| > Not all opinions carry, or should carry the same weight. In a proper capitalist economy, they should, and every consumer should be free to evaluate every opinion independently. I'm glad that I can buy the holy bible, the selfish gene, the communist manifesto, and 1984 all within the same bookstore. My argument is that reputation and credence needs to be decentralized. A group of extremists should be allowed to give credence to whatever thoughts they wish, but they should not be silenced for having opinions that disagree with the state. I don't doubt the science, that getting as many people vaccinated is the better solution in a classic trolley problem for saving the most lives in a pandemic, but silencing of alternative thought is far more problematic for society. If people don't want to take a magic pill that can prevent them from dying, it should not be the state's job to shove it down peoples throats. If people don't want to believe the world is round, the state should not ban books saying the earth is flat. Opinions regardless of whether or not they are right should be allowed to exist. At the end of the day the responsibility of determining truth should be on the consumer. > That these reasons happen to line up with crony-capitalist agendas is sad but coincidental. What I'm saying is that it should not be in the state's agenda to align with the agendas of the highest bidder. It may be coincidental, but even you as a statistics person should be able to see that these coincidences happen far more than it should. I'm not arguing against science. I'm trying to get people like you to understand that crony-capitalism degrades the quality of the health service sector as well as the operation of the economy, and that trading away that freedom of speech to control the actions of others is detrimental to society. |