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Except putting "curtailing liberties" into scare quotes, what are you saying, exactly?

This is exactly the kind of tone and comment I was speaking against. I am _pro_ vaccinations, I am _pro_ making them soft-mandatory, I was even pro other restrictions back before vaccines. All I said, in a rather moderate tone, is that I disagree with being happy about the downsides. Somehow in the kind of comments I'm speaking against, yours included, I don't see happiness that we're getting vaccinated per se. I don't see "yey, poeple won't be dying any more". I see a lot of "chastise these people".

I also see quite a lot of scare quotes and misrepresentation. I didn't say sewage was a restriction - I gave it as positive example. I didn't say (WHO would even say that?) that getting a vaccine is giving up liberties. That's stupid, really, it doesn't even make sense. I will say that not being able to do stuff without being vaccinated is a restriction. A worthy one, yes, and one I totally agree with, but by god, how can you even try to spin ... I'm not even sure what you're trying to spin, because the more I read your comment the more I realize it's just appeal to emotion and void of content.

Are you free to rant against categories of people? Yes. I just said it's not a nice thing to do, is all.

> No one is giving up any "liberties" by getting vaccinated, but it's more likely they are acquiring liberties by getting vaccinated. At the very least it's the liberty of reducing the risk of dying.

As a person waiting to get his booster shot next week, I find this quite concerning. Those liberties we had and were taken away from us. Nobody cares about people dying. I am sitting now next to my mom who 1 month ago was diagnosed with terminal secondary cancer after all her check-ups were cancelled last year. So yeah, nobody gives a damn about anything else than seeming virtuos and better than others online. But no one cares any more about any other diseases or other people that are suffering, it’s all social signaling for the rich and well off people to show how moral they are, all while their lifestyle is supported by those that can’t afford to have any liberties.

To add to your argument: I've never encountered a discussion, much less a proposal to throttle all cars at 10 km/h. That would save around 4000 lives here in Germany alone and spare many more severely injured, scarred for their life.

It's not about saving lifes, it's about getting re-elected.

Would it, though? Sure, 4000 _might_ be saved from car crashes. But how many would die by not making it in time to a hospital? From the likely collapse of transportation, and distribution of goods? From the extra pollution of going that slow? From the general economic impacts of such a measure?

"One can either be part of society or not. Society has minimum requirements if one wants to participate"

You make it sound as if there is a fixed, god given set of rules for society. That's not the case. Societies rules are constantly being negotiated by society.

So your argument is not an argument at all. It boils down to "you have to follow the rules because you have to follow the rules".

Those requirements are welcome to be negotiated.

But negotiation often isn't occurring in good faith. There's way too much flat-earth- holocaust-denial- style arguments from those who "just don't want to be told what to do". Getting vaccinated doesn't take away someone's liberties; "I don't want to be told what to do" is not an argument against vaccination. Many of these people are just making noise, and it's getting old.

I'm not saying there aren't good arguments for not getting vaccinated, but it falls flat when those same people got vaccinated in order to attend public school or have state issued IDs or use passports or will bitch about a loved one dying because they failed to get vaccinated.

Mandating medical interventions is pretty much taking away someone's liberties. And your opinions about other people's opinions are also irrelevant as an argument.

Are you daft? I'm not offering what I think of other people's opinions as an argument about vaccination. I'm responding to your assertion that there is actually valuable debate to be had with rubes whose only argument is "I don't like being told what to do".

> Are you daft?

This style of dialogue is not welcome here. Try Reddit.

Well put and my thoughts exactly. Hacker News is a great place for all kinds of information and great discussions too.

Let's try and keep it that way.

Tone and discourse. We're not debating the merits of vaccinations here. We're talking about how this way of making conversation is ultimately toxic.

> There's way too much flat-earth- holocaust-denial- style arguments from those who "just don't want to be told what to do".

This is how you want the discourse to look like? Somebody puts an argument, and gets labeled flat earther.

