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Comment by js2 | Hacker News Reader

When I drink or smoke or I’m overweight, that doesn’t affect the health of my neighbor. It also doesn’t overcrowd hospitals causing innocent people to die because they can’t find treatment[1].

There also isn’t a vaccine for being overweight.

(We should probably mandate seasonal flu vaccines too.)

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/12/alabama-ray...

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It does because you place disproportionate strain on the healthcare system, which limits its accessibility to others.

There also is a 100% successful method for losing weight, it's just that people can't or choose not to follow it, but we could mandate it and force them to. For their own good and the good of the healthcare system.

(We probably should not mandate that or any other drug or medical treatment)

No it doesn’t. People have been smoking, drinking and being fat for decades now and we haven’t had a crisis or a lack of beds for the rest of the public.

That's ridiculous. Hospitals fill up on a regular basis, now and before Covid. They like to keep as close to capacity as they can - $$. If we have more need for beds, we build more beds. We don't take away personal freedom.

It’s a fact that before Covid we didn’t have a crisis for lack of beds (where I live) and after Covid we do. What hospitals like to do is irrelevant, I’m talking about reality

Where I live (Portugal) there is an ICU/beds crisis every single year due to respiratory diseases such as flu, pneumonia, etc. It even makes the news with patients in lying in corridors and such. This year it wasn't different at all.

If you care about healthcare costs, think about all those antivaxx idiots who end up on oxygen and ventilator before finally kicking the bucket. Way more money than obesity!

Do you really believe that mandating people do a difficult, time consuming task for years is reasonably equivalent to mandating them to get two shots, which take about 5 minutes each?

If no, then whatever the merits of your conclusion it certainly doesn't follow from the comparison made.

No, it takes no time to eat less (it takes less time in fact), or stand on a scale once a week. In the weeks between the two shots (are we ruling out boosters?), a person could easily have lost several pounds and didn't even have to step out of the house into the risky possibly covid-filled environment -- already a significant improvement and reduction on the stress of the healthcare system. So losing weight is actually much easier, less time consuming task than to get vaccinated.

If it’s as easy as you say to lose weight (and it must be very easy if, as you say, it’s easier than receiving a vaccine that a majority of US adults have received). Then tell me, why are so many people still obese?

I didn't say it was psychologically any easier than it is psychologically easy for someone who does not want to get a vaccine to be forced to take one.

But the mechanism is perfectly simple and easy, easier than going out to get vaccines.

So just mandate and force them not to eat as much, and ban them from civil society if they fail their weigh ins.

> I didn't say it was psychologically any easier than it is psychologically easy for someone who does not want to get a vaccine to be forced to take one.

You just blanket said it was 'easier'. You pick one definition when it suits you - it's textbook bad faith argumentation.

It was a response to the insinuation that the vaccine is blanket easier.

Mechanically, losing weight is strictly easier. Psychologically you really can't say one way or the other and thinking you know people's mindset to say one is easier than the other is bad faith argumentation.

So, whether or not one is easy. That's what it all hinges on? Very flimsy.

So it hinges on how different the psychological difficulties of accepting vaccination vs. "just eating less for years" are. Given how many vaccinations people already accept vs. other diseases, and the fact that any such irrational fears need to be surmounted just twice, as opposed to resisting (irrational) urges to eat every waking hour for years, it strikes me as being unlikely that even a serious fear of needles is even remotely as high a hurdle.

The thing is: people that are overweight but try to lose weight will nevertheless struggle. But certainly from how they talk people resisting vaccination are not trying to overcome their own limitations; i.e. the problems are not really comparable.

While there's a hypothetical world imaginable where the two would be equally difficult, it seems hell of a lot more plausible that the issue isn't a psychological hangup, it's conscious intent.

But if this is about people choosing to impose costs on others, then it's totally reasonable to force the issue or otherwise ensure that those making those choices bear the burden of the consequences - rather than innocent bystanders.

Insofar as people have real hangups, rather than making poor (but conscious) choices - sure, it sounds reasonable to help them - and that actually happens! People with fears of needles and the like can get extra help to get through the difficult (for them) ordeal, and perfectly fair.

Yes, this is entirely about people choosing to impinge on others, and I don't see how it's been established that a weight loss mandate is fundamentally different than a vaccine mandate, except in the handwaving around details that really don't seem to be central to the issue. And I think people are taking the idea of forced medical treatments far too lightly.

Any argumentation amounts to handwaving if you squint just right.

The argument brought forth by various people is clear: it's more difficult because it involves effort much more consistently, for a much longer period of time. You don't have to appreciate the argument; of course.

As to objecting to forced medical treatments: while that discussion is relevant to the appropriateness of an (almost) mandated vaccination campaign; it's not related to how difficult it is to diet vs. be vaccinated. The fact that you bring it up makes it look like you've made up your mind on vaccine mandates and aren't considering various arguments on their merits to support a conclusion on mandates but rather the reverse: that you're picking and choosing arguments based on whether or not they support your pre-conceived notion.

Now, that doesn't really bother me, but it does make me curious: why do you oppose vaccine mandates? And why this mandate but not others we've had for decades?

I oppose forced medical procedures as a default position because it represents the ultimate violation of a person by the state, and has had a long and dark history of abuse and atrocities.

So what about other vaccine mandates, then - are those equally problematic?

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