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Comment by phtrivier | Hacker News Reader

I would have noded and approved this article 24 hours ago.

Now vaccination is about to be made de-facto mandatory in France (with a snarky timing that will prevent some people from getting all their shots before restrictions pop in.) ; and I know that I'm going to be a bit less receptive, because of the tension between "this is sane science" and "this is a terrible bet on the future from a politician that got a lot of things wrong in the past."

That will probably last only for a few days ; I suppose I'll be back on the "let's trust science and hope for the best" _team_ in a few days. The cognitive dissonance is not particularly pleasant.

And I hate being forced into a _team_.

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> The cognitive dissonance is not particularly pleasant

It's not unexpected though, is it? Certain personality types, and to a large extent certain cultures, reflexively push back when forced to do something, even if it's a Good Idea or something they'd do or have already done anyway.

While that reflex may have downsides (like the current situation with vaccines), from a societal standpoint, it's a strong check against abuse of power.

I've been like that in my natural setting, meaning whole childhood and well into maturity. Meaning even mostly cool stuff in school was hated with passion, took me quite some time to find my way back to it (ie biology, geography, chemistry, native language).

Its a stupid emotional knee-jerk reaction. Happy to got over it over time. Maybe those potential benefits only manifest on large-enough scale of population, don't know and don't want to try.

Science, on the other hand, has practically never failed me (since I also understand probability and downsides).

The problem these days, from my perspective, large enough population was lured into 'alt-science' which is not science at all. It works on emotional level, so no rational argument will persuade them, in contrary. That's a dark path to take, and the longer one goes on it, the harder is to ever get back.

There is no benefit to civilization that I can see, I hope to change my mind on this over time. Just a potential rift across most of the world (maybe apart from places like China, which benefits greatly from the self-inflicted mess western countries are in).

This is exactly correct. The modern assumption by certain ideologies that evil doesn't exist is at the root of this. Yes, there are people that will lie, use their credentials, use existing seemingly impartial processes, use psychological tricks, etc. to trick you and control you. Yes, these people exist! So many people are very, very naive, having never seen real evil. Evil has become abstracted--a meme. Do we have roving bands of mercenaries looking to kill us and take our stuff here in the United States? No, and in some ways, that's become a bad thing. People don't know how to identify real evil anymore!

Agreed. However, the "evil" people are capitalizing on the pandemic in a very different way than the "good" people are.

> Do we have roving bands of mercenaries looking to kill us and take our stuff here in the United States?

Maybe not where you live. But roving militias are a thing across the midwest. Some dismiss them as bored guys cosplaying freedom fighters, but they are out there and are actively conspiring to hurt people. They just aren't taken seriously yet because they haven't actually hurt too many people.

Pushing back on a good idea just because it's compulsory is not logical. It's like pushing back on seat belt laws. Seat belts are almost universally considered a good idea. They save lives of the wearer who doesn't want to turn into a hamburger during a crash, and protects the people around them who have one less projectile to worry about. There are almost no down-sides to seat belt use. Yet, I know people (even in my own family) who to this day refuse to wear them, simply because They Aren't Going To Let The Man Tell Them What To Do. It seems like just a childish and immature reason to not do something when the upside overwhelms the downside.

> It seems like just a childish and immature reason to not do something when the upside overwhelms the downside.

You pretty much nail the issue: when it's 100% obvious that the upside of the policy (hopefully much less hospitalizations and death amound old people) overwhelms the downside (unhopefully more adverse side effects amoung the much younger general population), then the decision will be rational.

At the moment, I claim it's not entirely irrationnal (although clearly pessimistic) to at least feel a bit uneasy.

> "And I hate being forced into a _team_."

you're not being forced onto a team. no one is making you identify with a party or group. you're doing that to yourself by buckling to whatever social pressures you perceive around you. you can simply stop buckling and still hold the same beliefs.

and science is not a team. that's politization talking. science is a process for generating a working body of knowledge, a body that asymtoticallly approaches truth but is not (yet) truth. for any given subject (medicine, for instance), it can even be very far from the truth and still be the best we have (so far).

this is exactly the perniciousness of partisanship in a nutshell. forget parties and sides. reach your own independent conclusions first (and continuously), and act on that, rather than succumbing to identitarianism.

The discussions I have had today sor far (this one included) have felt very "two sided".

Whereas I'm a tad ambivalent about the situation.

I suspect the decision will have a good (from the authorities point of view) effect on vaccine procrastinators, a bad but manageable effect on die hard antivaxxers, and a terrible, unpredicable and underestimated effect on the people who where hesitant, but will have to get their jab to keep their job.

Time will tell if it was worth it. That's what I hate - having to pick a side on what's the best outcome based on a relatively short span of data (every days gets us farther from the vaccine "bad surprise", but 6+ months of hindsight stills leaves me freightenned, sorry ! Not gonna lie.)

