People might not want to hear it but it is going to keep being an issue - we shouldn't force people to "follow the science" when it comes to medicine. Scientists - and science as a whole - do not have the moral standing that their opinions justify authoritarianism. People should make their own decisions about whether they trust the remedies involved.
Medicine is not entirely based on science, so I wouldn't equate MDs to scientists. Lots of treatments are based on clinical experience which is more anecdotal and traditional than scientific. So much so that "science-based medicine" is a thing.
Don't get me wrong: I trust medicine a lot and it has literally saved my life, but doctors aren't primarily scientists.
You already have the freedom to make your own decisions. What you don't have is the freedom to endanger others. That's when we make laws, and those laws may be informed by science but they are not created or enforced by scientists. They are created and enforced by government agencies.
Viewed skeptically rather than apologetically, it seems like the fundamental concepts of society (like "freedom" and its limits) are nebulous and mutable, and the fundamental processes of society (like how ideas become law) are inscrutable and unaccountable.
> You already have the freedom to make your own decisions.
It’s not like there have ever been consequences like “if I don’t do this I’ll lose my job” or “I can’t travel here”, or “I can attend this school, even online”, right?
That would all be public policy that would never fly by the law. Am I correctly reading your post?
Being allowed to enter another country is a privilege, not a right. This is something people who have passports that allow visa-free travel to almost anywhere often forget.
Thus if another country doesn't want you to unnecessarily become a burden on their healthcare system it is not unreasonable for them to demand you've gotten vaccinated. Even if there are risks associated with it, you will have to take those risks to earn the privilege.
I totally agree with this point of view on freedom, and that's my main issue with Ayn Rand followers, who do not understand basic power application effect (beside the fact that she read Kant's 'critic of pure reason' title, said to herself : 'he must be criticizing reasoning, science and the Enlightment, I must write and publish my basic thoughts on this' and now we have armies of idiots who never read Kant and try to criticize stuff he didn't say. Some are even famous.)
People frequently confuse freedom and consequences, but choices always have consequences in society.
All schools have rules of conduct, if you violate them your kid gets kicked out. Jobs also have rules of conduct, dress code, etc. And yes, not being vaccinated means you cannot have certain jobs.
The vaccine debate is really quite straight forward. On one side you have people arguing that vaccines might cause damage and they shouldn't be forced to take them. Of course, you are not forced to take them, but then those people argue that you shouldn't have consequences from it like losing your job or your kid getting kicked out of school.
On the other side, people argue that they shouldn't be forced to be exposed to someone who might cause them harm (by transmitting a preventable disease). This group also doesn't want negative consequences by having to hide from these people.
So the argument is similar from both groups, but the difference is that there is virtually no evidence of the harms the first group claims to want to avoid, while an abundance of factual evidence of the deaths of people and children caused by the lack of vaccines or by the spread of disease due to enough people not getting a vaccine.
Thus, as a society we choose to collectively put in a law siding with the second group. That's democracy.
edit: but I'll note that actuality in many cases people do get to send their unvaccinated kids to school and do end up killing other people's kids as a result. I wonder why we're talking about charging scientists with crimes and not people who do things we know with 100% certainty cause kids to die.
And a vague line between what counts as covid or vaccine death and what doesn't. Specially old people may have a lot of different things simultaneously.
You are clearly trolling as this has been beaten to death. But for the sake of other readers, getting COVID has a far higher chance of clots than the vaccines. Also, the vaccines significantly reduced the chance of death, even if they ultimately couldn’t stop the spread.
So again, the big picture is extremely clear. Thankfully the right choices were made for society.
You're not wrong. Vaccines in general have a favorable risk/benefit ratio. The problem is I frequently see people on social media claiming that vaccines have zero risks and contraindications and that they do prevent transmission. I've seen governments saying that.
This is the sort of disinformation that creates and spreads anti-vaccination ideas. All it takes is for someone to get skeptical and look it up. They will feel betrayed by the so called "authorities" and will never trust them again. It's even worse when said "authorities" want to vaccinate people forcefully as a matter of public policy. People don't enjoy having their autonomy disrespected. Especially comical are the governments that censor people for posting "fake news" only to end up spreading vaccine disinformation, and when it's pointed out they double down on those claims and do everything they can to coerce people into getting them.
>> Since you admit they couldn't stop the spread, why should the vaccines be mandated?
> To stop people dying.
Then why should it be forced on an unwilling recipient? Any more than we'd force someone (on pain of losing their livelihood or worse) to give up unhealthy eating habits, unsafe activities, etc.?
Ok, but that's supposed to be the reason we have scientific institutions in the first place. If I want to prove the earth is a globe and measure its diameter, all I need are a couple sticks and a tape measure. If I want to know if a drug or vaccine is effective, there is really no mechanism for me to determine this myself, and I am forced to base my opinion on someone else's opinion.
You could say the same thing about your drinking water or the food you buy.
Modern society is complex, and even simpler historical societies were dependent on cooperation before we got anywhere near the level of complexity and specialization we deal with today.
At the end of the day it’s a trust issue. Studies, be they medical, scientific, or observational, are one way to build trust. There are many others, but I’m not sure how well they scale with the size of a society compared to the systems we have in place today.
People should make their own decisions about highly technical aspects of their own surgeries? And then also I presume bear the full responsibility for the outcome?
No, surgeons should make decisions informed by their own experience and, yes, recommendations from medical researchers. How we're doing it is how it should be, the fraud remains the problem here.
Recommendations are optional. There is no enforcement. I might not be able to find a doctor to give me a surgery I want. But rarely does a surgeon force upon someone a surgery they don't want.
An obvious counter example is electroshock therapy or a lobotomy. Typically there's some due process there before a doctor just does something against patient wishes.
People don't like the vaccine debate for many, many reasons. Sadly a lot of the discussion is people talking past each other and refusing to acknowledge that the other side does have a point about assumptions that are damaging to their own position.
> But rarely does a surgeon force upon someone a surgery they don't want.
Depending on your definition. ER surgeons regularly force surgery on someone who is unconscious and thus we cannot ask if they want it or not. The law specifically says if someone cannot answer then the answer is automatically assumed to be they want it (at least in most places).
The DNR may not mean anything. It is possible that one was planted on you via fraud. Hospitals have complex policies written by lawyers on what to do if one is found on someone unresponsive and sometimes that means the procedure is done anyway. As someone who is trained in first aid I am not qualified to determine if that is valid and so I can render aid even if I know it really is valid. (in some cases you may be required to render aid - I used to be on the office first aid team and then I was told I had no legal option other than render aid)
