I'm not at all clear what you are saying. — unenlightened

Seems contagious.

I am saying that we are inescapably social and interdependent - we have to trust or die alone. Therefore we have to have a moral commitment to the truth, or die alone. I am saying that if we continue to valorise "rational self-interest" we will all die alone. — unenlightened

Yeah, but we also want to be able to not trust, no? We don't want to have to just swallow whatever we're told, charitable to the very end, we need to be able to distrust those deserving of such distrust.

On the other side of the coin, we don't want to measure every idea only by it's utility to our 'passionate pursuit of the truth'. That becomes pointless because of underdetermination, we virtually never have the data we need to measure everything that way and other heuristics have to come into play.

The stats just shows why.

As ever...

we have to have a moral commitment to the truth, — unenlightened

...just becomes nothing more than a stick to beat one's enemies with - "see, it's they who are not committed to the truth,
not like us, who care for nothing more..."

starting out with or campaigning distrust and Us-versus-Them narratives can be degenerative. — jorndoe

That's hilarious. Do you have anything for an encore?

Opinion piece from The Miami Herald:

Goodbye, and good riddance (Leonard Pitts Jr; Sep 26, 2021)

Perfect!

A few more of those and you'll soon have that pesky Us-versus-Them narrative firmly put to bed. Keep up the good fight.

I've come across a couple or so apparent outlier reports. Here's one:

Covid-19 in Wales: A third of positive cases are unvaccinated (Sep 24, 2021)

Worth quoting:

We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “There’s no freedom no more,” whined one man in video that recently aired on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” The clip was from the 1980s, and the guy had just gotten a ticket for not wearing his seat belt.

It’s an unfortunately common refrain. Can’t smoke in a movie theater? Can’t crank your music to headache decibels at two in the morning? Can’t post the Ten Commandments in a courtroom? “There’s no freedom no more.” Some of you seem to think freedom means no one can be compelled to do, or refrain from doing, anything. But that’s not freedom, it’s anarchy.

Usually, the rest of us don’t agonize over your intransigence. Often it has no direct impact on us. The guy in “The Daily Show” clip was only demanding the right to skid across a highway on his face, after all. But now you claim the right to risk the health care system and our personal lives.

So if you’re angry, guess what? You’re not the only ones.

The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do. Like that’s new. Like you’re not already required to get vaccinated to start school or travel to other countries. For that matter, you’re also required to mow your lawn, cover your hindparts and, yes, wear a seat belt. So you’re mad at government and your job for doing what they’ve always done.

But the rest of us, we’re mad at you. Because this thing could have been over by now, and you’re the reason it isn’t.

I cringed when I read that. “The government has always taken your freedom so you should not be angry when it takes more”. You cannot smoke in theatres or drive without a seatbelt, therefor you should let the government mandate your medical decisions, is not the first but one of the more ridiculous appeals to tradition I’ve ever seen. I wish I could scrub it from my memory, but then again this type of reasoning is the norm.

You know, if you need more freedom, you could just move a few hundred miles north. No one would bother you.

I’m moving 600 miles north next spring. No matter: I suspect you’ll defend the paternalism long beyond then. Perhaps forever?

m moving 600 miles north next spring. No matter: I suspect you’ll defend the paternalism long beyond then. Perhaps forever? — NOS4A2

I'm not defending anything. Just advising that you need to move to the frontier to gain more freedom. Sounds like you'll be doing that?

In that respect I consider mandatory vaccinations for specific services/industries a curious hill to want to die on. — Benkei

But the covid vaccines are not actually being made mandatory, in the actual legal sense of the word.

On principle, a medication that legally has the status of merely an experimental medication cannot be made mandatory. A medication has to pass a long vetting process before it can move up from being merely an experimental medication, and again there is a vetting process before it can be made mandatory by law.

Do you know, for a fact, what the legal status of the covid vaccinations is in countries that are reported to have made it mandatory for some professions?

Do you know, for a fact, that the US, France, Greece, and some others have actually passed a law according to which covid vaccinations are mandatory (for some professions)?

Or is it the case that in those countries, covid vaccinations are demanded by government decree (which is less than a law), or they found a roundabout way to enforce covid vaccinations?

