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The very essence of science is to (able to) denied itself, once discrepancies between theory and observation appear. Every scientific theory in history has been and will be proved wrong, making place for a better one. Every! And that’s science. Otherwise, I’ll call it doctrine or religion.
I’m very much for fighting the climate change (and consequently believe in its anthropogenic cause). But I welcome anyone who can scientifically disprove it, meaning with facts, logic and falsifiable theory.
The problems arise when liars and the deluded adopt the label, but censoring can never be the answer - who decides "The Truth"?
At least we need a honest discussion instead of obviously biased propaganda. I did no vax because of just biasness on any type of mass media, and now the vax is just not needed any more for anything. But I am totally OK about other vaccines which discussion is not so greedily (I mean not just sources with 1M+ of subscribers but proably 100+ ones too) are being controlled by big brother.
> anthropogenic climate change “deniers”
They do it because of money, we can not ban them because it means banning most of our economy.
> people who claim life begins at conception
We can not ban them because this is what average Joe thinks. And average Joe's average teachers.
> dark matter “deniers,” and big bang “deniers,”
This is too complicated topic to be understandable by masses but the opposite is to ban people who are honestly wrong.
PS I clicked to your post to vouch it, because I consider your point as important too, but all I can not do is just upvote, somehow a vouch option is not available here for me.
Also there really isn't much of an anti vaxxers movement if you separate people opposed to vaccine mandates vs people who think vaccines are unsafe. Separating those camps isn't often preferred for politically convenient reasons, but they believe very different things.
Personal choice and body autonomy should be something we all support. The covid vaccine works, those who get it are protected. Unprotected individuals aren't undoing the protection vaccines provide to the people who get vaccinated.
For my 2c on the comparison, anti vaxxers do more harm, but dark matter deniers are annoying as hell, because (IMHO) they debate with straw men. There's no church of LCDM, its just the current best set of theories until something else comes along. Alternate theories are routinely considered, attempts are being made to falsify or constrain LCDM all the time, and precisely nobody who actually knows anything claims we have any sort of comprehensive understanding of what's going on.
Seeing a bunch of armchair skeptics bash the theories as if they were mindless dogma is annoying AF.
This was never the main argument pro-mandate people had. The argument for mandates was that herd immunity would be compromised if a sufficient number of people chose to not to vaccinate thus risking the population which would not be able to get vaccinated such as the immunocompromised.
> Personal choice and body autonomy should be something we all support.
I think this is true up to a point, where that point is is what should be argued. I think if a disease were sufficiently deadly and had a long incubation period such that it would allow itself to spread rapidly, we'd all argue that vaccine mandates should be enforced.
For example, consider the following hypothetical. Suppose a reliable vaccine existed for virus X with similar side-effects to current COVID vaccines. Virus X has 95% mortality for children and is as infectious as COVID, i.e. very infectious. In this scenario, would you still be opposed to vaccine mandates? Even if it had a 100% mortality rate for children and/or were even more infectious?
There are no circumstances in which I would give up my right to bodily autonomy. You could simply tell me those data and I would stay away from others all on my own, like an adult, as was observed of most people in the UK during a pandemic which was not nearly as deadly, with vaccines not nearly as efficacious, nor as safe, nor with an at risk population as important (sorry, granddad) as in your example. Mandates are unnecessary and unjust.
And in the US, there was a page (seemingly taken offline sometime in 2021, I haven't been able to find it since) that graphed cell phone mobility data over early 2020 and showed a sudden drop about a week before any lockdowns began. Those orders had no effect (there was no additional drop), people were already doing it on their own.
I see your point. If we are talking theoreticals w.r.t. your following disease/vaccine combination I would like to add the following:
It only works when the vaccine has no side effects long or short term.
Suppose that the scenario happens and a vaccine is in place at light speed. We skip all the normal trials (through cutting them short, whatever) and begin issuing it. We find it to be very effective at what it does and we force everyone to get under penalty of law, placement in a camp, whatever. Pick your poison. What happens if the pharma companies make exactly one mistake?
Now, we can name the drug. Let's call it Thalidomide. Is it worth causing, for example, horrendous birth defects to preserve herd immunity? Now you have to choose between saving people now versus saving people in the future. We have no idea what effects mandatory vaccination will have in 10, 20, or 30 years. That is a very scary proposition given how widely issued it was. It's also strange the FDA said it would take 70 years to release all the data. I think it's naive to think that there won't be any effect. Perhaps not as extreme as thalidomide - but how do we know today?
If someone doesn't want to take a vaccine they should be allowed to not take it. They are not immune from consequences. Such as, barring from PRIVATE non-tax-funded establishments. But bodily autonomy should go unquestioned. No matter which way you cut it vaccine mandates are a strike against civil rights.
Which is why I specified side-effects which are similar to the COVID vaccine.
> What happens if the pharma companies make exactly one mistake? ... Let's call it Thalidomide.
Do you think existing modern medical regulations would permit such an incident? Can you name a more modern example?
> We skip all the normal trials (through cutting them short, whatever) and begin issuing it.
Suppose we impose the same requirements as vaccines on the past. I.e. trials go through normally.
> I think it's naive to think that there won't be any effect.
Can you name examples in which side effects were demonstrated in vaccines up to past a year? Vaccines are metabolized, the effects are only apparent as long as the vaccines contents are within the body.
> Such as, barring from PRIVATE non-tax-funded establishments. But bodily autonomy should go unquestioned. No matter which way you cut it vaccine mandates are a strike against civil rights.
Do you agree that bodily autonomy only extends up to the point at which harm could befall another individual?
To further examine your beliefs, suppose we create a simulation which can perfectly replicate the effects of a drug or vaccine on the human body. We can prove demonstratively that a drug will have no negative side-effects and that it will stop virus X. Are you still against vaccine mandates in this case?
Hmm what would be the consequences of accepting that principle?
You mean, biologists and zoologists? Yes, we need those people.