Hacker News Reader

Comment by etherael | Hacker News Reader

Isnt this argument predicated on the supposition that the only reason they are opposed to coercive experimental gene therapy is because they want to "own the libs?"

I mean, maybe that's right but it seems unlikely when there are other much more obvious things to explain the reasons for the actions in question. That they then post hoc express schadenfreude for the party who they perceive to be responsible for the situation is evidence of the addiction to contempt the article refers to, sure. But I find it difficult to imagine they wouldn't prefer not to be coerced into experimental gene therapy even if it means they don't get the opportunity to "own the libs" in response.

View on HN

I'm not sure if you're saying this is your opinion, but just to be clear: Vaccine mandates are not coercive, the vaccine is not experimental, and vaccines in general are not gene therapy.

To elaborate: You can consider work vaccine mandates to be similar to any other job requirement. The COVID vaccines have received a huge amount of studies and trials. And "gene therapy" usually refers to use of things like CRISPR-Cas9 or other methods of delivering DNA into the cell which are able to modify genes. mRNA vaccines do not modify genes. (I'm not a biologist so you should ask one if you want more information on this)

>> mandates are not coercive

Wait, hold on. That's an actual argument you are making and not satire?

"Mandates are not coercive", that's a thought that actually went through your head and you thought, "Hmm, that sounds like a reasonable argument"?

Please read my follow up responses where I explain it further. Also your comment doesn't really have anything substantial in it that I can respond to, you may want to note these parts of the HN guidelines:

"Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

The strongest plausible interpretation of "mandates are not coercive" is very weak.

Please see my explanations in the follow up responses where I give a stronger interpretation, thanks. Best of luck.

It's not my opinion, it's a fact that;

Mandates are coercive by definition, that's the entire point of them, putting whatever magical word in front of them you like doesn't change that.

The medication to which the "Vaccine mandates" refer is not the same as traditional inactivated virus vaccines, and before this whole fiasco started, was always referred to as what it actually is which is gene therapy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4817894/

It doesn't matter how great or how well tested these things are, or how reasonable it is to take them, and that I will acknowledge goes into the realm of opinion and given how polluted that discussion is with political barracking yeah I'm not interested in having it at all, the simple underlying fact that they are actually coercive experimental gene therapy is exactly that, pure fact, not opinion at all.

I would not say anything you've said is facts, they're just incorrect statements. (Sorry to be blunt.) You're saying it's coercive when they're part of a job requirement? No, I explained this farther down. Please check my other post, thanks. If your presence being there is going to cause the company's insurance rates to rise to the point where they can't afford you anymore, then they're going to dismiss you. That's unfortunately the way it's been at a lot of companies I've seen for a very long time, for many other things besides vaccines as well.

Also that paper seems to suggest that mRNA could generally be used as a component in gene therapy. It does not say that mRNA vaccines are gene therapy. You're getting several things mixed up. Let me know if you want clarification, or if you want some helping finding a biologist or doctor who could answer more of your questions. But mRNA vaccines are probably not "coercive experimental gene therapy" unless you really want to stretch that definition.

IMHO making something part of job requirements is coercing, definitely. You may argue that the coercion is justified (just as many other mandates in job requirements coercing employees to do something they might not want to do) but it clearly is coercion, and it seems quite ridiculous to deny that the mandate was made with the intent to coerce people to vaccinate.

I would not say anything you've said is facts, they're just incorrect statements.

If you believe so then it would help to demonstrate why. Otherwise let me know if you want some clarification on what I said, thanks.

Because the definition of coercion doesn't change when you put a bunch of qualifiers in front of it and say it's for the greater good. It's still coercion. Sometimes coercion is necessary, psychopaths will kill random people absent coercion not to do so for example, but it's still coercion that stops them from doing so.

Your objection basically boils down to "I don't like the way 'coercive experimental gene therapy' makes what my team is presently doing sound like". That's not an argument, it's just an attempt to force people not to use accurate language you disapprove of. Maybe coercive experimental gene therapy is exactly what's needed, just like coercive physical restraint is just what's needed when it comes to dealing with violent psychopaths. But in both cases, refusing to call a spade a spade doesn't change it from being a spade.