To the best of my knowledge, people who were fired or suspended for not getting a covid vaccination were fired or suspended _not_ on account of violating a health law, but on account of a much more general principle (failure to comply with the demands of the employer).


The problem is that we are not living under the rule of law, but under the rule of quasi-legal misnomers and legal loopholes.

The governments are actually encouraging us to be ignorant of the law, and it is to our harm.

We’ve been down this road before. Whenever faced with some mandate imposed in the interest of the common good, some of us act like they just woke up on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. “
/.../
The difference is, your anger is dumb, and ours is not. Yours is about being coerced to do something you don’t want to do.

But we are not actually being legally coerced into anything.

The pressure to get vaccinated against covid is informal; there is no legal foundation for it, or it's questionable. The governments have let the pressure trickle down into interpersonal relationships and into the relationship between employer and employee.

Legally, we are merely recommended to get vaccinated. Nothing more. The state is protecting itself and pharmaceutical companies from liability issues.


If the covid crisis really is as bad as the government etc. are wanting us to believe that it is, then why aren't they passing laws commensurate to it?

Life is what you make of it, so make it a good one.
— paraphrasing the good Doc Emmett Brown

If anything in particular, the "purpose of life" is living (it). Enjoy. :up:

"Back to the regularly scheduled program." ? — jorndoe

Yesterday in Slovenia, a 20-year old woman died after complications from getting vaccinated with the Janssen vaccine. The government temporarily stopped offering this vaccine.
And now some very ugly things are coming to the fore:

Since vaccination is merely recommended, not mandatory, the government is not liable and cannot and will not pay any restitution to those damaged by the vaccine. People damaged by the vaccine have no grounds for a lawsuit. It's still not clear whether insurance covers the costs of the medical treatment for the side effects of the vaccine or not.

"Vaccination is recommended but not mandatory" is the line that a member of the government's covid task force used when commenting on the case of the dead young woman.


One would think that if the vaccines are so safe and effective as the government loves to say that they are that the government would put their money where their mouth is and boldly declare to pay restitution for anyone damaged by the vaccine (resting safely in the assumption that it will never actually come to that, given that the vaccines are so safe and effective). But no. When push comes to shove, like when people get permanent health damage from the vaccine or even die from it, the government calls on the "Vaccination is recommended but not mandatory" line.

This is what is so disgustingly subversive and underhanded in the whole matter.

What's an argument that doesn't need to be understood rationally? How's that still an argument? — Benkei

For example, those that are based on appeal to conscience or common decency.

...just becomes nothing more than a stick to beat one's enemies with - "see, it's they who are not committed to the truth,
not like us, who care for nothing more..." — Isaac

There is a striking similarity between zealous religious preachers and the vocal pro-vaccers.

While discussing SARS-CoV-2/pandemic, ...

people first need to be in the clear about "the big existential issues" and have a definitive answer to the meaning of life question.
— baker

... kind of reminded me of ...

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
— Sagan — jorndoe

People are getting strokes from the covid vaccines, they are dying from the covid vaccines.

What do you have to offer to the survivors and their close ones?

There is a striking similarity between zealous religious preachers and the vocal pro-vaccers. — baker

Yes, it's driven by the polemicism of social media I think. People didn't use to be able to identify an enemy quite so clearly and find such unbridled support so easily. It drives people to extremes because the badges for these groups are so singular and clear that people have the confidence to push further.

It's like every group is as simple as stamp collectors. It's easy to know what to do to get rewarded in such a group - get more stamps. There's no complexity so people just push for more and more stamps confident that at no time will any of their peers turn round and say "that's way too many stamps, what are you doing!".

Yes, it's driven by the polemicism of social media I think. — Isaac

What makes it worse is that most of the interaction takes place in a text medium, black on white, so there is no danger of mishearing or misremembering something.

The text is there for one to carefully read it and reference it.

we have to have a moral commitment to the truth,
— unenlightened

...just becomes nothing more than a stick to beat one's enemies with - "see, it's they who are not committed to the truth, not like us, who care for nothing more..." — Isaac

Like they did to cover up 9/11 and to make us believe in their holocaust, right?

