions to be made. There doesn't have to be any evidence, even if it is prefered, that something is true, it basically has to be logical that it might be true and from that derives a hypothesis.

A common argument against atheists is that they need to prove everything beyond any kind of doubt while theists can believe whatever they want. But an atheist that doesn't have a logical foundation for a hypothesis isn't really an atheist anymore, he has belief.

An atheist doesn't have a lack of belief in God, there's nothing lacking, there's just no logical assumption that there is a God, so it's not even on the list. The only reason atheists speak and think about the concept of "God" is because theists have proposed such ideas in society.

In a blank slate of a world where there are none of the religions we have in the world today, but unexplained natural phenomena that previously were sources for many religious events, are explained logically, reasonably, and with science, i.e a world where we developed a scientific method before any religious explanations for events in nature around us: there wouldn't be any religions. The religious ideas today have their foundation in building upon previous generations beliefs all the way back to when someone wanted to understand why something like thunder happens, or why crops die. If there were no such sources and we already logically explained that thunder happens because of differences in temperature and moving air, while crops die because of infestations and stuff, there wouldn't be any supernatural phenomena that caused them and we wouldn't have such belief systems around it.

An atheist looks at the world as it is, disregard any previous "guesses" about anything, don't care for previous generations that can't logically explain anything and focus purely on what logic and reason can explain. It doesn't have to be proven beyond all doubt, it has to make sense.

Like ideas about quantum mechanics or possible string theories. We don't have much evidence of anything for that, but we have a lot of hypotheses that make sense, some are even so logical that we are already inventing technology using the phenomena we have discovered through those hypotheses, even without fully know how they work. But nothing of this is "belief", it's rooted in logic and reason.

So I think that the idea that atheism is "a lack of belief in God", is a bit misleading to the core of what atheism is. Because even if someone isn't believing in God, and starts to believe in ghosts, new age or other superstition/supernatural events, that aren't directly related to "God", they are still theists in the sense of belief. Atheists focus on logic and reason, they are closer to being immune to believing in anything that doesn't have a logical foundation underneath. And a belief system about God is at its core something that does not have a logical foundation and because much of the atheist movement has its modern roots in western society, where Christianity also has its roots, the idea that atheists lack a belief in God has become the norm explanation for atheism, which I don't think is accurate to what drives an atheist.

Please present comparative statistics. — Janus

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/massachusetts-covid-cases.html — Fooloso4

And WHO has extensive information that's constantly updated with new data and research.
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters

CDC also has a lot of global gathering of data as well as research publications.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/index.html

PNAS also features up to date publications on numerous types of topics related to covid.
https://www.pnas.org/search/Covid-19%20content_type%3Ajournal


Maybe the anti-vaccer side could present their data now? Maybe anything other than "My experience is..." and "I don't believe that..." and "According to my own research..." and "How would you feel if..." etc.
It's remarkable that the low quality of such posts is ok on this forum. If the topic is scientific, which this clearly is, then the scientific and philosophical quality needs to be high. The anecdotal, emotional, biased and fallacious posts should not be allowed. That's what Reddit, Facebook, 4Chan etc. are for.

If you get the serious negative side effects of the vaccine, how will you cope with them? How will that affect your trust in science? Do you really think you will be able to take solace in the fact that the vaccine has helped other people, but not you? — baker

That doesn't matter now, does it? If you get side effects because of that super unlucky lottery, then that is not any empirical evidence that the vaccine is worse than covid. Is this how you treat logic? That if something happens to you, then the statistics are wrong? Seriously?

What about the people who get seriously ill by Covid? People who die or get such damage to their lungs that they can't even walk 5 meters before getting out of breath? You think they take solace in stupid people advocating to not take the vaccine so that it gets harder to fight the spread? Do you think they like people who refuse the vaccine and go out and breaking restrictions without any thought in their tiny brains that they might infect someone else? You think these people don't want to beat anti-vaccers up for pushing back on something that might have been a help to prevent their health problems now?

You totally miss the suffering Covid is causing, thinking there's any statistical relevance to the dangers of the vaccine that in any way could be compared to the severity of Covid. A case of one person getting side effects of the vaccine is insignificant to the statistics here. It's like literally failure at understanding basic statistics and science.

True. There are many people with no brains, so they need laws. — James Riley

This pandemic has made it clear to me that idiots are far more common than I previously thought. And since idiots are actually posing a risk towards other people who might get seriously ill, I'd say there's nothing holding back protecting people at risk. If someone is beating someone up on the street, people stop it and help the victim. But if someone is acting recklessly and don't give a shit about restrictions and laws or the vaccine, goes out and cough in people's direction... I don't see any reason why shutting them down hard is a problem? It's clear that we need harsher laws for situations like a pandemic. Idiots roaming the streets in this way is like having blindfolded drivers driving around and there's no law against it.

Who's advocating that? — baker

Read the thread

Actually, it must be great to feel so confident that luck is on one's side. Getting the vaccine, thinking, "Oh, surely I'm so great and so lucky that I will not get the side effects!" — baker

People pushing the dangers of vaccines often don't know how statistics work or how to interpret them. In comparison to the virus, what dangers are you talking about? Like, we have a virus that is not only high in mortality rate, it also possesses a high risk of damaging tissue (like the people who's got scar tissue on their lungs that may be permanent) while others still haven't gotten their taste and smell back a year after infection. The list is long of all the health problems that relate to covid-19, but some are stuck arguing about side effects of the vaccines... What exactly are the side effects that possess such a high risk that contracting covid is considered preferable?

Because as I see it, the risks of the vaccine are blown out of proportion by people who really don't know how to read publications properly.

as if this were 100% certain. But is it? Calculate the probability. Otherwise, all you have is ideology. — baker

So, you mean to say that all the data from hospitals around the world that are barely managing their limit of ICU patients and the places where it breaks the limit and covid cases start dying in the streets, like we have in India... is not a strain on communities compared to if most of the population was vaccinated.

What do the reports say you mean? Based on them, based on how things are going around the world, do you not think that it's a logical conclusion to say that if people take the vaccine, we will relieve the tension and strain that communities live under when they're not vaccinated and the spread is uncontrolled?

Please explain what you mean by being 100% certain. I'm 100% certain that my logic is sound here, right? You have a society that struggles to contain a virus, people are dying, others are getting seriously ill. Then a vaccine comes along and eases that strain and stress on society. What is not logical about this? Please elaborate.

I'm guessing that the probability of getting a bad case of covid is about the same as getting bad side effects from the covid vaccine, at least in some areas. — baker

What are you basing that conclusion on? You are guessing, based on... what exactly? You are free to read UN and WHOs daily reports, you can look up publications and check statistics about it. The health issues you can get from Covid are documented literally everywhere, and you could probably check with the local hospital about the different cases of long term covid problems. But side effects from the vaccine range in 1 in about 1-2 million for the worst offender of side effects (Astra Zenica had serious side effects for 19 people of 20 million doses in UK), while the other vaccines do not have any reports of such side effects.

So, before you counter-argue with a "guess" or "opinion". Please explain what side effects you are referring to and how you compare the vaccine to the health problems of covid-19.

