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by minikites 1743 days ago
Why does the freedom to infect others outweigh the freedom to survive a preventable disease? You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the social compact to follow as it suits you.
3 comments

These people want to not have the vaccine AND to work at home so they don't infect others. You'd have a point if they wanted the right to remain unvaccinated while demanding they be allowed to work in the office. Would you prefer if companies just fired everyone who, for whatever misguided reason, don't want the vaccine?
Could a taxi company fire a driver refusing to wear a seat belt? Could a construction company fire some refusing to wear a helmet? Could a hospital fire a surgeon who refuses to wear a mask and gloves during operation?
Is "vaccine refuser" a protected class or something inalienable about a person? Does everyone have the right to work anywhere they wish? Plenty of other vaccines are required to attend college and to participate in other parts of society, why is this vaccine different?
In this case its different because UBS apparently doesn't want to fire a bunch of people. Plus, as the article says, different countries have different rules about what an employer is legally allowed to make a condition of employment.
Vaccines don't prevent transmission, you are not helping anyone but yourself with the vaccine, except for not making yourself into a burden for the medical infrastructure.
It could be better, but it seems to be some transmission prevention: https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.E....
my bad, I guess things changed with more data, neat
Vaccinated people are less likely to become infected, and if infected, are probably contagious for a shorter duration.
If you leave quarantine you expose yourself to risk.

It's your choice to leave quarantine or not. It's your choice to get a vaccine or not.

This is a personal responsibility issue.

Not a society wide issue.

It's never been anyone's responsibility to wear a bubble suit to protect immuno-compromised people, or stop eating meat because of people with high cholesterol.. and it's not anyone's responsibility to get a vaccine to protect other people from covid.

Personally Im a hurricane evacuee and we are grateful for the help we don't demand you help us at risk to your livelihood.

For someone with AIDS is not their responsibility to warn people before sex or to use a condom… wait IT IS!

How about driving drunk? Fuck everyone else am I right?

So stop whining and putting everyone at risk only because something is mildly inconvenient to you. Grow up already

Does it happen.... all the time?

yes yes it does.

You need to grow up and accept that other people aren't out there to protect you like Mommy and Daddy.

The world does not exist to hold your hand.

Never had been.

Your life, your responsibility, your choices.

That is the essence of freedom and it's beautiful.

It's too bad you would sacrifice freedom for safety.

Even the most extreme views of libertarianism have the principle of "do not harm others" as the limit for one's freedoms. In fact, other political philosophies have a softer view on this principle, like utilitarianism (maximize wellness even if it goes against a minory).

Rothbard, and I doubt you can find anyone much more libertarian than him, wrote that if you knowingly cause suffering or death of another human being, you must be punished "an eye for an eye". In this case, if you spread covid and somebody dies or gets injured because of it, you should fully restitute the victim, even being executed if the heirs decide so.

From a philosophical point of view, freedom or libertarianism doesn't help you here. I would like to read any libertarian serious author that supports your views.

> or stop eating meat because of people with high cholesterol

that doesn't make sense - why would you eating meat harm people with high cholesterol?

> It's never been anyone's responsibility to wear a bubble suit to protect immuno-compromised people

if you're a doctor treating them (or a friend visiting) it is

The societal risk of infecting immuno compromised people with random generic disease is small. Scale matters. Similarly you're not allowed to walk around new york if you're confirmed to be carrying a novel strain of ebola.

Permitting individuals to choose to be vaccinated and building owners to choose to forbid vaccinated people seems reasonable to me. Sacrificing individual freedoms for the mutual benefit of the larger group is the very core concept of society.

What's the correct scale though?

To a large number of people.... a survivability of 99.99% is an acceptable risk for people to go out in society freely, like you have with most age groups in Covid.

To some people ONE death is too many because the value of a human life is priceless.

What's the correct, scientifically determined, objective scale of people dying, to allow the government to turn things into a medical fascist state?

My argument is that there is no objectively correct 'scale' because it's not a scientific measure therefore doesn't matter.

It's just the news and government yelling scary death numbers until enough kind-hearted but ignorant people are scared enough to sacrifice their freedoms.

1) Things don't fall into the set of {objective, irrelevant}. There is also "subjective". Which is why we vote to agree on things as a group.

2) There are middle grounds between fascist states and passing some regulations

3) The news being a fearmongering whore doesn't invalidate the fact that some of what it reports may be a genuine threat

4) The right of america has historically fond of "if you don't like it, you can go to another country". Surely it's strictly less impactful to say "if you don't like it, you can work from home".