When you respond with stuff like "I wouldn't say any of that is a fact, merely incorrect statements" then you're begging your opposition to simply make the exact same statement back to you.

We are not in opposition, please stop. I really don't want to get into a heated argument with you, you and I both know that's not the way to convince anyone. Also I am not on any "team" and I don't represent anyone, these are my own statements. I'd appreciate it if you didn't make these assumptions about me, thanks.

I am sympathetic to people who can't get vaccines for medical reasons but there are companies that simply are not equipped to employ those people safely. There's nothing coercive about that, everything else you're saying about that is not related to what I'm saying. For a lot of these companies it's a matter of either they require the vaccine, or they go back to having long lines, reduced hours, occupancy limits, strict mask requirements, and other things that are inconvenient and cost money and hurt the business. This stuff is unfortunate because it also applies to immunocompromised people with whom the vaccine is not effective, I don't really know a solution that could work for them on a large scale.

> We are not in opposition

Yes we are, you are continuously making the argument that if you can give good reasons for coercion, it is no longer accurate to refer to it as coercion. This is false.

Examples;

> For a lot of these companies it's a matter of either they require the vaccine, or they go back to having long lines, reduced hours, occupancy limits, strict mask requirements, and other things that are inconvenient and cost money and hurt the business.

> there are companies that simply are not equipped to employ those people safely.

And many other times.

Further, you're refusing to acknowledge that the vaccines under the vaccine mandates are experimental gene therapy, with the justification;

> Also that paper seems to suggest that mRNA could generally be used as a component in gene therapy. It does not say that mRNA vaccines are gene therapy.

The paper is from 2015, the "mRNA vaccines" were not a thing at the time and thus this paper discussing what mRNA gene therapy is would of course not refer to things not released for six years to come/ "mRNA vaccines" is just a new label on the underlying technology discussed in the paper, which they clearly point out is actually gene therapy.

It's coercive experimental gene therapy. Maybe it's good, maybe it's necessary, whatever. It's still coercive experimental gene therapy.

Actually I have explained multiple times why it's not coercion and why your description is incorrect. Some companies simply are unable to safely employ people who are unvaccinated. If you feel you are opposed to me then I would ask that you stop that, it's going to prevent us from having a reasonable discussion. I will tell you right now, I am not in opposition to you, I just see you may have some misconceptions and I'd like to help clear that up, if you are willing to let me do so. If not then please mention that and we can end the conversation.

Otherwise I'll try to use an analogy. Would you call it coercion if a construction company had all its welding equipment malfunction, break, and become unsafe, and as a result had to let all its welders go? Or would you call it coercion if a trucking company refused to hire people that didn't have trucking licenses, on the basis that it wouldn't be safe for them to drive a truck that they weren't trained for? Or if you're a nurse and you get let go for not being vaccinated, in a hospital where the entire job description is that you can't infect the patients with more diseases?

On your comment about gene therapy, AFAIK mRNA vaccines are not a new label on the underlying technology there. They are a different technology from the purpose described in that paper. Please see my other comment for what is generally referred to as gene therapy. Again we can contact a biologist or doctor for more information about this if you'd like to do that.

Edit: The paper you posted has a good citation that explains it better. https://www.nature.com/articles/nrd4278

"The FDA definition of gene therapy is as follows: '... modification of the genetic material of living cells. Cells may be modified ex vivo for subsequent administration to humans, or may be altered in vivo by gene therapy given directly to the subject. When the genetic manipulation is performed ex vivo on cells which are then administered to the patient, this is also a form of somatic cell therapy ... Recombinant DNA materials used to transfer genetic material for such therapy are considered components of gene therapy.' As RNA does not result in 'modification of the genetic material of living cells', one would anticipate that its administration will not be classified as a gene therapy in the United States."

Sorry but all you have done is repeat false claims and insisted with progressively more intensity that they're true. In light of that, I'm not interested in continuing this unproductive discussion.