When I refer to UN, WHO, hospital personnel, epidemiologists and researchers as the source for the premises for my conclusions I'm being called a fearmonger who buy into the "government propaganda". But the most common denominator when it comes to vaccine critics is that they "guess" a lot and have "opinions" that rarely have any logical foundation or sources. Numbers are thrown around, guesses about statistical risks, anecdotal "evidence" that covid isn't serious because "I didn't get it or had it serious" or that it's just "lies by the government" and into absurdum.

Where are your sources for your guesses? I beg for you to provide any kind of legitimate source that support your guess of the probability of side effects from the vaccine being equal to the dangers of Covid, because not only is that wrong, it's a hilarious lack of observational ability when you even take a basic look at the global situation and the effects of the vaccine.

I will be Frank. You are a scaremongerer.
You have swallowed the government and media narratives to a tee. — Trinidad

In what way? People are burning bodies in India, a relative of mine died and the statistics are through the roof about people dying even when we have restrictions in place. What the fuck do you think would happen if we didn't have any restrictions or countermeasures in place? Seriously, you don't know what is going on? Do you think this pandemic is some conspiracy narrative by the government? What proof do you have of that? What kind of reasoning are you doing to conclude it to be so?

Answer me this,in what previous time did we ever social distance or wear masks to prevent colds? — Trinidad

It's not a common cold you stupid fuck. I give up, I don't know why you are on this forum and I don't understand how moderators tolerate this level of low-quality posts.

You are suggesting the unvaccinated to stay home?
Yet drinkers and smokers do go out together and congregate together. People can decide themselves about the alleged risks of certain activities. — Trinidad

Someone smoking in the proximity of others is not at direct risk of getting sick. An unvaccinated person who carries the virus can infect and hurt or kill other people at that very instant.

People can clearly not decide or understand the risks in this pandemic. How else do you think people have gotten sick and died? Do you think it just magically happen?

Unvaccinated people should follow the restrictions and regulations that we have to battle the pandemic. Until they are vaccinated there's no going around this fact. And because some people can't get the vaccine due to things like allergies, if an unvaccinated person just don't give a shit and walk out into the public and infect one of these people, that is a direct consequence of their action to disregard the restrictions set in place to block the spread.

To compare this to drinkers and smokers in how that would affect others is really not the same thing. I don't understand what is so hard to understand about this? If you don't care about the actions set in place to battle the virus and you disregard it all and go out into a crowd, all it takes is a cough or even talking to another person too close. If that person gets complications from the virus, it's either death or damage that could be permanent, like the scar tissue people reportedly some patients have got on their lungs. Do you really mean that smoking and drinking are in any shape or form comparable to this? Seriously?

In fact people drink together in pubs! And cigarettes are only disallowed in confined spaces. — Trinidad

Well, exactly, we are talking in public right? Not specific locations for the purpose. It's still illegal to drink alcohol in many public spaces, nowhere did we mention pubs here. And smoking in public is sometimes prohibited outside certain shops or restaurants.

My point is, there are definitely regulations surrounding smoking and alcohol that are based on how those things affect other people. There are no restrictions on how they affect the user. This is probably how it should be. As long as you don't harm or pose danger to others, it's ok.

So in the case of restrictions and vaccines surrounding the pandemic. If you don't pose a danger to others, it's fine. If you don't get the vaccine, fine. But if you go out, unvaccinated into public spaces, and pose a risk of them getting infected, then that should be restricted.

That people get confused about what moral rights to have when A) affecting yourself, compared to B) affecting others, is pretty mind-blowing. You affect yourself, fine, do whatever - affect others, get in line and follow the law, restrictions, and rules of society. That's what society is. Anyone who thinks they are above society and doesn't need to follow what is collectively agreed on is either fine to move somewhere else, isolate themselves, or face the consequences of breaking against these things.

It's like the most basic form of ethical logic here, and I don't understand how on a philosophy forum this logic is misunderstood or downright not getting through the skull of some.

By the same logic why are people not against alcohol and cigarettes in public? — Trinidad

Smoking has been banned in many public spaces, so the logic applies. And alcohol is also banned in public spaces, while not affecting others as much, any dangerous act upon intoxications is a crime. So the logic holds fine.

Come to my country and you need to have your yellow fever vaccine. Sure, it's your country. — Book273

The country you live in also demands things of you as a citizen. Just because it's your country doesn't mean it's yours. They can demand that you get the vaccine and fine you whatever you want if you don't. Don't like, move to a country that give you some other freedoms or vote for those who will give you that freedom. But bitching about things because you don't like them is not giving you the right to dismiss them in the society you live in. You are not the king, you are an irrelevant speck compared to a whole nation.

Want to buy a cheeseburger, show me your vaccine history: WTF? — Book273

Why not, if you are to sit in-doors with a lot of other people and eat your cheese burger, you are a potential risk to others if you aren't vaccinated. So making sure everyone in-doors are vaccinated is a valid thing to make sure.

You cannot argue around the fact that unvaccinated people pose a risk to others. Even if the transmission is lowered and the spread rate is maybe only 50% lower, it's still enough to warrant vaccines for people that get boxed into a room with others.

Your right to not get the vaccine is not giving you the right to be close to others in public spaces. In public among other people, your rights are based on how you exist in relation to the group, if you pose a risk towards them, then you don't have any rights to do whatever you want. This is basic logic.

life isn't safe eh. We all die. Adjust. — Book273

This means nothing in this context.

A lot of us that work in healthcare don't, no matter how much that may shock you. At the end of the day I am very glad you don't make the rules I have to live by. — Book273

So you work in healthcare and don't get the vaccine. This is seriously getting dangerous in my opinion. If you work in healthcare, you work close to people who might be open to serious harm or death if they get infected. You don't care about restrictions and you don't care about getting vaccinated. This is almost up for us to report you as a danger in society as your opinion, just like my example with the blindfolded driver, has been put into practice (driving blindfolded).

I would urge you not to work with what you do if you don't care about restrictions or getting the vaccine. I'm dead fucking serious here, you are a potential health risk for real.

So far. Give it a few years eh. Let me know then. — Book273

Maybe you should check in on people with long-term covid complications. We know these exist, there's zero evidence of any long-term vaccine side effects. You compare something that will actually exist in the future with something that might exist in the future as long as everything goes according to what you say.

We know in the short term it can cause sickness, hospitalisations, and deaths – at a rate higher than any known side effects from the vaccine. — Michael

It can also create a total loss of smell and taste, distorted smell and taste that could be permanent. It can cause exhaustion that lasts for months, some speculate years. Damage to the lungs can be permanent, meaning they will likely not give you enough oxygen until fully healed, which might never happen due to scarring of the tissue. Damage to the heart that poses a higher risk of heart disease in the future...

I can go on, there's a long list of potential and direct side effects after recovery that are extreme and way worse than anything ever reported about the vaccines.

The mask thing for airlines I am fine with. You want to fly, you play by their rules. Fair enough. — Book273

You live in a society, you play by their rules. If you don't live in society, you can do whatever. Same logic.
You risk people on the plane, you risk people in society. Same logic. Get it?