One case presented out of 5 billion doses is a freak case, yes. 5,000 cases would be freak cases, in that sense. — Xtrix

They are not simply rare freak cases. There are many more of them. It's that once a negative side effect of a vaccine is officially added to the list of the vaccine's negative side effects, they stop counting individual instances of it.

Why do you think they make a point of publishing on the news that such and such has been added to the official list of the vaccine's negative side effects?!

we have to have a moral commitment to the truth,
— unenlightened

...just becomes nothing more than a stick to beat one's enemies with - "see, it's they who are not committed to the truth, — Isaac

That's not true, (he says getting out his big stick and beating Issac mercilessly.) Rather, I have no stick, and the truth is not a sword either. I am committed to truth, and communication. If no one else is, I'm fucked anyway, but that is the only thing that I can make sense of. Someone who does not have that commitment becomes part of the uncommunicative world, not an enemy - like a lion, maybe, or a virus or an advert.

I might be lying about this of course, because people do, and I really mean that; you might need to keep that possibility in mind.

Give me an actual argument where you appeal to common decency without it being a rational argument.

My imagination must be failing me because this seems obvious to you but I cannot think of something still being an argument without it also following either a deductive or inductive structure. If that's absent I think you have a command or a statement but not an argument.

But the covid vaccines are not actually being made mandatory, in the actual legal sense of the word.

On principle, a medication that legally has the status of merely an experimental medication cannot be made mandatory. A medication has to pass a long vetting process before it can move up from being merely an experimental medication, and again there is a vetting process before it can be made mandatory by law. — baker

I'm not sure whether they are experimental. What makes you say that? They passed regular approval processes in the EU as far as I know; at an unprecedented speed sure, but their approval is legally no different than that for other vaccinations. mRNA vaccines are, as I understood from an explanation from doctors in the Netherlands, inherently safer than previous vaccines because the injected substance quickly decomposes in the body.

Or is it the case that in those countries, covid vaccinations are demanded by government decree (which is less than a law), or they found a roundabout way to enforce covid vaccinations? — baker

Decrees are laws too. Just because some authority has been delegated does not make it any less the law. Otherwise a policeman wouldn't have the authority to require you to stop, for instance. And while the US is inflicted with paralysis in its legislative body resulting from its polarised two-party system, there is definitely a worrying degree of "rule by decree". I guess that's what you get if you push a unitary theory of executive power for decades. It seems to me the GOP is quite happy with a tyrant as a President as long as its their tyrant. But all this is, I think, a different discussion than for this

You can distrust your negotiation partner because you have a trusted social world. Start with global social distrust and you will see that you are deprived of language entirely. This too is a lie, or might (as) well be. — unenlightened

Not what I have disagreed with though. Trust is irrational - that doesn't mean trust is indispensable to a functioning of society at large. My point is and has been that quite a few posters think they are offering an argument when in fact they are not offering one. If my heuristic results in a conclusion then that's all well and good but if it isn't shared by my interlocutor it means little to them. If I just repeat the heuristic rule "trust the scientific consensus" then it doesn't have any argumentative force. It's of course immediately persuasive to those that have the same heuristic.

So if you want to convince the other party, you need to understand their heuristic. If that's "I don't trust the government and big pharma" you'll have to figure out why. And when you have the why, you can perhaps explore whether that distrust is appropriate in this particular case, and if so whether that distrust, which avoids a certain risk, outweighs the risk of following up on that distrust. At the very least we'll have a conversation instead of how we're talking at cross purposes now.

mRNA vaccines are, as I understood from an explanation from doctors in the Netherlands, inherently safer than previous vaccines because the injected substance quickly decomposes in the body. — Benkei

Does it decompose quickly in the body? Would that necessarily make it safer? Have you not essentially made an appeal to a scientific consensus here?

So if you want to convince the other party, you need to understand their heuristic. If that's "I don't trust the government and big pharma" you'll have to figure out why. And when you have the why, you can perhaps explore whether that distrust is appropriate in this particular case, and if so whether that distrust, which avoids a certain risk, outweighs the risk of following up on that distrust. At the very least we'll have a conversation instead of how we're talking at cross purposes now. — Benkei

Hmm. So you're doing that on this thread? Having a conversation with the anti-vaxers? I must have missed it.

