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Comment by torstenvl | Hacker News Reader

> to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine wouldn't you need to balance the risk of death / complications from the vaccine against the risk of death / complications from covid multiplied by the risk of getting covid

No.

Reasonable people make choices all the time that don't bear out under a cost-risk-benefit analysis like you propose. Those choices are still reasonable, despite perhaps not being strictly rational.

And certainly not as a matter of public policy. The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it.

There is far, far greater danger in society forcing issues of bodily autonomy to a vote than there is in someone eating too much sugar.

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The comment you replied to didn't mention mandates of any sort. It started with:

> For it to be a reasonable choice to not want to take the vaccine

"Basically everyone should get the vaccine" is a meaningfully different statement from "we should force people to get the vaccine".

Also, whether a person can be reasonable while making unreasonable choices isn't really the point either. The most reasonable option on this particular choice for the overwhelming majority pretty clearly seems to be to get the vaccine. It is similarly disingenuous to move the goal posts from "the most reasonable decision is to get the vaccine" to "you are an unreasonable person to not get the vaccine".

No. Reasonable decisions are literally defined as "what a reasonable person would do." What is disingenuous and dishonest is moving goal posts from "a reasonable choice" to "the most reasonable decision."

It's true that the post didn't mention mandates, but any time a group of people are putting themselves in the position to decide whether a person's individual choice about their own body is "reasonable" or not, you are pretty damn mandate-adjacent.

The choices are acceptable, not reasonable. At least by the strict definition of reasonable -- we seem to be changing that definition similar to the world "literally."

> The value of individual freedom of choice is inherent unless there's an overwhelming and compelling reason to violate it.

This is a slippery slope easily. People should be given the choice.

And as people we have also the choice to judge people on their choice's results.

Especially if it causes other people to die. Right now we have failed as humanity at least 6,637,512 people and counting.

My question wasn't about public policy or mandates, I'm asking what data an individual is looking at to come to the conclusion that not getting vaccinated is the right choice.

I swore off getting it after the very first instance I heard of someone getting covid after the vaccine. That was my only data point.

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