I like Florida's position: $5000.00 fine for any business requiring vaccination information from customers. Just awesome. — Book273

Why is that awesome? If you are to interact with people and knowing who's vaccinated makes it safer to conduct business, it should be perfectly fine to ask about that information. Why is this a bad thing? They risk other people's health and therefore such information is a good way to make things safer.

Any evidence that contradicts your position you deem irrelevant. Just pathetic. — Book273

It's an anecdotal fallacy you philosophical illiterate. You are on a philosophy forum and you can't even understand basic fallacies. Fucking moron. I even linked to a description of what anecdotal fallacy means and you still react like this.

I'm still wondering what moderators mean by "low-quality" posts. I guess I'll never find out.

Suppose each flight had a bouncer, like in a night club? If one raises a stink about a mask, the pilot sends back this 300 pound NFL linebacker Mr. Muscle Dude to discuss it. — Foghorn

Careful, the Karen might infect Mr Muscle Dude and the surrounding ten passengers. Better to just send in the hazard team and bubble-boy Karen as quarantine (also lowers the volume of her "opinions" about free speech)

Hey thanks for bringing that up! I had forgotten that crap. I work for the same outfit now as I did then. Then it was mandated that I get that vaccine or lose my job. I needed the money as my kids were young, so Daddy stepped up and did as directed. In a nutshell, that sucked royally. Now they aren't mandating this vaccine as they did the H1N1 vaccine. Likely because a full third of the staff would go home, and hospitals can't run on 2/3 of staff for any length of time. They assured us it was safe then, much the same as this vaccine. All full of doom and gloom then too. And a whole lot of not much was the result. — Book273

Anecdotal evidence is irrelevant. mRNA vaccine is not the same as that vaccine, which was my point. The disease is also different. Covid is extremely worse than the swine flu. But you conclude that because of your anecdotal fallacy they are the same disease and the same kind of vaccine. Lack of logic reasoning... again.

There ya go! Restrict all them anti-vaxers! They are evil bastards that won't listen to what we want! Damn all those who will not obey! — Book273

They are a potential risk for others. If they, through their stupidity, risk other people's health or even cause death, I think we need to protect society from their behavior. It's about protecting people from dangerous behaviors and reckless acts. I don't see them as evil, they are just morons who need to be restricted in order to protect others. Freedom of speech for them is not the same as a practical reality. Sitting in a parked car with a blindfold is not the same as driving with a blindfold.

So what's your point?

It is unfortunate that humans appear to be truly unable to accept each other's choices without railing against them. — Book273

Choices that affect yourself or don't risk other people's health or lives are not the problem here. It's when choices and acts risk other people's health or even cause them death. That you are unable to understand this simple difference is mindblowing and a foundation to your lack of logical reasoning.

being vaccinated does not prevent catching Covid, or prevent spreading Covid eh. It reduces the severity of the illness, and may reduce transmission — Book273

In that sentence, you say that it does not prevent spreading Covid, but in the same sentence, you say that it may reduce transmission. In the same fucking sentence. Good job logic brain, you are truly educated!

So the vaccine has unknown long term side effects — Book273

That phrase positions there to be unknown long-term side effects. There are no data to suggest any of that. You cannot deduce such a conclusion. And then there's the fact that Covid has documented long-term side effects, maybe you should add that to your risk assessment.

decreases transmission (lets just go with it) but does not prevent it — Book273

If it lowers the transmission, it lowers the R0 rate, so it helps prevent spread. Even if it doesn't block it, it prevents a lot of it, the more people who get vaccinated. It looks like you don't even understand what you are talking about yourself. Do you know what a black and white fallacy is? Lowering transmission rates lowers the spread rate, it doesn't have to be either blocking spread or not blocking to be effective in creating herd immunity.

Ok, so maybe, maybe, maybe that's a tad extreme. But really, we put up with way too much shit from such people. How about, ban them from all airlines for life? Ok, I guess I can live with that. — Foghorn

I'm with you. The respect for people's opinions goes far, but there's a limit. When we have a clear situation where these idiots' behavior can harm or even kill other people, it's not up for debate anymore. Seriously, why should we respect someone's opinion if the following behavior out of that opinion is a great risk to someone else's life?

Just like my example with driving with a blindfold. If I sit in my parked car and put on a blindfold, that's my "opinion", if I drive with the blindfold that's me applying that opinion to behavior. If my opinion is to support the idea of people driving blindfolded, but my practical appliance of that opinion is to only do it in a parked car, then there's no problem. If I, however, put on the blindfold and start driving down the road, that is not an opinion anymore, it's a practical reality where the risks happen outside of my opinion. That means the consequences are real. Even if I, in my stupidity, don't believe that driving with a blindfold will kill anyone, I will still risk other people's lives and my belief doesn't matter when I eventually hit and kill someone because that is a real risk that everyone except me, agrees upon.
And even so, spreading such ideas so that someone eventually does it can be harmful. This is why there are cases where people are convicted because they incited dangerous behavior in others. It's the entire reason Trump was criticized for the Capitolium attack. He didn't do it, but he incited part of it. So what about anti-vaccers and those pushing ideas of breaking restrictions, if people follow that or if they follow their own ideas, shouldn't that be considered in the same manner as driving blindfold or getting someone else to do it?

I don't think it's fascism to position yourself hard against reckless behavior. If someone starts waving a gun around and there's a risk of it going off and kill someone, you shoot that person down. That's not fascism, it's survival, it's protecting others. How is protecting others from harm or death, fascism? Shut the idiots down, there's nothing to be gained by tip toeing around such reckless behavior.

Those who are vaccinated will, according to your argument, be safe. The only people at risk will be others who have chosen not to have the vaccine. — Janus

Or people who can't get the vaccine because of allergic reactions and such. There are many people who can't get vaccines. But maybe the anti-vaccers think they are collateral damage for "the greater good of human health". Maybe some dihydrogen monoxide will help anti-vaccers think better, maybe not.

You are comfortable rolling up your sleeve for the vaccine, good for you. — Book273

So are millions of others. I guess they are all idiots in your eyes.

I, and many other educated individuals, are not so keen. Perhaps in five years, or ten, maybe. You do not know the long term effects of it, no one does, not even those that make it. We also don't know the long term effects of Covid. — Book273

So, because you are educated, as you clearly point out, you know the difference between an mRNA vaccine and for example the swine flu vaccine that had serious consequences?

Your "education" in this matter is not a foundation of proof that there will be serious consequences five years from now. Not only that, there are documented cases of serious problems for people who survived Covid that might last for years or their entire life. So you compare an outright guess based on your "educated" opinion. Remind me again what education you use as a foundation for your evaluation here? Or are you referring to anecdotal evidence through emotion based on the swine flu debacle and not really about how these vaccines actually work? Further disregarding actual documentation of long-term Covid complications that are far more serious than anything even remotely reported about the vaccines. So even if you survive Covid, there's a high risk of complications. That needs to be evaluated against any wild guesswork about speculative five-year consequences of an mRNA vaccine that no one who worked on the swine flu vaccine says is even remotely possible because of the basic differences in how these vaccines work.

A) Trust in my body to do what it has always done by responding appropriately to new pathogens and trust in the health of others' to do the same — Book273

Do you mean to die if you are unlucky? Or get serious complications?