Actually, there are no false claims. I have sourced my claims using sources that you previously quoted to me as being true, and I also asked you to clarify your claims with several questions that you didn't answer. I can provide more sources if you'd like that, or I can provide some more analogies if that helps explain it more. Just let me know if you change your mind, but I agree we will not have a productive discussion if either one of us is not agreeing to answer questions or be open to considering new sources and changing our minds. I personally would be open to all of that, so feel free to ask me any questions or share new sources if that will help you make it productive. But it may be more productive to just stop being hung up on that definition, you can check the paper you sourced for more details.

Definitions matter and if you change them arbitrarily in order to declare victory where none would exist if your incorrect definitions were not accepted, it is pointless to engage with you.

I didn't change anything. I clarified my definition several times, then I asked you for a clarification of your definition and you didn't give any. Coercion usually means when someone is pressured to do something via threats, and in all the examples I gave (including when it's related to vaccines) there are no threats or pressure to do anything. We can discuss this but you're not giving me anything to work with.

For gene therapy I think typically the goal of that is the opposite of vaccines. Similar vectors can be used (in this case mRNA encased in lipids) but everything else is different. With vaccines you're intentionally trying to provoke an immune response, but one that's weak enough so it doesn't harm the patient. In gene therapy, you usually want to avoid generating an immune response at all, so the body doesn't start attacking the modified cells.

What do you mean the vaccine mandates are not coercive? Isn't that the entire selling point of the mandates?

The selling point of the mandates is to reduce spread of the virus.

Yes, that is ultimately the end goal of the mandates, but the selling point of the mandates is that they are a tool to get people who would otherwise remain vaccinated to get vaccinated by introducing additional costs (ie. coercion)

Not sure where you heard that. Maybe that's a secondary goal that some would like to reach if they're trying to convince someone else to get the vaccine, but for a business the primary goal is to prevent unvaccinated people from entering that business so they avoid getting other coworkers and customers sick. Few businesses seem to want to carry the liability of causing a super spreading event. Edit: I believe some health insurance rates for businesses also go up when employees aren't vaccinated, so that can cause more of a problem too. Being in the ICU for two weeks on a ventilator is not cheap.

I didn’t mention anything about gene therapy or whatever other bananas theory that can be inserted into literally any conversation nowadays.

What I did bring up is the fact that people are willing to deny themselves, their families and neighbors the ability to leave their own homes to get food and medicine in order to “own the libs.”

While this sort of Markov-chain sounding word salad about… whatever, must indicate that people are passionate about… whatever, the fact of the matter is that sabotaging your own infrastructure out of ideology sounds kind of suicidal.

I honestly don’t get how I could personally rally behind people that would celebrate my righteous death from being stranded in the snow because I’d died owning the libs because uh… my ideology will have prevented theoretical vaccine deaths in the future? My actual, concrete, current life is literally worth less than… what? Some bogeyman that I read about on Facebook?

If I were genuinely that concerned about all these conspiracies and thought that my thoughtless death would make a difference, I’d self-immolate like the monks during Vietnam. Somehow curiously, these folks rather than doing that are taking the mighty stand of keeping kids from going to school, their neighbors going to work or their doctors, local business owners from opening etc.

Ironically, not plowing the streets creates the exact same (if not considerably worse) lockdown situation that these people have been mad about for 18 months. Ironically, it’s not the reduction of peoples freedoms that matter to these conservatives, it’s who gets to be the ones taking the freedoms away.

People will literally kill themselves and everyone around them in order to feel Right About Stuff.

“Love” isn’t an answer here. It’s a completely meaningless word put in a context to sound nice on a podcast to sell books to people who will never change their minds about any of this.

All you're doing here is re-stating your original argument, seemingly without actually understanding my criticism of it. I'm not sure what you're hoping to accomplish by that, but it strikes me as very strange.

Look, let's say we observe an employee and employer undertaking a discussion that goes something like this.

"Take this medicine"

"No I don't want to"

"Take it or else you're fired"

"I'm not going to take it, fire me if you have to."

"OK, you're fired"

"That's going to turn out poorly for the people who must now suffer the consequences of not having people available to do my job"

I don't understand how you jump to the conclusion that the reason the employee refuses to take the medicine is so they can have that last line of dialogue, rather than that they don't want to take the medicine.

Enlighten me?

