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Comment by FactolSarin | Hacker News Reader

Oh, get over yourself. Vaccines save lives. That life might be an immunocompromised person for whom the vaccine doesn't work. My boss lost his mother last month in just that manner.

I personally don't care if you decide to die or not, if you choose to forego the vaccine. But your freedom to be dumb ends when you put other lives in danger.

In that way, being unvaccinated is like driving drunk. We don't make DUIs illegal to save the drunk driver's life, that's just a bonus. We're mostly trying to stop them from killing innocents with their poor decision making.

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I'm honestly surprised DUI laws are not brought up more as an analogy when discussing mask mandates and other public health measures.

An argument for driving drunk that sounds a lot like more than a few no-mask and no-vax arguments; "I drive drunk all the time and have never hurt anyone; I will probably never kill anyone. If you can't accept the risk of driving on the roads with me then stay home!".

And also, in both cases of course it's the potential harm to others that tends to make the laws acceptable. In the case of SCOTUS, it's settled that the government can take EXTREME measures in the name of public health.. Likely far beyond anything we have had to deal with so far.

But the courts acceptance (which is the source of truth of what is legal) is contextual. So the slippery slope arguments are off base IMHO because something upheld in the context of the pandemic could be struck down outside the pandemic..

We live by rule of law and it's a glorious thing. As much as I enjoy being cynical, getting together to agree on rules we wouldn't otherwise hold ourselves to(game theory?) is an amazing thing.

This is effectively a "think of the children argument". People with health complications will always be at higher risk of bad disease outcomes than the rest of the population. That includes the regular flu, too, and is pretty much guaranteed to include some form of COVID forever at this point. You don't get to use that as some kind of moral high ground to force your personal stance on everyone else.

Educate people about the low risk and high benefit of getting vaccinated. Encourage them to do so as a generally good thing for society. But framing it the way you are right now is not just unhelpful, it actively makes unvaccinated people think you hate freedom and don't give a damn about anyone's personal opinions.

1) I didn't mention children at all. I'm certainly not making a "think of the children" argument. That implies you think COVID is overblown and not a serious threat. But it is, and it's killed millions.

2) I don't give a damn about dumb opinions, and it's not my job to "educate" people that, let's be honest, don't really want to learn. The solution to stop deaths by DUIs isn't to try and convince people that they're wrong for driving drunk. The solution to stop deaths by lead poisoning isn't to try and educate consumers about the danger of lead in food.

Framing that as "hating freedom" is disengenuous. It would be nice if people did the bare minimum to not endanger lives, without requiring the force of law. Sadly, that's not always the case.

1) Replace "children" with "immunocompromised people". It is the exact same argument. Don't be pedantic. And yes, I do believe COVID is overblown in how it is presented. The risk factors are very clear now and nowhere near as bad as they were originally presented, or as bad as people still seem to think they are.

2) You just did it again - stating other people's opinions are "dumb" because they don't adhere to your personal mantra is exactly how you make other people completely disengage. Just like I'm going to do now.

To be clear, there's nothing wrong with thinking of children (or the immunocompromised or handicapped or any other group). "Think of the children" is an argument where you use children to justify an absurd, overblown, or bad faith argument.

You seem to think it means "I shouldn't have to think about other people's well-being because freedom." I think that's pretty callous.

As a person with a disability, I request respectfully that you leave disability out of your flawed "everyone needs to comply with my opinion" nonsense. I dont want to see disability abused by people like you. Understood? Keep your patronising to yourself and your family.

Yes vaccinated people can pass it on, but not as easily (study released today). Yes getting vaccinated will end the pandemic sooner because A) it won't be transmitted as much, and B) hospitals won't be at capacity for milder cases. Just get vaccinated

>It would be nice if people did the bare minimum to not endanger lives, without requiring the force of law. Sadly, that's not always the case.

I completely agree, we need to somehow get rid of all cell phones, so that people can stop with all of the distracted driving for one. Then we can make sure we force folks to eat right, exercise, and get 7-9 hours of sleep a night. No sleep, no car.

I think if the vaccines offered sterilizing immunity, you'd have a much stronger argument. As it is, vaccinated are able to transmit the disease, also putting immunocompromised at risk. That the vaccines appear to lack durable protection is a problem as well IMO. What are the compound impacts of the vaccines if booster shots are required on an annual basis?

> if booster shots are required on an annual basis

Even worse, where I live the current story is a bi-annual renewal!

I will fight this as long as I can. I dont want a dependency like that. Its a socially enforced drug abuse.

So are you vaccinated? I feel like this is the entry question to this argument. And if not, why not?

While we are at it. I also don't care if your bosses mother died or not. Since she is your bosses mother, she likely had an age where death is lurking around the corner anyway.

She wasn't retired, so I'd guess in her early 60s and didn't have any other major health issues from what I understand. But I'm glad you laid your cards on the table about not caring. I mean, it was already pretty clear.

Laws exist to protect innocents from people like you.

I am still not impressed. My father died with 39, my aunt with 42, and both my grannies didnt go beyond 70. This was way before corona. Life isnt guaranteed to last for 100 years. Stop fucking over the whole world just because you can not accept that it is finite.

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