B) Allow myself to be injected with something new, that has had testing time that numbers in months rather than years, to protect me from another new thing that has been known of for less than two years, which we also know not much about. — Book273

Wait, you say we don't know much about Covid but you dismiss the dangers of it and trusting your own body to respond to it in a predictable way? Compared to vaccines which have been extremely tested due to the importance of finding one and thousands of people have worked on and even more people have gone through human trials for and even more data compiling now that millions have gotten it? You mean to say that your logic is that because there are some unknowns left, you evaluate the risks of something documented to have a high mortality rate and that can create serious illness if survived as being lower risk than the vaccine with less risks documented? Nice logic there. Are you also thinking like that while driving? Only driving off-road because there's risks involved with having oncoming drivers going the opposite direction. Maybe you will hit them! You cannot use the roads they are unsafe, look at the statistics of deaths in traffic! Let's go off-road into uncharted territory so to avoid all other cars. Oh no, didn't see that hole in the gound

I go with option A. The second just seems too risky. The speeches attached to the vaccine are very snakeoil salesmanish. — Book273

I thought you were educated? Where do you get the education to spot snake-oil salesmen's speeches?
All I see is someone speculating and having emotional opinions based on fear. I see very little signs of any education... at all. And your risk assessment is extremely flawed and not very rooted in the research surrounding the virus. You have higher risks from Covid than any vaccine, but you flip it and think Covid is less dangerous. Maybe go to India and ask the burning bodies what they think about the dangers of the vaccine.

I have done the research — Book273

Oh, for fuck sake.

You are espousing the position that I should take the vaccine, or hide away, for the health of the species. I say that I should not take the vaccine, nor hide away, for exactly the same reason; the health of the species. — Book273

You have no idea what you are talking about. You have concluded that people should just interact with each other normally, not isolate and battle anything, not vaccinate at all because that will lead us to better health.

What are you smoking? The mortality rate is high and the only reason we do not see this in practice is that we've introduced restrictions and regulations in society to block extreme spread. With the Delta variant getting stronger at 70% higher infectious risk, it's even worse to break restrictions.

What fucking education are you referring to? Cherry-picking points that only prove your point?
You make conclusions about how people should act based on the fact there are still some questions left unanswered about the virus. That's NOT a foundation for any conclusions that we should just open up and not give a damn about restricting the spread.

Seriously, you

I have listened to the experts explain the value and then go back and change what they said as new information arose — Book273

This is the scientific process. You know, to examine, conclude, examine again, modify, adapt. The scientific process is about chopping away at something until the truth becomes more clear. This is why we have words like hypothesis and scientific theory (not to be confused with common tongue "theory"). Experts talk about their recent findings, media are uneducated and blow things up with click bait headlines. But if you know what the scientific process is about, you would understand WHY they change the conclusions they make, especially as everyone races against time to figure the virus out.

If you don't even understand how science works, how can anyone take your "education" seriously? This is getting seriously stupid.

I see the data, not what I want to see, but what is there. — Book273

No, you clearly don't. You don't have the knowledge of statistical analysis, you don't have an understanding of the scientific process and you don't understand how to evaluate risks. You don't see data, you have an opinion and you pick data to support that first.

But nothing of this has anything to do with the immoral act of endangering other people by disregarding the vaccine and disregarding restrictions. You are just trying to justify for yourself why you don't want the vaccine or need to follow restrictions, but even you admit to not knowing all the consequences of Covid in an unchecked outbreak.

So if you go out, unvaccinated, unknowing if you are a carrier, right into a public space in close proximity with other people and infect someone who later dies... you are guilty of manslaughter. Why wouldn't you? You disregard all health recommendations, all recommendations from actual educated experts and you disregard the potential hazard risk of infecting other people, even though there's tons of info supporting the dangers and how it spreads. By disregarding all of this and put other people at risk of getting infected, you actively cause someone else to die.

Even if there were more unknowns about the virus and even lesser mortality rate, it's still immoral to break what has become socially accepted norms of living in order to prevent damage and death onto others.

It's like the most basic example of ethics you can come across and you fail any sort of rational reasoning behind your stance. No one cares if you infect yourself through being careless, no one cares about idiots causing themselves harm, it's not about that. It's about them causing others harm. You cannot justify your own behavior in the light of risking other people. You either follow the same restrictions and regulations as everyone else or you are an immoral agent that should be judged accordingly. You can refuse the vaccine, but that requires you to follow the restrictions when vaccinated people can go out in public normally. If you don't get the vaccine, you have no right to the same level of freedom, because you are still a risk when you don't have the vaccine. It's just basic fucking logic here that you try to justify with extremely poor philosophy and rational reasoning. Why are you even on this forum if this simple logic goes over your head.

Or that, knowing how mammoth a global vaccine rollout is, that changing course at this stage would be impractical when the current course appears to be working okay? — Kenosha Kid

But this is not true. The Astra Zenica vaccine had extremely minor risks of blood clots and it was pulled instantly in most nations in order to evaluate further if it's safe or not.

What I see is that people don't know how to interpret statistics correctly. Most people fail at math, but statistics is not only math, it's logic and also requires situational data and a lot of further parameters for a correct interpretation.

The problem is media and social media. While normal media simplify complex data down to click-bait headlines, social media runs these headlines and people become afraid. This pandemic is the best example of the extreme knowledge polarization between the educated experts, scientists, analysts, and the common people who have no knowledge of how to interpret the data researchers publish and how that misinterpretation or skewed conclusion grows into mass panic. This is why I have little respect for uneducated people's "opinions", because if I had a cent for every bias, fallacy, and inability to fact check correctly when people pose their "opinions" I would be a billionaire today.

The vaccine manufacturers and reviewers of those vaccines take extreme care towards making vaccines safe. There's no interest in releasing unsafe vaccines. Even if you cynically think that they only think of revenue and public reputation, those are the first things to go if they released something unsafe. It's in literally no one's interest to release a faulty vaccine and in everyone's interest to carefully review how things go.

And then there's the talk about side effects. All substances you take have side effects, food, fluids, medication whatever. The main question is the severeness of the side effects and the risk of them. If you take a medication that has a 1 in a million chance of a serious side effect, that's a pretty safe medication compared to what you probably get out of it, i.e treatment. Vaccines have side effects, Astra Zenica's had serious ones, but by April 7, 20 million doses had been administrated and 19 had fatal blood clots. Compare that to the burning piles of bodies in India due to the failure in containing the pandemic. And Astra Zenica's vaccine was even pulled, only to be used in age groups that had no side effects at all. While other vaccines showed little to no such side effects.

People just don't understand basic statistical awareness and this fuels the fear that fuels the anti-vaccer bullshit. I would guarantee that the majority of things that people consume during one day consist of substances that have even greater damaging effects on their health and lifespan, but no one care to think about that because people are just uneducated and form opinions out of that lack of knowledge.

It's like the whole meme and old gag of getting people riled up and afraid of Dihydrogen monoxide.



As an example of its use

In April 2013, as part of an April Fool's Day prank, two radio personalities at Gator Country 101.9, a station in Lee County, Florida, told listeners that dihydrogen monoxide was coming out of their water taps and were suspended for a few days. The prank resulted in several calls by consumers to the local utility company, which sent out a release stating that the water was safe.

