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Comment by throwawaylinux | Hacker News Reader

Overweight people put a huge strain on the healthcare system, maybe 30% of the entire health expenditure in the USA can be attributed to obesity. Which creates shortages and drives up costs for others who need it.

So yes, overweight people should be banned from civil society (and certainly restaurants) because the risk of them catching covid and causing even more strain on the healthcare system would be very bad even if they are vaccinated. Not until they get low risk and effective gastric bypass surgery at least. It's for the greater good.

That is to say, I don't believe such a horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying attitude as this, but I can see how people who believe the unvaccinated should be given the same treatment for the alleged greater good would also think this about overweight people if they were to be logically consistent in their positions.

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It would make more sense at least then saying people who have had covid and had no issues overcoming it are an unacceptable amount of risk to allow at offices and in restaurants, but those who haven’t had covid but have gotten the vaccine are an acceptable amount of risk.

I personally don’t think we should ban, overweight people, people who have had covid or haven’t had covid, who have been vaccinated or haven’t been vaccinated like we did before covid. But since our risk tolerance has gone down as a society at least be logical about it. Getting on a plane, covid test regardless of the fact you don’t appear sick at all, ok fair enough you’re crammed in a tin can. For restaurants, and offices, I think “have no symptoms of covid” is an acceptable amount of risk.

Those saying vaccinated but never got covid are acceptable, but unvaccinated recovered from covid unacceptable, would be more logical to say fat people are banned.

That is the frustration with it. It is just one group trying to say to another group, submit to us, we are your masters, or else we will punish you.

I wonder what people who have endured that kind of attitude in their history think of that attitude?

Unless there's an obesity spike that takes up all the ICU beds in a region (doughnut sale or something) your argument makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. That is not required for my argument to make sense, 30% of healthcare costs is staggering, and absolutely could result in higher costs or worse outcomes for others.

And a spike from one particular cause does not necessarily lead to a shortage. If a few extra patients start getting covid and then there is a bed shortage, then fewer overweight people in there might also have prevented the shortage.

Look, it's for the greater good. No use arguing against it unless you hate grandma and Science™.

His point is that being fat and being unvaccinated both increase the risk society bears that you will a) give someone else covid and/or b) use hospital resources.

I understand TP's point. It's nonsensical because he's comparing twinkies to eclairs. They're superficially similar but are in reality vastly different things.

Yes, obese people are vastly worse for society than the unvaccinated in terms of financial costs. The solution is even simpler than getting a vaccine because they don't have to go anywhere. They simply have to eat less.

Cost of obesity was $1.4T in 2014, covid costs in excess of $16T. Just googling. I can't comment on methodology, etc. Obesity is ongoing, pandemic will eventually subside, etc. Thoughts?

For argument's sake let's say those numbers are right.

Then what is the argument for the covid response that could not also justify a similarly harsh response to obesity? Is it the exact amount of money that's at issue? The exact number of people who might die or suffer or be squeezed out of adequate healthcare due to load on the system caused by obesity?

I've never seen it. None of the experts or legislators or corporate news talking heads have ever explained it. If we got the cost of covid below $10T would that be sufficient to lift mandates and restrictions and other measures?

Or deaths? Deaths attributable to obesity is what, about 300,000 per year in the US? If covid deaths per year were brought down just a little bit and dipped under the 300k mark would that end the need for those measures?

You just don't get it. People aren't trying to optimize cost of healthcare at the system level, they are optimizing for themselves not dying and not getting sick. The perception (which I think it true, but you don't) is that the unvaccinated are putting them at risk. I want mandates to protect myself. I don't want to be in office with someone who is unvaccinated, or refuses to wear a mask. It's all about me, me, me.

No I do get it. People are trying to optimize the cost of healthcare system at the system level, and they absolutely cut it down as much as they can and people go without treatment for it.

You have vaccines to protect yourself, and if you're an anti vaxer or are still irrationally terrified of the virus you always have the option to shut yourself in your home.

If I'm understanding you, you don't personally believe in "banning overweight people from civil society" but you want to propose it to make a point about how much of a "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying attitude" you think the belief in vaccine mandates are, and how if one believes the anti-vaccinated should be restricted then it's effectively equivalent? Seems like an reductio ad absurdum fallacy to me, if so, since you're trying to characterize the belief in vaccine mandates as inevitably leading such a ridiculous, absurd conclusion. In this case banning overweight people.

> If I'm understanding you, you don't personally believe in "banning overweight people from civil society"

Correct.

> but you want to propose it to make a point about how much of a "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying attitude" you think the belief in vaccine mandates are, and how if one believes the anti-vaccinated should be restricted then it's effectively equivalent?

Much the same arguments made for bullying and coercing people to getting unwanted medical procedures can be used for either, yes.

> Seems like an reductio ad absurdum fallacy to me,

Why? What is any more absurd about it? 30% of health expenditure is a staggering cost to society. This is not just meh no big deal like the common cold, it's a real cost borne by everyone. And as we see, when they do get covid they get much more complications from it, which makes covid spikes more problematic too. Why can obesity be so easily brushed aside but not people who choose not to be vaccinated from covid?

Because that's just how I understand reductio ad adsurdum to mean, there's a valid chain of reasoning that leads from the initial premise to an unacceptable conclusion. In this case you believe that being "banned from civil society" (your characterization) for being unvaccinated is ok, you must accept the same for being overweight.

