[cromwellian]

When you calculate the risk for "yourself", you're not actually just making a decision for yourself, you're making a decision on the health of those around you, because the existence of a viable breeding ground for the disease keeps it active in the population, and capable of mutating, and escaping vaccines.

Besides, the government isn't even forcing you in the sense of "you're going to go to jail if you don't do this." There's forcing you in the sense of "You can't fly on this plane if not vaccinated." Private businesses could refuse you service, like "You're not coming into this movie theater unless you're vaccinated or wearing a mask." Can't libertarians decide who to associate with and if they don't want to associate with non-vaccinated, isn't that their right?

Governments force lots of things in democracies. Education is forced for example. Truancy is illegal. You as a parent cannot make a decision to never educate your child in many countries.

[effie]

> the existence of a viable breeding ground for the disease keeps it active in the population, and capable of mutating, and escaping vaccines.

You assume that when a person does not get a vaccine, that person is helping to get more people infected. But that does not always happen; many people have natural immunity and in case they are nevertheless infectors, they are quite less effective at infecting others, similar to how vaccinated people seem to be so; and such non-vaccinated person can limit their infecting risk to others in various other ways, such as by wearing a mask in close encounters with strangers and by limiting such contacts.

It is not true that getting vaccinated is the only way to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

There is another issue, that many people do not want the vaccine, but they do want natural immunity. Those people actually want to get infected, by a weak variant of the disease, and let the nature do its process and get natural immunity.

[cromwellian]

Statistically, people who are not vaccinated contribute to the spread of the virus. The fact that any one person who isn't vaccinated may not be infected is not relevant. You're using the existence of a few exceptions to prove the rule. We know there are a few people who were born immune to the HIV virus. Does that mean it's ok for everyone to assume they have this kind of immunity and not practice safe sex? Crazy.

> It is not true that getting vaccinated is the only way to help limit the spread of COVID-19.

Except that the people who don't get vaccinated overlap with the people who refuse all of the other mitigations -- many antivax people are also anti-mask, anti-social distancing, anti-lockdown, etc.

> There is another issue, that many people do not want the vaccine, but they do want natural immunity. Those people actually want to get infected, by a weak variant of the disease, and let the nature do its process and get natural immunity.

You have no control over which variant you get infected by. If you're not vaccinated, you could get infected first by the Delta variant for example. I mean, you're proposing a quite frankly bizarre process: 1) "natural immunity" vs "vaccine immunity". In many cases, these are identical, for example if you get a vaccine based on a weakened form of the virus. 2) An assumption that "natural immunity" confers some kind of better protection than vaccine immunity. This is unscientific, and in the case of COVID-19, factually wrong.

And that's the point of Linus's rant A lot of antivax people use pseudo-scientific reasoning. It's like you bring the same rigor to pandemic prevention that some quack brings to analysis of GOOP supplements.

[effie]

> Does that mean it's ok for everyone to assume they have this kind of immunity and not practice safe sex? Crazy.

It is a personal responsibility of the participants. When people have natural (no rubber) sex it is none of anybody else's business to control how they do it, except if there is intentional spreading of disease. You have to prove bad intent to harm or spread disease, then you are right that intervention is justified. Without that, forcing condoms on everybody having sex is an autocratic policy that should have no place in civil democratic society. You can politely suggest getting tested and using condoms though.

> Except that the people who don't get vaccinated overlap with the people who refuse all of the other mitigations -- many antivax people are also anti-mask, anti-social distancing, anti-lockdown, etc.

That may be. Reasonableness of these positions depends highly on actual local health situation. These people are not always wrong as you seem to imply.

> bizarre process: 1) "natural immunity" vs "vaccine immunity"

It's simple: natural immunity is something you get without powerful interests being in control; vaccine is subjecting your health into hands of some other party. Some people do not want to their health to be controlled by powerful interests/institutions in general, some just in case of vaccines. It's perfectly valid and respectable personal stance. It does not matter whether it's scientific, almost no society is run by science, scientists or scientific consensus. We use rather political process and respect individual freedoms even if those are unscientific (religion, refusing transfusion, refusing vaccines, etc.)

[cromwellian]

"We use rather political process and respect individual freedoms even if those are unscientific (religion, refusing transfusion, refusing vaccines, etc.)"

You're welcome to die in ignorance if you want. But the rest of society is free to ostracize you. Businesses can deny you access. Schools can deny your kids entry. And through the political process, can restrict your interactions in other ways.

Your "freedom" stops when you run up against *my freedom" to have a diseased lunatic close enough to spread their disease to me.

[effie]

You shot some strawman here. You don't have a freedom or right to be in sterile environment when you are out in public space. The germs are out there, deal with it rationally and with respect to other people.

[cromwellian]

Private business owners can put whatever restrictions they want on their spaces. And parents can decide what rules they want for their school, that's why we have schoolboards.

I was just listening to NPR's Freakonomics discussion of the Cialdini's the science of persuasion, and in that book, he talks about people who will reactively rebel again anything, even if they know they are wrong and it is against their interests, purely because it limited my choice.

In other words, how dare you tell me I can't drink poison, I'll do it because you don't have the right to tell me what to do.

This childish attitude precisely describes your attitude in the previous posts where you admit to doing things even if scientifically wrong. This sums up to a T, the problem with reactionary conservativism. It isn't about doing what's right, what's ethical, what's scientifically correct, what's efficient, it's about "elites can't tell me what to do!" Hence you get stupid shit like people deliberately making the exhaust of their trucks put old huge clouds of black smoke, because it's a finger to the face of everyone else who says that exhaust pollution is bad.

The temper tantrum of the anti-maskers, the anti-vaxxers, is largely such a childish overreaction.