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Comment by ryandrake | Hacker News Reader

> And now they try to fix this by dividing the country in two. This will have no effect whatsoever on the infections, it will just continue to drive a divide that is already existing and will make anti-vaxxers even more convinced that this is a big conspiracy.

You could say this about any law that enforces some uncomfortable behavior change. Anyone who remembers when seat belt laws became real, sees history repeating itself, down to the exact same arguments about effectiveness and rhetoric about choice and tyranny and government overreach.

COVID has been a challenge for the same reason Climate Change is challenging: They both require collective cooperative action from people, and you can't rely on everyone having a natural desire to do the right thing. Laws can't make people want to do the right thing--they can only provide incentives or disincentives for specific actions or behaviors.

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> COVID has been a challenge for the same reason Climate Change is challenging: They both require collective cooperative action from people, and you can't rely on everyone having a natural desire to do the right thing

No, it's challenging because people know they're being manipulated and taken advantage of.

As with COVID, as with climate change. Mayor of SF enacting mask mandates while dining/partying unmasked. Elites flying private to Davos to discuss climate change.

Resistance exists because politicians refuse to implement obviously sensible, effective and, most importantly, fair policies - no lockdowns (Sweden style) & care/protection targeting the vulnerable for COVID, and revenue neutral carbon tax for Climate Change.

People are manipulating themselves to win the Howard Cain award.

Ironically, this probably proves their point of "this being a slipper slope", since now the fact that we agreed to wear seatbelts is used to force us to do other things.

It’d be nothing strange about a road company demanding seat belts on their roads. Currently that business is run by a state monopoly, and only then do seat belt mandates become an issue to discuss.

You can take the seat belt off when the car ride is over. Also if you are caught without one you get a small fine, but you don't lose your job and the ability to participate in society.

Because your refusal to wear a seatbelt presents no risk to others. But vaccine refusal does present a risk. So the stakes of the game are not the same.

"X poses risk to others therefore you have no choice" is a statement that can be made for nearly any scenario. To wit:

Uncontrolled flying bodies pose additional risks when there are multiple people in the vehicle. There's also the risk of driving to begin with, for people both in and outside the vehicle.

The risks of harm to you _and_ others from crashing a car are probably higher at this point than that of a vaxxed person getting seriously ill from covid.

But anyway the point I was making was to refute GP's statement that seat belt laws and the pushback around them are the same as for the vax mandates. They are not, because the vax is permanent, and the consequences for non-compliance much higher. The fact that you can't "take the vax off" is part of these stakes that are not the same.

Refusing to wear a seatbelt does, in fact, present a risk to others because in a crash, you can become a lethal projectile should you fly and hit someone else.

This happens how often, exactly?

More often than you think.

Every time someone is unbuckled in a car crash, there is a high risk they will hurt others. Someone in the back seat could fly forward and hit the driver, for example.

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