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Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

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Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#381

Post by RubberMullet »

simondotau wrote: post #217
nindalf wrote: post #184

I’ve typed out 3 comments to 3 separate people before deleting them. I didn’t see the point. Folks, it’s a good idea to heed dang’s warning at the top of the thread. I’ve read all the comments and can confidently say there’s nothing worth reading here. Just people absolutely convinced of their ideas and principles, shouting past each other. Nothing we haven’t seen on this topic 50 times before. You’re better off goin…

As someone who also started reading the comments in this thread, I can wholeheartedly second this. Remember, nobody is going to change their mind on this issue because of a perfectly worded response in an internet discussion. If you want to change anyone's mind, focus on the people you can speak to in the real world—and have a conversation filled with love and respect. Fear of vaccination is a powerful meme which can…

I believe this goes way beyond the fear of vaccination. There is rampant distrust in many of our institutions and I would argue this isn't unfounded. We are witnessing profound and fundamental issues that go beyond what some perceive as antiscience and/or racist sentiments.

All this is being compounded by technology in many different ways. Everyone has the ability to create their own version of Malleus Maleficarum and publish it to the world in an instant. Social media, especially with the lockdowns, has demonstrated the limits of our evolutionary biology. Twitter often reminds me of a very crude form of the Babel fish from THHGTG[0]. It's going to take more than love and respect to overcome the effects of the virus and the response to it.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuumnjJWFO4

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#382

Post by derkster »

throwawaysea wrote: post #182
FreakyT wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly -- people are still free to not get vaccinated, but they're not free to go to aggregate settings where they might infect everyone there, which seems like a reasonable compromise. It's the same approach as with antivax parents -- don't want your kids vaccinated? Then you'll need to homeschool them.

> Then you'll need to homeschool them. This would be fair if the equivalent public school spending for that student were instead given back to parents as a voucher to spend on homeschooling or on a different education provider of their choice with different vaccination requirements. But otherwise there is a financial coercion into divulging health choices or giving up bodily autonomy that doesn’t feel right to me.

I don't understand the concept of fairness when we're talking about something that has killed more Americans than every war since the Civil War combined. I would consider every death caused by the asymptomatic much more unfair than someone having to pay for a charter school for the luxury of being a liability to the general public every time they step outside their home.

Every one of us will end up having to pay for the problems caused by 1/3rd the population feeling they have the right to risk my life because of unfounded fears. If said people were so worried about their life, they would do the same risk analysis lots of us did. It's very clear that COVID is more likely to fuck me up than the vaccine.

And if it turns out the data was a result of every first world country in the world coordinating amongst themselves to spread an insanely damaging lie telling us exactly the opposite of the truth, we have much much worse problems.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#383

Post by johnny53169 »

throwaway_12_12 wrote: post #372

I have been reading comments here and I'm honestly terrified how easily people are throwing judgmental or plain rude comments calling names on other people who exercise their right to make a choice - whatever the choice is. How easily are many falling into the trap of "common good" - please think about it, almost a century ago there was a time in one country in Europe where one nation was called to spread plague, onl…

> I'm honestly terrified how easily people are throwing judgmental or plain rude comments calling names on other people who exercise their right to make a choice - whatever the choice is.

Aren't they just exercising their right to free speech?

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#384

Post by _Algernon_ »

josh_today wrote: post #302
jwilber wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deaths lag so the point is irrelevant. You could just as easily argue it points in favor of vaccines.

The “wait 2 weeks” argument did not work for Florida when they took the lead, nor Texas when they had the first full capacity sporting event, and not India when they were on the “brink of collapse”. Delta is confirmed to be more contagious and less deadly. In a few weeks the numbers will be low regardless of what measures are taken. But the forced vaccination of federal, municipal, and private employees will be given…

>I am not against the vaccine. I am however against governments determining what freedoms their citizens are allowed to have based on what medicines they chose to take.

This is a private company deciding that they don't want to employ you. There are no governments involved here.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#385

Post by sennight »

jsolson wrote: post #304
ReadEvalPost wrote: post #222

I'm really upset with this decision. I have not gotten the vaccine as I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID over the unknown longitudinal risk of the vaccine. My right to make these personal decisions regarding my bodily autonomy is extremely important to me. Under no circumstances will I yield that decision to my employer! Their demand only further reinforces my desire not to take the vaccine. W…

> I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID I'm a little confused by this. I live in King County, WA (and I work at Google). According to data reported by the county (as tabulated by the NY Times), one in 19 residents have contracted COVID[0]. That's >5% -- with a 1.8% case fatality rate in the US[1]. That's a bit below a one in 1000 chance of having died of COVID if you live in my county, including…