I absolutely love the response to this meme and joke. It's one of the best ways to show how easily fooled people are and how severe the consequences are because of people's stupidity and lack of critical thinking. And all anti-vaccers fall under this. It's so fun seeing these people shoot themselves in the foot but also very obvious as to why emotional "opinions" just don't matter in a pandemic.

To justify forcing your beliefs onto others, simply because you are afraid, puts you on par with pretty much every dictator ever. — Book273

Nothing of this is based on beliefs. It's like if you are in a position where you don't know if the pain in your back is serious or just some aching muscles. And instead of asking the experts in the field of medicine to reach a consensus about what it might be, in order to really know if it's cancer or something, you turn to a community of online self-proclaimed experts who are fundamentally uneducated, who are unable to reason past their biases, who analyze statistics and data without having any kind of education on how to properly do so and then trust their words completely.

It's the anti-vaccers who force beliefs onto others because they are afraid. It's like literally what they do. Because they don't go by the broad consensus in science on a topic, they cherry-pick their sources to support their fear-based arguments. It's actually pretty ironic that by pointing out that we should support our stance surrounding the pandemic and vaccines, on the science behind it, the proper analysis of the statistical risks and respecting other people's lives by following precautions that block yourself from accidentally spreading the virus to people who can literally die if you are not careful, it's instead me that gets criticized for forcing a belief out of fear. I'm actually laughing out loud at this because I cannot even comprehend the lack of logic that this kind of counterargument has.

I hold the stance that we need to listen to the consensus of science and we need to get past human error, biases, and fear to judge the course of action in order to fight this pandemic. There's nothing in this that even remotely follows the idea that I'm forcing my "belief" of fear onto others. How is this remotely true? Where's your support that positions your point of view as rational reasoning and not fear-based in comparison? Give me a fucking break.

"I will do this, and don't worry, you will thank me later" Said the church as they took people's children, burned down places of worship, and set about destroying "the heathen", "to save them from ignorance." — Book273

Care to explain what this has to do with any of this? What sources do you go by to form your stance about not taking the vaccine? Or should we just "thank you later"?

I assume you justify rape as saying that those who refuse to engage in consensual sex are against the continuation of humanity and are therefore guilty of complicit genocide, therefore, for the security of procreation, must be made to procreate regardless of their opinion on the matter? — Book273

This is a textbook example of what is called an appeal to extremes fallacy. You would fail basic philosophy with this kind of reasoning.
And to try and answer this because I'm not sure which quote you are referring to as I believe you just emotionally react and didn't read everything I've written in here:

Opinions don't matter if the following practice means an increased danger to other people. The question posed in this thread is about the vaccine. Anti-vaccers have "opinions" on why not to take the vaccine. And I've never said they can't have opinions.

What I've been saying is that if someone, an anti-vaccer probably, has the "opinion" that the vaccine is dangerous and refuses to take it, that is absolutely in his or her right. However, the vaccine is there to help fight the pandemic, it's there so that risks of infecting others through socializing and taking part in other social situations/encounters in society are greatly reduced and the dangerous consequences of the infection are reduced. So if someone refuses the vaccine they need to understand that they cannot be part of the equation of fighting the pandemic. They need to isolate themselves or live far away from dense populations in order for them not to be at risk of spreading the virus. This is just basic logic. If you choose selfishly, you have to be by yourself if the crisis is affecting an entire population.

If someone refuses the vaccine, and turns out to be the source in a super spreading event, and as a consequence people infected by that person ends up seriously ill with many of them dying. That person has effectively and willingly refused a way to prevent such a thing. If a person refuses the vaccine and then ignores restrictions and precautions, they are absolutely doing an immoral act. The logical causation from the active decision of refusing the vaccine to taking part in a risky act of socializing during a pandemic is unquestionably immoral. Any objection to this logic needs to be supported by something other than anti-vaccer's appeal to emotion and fear. Because there's no statistical support or data that can change the moral nature of such an act. Period.

And that pretty much captures your stance. Also nothing to do with ethics. Bravo. — Book273

Maybe you should include the entire quote instead of, you know, take things out of context.

This has nothing to do with the logic of how someone breaking restrictions actively becomes a danger towards others. — Christoffer

This was a response to a point that the restrictions and vaccines come at a cost. What those costs specifically are, wasn't actually pointed out, just that "people have opinions". And even if it's true that costs need to be balanced between each other, the argument was made as to for some reason position the risks of vaccine as high, which there is no broad data for whatsoever. The risks of the vaccine are extremely lower than the risks of the virus. And the deadly risks of an unchecked full-blown pandemic are extremely higher than the risks of restrictions. That's not to say that there are health risks involved with isolation and consequences of restrictions, but in comparison with an unchecked pandemic, it becomes clear what risk aversion is the best course of action and best for as many as possible.

But as I pointed out, if you include the context of what I wrote from which you quoted me, I pointed out that the cost comparison of restrictions and vaccines have nothing to do with the moral evaluation of someone who refuses vaccine and then still socializes and in turn becomes at risk of spreading the virus. It's not immoral to refuse the vaccine, it's not immoral to socialize past restrictions if vaccinated, but to refuse a vaccine and then socialize is definitely immoral as you cannot guarantee the safety of the people you meet. If you refuse the vaccine, break restrictions, socialize with others or go into public spaces and infect others that later die because of your act, that is, without a question, an immoral act.

I won't take the vaccine but I would have no problem with colchicine if needed. — Book273

Why would colchicine be safer than the vaccine? There's not enough data to conclude that it helps. What's your logic behind this?

And maybe explain how you morally handle and justify your refusal of the vaccine. I'd like to hear what your plans are going forward. You will refuse the vaccine and... then what? Are you gonna break the restrictions? Are you gonna go out in public? Socialize with people who are unknowing about your refusal?

Because if you only think that you will protect yourself and refuse any chance of blocking yourself from spreading the virus, you are effectively helping to spread the virus if you get infected and do so. How is that not immoral? How can you justify such an act against other people who don't know if you are infected? Please educate others on your ethical stance in this, because the way you write you just sound like you care for yourself and not others, and that's not really what ethics is about now... is it?

No, it isn't. Is there no such thing as common sense and using one's own judgement in your world view? — Tzeentch

Common sense without rational thought is irrelevant and does not function well with reality. It's also the common thing people fall back on if they lack the capacity to actually do the work of rational reasoning, which is... well, the foundation of philosophy. So I don't care much for opinions from people who just say their opinions without any care for being rational or logical. It's just noise.

You are ignoring the fact that science has been wrong numerous times during this pandemic. Remember how Covid-19 was initially ranked among diseases like Ebola, something which was in hindsight clearly wrong? — Tzeentch

Science is not "wrong", anyone who says this does not understand the scientific process. It's about chopping away little at a time to reach as close to the truth as possible. The reason people think science has gotten things "wrong" is because we've never had this level of media coverage of every slight discovery or hypothesis by scientists. Every discovery has been translated by stupid journalists who simplify something down to barebone clickbait headlines and then people get confused when things turn around. It's the same thing every time when people don't understand science or the scientific process. Time and data is the most important thing when researching. Back when this whole thing started there was very little data and very little spent time on analyzing that data. At the moment, both data and time are much better and more accurate than before. But the conclusion that has survived is still that this is a dangerous virus that has a higher mortality rate than other more common corona-type viruses.