What I am describing is the condition under which conversation is impossible. It is a psychological condition of radical distrust. It is actually impossible to sustain, and therefore results in a fixation on the most off the wall explanation - illuminati lizards or whatever global conspiracy, and anything you might say already has the ready explanation that you are either a dupe of the conspiracy, or part of the conspiracy. The conspiracy theory is heuristic if you like, but it functions more like a cult religion.

If that's "I don't trust the government and big pharma" you'll have to figure out why. — Benkei

I suspect that this statement is just the superficial rationalization of something deeper and darker: a fundamentally individualistic view point, in which the individual and his choices are mythologized and glorified, while anything collective (e.g. a nation, a policy or a private firm) is vilified or mistrusted, as standing in the way of personal realization... Atlas Shrugged and all that neoliberal BS.

One case presented out of 5 billion doses is a freak case, yes. 5,000 cases would be freak cases, in that sense.
— Xtrix

They are not simply rare freak cases. There are many more of them. — baker

No, there aren’t.

What was being discussed in the conversation you quoted me from was an example given — one — of a death. Side effects would be a different discussion.

The point about rareness is purely statistical. Given that 6 billion doses have been given, one case is extremely rare— but 5,000 cases would be very rare as well.

What makes it worse is that most of the interaction takes place in a text medium, black on white, so there is no danger of mishearing or misremembering something.

The text is there for one to carefully read it and reference it. — baker

Yeah, but one can always claim to have missed it.

The thing about social media personas is that you've nothing real tying them down, so people can create of them their own little arch-villains to heroically tear down, they don't have to deal with anything as troublesome as the racist grandmother who nonetheless helps the homeless, or the anti-trans feminist struggling for women's education rights in Iran.

The whole of humanity can simply be grouped into pro and con on any issue and all treated with the same clichés that have already been field-tested for back-patting popularity. No risk, all to gain.

I suspect that this statement is just the superficial rationalization of something deeper and darker: a fundamentally individualistic view point, in which the individual and his choices are mythologized and glorified, while anything collective (e.g. a nation, a policy or a private firm) is vilified or mistrusted, as standing in the way of personal realization... Atlas Shrugged and all that neoliberal BS. — Olivier5

However interesting your psycho-analysis may be, have you ever considered that there are people who genuinely believe that goverments (and now large industries too) are increasingly invading the private lives of people, and that this is a problem?

I advise you to read a few documents on human rights, rights to bodily autonomy, or what countries' constitutions have to say about privacy, and the relation between the state and citizens' private lives. Maybe you'll start to realize that we are taking a step back in time, forgetting the lessons of the Enlightenment where humanity (almost) collectively realized that individuals are not owned, and should never be owned by states.

Maybe apply some of that psycho-analysis to those who follow authority unquestioningly, and get so angry when they see individuals who refuse to do the same.

That's not true, (he says getting out his big stick and beating Issac mercilessly.) Rather, I have no stick, and the truth is not a sword either. — unenlightened

Well, maybe I ought to have said "As often..." rather than "As ever...".

Someone who does not have that commitment becomes part of the uncommunicative world, not an enemy - like a lion, maybe, or a virus or an advert. — unenlightened

Yep. That's basically what I'm saying, but once we've completed that elimination, there's far less to be gained by continuing to sort the remaining cohort by "commitment to truth". Other factors are far more likely to be responsible for the variance now, since you've eliminated the outliers on the 'commitment to truth' axis.

People are getting strokes from the covid vaccines, they are dying from the covid vaccines. — baker

143 strokes out of 10 million shots for the Pfizer vaccine, last I checked. Which is much better than the strokes caused by COVID infection — and still extremely rare any way you slice it.

So what’s your point here exactly? That negative side effects exist? That cases of strokes and blood clots exist? Is that really all you want acknowledged? Fine— consider that done. I don’t see many arguing against that, however.

There’s also similar risk involved in taking Tylenol.

As someone who’s taking the vaccine already, what exactly are you driving at here?