> 1.8% case fatality rate

That looks like a scary number until you look at it by age, then it looks very different. If you were at risk of dying from flu before COVID then your odds got worse, everybody else's risk level is largely unchanged. Should employers mandate that healthy employees get experimental vaccines in order to improve the mortality rate among non-employees who were already at risk of being taken out by a cold? Seems pretty obvious to me, but this thing went well beyond reason a long time ago. Unless Google and Facebook have a bunch of 65+ stalking their halls, it is really hard pretending that this isn't either a political move or some weird power trip.

https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/dataviz8737/viz/COVID...

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#386

Post by hef19898 »

throwaway_12_12 wrote: post #372

I have been reading comments here and I'm honestly terrified how easily people are throwing judgmental or plain rude comments calling names on other people who exercise their right to make a choice - whatever the choice is. How easily are many falling into the trap of "common good" - please think about it, almost a century ago there was a time in one country in Europe where one nation was called to spread plague, onl…

I have zero tolerance for people refusing to accept a little bit of personal inconvenience, one to two injections and maybe three days of not feeling to good, in order to end this pandemic sooner. And to protect those that cannot be vaccinated. It was the same crowd that refused to follow guidelines, indirectly prolonging everything. It was members of this crowd that attacked people for wearing masks. It was this crowd that pushed for early opening.

Now we could approach the point of being to open up again, and it is about time. Because, with some luck and pressure, we can get enough people vaccinated. Only that we can't yet, because of the se crowd. And once we are at that point, this crowd basically wants a free ride. Talking about egoism, that's kind of the text book example.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#387

Post by novaRom »

machinelearning wrote: post #336
TulliusCicero wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously some of the details are different, they're different for every contagion, but the principle is the same: the interest in public health overrides the normal interest in preserving individual bodily autonomy, just like with vaccinations and schooling.

The details are the important part here. If you understand why people are against the vaccine, it is because they are not convinced that the vaccine results in the greatest public health. Whether this is right or wrong, trying to gloss over the differences in the details doesn't work here since the conflict is at the level of details. And no I don't agree with your point about vaccines being "different for every cont…

Both Google and Facebook are very powerful in delivering any information. Why they cannot convince people with simply pure data that vaccines are:

1) necessary, because here is the data: ...

2) safe, because here is the data: ...

They create all kinds of funny web sites on any topic but not on this very important thing today. Just make a good web site and convince all the remaining skeptics with scientific arguments and data! Put it in one place, make it clear and fair.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#388

Post by jdthedisciple »

bawolff wrote: post #360
ReadEvalPost wrote: post #222

I'm really upset with this decision. I have not gotten the vaccine as I prefer the known, extremely low risk of contacting COVID over the unknown longitudinal risk of the vaccine. My right to make these personal decisions regarding my bodily autonomy is extremely important to me. Under no circumstances will I yield that decision to my employer! Their demand only further reinforces my desire not to take the vaccine. W…

And if the risk was only to yourself, by all means that would be reasonable. But it isn't. When we work, we give all sorts of autonomy up. That what work literally is, exchanging some autonomy for some money. Most obviously that means doing parts of the job you don't like (docs aint going to write themselves). Some places it means wearing a tie (eww). My last job made me sign a document saying i agree never to bring…

All such bad examples. It's not nearly as intrusive to say you can't bring your firearm or wear a tie. It's literally a momentary thing, now I a wear a tie now I don't. To compare that to forcing somebody into taking a novel vaccine with questionable long- or even short-term health effects is absolutely disingenious and quite cynical to be frank.

Re: Google and Facebook mandate vaccines for employees at U.S. offices

#389

Post by johnny53169 »

blub wrote: post #376
ano88888 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given dang's comment on guideline, I really don't want to comment back . However, I am just feeling so angry. So many people have unnecessarily died because someone has the wrong idea of risk calculation or political bias in disguise despite all the scientific data. I am sorry. You have a right to not be vaccinated. You have a right to whine about it. But government and organizations also have the right from preventi…

There's nothing selfish about not wanting to undergo a medical procedure to help strangers . A vaccine is first and foremost a method for protecting oneself and one's family from disease. The only critical aspect of this situation is that there are kids and people who can't get the vaccine. It would be great if we could protect them and people who work with kids/medical personnel should be obligated to get the vaccin…

> There's nothing selfish about not wanting to undergo a medical procedure to help strangers.

Not wanting to do something to help others is the definition of selfish, even if it's your right.

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