The dangers have never been in question, we're more accurate now than ever about Covid-19. Your way of speaking about the process of research on this virus just shows how little you actually know about how science and the scientific process works. So you just say "oh, it's been chaos and no one knows really anything". This is simply not true and it's an extremely low-quality premise in philosophy to point out.

That is fine. That is how science works — Tzeentch

You don't know how it works, clearly.

Science also tells us the restrictions and vaccinations come at a cost, and opinions on whether the costs weigh against the benefits of (some of) the restrictions vary. But you seem to have a low tolerance of opinions other than your own. — Tzeentch

This has nothing to do with the logic of how someone breaking restrictions actively becomes a danger towards others. People's opinions are irrelevant if we have a virus that kills and someone just doesn't give a fuck about it. That person is hurting and killing others through reckless behavior. That we have a cost to restrictions has absolutely nothing to do with the logic of that. So once again, you show a failure to understand what this is all about.

I do care about facts, but I may weigh those facts differently than you. — Tzeentch

Facts are facts. The fact is that we have a virus with a high mortality rate. The fact is that restrictions and vaccines are tools and weapons to fight the pandemic. The fact is that the risks of vaccines have extremely low risks of side effects and even in those cases, those vaccines have been managed to even lessen those side effect risks even further. The fact is that the risks of serious damage and death by the virus are much larger than any risk of serious side effects.
These are facts supported by publications, they are facts of decisions being made, they are facts about statistical risks.

If you are unable to read into these facts and understand what they mean, that does not mean you "weigh those facts differently", it means you are cherry-picking facts or opinions or whatever supports your conclusion. A conclusion that still does not counterargue what I've concluded about the moral choice of someone not getting the vaccine and then ignoring restrictions putting other people in danger. You seem to be unable to understand any logical throughline here.

That's your issue, isn't it? What are you doing on a philosophy forum if you're incapable of accepting that people can look at the same facts as you do and come to different conclusions, let alone have a normal discussion about it. — Tzeentch

Philosophy requires you to create a reasonable and rational argument. If you fail to do that you are not conducting philosophy, you are just venting opinions. That is not philosophy. If you cannot back your conclusions up with anything more than "I have my opinion and I interpret things however I want", then it is I that need to ask the question what you are doing on a philosophy forum? Go to reddit if you need to vent opinions. I ask for rational arguments from you and you provide nothing of the sort.

"There is no subjectivity in my science". — Tzeentch

What do you even mean by this? I can't even begin to try and understand this low-quality bullshit.

Maybe you wouldn't burn yourself out if half your post wasn't angry ranting. — Tzeentch

Maybe you could start acting like you are on a philosophy forum instead of just venting opinions? You're today's poster boy for "low-quality posts" and you get the correct response accordingly.

And similarly, not being vaccinated and breaking regulations is not the same as killing or even infecting someone with covid-19. — Tzeentch

It's the same as driving recklessly, with a blindfold, or intoxicated. How can you not understand this? Or maybe you just don't want to.

"I agree with the rules and therefore everyone that doesn't follow them I label as reckless." Of course, anyone who disagrees on the science or the rules you would probably regard as being wrong, because you think the science is conclusive: it isn't. — Tzeentch

The rules are based on scientific knowledge and facts. To say that the science is inconclusive is not the same as the science saying that there is a pandemic, that the virus kills, hurts or cause serious harm and is deadlier than normal flu viruses. These are scientific facts, and disagreeing with them is disagreeing with reality itself. Just ask any citizen of India what they think of the smell of burning bodies if you don't agree with "the science". The scientific consensus on the deadliness and seriousness of this virus is absolutely conclusive. Just because people think they understand how science works and think they have the academic background to understand publications, doesn't mean that they actually understand them. There's no serious scientist in the world right now saying with any form of verification that this virus is harmless.

To disagree with the scientific consensus surrounding Covid-19 is not rational in any way and is the way of the moronic anti-vaccer movement.

If you are of the idea that this virus is harmless and the scientific community isn't clear on how serious this pandemic is, then you are fucking clueless and there's no point in even trying to make a philosophical argument with someone like you. Because you disagree with fundamental facts and can't even enter the question we are actually discussing.

Anyway, fine. You're putting a lot of faith in whoever made those rules. — Tzeentch

And you are a conspiracy nut if you believe the restrictions are there for any other reason than to stop the spread of the virus.

They may weigh things against each other and have different ideas as to what acceptable risks are. There's a subjectivity to all of this that you are not taking into account, that I am trying to make clear to y — Tzeentch

There's no subjectivity in science. The virus is dangerous, the way it spreads is proven and the vaccine is one more tool and weapon to battle this pandemic. People who disagree with this have a hell of a challenge to prove otherwise and so far they've only proven themselves to be morons. And an infected moron who runs around in a crowd of people thinking his covid-19 infection won't hurt or kill the people around him, should be treated the same as anyone driving around recklessly, intoxicated or with a blindfold. If they also make a lot of people sick, some of them dying, that person is guilty of manslaughter. There's no mystery here, it's crystal clear.

That you subjectively think otherwise is irrelevant. You don't give a shit about facts, you don't understand the science, you don't understand statistical analysis of different risk levels. I'm glad that we have serious restrictions so that people who are morons don't have the freedom to risk other people's lives with their stupidity. I'm fed up with the morons of this world thinking their idiotic ideas are a foundation everyone else should live by.

I don't care for anyone's opinion if that opinion has nothing to do with rationality, logic, facts and reason. It's just noise and bullshit. I'm glad society listens to the experts of their field. I'm glad the conspiracy nuts aren't the ones deciding the rules.

Different? Yes. Fundamentally different? Up for debate. Where I live it certainly is not fundamentally different from a heavy flu. — Tzeentch

It's not up for debate. Learn statistical analysis and understand that your single location is irrelevant as a statistical data point. You really show off your inability to understand basic science and the data we have about the pandemic.

No, that's your logic. Don't put words in my mouth. — Tzeentch

No, it's your logic. It's literally the same kind of logic. You compare the flu with Covid-19, it's like comparing a slap and a sledgehammer. You are just uneducated about this virus, simple as that.

I don't think we're at a standstill. You are, however, conducting yourself like a child. — Tzeentch

No, I'm desperately trying to explain simple fucking logic to a moron, that's what's going on. Someone who uses the current surrounding of his living location as proof of how Covid-19 isn't very different from normal flu. Someone who seemingly interprets the current scientific research of the virus in his own way, concluding the level of conclusiveness the research is at. Who disregard the actual facts we already know, who fail to understand statistical comparisons between vaccine risks and risks of the virus. Who doesn't think that someone who don't give a fuck about restrictions and getting the vaccine is in his right to break against everything and go around coughing on people because it's "up to them if they should fear it or not".

It's just stupid. With your level of logic and relation to facts and science, you fit right in with the other intellectual lowlives on Reddit who think they are educated experts while they spread anti-vaccer bullshit.

I'm done. I'm tired of this forum and how my will to discuss philosophy always gets hijacked by people like you.

