571–580 of 675 posts
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> it's well known that surviving covid is a much better protection, Getting sick sucks though. Especially when people get "long covid" that doesn't ever go away. > Perhaps "following the money" can provide answers? Perhaps the answer is not a secret conspiracy but a rational, human desire to protect people.
> Getting sick sucks though. Yeah, but that's really up to me, isn't it? There's a reason I choose not to live in China, Laos, or Vietnam. Now that the vaccine is so widely available: (a) health officials should drop all orders and regulations, and (b) hospitals ought to say "look, here's our COVID capacity; if we're full we can't serve you, sorry" -- with that capacity set at a reasonable, sustainable number for the…
No. You can still get breakthrough cases with the vaccine. Your chance is higher the more un-vaxxed people around you. You can't control that number easily. People who work in service industry really cant control that.
Additionally, the more the virus spreads the more it'll mutate to avoid the vaccine, so the more likely that you lose that control.
> There's a reason I choose not to live in China, Laos, or Vietnam.
Well, really you were born where ever you were born, which is probably where you are now, and getting a visa to one of those countries really isn't solely up to you, because they need to let you in. I vaguely see your point (except most people dramatically overstate global mobility), but if you actually wanted to avoid getting sick you'd move to australia because their rates are really low - for reasons you allude to.
> hospitals ought to say "look, here's our COVID capacity; if we're full we can't serve you, sorry" -- with that capacity set at a reasonable, sustainable number for them.
But we don't do that here, in the civilized world. We don't turn people away. Its inhumane to not help people and turn them away. Doctors take an oath to help all in need.
It would solve the hospital problem to say "tough s*t if you get sick, did you try the vax?" but thats not a practical response. No politician or organization wants to take responsibility for that measure, and no doctor would turn away someone sick.
In what world is turning sick and ill people away at the hospital a valid response to all this? I would MUCH rather wear a mask than have hospitals turn people away.
> people's basic human rights and freedoms are being removed.
In america? I haven't seen any freedoms being removed except the freedom to feel safe. Vaccine mandates and masks aren't an infringement on your freedoms. What bill of rights protects your right to not breath through paper?
Hell, speaking of freedom, if everyone who complained about masks and vaccine mandates in america cared equally about the infringed freedoms of minorities then this nation would be the land of the free for everyone.
Eventually you come to the conclusion that everything which you thought was irrational is in fact that. You pat yourself on the back for the humility that you have displayed. Then you go back to reading that book review on Slate Star Codex [since renamed].
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If Democrats/the left could pull back enough to model the minds of Republican voters, they could have framed the vaccine as "the war against China's virus". They could have talked about a great foreign threat to our nation, and that we need to band together as Americans to fight it. Degenerates in other countries might not be taking the fight seriously, but Americans are, because we are the greatest nation on earth w…
I think this would work in the scope of vaccines, but I fear the effects of inflaming xenophobia. There were plenty of reports of random violence against asians the past year; I'd rather avoid increasing that.
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> Also, the kind of reverse psychology you're describing generally only works on children. I can't tell if this is tongue in cheek, but it seems to be happening on huge swaths of adults as we speak.
> it seems to be happening on huge swaths of adults as we speak. I am fully convinced there are vast swaths of legal "adults" who are not fully emotionally developed. On my really bad days, I'm one of them. The one thing that saves me is I tend to snap out of it eventually and think of the long term. I think that many "adults" never do. Events in recent years have only reinforced this point of view.
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The good form is protective, the bad form just normalizes something that is common at the time. Is there any particular reason a woman cannot lead a prayer? Is there any particular reason why we exchange work for money? Is there any particular reason why not to eat pigs? For each of those, the answer may be yes or no depending on your time and place. The reason yes or the reason no may also be different.
> the bad form just normalizes something that is common at the time. Exactly. I think there should be a blanket negative to customs, practices or systems that objectively cause harm. It would be reprehensible to see someone try to defend, say, Female Genital Mutilation… using “Chesterton’s Fence”. Just don’t fucking do it to people; stop doing it right now, the “why” might be for anthropologists to ponder at a later…
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There is no free market when it comes to producing and selling medical equipment in the US. I remember reading about a business able and willing to start mask production but choosing not to because of the onerous requirements and not being allowed to raise price to the required levels. In other, less-regulated countries, KN95 masks where missing for just a brief period of time in March then they were readily availabl…
"In other, less-regulated countries, KN95 masks where missing for just a brief period of time" "heavy restrictions imposed by... you know... governments." I don't think we live on the same planet, UK government was trowing tens of billions at anyone who could supply masks, it took almost a year to fix supply while frontline doctors and nurses were dying. You could literally sell them masks that didn't actually work a…
> Did regulation...
Well I am no expert in those specific cases and I agree that there may be other forces at work as well, but I am betting there are tons of regulations about opening and operating ports unloading ships and tons of politics like unions and local administration to appease. So I do not know if regulation did it, but it sure isn't free market's fault.
man that was painful to read
Can you expand on that? There were definitely some parts I didn't understand or agree with, but the main idea seemed interesting.
Sometimes I like to collect some of my online comments into documents so I have a reference the next time I need to repeat myself. This article reads the same way. The difference is that I wouldn't publish them in an article, because online comments rarely do an issue justice.
My first thought was that these were the personal thoughts of a stranger whose values I do not share and who does not do a good job of sharing or explaining those values.
I don't know who the author is, I tried to find out but I couldn't find anything interesting. On the other hand, I did find the Reddit and Twitter links in the header of the site.
It turns out that indeed, most of his tweets are of identical quality. In fact, each of the points in this article was posted as a thread on Twitter.
Looking closer at their Twitter, it seems that the author of this article just read Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons and decided to write his own version, using the same format. However, his version lacks depth and is too transparent about his own beliefs and not exploratory enough. I believe that this format should be used to challenge the writer and thus the reader. It should not be about finding stories to explain your deeply held moral principles.
I honestly wonder why this content has received so much attention on HN. Linking to the Derek Parfit's Reasons and Persons on says, archive.org, would have generated a much better conversation.
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Isn't that the point though? The implied meaning of Chesterton's fence is simply: Understand the root motivation that belies a rule/norm/etc before you contest it.
A big problem is that people don't agree on the root motivation. I believe that policies against women being religious leaders is based in historical misogyny. But if you go ask people in these organizations, they'll say that women are fundamentally less capable of leading religious groups and that God made this rule for a reason. What do you do then? I'm pretty darn sure that the stated reason is not actually true a…
Thats kinda of rather easily pointed out as misogyny tho. What makes them less capable?
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> Also, the kind of reverse psychology you're describing generally only works on children. I can't tell if this is tongue in cheek, but it seems to be happening on huge swaths of adults as we speak.
> it seems to be happening on huge swaths of adults as we speak. I am fully convinced there are vast swaths of legal "adults" who are not fully emotionally developed. On my really bad days, I'm one of them. The one thing that saves me is I tend to snap out of it eventually and think of the long term. I think that many "adults" never do. Events in recent years have only reinforced this point of view.