I'm not going to protest and ask for anyone's head yet. I wrote my Mom to express reasonable doubt and practical concerns, but beyond that I will of course bow to the decision of the democratically elected body.

That does not make conversation will concerned loved friends and loved ones any simpler.

objectively so far, both covid and vaccines have tiny risk of death (<0.1%), though one tiny is an order of magnitude or two larger than the other.

with that said, it’s generally ok for people under uncertainty to reach different conclusions (assuming relative independence) based on the same data. it’s not ok for some people to try to clobber the conclusions of others under uncertainty, which is what vaccinations being mandated effectively does.

when the uncertainty can be bounded objectively to being really tiny with high confidence (which may take many years, even decades), then a mandate might make sense (e.g., mmr vaccines for kids). but absent that high confidence, this one sounds premature.

> And I hate being forced into a _team_.

Maybe you would like to be able to shit on the street, but there are laws against it because it would be unhealthy and probably also because people would find it "indecent". I know that not be able to shit in the street limits your freedom and forces you to be on the non-shiters team. But, I think that it is for the good of society.

Maybe vaccination is different, and then we can discuss that. But just to say that you do not want to live in a society with rules seems quite extreme.

And sorry for the shitty example, but I was trying to find something not yet politicized.

> with a snarky timing that will prevent some people from getting all their shots before restrictions pop in.

It's not mandatory, unless you consider restaurants and travel to be necessities one needs ( and you can still use a test in lieu of a vaccine certificate, and tests are still free)

The full extend of the restrictions is still to be announced / debated, but the first echo indicates that even going to the mall for grocery shopping, to the pharmarcy for medecines or to the hospital for doc appointment might be restricted.

Tests should not be free anymore sometimes in automn.

That's why I meant by "de facto".

Plus, we're talking about "restaurants" and "bars" in France. That borders on "necessities" ;)

To be honest, my biggest issue is the timing, though time will tell if it was necessary (playing catch-up with an exponential, once again...)

As you said, details are yet to be debated, but i highly doubt grocery shopping will be on the list of restricted activities.

For the rest, PCR tests for free until the autumn will give plenty of time for everyone to get their two doses. It's not that complicated nor time consuming to take one every few days, it just requires anticipation. ( And btw did they specifically say PCR? I don't recall.. Antigen tests are quicker and might be an easier way out )

The timing is very short indeed, bordering on the unfeasible. I think that they're right in the approach, and maybe if they had given more time people would have been more relaxed and said to themselves they'll go get vaccinated once they're back from vacation, which might be too late to avoid trouble and new curfews, closings, etc.

I could maybe agree if the restrictions were put in the winter, but not in the summer.

People have already booked their vacation, and now they need to do a PCR every 2 days to take a train, enjoy restaurants ? That's insane !

To get the "pass sanitaire" you need: first shot -> wait 3 weeks -> second shot -> wait 2 weeks. That's more than a month !

The problem is Delta seems to have much bigger R so you are basically forced to act now as each hour counts. An alternative would be restrictions for everybody - and this would be a much worse choice for a variety of reasons.

Time will tell, the goal is ostensibly to avoid a UK-style 4rth wave, trying to catch it early on this time.

PCRs are valid for 72 hours and free. If I weren't vaccinated I'd prefer to get a swab in my nose every 2-3 days and do the stuff i want over nobody doing anything in public ( if the Delta variant is left unchecked, we're probably looking at new curfews or lockdowns) in the not so distant future.

> People have already booked their vacation

Booking vacations in the middle of a global pandemic and massive restrictions ... seems a tad ... reckless.

Also, why would you do all that planning and not get a vaccination. Like, in all their planning, it didn't occur to someone that, hospitality places might start requiring proof of vaccination?

Service workers are people too. They want to earn a wage, while keeping themselves and their families safe. And given the labor shortages, these people have a lot more influence over their working conditions than they've had in the past.

> It's not mandatory, unless you consider restaurants and travel to be necessities one needs

Have you ever been to France?

Most in the cities live in tiny flats with insufficient space for gathering and dining. The bistro/brasserie/cafe is largely considered an extension of one's own living room.

Travel is also a normal part of life verging on necessity. Families travel for multiple weeks every summer. France even has a nationwide peer-to-peer lodging rental arrangement that predates Airbnb and Vrbo by decades: https://gitelink.com/

Couldn't you just set fire to a few tyres after getting vaccinated ?

Ironicaly, the "reward" for beating the epidemic (if we ever manage to) will be a currently suspended pension reform.

So I suspect we'll get thz burnt tyres then (and I would not be surprised if "quasi mandatory" vacciation acts as a background reason for people anger - much like the yellow jacket movement was ostensibly about taxes on gas, and unofficially about speed limitation changes.)

It was nice of Macron to exempt law enforcement from the vaccine mandates and pension "reforms," wouldn't want to have any of the country's police forces crossing the barricades to the other side.

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