When you step into a car, you may crash into someone. How is that not direct and serious, and not just as much of a reckless action as interacting with people without being vaccinated? — Tzeentch

The choice to "drive a car" is not the same as crashing into someone. Driving a car means you know the risks and follow the rules. To refuse a vaccine and then choose to break restrictions, you choose to not follow the rules and instead choose to "drive recklessly". If you choose to drive intoxicated, or with a blindfold, you choose in the same way to drive recklessly.

The choice "to drive" is the same as choosing to follow restrictions, vaccinate yourself and follow the rules of the pandemic.

This is the social code of a pandemic. The same as a driving license and the rules of the road is the social code of driving.

If you break those, you are reckless. You can choose to drive recklessly or you can choose to drive normally. You can choose to live in the pandemic according to the rules set to prevent spread, or you can choose to break it and be reckless.

It's crystal clear.

Because both cause many deaths, yet the flu is accepted as normal, yet in the case of covid-19 people start questioning fundamental human rights like bodily autonomy. — Tzeentch

They are fundamentally different in mortality rate, so that's why we have these restrictions and vaccines. You fail to understand the science behind it, but you can't argue against it, or you will argue against the science itself. They are not the same.

If I slap you with my hand and then slam you with a sledgehammer, that's two different types of hitting you, but the consequences are fundamentally different. If you only have the choice to use gear in order to prevent damage to yourself, you would probably choose to have body armor when I hit you with the sledgehammer. You argue that both hits are the same, so why would you need body armor if a slap and a sledgehammer are fundamentally just me hitting you? That's your logic right there, examine it.

There's a reason I didn't respond to the rest of your post — Tzeentch

The reason being you don't have an argument and haven't counterargued the logic yet. You tiptoe around it with zero philosophical insight or apparent knowledge about the subject at hand. So we're at a standstill until you can grasp the basics of this.

Quite. I wonder where the philosophers congregate? — Punshhh

Probably places like here and the halls of universities. But that doesn't help if there are thousands of people that just want to say their opinions and think that's philosophy. I guarantee that there's a majority here of people who don't know anything about philosophy, a minority of people who autodidact philosophy, and a fraction that are actually philosophy scholars.

But philosophical scrutiny should be applied to all. Regardless of the level of knowledge.

Explain the difference, then. — Tzeentch

I just did, in that very text.

Choosing to drive is not a reckless act, but choosing to refuse a vaccine and then socialize normally during a pandemic is a reckless act. One is an act that can have risks, one is a reckless act that can have direct serious risks.

It doesn't get any clearer than that. And ignoring the difference between an act and a reckless act is the problem. We make actions all the time that can risk someone else, but we know the risks of those actions and take precautions to not end up with those risks. Doing a reckless action that can risk someone else but we know of those risks and do it anyway, is immoral.

It's crystal clear.

Of course. I did not state it was the flu, however. — Tzeentch

So you just... compared the two... because of reasons... seriously, this is just ridicoulus.

And you, of course, a self-styled expert in all matters concering facts. — Tzeentch

The facts of the pandemic are out there in publications. And there are a lot of publications about diseases and vaccines, statistics, biases, and fallacies in general. Facts matter and statistical facts about the vaccine risks matter. Failure to use those logically when arguing about the Covid-19 vaccines is a failure in logic. If you want to ignore this, go to some reddit forum, I don't have time for sloppy wannabes of philosophy. You either use logic, facts, and reason or you are just puking out irrelevant opinions and there's enough of that going around.

I've actually asked you some pretty straightforward questions which you've been avoiding.

On a philosophy forum few people will be impressed by these sorts of proclamations of victory. — Tzeentch

I've been pretty clear, but you ignore simple logic because of the fallacies and biases you seem to have. I haven't avoided questions, I've pointed out the fallacies in your reasoning and you ignore those and you actively avoid trying to accept simple logic because it doesn't fit your narrative. It's crystal clear what you're doing in the way you are presenting your arguments. Just as an example, your comparison with the flu that you then point out that you didn't state that Covid was the same as the flu, but still use as a comparison to make... what point exactly? Why make the comparison to the flu? For what reason? You are the one who isn't straightforward.

You just try to prove your opinion, without regard for addressing to the science of the pandemic, to the logic of my conclusion, and when challenged you just go all over the place trying to find a way to question that logic.

The logic is pretty straightforward: Making a choice of ignoring the science of the pandemic and vaccines in order to refuse to get a vaccine but still choose to socialize without regard for restrictions and regulations that exist to stop the spread, you are then actively making a reckless action that can hurt or kill other people.

That is a logical statement and there's no getting around that. You need to disprove the logic behind it and there's nothing about driving cars or having children that disprove that logic. You make vague comparisons that really don't change the logic of that statement.

On a philosophy forum, few people will be impressed by your sloppy philosophical scrutiny. I'm asking for better philosophical debate around the subject, but you discuss this with the same level of logic and knowledge as any other anti-vaccer out there. That makes it impossible for you to reach the philosophical scrutiny needed for the discussion to be a philosophical one.

Whenever you step behind the wheel, you are actively accepting the risk of killing someone. The risk is small, sure, but your label of 'reckless' or 'not reckless' is obviously subjective. — Tzeentch

No, you don't take reckless action. All actions in the world have risks, but taking an active reckless action is not the same as taking an action that has potential risks. Ignoring the pandemic, ignoring the vaccine is actively a direct reckless choice.

I did not claim otherwise. — Tzeentch

You directly compared it to the flu.

Except that not throwing rocks does not incur any risks for the thrower. So it is not the same. — Tzeentch

What risks? Are you talking about the stupid anti-vaccer propaganda and people being illiterate on reading statistics about vaccine risks? But it still doesn't change my conclusion. Just because you are afraid of the vaccine and don't get it doesn't mean you can also enjoy social life like other people who got it. Your choice is either to get it and be able to socialize or you don't get it and isolate yourself. Any other choice of socializing after actively refusing the vaccine is a reckless act against other people, period. You haven't logically addressed this point at all.

As I said, I have no interest in debating with the uneducated. If this is gonna be about philosophy, facts matter. And you can get hit by your own rocks, there's always a risk, you say so yourself with the examples about driving and having children. This is why you are all over the place, you don't have a consistent counterargument to my conclusion, it's grasping at straws. Getting struck by your own rocks is close to the same probability of getting complications from the vaccines. Learn statistics.

I am taking the ideas you are proposing and taking them to their logical conclusions.

You seem to believe sometimes it is fine for people to suffer as a result of one's desires and sometimes it is not.

So far you have been unable to explain what the determining factor is. — Tzeentch

No, you are not taking them to a logical conclusion. Not getting the vaccine and risking other people is an active choice against the scientific logic and knowledge of the pandemic. By driving a car normally you do not actively do something reckless. Stop pretending there's a logical connection between the two.

And the body of one's unborn child, of course. — Tzeentch

So you're gonna do an argument to the extreme again. Stop trying to bait things, this has nothing to do with the conclusion I've done about the vaccine. Want to have a philosophical debate about abortions start another thread.

