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Comment by mimixco | Hacker News Reader

Human rights advocates have long defended the sovereignty of one's own body. It's a slippery slope to force people into medical treatments. Historically, there have been many examples of forced medical experimentation, drugs, and surgeries which are hard to reconcile with the idea of personal liberty over one's own body.

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yes, this is certainly one of the points we consider in the episode. personal autonomy is a founding principle. Where it gets interesting is... could you not levy the same criticism against lockdowns?

I can, and do. Sick people go out in public every day, which I think is awful. Of course, the option is for those who are afraid of that to be the ones to not go out. This is just like driving. If you are afraid of others' driving, don't drive yourself; figure out some other way to get there. If you are afraid of others' sickness, don't go where they are.

As a counter, you cannot have bodily sovereignty if your dead (lest we tempt the tyranny of the dead over the living), and if your body is making others dead, that also deprives them of bodily sovereignty. This injustice is offset by the vaccine (it seems to be effective and safe) and so we prevent possibly many violations of sovereignty with the single certain injustice of the vaccine. This utilitarian argument may not be palatable, but we may not have our choice of actions here (the virus doesn't care!)

There are countless actions which could cause the death of others. Selling cigarettes, serving hamburgers, and driving come to mind. Some will value a state-mandated solution to these problems over the idea of individual liberty (including the risks of causing death to oneself or others). Some people will value the latter more. There's no one answer that fits every situation, which is how we wind up with peaceful societies than can take different approaches to solving these problems.

Personally, I think liberty is a more powerful construct than groupthink or group-forced behavior and actually leads to better outcomes for everyone than group-controlled plans or solutions.

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