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by tremon 1708 days ago
There's another part to this same equation: the "institutions" have very little credibility left. Whether it's about the health risks of tobacco, the environmental risks of fossil fuels, the addiction risks of opiates, the security of mortgage lending, or (recently added) the safety risks of flying, we constantly see the same pattern of officials being undermined by paid-for scientific studies that are aimed at undermining or thwarting policy.

Given that adversarial dynamic between business and policy, I can't bring myself to fault even a single person for refusing the vaccine (I can still fault someone for publicly speaking against vaccinating others on invariably shaky arguments though). There is no public institution that I would trust to act towards any common good, that's how much public trust has been eroded in the name of "good business".