Of course it isn't. The flu kills hundreds of thousands every year but we don't infringe upon people's rights to bodily autonomy because they may carry the flu. — Tzeentch

Covid-19 isn't the flu. If you don't have knowledge about the disease this pandemic is about, then how can you make logical arguments about it? Covid-19 has a higher mortality rate, the only reason we haven't seen higher numbers is because of how the world has been fighting the pandemic. If we had been going about our days normally we would have an extreme situation. Just look at the surge in India where they literally burned bodies in the street.

I have no interest in arguing with uneducated people. There's no point.

But even so, if we view vaccines generally. The conclusion I've made is the same. You say:

I'll propose something radical: if one is afraid that being sneezed on will kill them, they're the one who should be isolating themselves. — Tzeentch

That is the same as saying that if I decide to go out and throw sharp rocks at other people, it's not my responsibility or moral issue because if people are afraid of being hit by rocks they should just stay home and not go out when I'm out. Their fear is not my fear, so I don't care.

It's fundamentally stupid logic.

Societies have functioned without cars for millenia. They are not necessary at all. — Tzeentch

Yes, everything is solved by going back to the stone age. Include removing horses and all forms of transportation. This kind of argument in relation to vaccinations is a fallacy of the extreme. It has no relevance.

Yes, and?

People don't have children in some sort of sacrifice to the human endeavor. They have children because they desire to have them. — Tzeentch

So it's just ok to do fallacy to the extreme when you do it, but if I point out the same kind of extreme there are all of a sudden nuances? Ok...

All these things can be said for driving and having children. You're simply labeling one as reckless and the other as somehow acceptable because of a form of cosmic necessity, which I will argue is nothing other than a guise for desire; not much different from a desire not to be vaccinated. — Tzeentch

You are all over the place now. No you can't say that this is the same. Not taking the vaccine and going out in public is reckless. Driving normally is not, having children is not. Your argument is built upon making those things extreme. Not getting a vaccine and going out in public is already the extreme. The only way to make your examples extreme would be driving under the influence, driving with a blindfold, giving a child a loaded gun. They won't end up hurting or killing anyone 100% of the time, but the risk is reckless and dangerous. Driving normally and having children is nowhere close to actively dismiss the vaccine and then live socially as normal. It's only rational for those who don't understand how the spread works.

I'll propose something radical: if one is afraid that being sneezed on will kill them, they're the one who should be isolating themselves. — Tzeentch

How is this in any way rational for anyone other than stupid anti-vaccers? This kind of argument ignores all the science and all the dangers of the pandemic. Seriously.

Seeing one's own fear as a legitimate basis to dictate how others should exercise their right to bodily autonomy; now that is immoral; no less immoral than pressuring a woman into how she should or should not have an abortion.

Your fear is not my fear. — Tzeentch

This is not even remotely close to being a rational argument. Listen carefully to what the conclusion is: Those who actively decide not to get the vaccine and then socialize as normal are a reckless risk against the people they meet.
By ignoring a vaccine and then ignoring restrictions in society during a pandemic, you will risk other people's health. You do it against them. Abortion is about your own body, anything that is about your own body is not the same as risking other people. Bodily autonomy is irrelevant if you risk hurting or killing other people.

How in any rational form can you compare something like hurting yourself only with the risk of hurting others through reckless behavior?

I urge you to understand this difference before just throwing out examples like that.

Harsh words regarding the membership of a philosophy forum there. Surely there are plenty of amateur philosophers here. — Punshhh

It's an open forum where everyone can join. There are far more posts made by people who don't know how to form arguments by philosophical standards. The whole point of a philosophy forum is to have a higher quality discussion that doesn't end up being "just another reddit thread". I would still say that amateur philosophers should at least know the basics of philosophical dialectics, it should be the minimum requirement in my book.

To be clear, there is no necessity for driving a car or having children; those are merely products of our desires. — Tzeentch

For the survival of humanity and for people to be able to expand and move around, they are a necessity. If people stopped driving we would have a hard time functioning as a society and if people stopped having children humanity would die out. Just because something isn't necessary when society is oversaturated does not equal an absolute unnecessary status of these things. It's a fallacy of the extreme.

Mitigating the risks does not change that. — Tzeentch

Getting the vaccine and following restrictions are the same as mitigating risks with the other examples.

Those behaviors affect other people, with a risk of hurting or even killing them. — Tzeentch

Not in the same manner as denying a vaccine and recklessly expose themselves to other people. It's the same as someone deciding to put on a blindfold and driving on a sidewalk that was assumed to be free of people. It's knowing about the risks of hurting others and still doing it. Driving normally and having children is not even in the same ballpark in terms of causality.

One could also claim to have attempted to mitigate the risks of them not being vaccinated. — Tzeentch

What do you mean by this? I have clearly stated that denying the vaccine but still going out into the public and taking part in society is an active choice of ignoring the dangers of hurting or killing others. There's no rational argument to be made that someone who doesn't take the vaccine then tries to mitigate the following dangers as existing unvaccinated in public is a risk. That would mean locking themselves in their apartment and never seeing anyone. They are a risk if they live in a place where interactions are unavoidable. And I also said that it's fine if people who won't get the vaccine live by themselves far away from other people as the risk of hurting or killing others is so low that it ends up being in the same statistical number as the ones who the vaccine doesn't have an effect on. As long as the people who don't take the vaccine don't use hazard suits while they are out they aren't mitigating anything.

Like driving a car? What about having children? — Tzeentch

How does that relate to this? You drive a car as a form of transportation, you have children for the continuation of our species. None of these are the same as denying vaccines but still benefitting from society. You do not drive around ignoring the dangers, we even have licenses that prevent people from driving without knowledge, and people who ignore this are committing a crime. And having children, how is that hurting others in the same fashion as these issues about people ignoring vaccines?

Analogies need to keep within the same kind of actions, not stretch things into a fallacy. Denying to take a vaccine is to ignore the dangers towards others if you exist in close proximity to them. It would be like driving with a blindfold, which is a crime. Driving with a license, following the traffic rules, having a child and caring for it to the best of your ability and raising that child to be a morally balanced person is in this case considered the same as following the restrictions and getting a vaccine.

You won’t find any Brexit supporters on a philosophy forum. — Punshhh

Haven't we seen them passionately debate that side in this very thread when things were still moving? Just noticing that there are very few of them left now that everything is done.

There are also very few philosophers on this philosophy forum. The quality of logic is rare.

So what do pro-brexiters think about the current situation? Happy? Sad? Biased?

is Stoicism a better guide to living than Christianity and should it replace the latter as a set of values to live by? — Ross Campbell

A better question would be: Do we need faith, gospels, fantasy, belief in God/Gods, prayers, rituals etc. in order to have guidelines to live by? Why is there a need for something that doesn't really relate to guidelines of living?

Yes. But to what extent are the employees culpable for the immoral actions the company demands them to perform? — MPhil

If they don't question the authority of the company when asked to do something immoral, they become part of the entity that makes the immoral act.

If they question authority but exist in a chain of command that can punish them by refusing or questioning, i.e military etc. and it's an act performed according to the orders they're given, they are not responsible because they are forced to by threat of violence if they don't.

If the company demands of their employees to do actions that are considered immoral by society, the company is probably breaking laws of that nation since the accepted morality of a nation usually informs the laws of that nation.