[eesmith]

That summary is so high-level and abstract as to be useless.

At that level, we face coercion all the time: a traffic light is a form of coercion backed by the threat of state violence.

Does fighting back against that coercion explain why people run red lights?

Moreover, if it's the expected human response, what explains the 2% difference between now and the 2019-2020 school year? Do more people now think of themselves as having free will than a few years ago?

[iinnPP]

Your example is correct.

The 2% is why you don't force vaccine mandates.

There are studies showing it (pre covid) and we knew the entire time what would happen.

It's so common sense I have to just fu*ing laugh about it all. Sorry.

[ominous]

Do you agree with every single traffic light in every single circunstance (place, and your timing)? Moreover, do you agree with every future traffic light that will ever be placed?

[eesmith]

My disagreements with a traffic light placement so far have not been based on a don't-tread-on-me sense of The Man treading on my free will.

For example, I strongly prefer a modern roundabout for many of the places where the US uses a stop sign or traffic light. But my argument is made on increased safety and improved traffic flow.

I once accidentally ran a red light because I got confused about which traffic light was for my lane.

My father once deliberately ran a red light. After waiting for 5 minutes in the middle of the night. Because the detector didn't sense his motorcycle. A cop ticketed him. My father went to court and the judge ruled that what my father did was reasonable.

So while I'm certain that someone, somewhere ran a red light because of moral outrage over repressive government, that's not main reason people run a red light.

Just like this linked-to article seems to describe that the drop in routine vaccinations does not seem primarily due to increased vaccine hesitance due to the covid pandemic, even though certainly that is a reason for a few people.

[ominous]

> So while I'm certain that someone, somewhere ran a red light because of moral outrage over repressive government, that's not main reason people run a red light.

So you agree coercion causes pushback. A bit tricky to get that out of you. Thank you for the exchange.

[eesmith]

Like I said, your point is "so high-level and abstract as to be useless."

I expect far more people have run a red light because they were texting than as pushback against coercion.

It appears far more kids have failed to receive their MMR shots due to pandemic-related interruptions in children’s medical visits than parental pushback against coercion.

[ominous]

> Like I said, your point is "so high-level and abstract as to be useless."

It is not useless. It tells you coercion, if applied to fix these other reasons, could be counterproductive.

[eesmith]

"Could" is doing a lot of work there. It could also be productive. (Another example of "so high-level and abstract as to be useless".)

Here's a counter-example. Assume 99% of the people who run a red light / haven't vaccinated their kid, do so for some reason totally disconnected from reacting to coercion, and 1% of the people are fighting The Man.

Now we change the coercive circumstances [1] so that 98% of those people now stop at a red light / have vaccinated their kids, the 1% still haven't changed, and an additional 1% have joined them.

That means the overall number of red light runners / non-vaccinated children go down significantly.

Which means those changes are productive.

[1] For traffic lights this might include: higher fines, more active police enforcement, propaganda campaigns about the dangers of running a red light, changing the lights to be more visible. For vaccination these might include: remind parents of vaccination requirements, provide in-school and home-visit vaccination services, and increase propaganda campaigns.