"Reductio ad absurdum is a mode of argumentation that seeks to establish a contention by deriving an absurdity from its denial, thus arguing that a thesis must be accepted because its rejection would be untenable"

You said _fallacy_ though. Because reductio ad absurdum can be a fallacy, and just taking any old "logical extreme" doesn't necessarily give you a sound argument.

I am not taking anything to extremes as far as I can see. The situations are not 100% identical to be sure, but as I said, most of the arguments I have heard about unvaccinated could also be applied to the overweight.

And as a disclaimer I'm sorry to have to use overweight as my example, if there was another equally good one I would use that instead because I worry it would cause pain to people even though I hope it's clear that I don't actually feel this way. But similarly I know people who don't want the vaccination and especially don't want to vaccinate their young boys, and they feel horribly bullied and coerced by it so I speak out.

You felt compelled to speak out in their defense, but your choice of comparisons and rhetoric is precisely why I felt compelled to clarify as well and what made me raise an eyebrow on the logic in it. That is to say I think you chose your example, and to make it in a intentionally hyperbolic way with things like "banned from civil society" and "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying" because you saw that it would make the most emotional impact to compare to your acquaintances' situation, but that's precisely where I felt it was becoming absurd.

Having just now re-confirmed that levels of nasal virus drop faster in vaccinated people to make sure I'm not being illogical, the creation of laws that allow businesses, schools, and others to legally stop you from entering isn't "horrific, dystopian, nasty, bullying" the way you characterize it at all, like banning obese people due to their burden on healthcare costs would be.

To me, it really does come off as a trying to point out the issues with mandates by drawing it to the absurd conclusion of excluding overweight people from society. So hopefully that clears up why I saw it that way, but maybe I'm incorrect definitionally.

There are always going to be mandates or policies that conflict with what parents, or people in general want to do. To me that doesn't make it nasty or bullying, though they may feel horribly bullied if it affects them. If anything I'd say those feelings (and most examples of nasty bullying I've seen) extend from the acts of anti-science politicization of masks and vaccines, which in my opinion is a great disservice to the public. We now people who now feel like nasty bullies are creating new mandates in a nasty dystopian nightmare world, which I think is extremely unfortunate.

I don't believe it does, and I think it's a fine analogy. I don't see why confirming levels of nasal virus dropping faster in vaccinated people would have anything to do with it. The actual question is the wide scale, end to end cost benefit analysis of all this and whether it justifies medical coercion.

I've never seen anywhere that case has been made, certainly not made in a comprehensive and compelling way that you couldn't reasonably disagree with.

I imagine the case would be different for different interests, but "a few hundred to a few thousand people die of covid every day" would be my go to if I were the one making it.

Compared with what? What exact measures would you propose, what benefit will they have and to whom, and what will they cost?

Is coercing people into getting vaccinated by preventing them from travel, jobs, etc. going to save thousands of the willingly vaccinated who otherwise would have died? Where are the numbers? Do you understand the gravity of coercing people to get unwanted medical treatments, or at least if you don't think it's a big deal at least accept that many people actually do extremely strongly believe notions like the government staying out of their bodies and medical issues?

And then can you logically make all these arguments and numbers in a way that they can not with similar arguments be applied to automobiles and related deaths, obesity and related issues and medical system load, etc etc?

None of this has been thoroughly examined, litigated, justified and sold to the public on its merits as far as I can see. Still. It still has not been. There has been propaganda relentlessly pushed out there in the form of fear and urgency and appeals to authority rather than facts or evidence. There has been no room to question things or present different opinions -- people who dared to do have been attacked, bullied, fired, deplatformed, and censored.

> Compared with what?

I really don't get what is the glitch here? You seem fixated on finding logical parallels to an ongoing response to a global pandemic, which is honestly getting quite repetitive to discuss.

It's compared with the current level of deaths to vaccination rate given it's not going away.. The logical conclusion of unsurprising policies as a response to the novel coronavirus, or any highly transmissible zoonotic virus.

Are we even on the same page here that less deaths is better from the perspective of public policy?

Honestly your rhetoric, message after message gets so tiresome to engage with, by virtue of hyperbolic it is. "Relentless propaganda", "daring to have different opinions gets you attacked bullied fired etc etc".

It's a national healthcare apparatus' response to a virus, nothing more or less.

After reading it all, repeating it every which way, it's just not compelling to me. This doesn't need to be some hyper-emotional, hyper-politicized topic, where parents of young boys need to fearfully victimize themselves as patriot-martyr enemies of the fascist state. I'm getting to the point of having a kind of second-hand embarrassment at the characterization.

> I really don't get what is the glitch here?

The glitch? The glitch is getting you to complete your ideas and form a coherent response.

> You seem fixated on finding logical parallels to an ongoing response to a global pandemic, which is honestly getting quite repetitive to discuss.

I'm fixated because I posted some questions in a covid thread that doesn't mindlessly toe the line, and that's exhausting you? I rather think you would be less upset in the end if you just conceded you don't have good answers. Sometimes it's okay to admit you don't know everything.

This flustered incoherent rambling is what's embarrassing and exposes you as incapable of addressing what I wrote just as surely as a simple admission would have. With the additional benefit of the latter being retaining some dignity. The entire thread is here plain as day for anybody to read, and the point is still floating around happily well above your head:

> Are we even on the same page here that less deaths is better from the perspective of public policy?

So what to do about the overweight person question. I know you're getting flustered and angry because you can't answer it, so you're just pretending it's not relevant or it's somehow "absurd", without actually being able to articulate why.

Why not just stop participating in the conversation if it's upsetting you so much? You're clearly not getting any benefit from considering different perspectives.

I'm not sure why my replies got deleted, pretty wack

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