Do you know Gell Mann amnesia? I shared an article the other day on facebook and got it flagged as "out of context". As it happens, it was something not out of context, just slightly against the mainstream. What do you think this did to my confidence in the mainstream?

And before you say that my article must have been wrong, let me remind you that the mainstream was against wearing masks 12 months ago. Hell, CDC was against wearing ffp2 masks... I don't know, 3 months ago?

Civil discourse and tone are much more important long term than just winning conversation points. Sure, go for points if you want. But every time you say things like "flat earth", you take a small chip out of the boat we're all in.

Following societies' rules is the basic principle of the social contract, I recommend reading a little about it starting from Hobbes' Leviathan.

But who draws up the social contract?

Hobbes lays out a mixture of natural/God aspects and society negotiated aspects. But I think they all boil down to an ongoing slow shift of what society accepts as a whole.

I think society has opinions and ideas that evolve into ethics and morals that are represented in laws.

It’s not a secret. In this case, rights are curtailed to require vaccines. This is deemed acceptable. If you don’t like it, convince your country mates to change their mind. Or move to a country that feels differently. Or move to the wilderness.

Why do you say it is "deemed acceptable", if there is an ongoing discussion about it?

Yes, certainly. The ongoing discussion is going on right now, we’re part of it as a very small amount of two strangers talking. I think it’s usually informal, but sometimes through debates, books, essays, etc. A good example are the Federalist Papers in the 18th century with back and forth on topics that ended up being articulated in the constitution, bill of rights, etc.

I think it also varies from country to country as it varies quite a bit.

But it's such a nonsense strategy, there is no way that this will provide eradication, covid is just too virulent and not deadly enough, it will remain in small pockets, remember there will be many countries that won't be able to afford this on going pharmaceutical tax. If it does provide protection vaccinate the at risk and be done.

The aim is to prevent the virus from clogging up the healthcare system. Countries which vaccinated all the citizens they could(e.g. Israel) already achieved that.

One dose of the Pfizer vaccine costs €16, while AstraZeneca's is less than €3. This is affordable by any measure.

Astra is hard sell to people under 50, and is looking less effective against variants.

The cost of Pfizer is a lot more than the per shot cost, you need highly specialised storage and distribution due to the low temperature requirements.

Not true. People generally prefer Pfizer, but will take whatever just to be done with it.

I had Astra, so did several people from my social circle. Hell, some took JJ being aware of its level of effectiveness.

The vaccines need to be stored at a low temperature - that's it. I doubt it adds more than €1 to the price.

You get refrigerated trucks, which are already common for food distribution, and essentially a fridge that can store a thousand doses and be re-used as new stock comes in.

It's not a negligible cost but it's far from highly specialized.

I'm in the US and I got my Pfizer shots at my local small hospital. They had storage because they have a pharmacy. Seems like an easy thing to just have, ya know. It was free to me. I'm 32. Was such an easy process to get. Big shrug

This is speculation. Just because the process had been made as easy a possible for you does not mean it was easy to implement.

I checked and the guidelines are as follows:

Before mixing, the vaccine may be stored in an ultra-cold freezer between -80°C and -60°C (-112°F and -76°F). Vaccine may be stored until the expiration date.

Before mixing, the vaccine may be stored in the freezer between -25°C and -15°C (-13°F to 5°F) for up to 2 weeks. The total time vials are stored at these temperatures should be tracked and should not exceed 2 weeks.

So once they reach their destination they can be put in a normal freezer, which in turn are abundant and cheap.

> there is no way that this will provide eradication

FWIW, it is not feasible to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 anyway since it can survive in certain types of animals as well. All the germs we eradicated thus far were limited to human hosts.

(Source: A German podcast that interviews professors of virology every week.)

In my country shitting on sidewalks, had higher priority than health or liberties. Dog walking was allowed, while exercise and outdoor activities were prohibited.

Society already excludes many people due to expensive housing, education etc... Living as hermit in a van is not that bad. But society should not expect taxes from excluded people :)