>All you’re doing here is restating your argument without actually understanding my criticism of it.

My criticism of your argument is that it’s silly to decide that nobody in town can leave their houses during the winter because you don’t want to get a shot. Furthermore, it’s downright ghastly to gloat about the upcoming, totally avoidable, suffering that they’ll be imparting on people that _AGREE WITH THEM_ in order make their point and own the libs.

Pro tip: We might actually be having a two way conversation if your next response included words like “snow” or “plow” or “stranded in your house by no fault of your own.” But please go on with your regurgitated Facebook nonsense about experiments or whatever.

The only thing that’s important is that you’re right!

> My criticism of your argument is that it’s silly to decide that nobody in town can leave their houses during the winter because you don’t want to get a shot.

Once again, that's not what they're doing. "I'm not going to take the medicine so everybody has to stay inside" you will note was not part of the dialogue.

> Furthermore, it’s downright ghastly to gloat about the upcoming, totally avoidable, suffering that they’ll be imparting on people that _AGREE WITH THEM_ in order make their point and own the libs.

People have a history of hostility to those they perceive, whether rightly or wrongly, as unnecessarily depriving them of their livelihood.

> We might actually be having a two way conversation if your next response included words like “snow” or “plow” or “stranded in your house by no fault of your own.” But please go on with your regurgitated Facebook nonsense about experiments or whatever.

Sure, It doesn't matter what tasks the people under discussion are saddled with, up to and including dealing with snow, plowing, etc, and it doesn't matter what consequences the absence of their actions will result in, up to and including leaving people stranded in their house by no fault of their own. The logic still applies.

Not wanting to take medication is not the same as actively wanting to inflict misery on other parties, and equating the two as you are continuously trying to do is false.

Displaying hostility to parties responsible for hostile actions is about as newsworthy as "sun rises in morning". In fact the hostility you're displaying to them here is just as unsurprising and not the problem at all.

The issue is purely one of logic; you're equating motivation to refuse a medicine with wanting to provoke misery for an opposing party. Clearly no such motivation exists. If it did exist, they would not have needed to say "I don't want to take this medicine, fire me if you have to." they could just jump straight to the end and go on strike to "own the libs" and no other reason.

> Not wanting to take medication is not the same as actively wanting to inflict misery on other parties

Did you see the part where I was talking about gloating about the harm they’re planning on causing? It includes (as the majority of folks) people that share their political views. I get that it didn’t jive with your narrative but it’s a reality that I’m describing, so sorry about that.

Good job using the word “snow” in the middle of hand waving away actual material suffering while trying to accomplish… whatever.

Are you personally willing to be unable to leave your house because it’s important to you that the municipal workers won’t be vaccinated?

> planning on causing?

Refusing to take medicine is not the same thing as "planning on causing harm" no matter how many times you attempt to falsely equate the two things.

> I get that it didn’t jive with your narrative

Narrative has nothing to do with it, you can still believe what they're doing by refusing to take the medicine is the wrong choice and simultaneously acknowledge that their incorrect choice is not the same thing as the consequence levied upon them by a third party when they refuse to take the medicine.

> but it’s a reality that I’m describing, so sorry about that.

If you really think that's the case, then the inability to separate cause and effect is an enormous blind spot you should work on.

> Good job using the word “snow” in the middle of hand waving away actual material suffering while trying to accomplish

You were the one that insisted the word would change the underlying logical structure of the question, unsurprisingly it did not. That was my entire point all along.

> Are you personally willing to be unable to leave your house because it’s important to you that the municipal workers won’t be vaccinated?

That has absolutely nothing to do with the logical structure of coerced action resulting in a refusal and dismissal and the second order effects of that chain of events. But for the record, I am willing to suffer whatever consequences are necessary in order that the aggressive violation of individual bodily integrity and autonomy of peaceful people is unacceptable, up to and including the immediate destruction of the entire universe.

A universe where peaceful people minding their own business are not free to make their own choices is not worthy of existence. Cross that line and you've gone most of the way down the road of justifying the worst excesses of authoritarian abuse throughout history. There's a very good reason it's in the Nuremberg codes, it wasn't an accident to be revoked next time there's some "catastrophic emergency" going on. There are certain lines you do not cross and that is one of them.

