Hacker News Reader

Comment by lez | Hacker News Reader

I would argue that a critical view of vaccinations has always been widely present. We see this now as gaining traction only because they speak up as mandatory vaccines are becoming a real possibility. (otherwise: lose job, can't travel, etc) Maybe it's time to actually have a conversation with them, instead of labelling them and regard them as idiots.

View on HN

You should go try to have a conversation with those people and you will understand why we stopped. My wife had this conversation with her grandfather and just got disowned.

Maybe 50% of the people I know haven’t gotten the vaccine. They are generally reasonable, and I’ve had healthy back and forth with many of them. Many of them are highly educated.

None has disowned me.

My point is, it’s not fair to lump them into one big Idiocracy category.

Educated or not, they're ignorant and irrational. That's enough for me to say they belong firmly in that category.

>mandatory vaccines are becoming a real possibility

Becoming? Becoming!?

Vaccines for many infectious diseases are mandatory (with some exceptions) to enter for public schools in all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico. They are also mandatory to immigrant to the United States. The supreme court first upheld mandatory vaccinations as constitutional in 1905, more than a century ago (Jacobson v. Massachusetts).

Mandatory vaccinations have been a thing since we've had vaccinations.

As have “vaccine passports”: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Certificate_of...

But this is pretty clearly not the same thing as is currently being talked about. No one expects to have a right to travel to another country, it's well understood they can create whatever rules they want.

What the vaccine passport debate centers around is whether it is fair to require vaccines for entry into events and businesses.

The hassle / reward for most people is much higher for those many other infectious diseases than covid.

By all means, now that the government paid for it with our tax money I'll take it and skip the mild covid side effects for my age range. If I had to pay, unless I was 40+, I wouldn't have bothered for something with such a low mortality rate.

The Supreme Court also upheld mandatory sterilization of the mentally unfit (Buck v. Bell, 1927). That doesn't make it a good idea.

So you're arguing that immigrants seeking permanent residence in the USA should not be required to be vaccinated for Measles for example?

No, I'm arguing that "The Supreme Court even said it was okay" isn't sufficient evidence that a medical treatment is good.

What's your point? I wasn't claiming that the supreme court is infallible, or even giving any opinion about mandatory vaccinations, just pointing out the concept is not new.

I mean...they are idiots generally. That doesn't mean we shouldn't talk to them, but you have to calibrate your approach to that mindset.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com