> But for the record, I am willing to suffer whatever consequences are necessary in order that the aggressive violation of individual bodily integrity and autonomy of peaceful people is unacceptable, up to and including the immediate destruction of the entire universe.

This is the most psychotic take I’ve read on this topic. Not only are you willing to get stuck in your home so some stranger doesn’t have to get a vaccine, you’re willing to inflict that same suffering on an infinite number of people in order to get your way.

Considering “destruction of the universe” would include a lot of innocent deaths, your weird moralizing sounds even more like schizophrenic word salad. You literally advocate for murdering both those that agree with you and those that don’t, as well as yourself, because things aren’t the way you want them to be.

Let me guess, you’re in your mid teens and recently read The Fountainhead?

> This is the most psychotic take I’ve read on this topic.

The opposing position is ironically that of those who inflicted hundreds of millions of deaths, the largest cause of non natural death in fact, on the entire species in the previous century, so you'll excuse me if I take your view with several solar masses of sodium chloride.

> you’re willing to inflict that same suffering on an infinite number of people in order to get your way.

Exactly the opposite, I'm not willing to inflict any aggression on any number of peaceful people minding their own business, period.

> Considering “destruction of the universe” would include a lot of innocent deaths

Better dead than enslaved.

> You literally advocate for murdering both those that agree with you and those that don’t, as well as yourself, because things aren’t the way you want them to be.

I advocate for nothing, I merely do not accept that slavery is a valid institution, and it doesn't matter what you put in the alternative column against it. The alternative of violating the autonomy and integrity of peaceful people doing me no harm is once again, the worst possible outcome.

> Let me guess, you’re in your mid teens and recently read The Fountainhead?

Over 40, read it a long, long time ago, has nothing to do with my position on live free or die. Slavery is outright unacceptable. If you do not have the right to choose which drugs you must take, you are a slave. It cannot get more simple than that. That has nothing at all to do with the sensibility of taking the drugs in question, it has nothing to do with whether the drugs in question are good or bad. It could be the most obvious choice in the world, and the drugs in question could be a panacea that brings about a world utopia, and the logic of enslaving people would still be utterly unacceptable.

The ends do not justify the means. Multiple world changing extremely violent wars were fought over just these issues. Your side always lost.

This was not a controversial position for the past half century plus, the fact that it is now should make you very cautious. Although with bloody-handed "for the greater good" communism by another name in such vogue these days, I expect that it won't at all.

I'm sorry, I find this conversation extremely depressing and I'm going to leave it at that, you have a nice life.

EDIT; for the record, the disgusting strawmen in response to this message do not warrant their own response regardless of how idiotic they are. And I will not be providing one.

>Better dead than enslaved.

and

>I advocate for nothing…

are incompatible statements. Either you are stating that you would prefer that people (other than yourself) die rather than being “enslaved” (having an employer exercise at-will employment) or you’re not.

The irony of literally calling for the deaths of people that don’t adhere to your specific set of beliefs while decrying “slavery” is genuinely hilarious.

What other bits of “slavery” do you think justify murdering people over? Seat belt laws? Age of consent laws? Prohibition of trading human organs?

Edit: I literally laughed out loud when I read the implication that I’m a communist because uh, I don’t think it’s a moral good to indiscriminately harm people as some sort of temper tantrum over a vaccine.

I genuinely hope that every person that chose to become unemployed because of their Facebook-informed selective definition of inflammatory words like “slavery” remain unemployed indefinitely. This will create more positions for vaccinated people.

Ironically, the “live free or die” folks really seem to think that the state owes them jobs and money, and the average citizen is obligated to suffer under their arbitrary rules that they make up on the fly. While you feel righteous, that feeling doesn’t actually mean that anybody has to listen to you or your ridiculous opinions, let alone act on them.

I understand that only Big Brain Geniuses ever arrive at fascinating unique positions like “everything I don’t like is slavery”, but even that caliber of dazzling wit doesn’t actually mean logical people will naturally agree with your Completely Objective Philosophy.

Real slavery is when I can’t force somebody to give me a job!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com