the anti-anti-vaxxer argument
I know this is an old topic now, but I thought it would be useful to record my opinion on it somewhere.
For those who never understood the anti-anti-covid-vaccine position, this was the gist of their arguments. This is not my position. This is me "steel-manning" their argument the best I can.
1. The modern medical establishment is trustworthy and it's collective opinion should be considered more correct than any individual doctor, and especially more correct than any non-doctor, despite not being perfect. You can't do your own research and expect to do better than people who have dedicated their lives to the topic.
2. As such, when they say a vaccine is safe and effective, and that it is crucial that everybody take it in order to stop a pandemic, you should take it.
3. Those that didn't take it:
a. Caused the pandemic to rage on, rather than fade out.
b. Killed grandma
c. Aded more burden to ER staff by clogging ERs when they could have prevented their illness.
4. We care about your freedom, but are pissed off that you are using your freedom to harm all of the rest of us.
5. Therefore we find ourselves justified in:
a. Being mean to you
b. Terminating voluntary relationships (such as your job)
c. Disallowing voluntary engagements (such as entering our restaurant)
d. Shaming you and ostracizing you
e. Demonitizing your YouTube channels, and kicking your posts off of social media
6. Nothing that you lost in (5) was your right. Your rights were respected. You refused, and we exercised our rights against you in punishment.
I've always thought these arguments were valid. But I never found them to be sound. I think it is possible for a really bad pandemic to arise, and a very safe and effective cure to be available, and for these argument to be both valid and sound. But not this pandemic and not this vaccine. And I think by now, even most anti-anti-covid-vaxxers have belatedly come to that same conclusion. Because they all got sick too.
In particular, the modern medical establishment is not trustworthy. It's collective opinion should not be presumed to be more correct than any individual opinion. It is corrupt. You need to find experts that are trustworthy and trust them, not the collective opinion. Some good vaccine experts said at the beginning that "vaccinating into a pandemic" would not work because they virus would mutate faster than a vaccine could be deployed. They were right. Being proven correct in the end is a good hint as to who you should listen to. This same logic applies to other domains (e.g. listen to Alan Dershowitz on legal matters, not Lawrence Tribe). The vaccine wasn't clearly safe, even if it had harmed nobody, because it was too new and skipped a lot of typical tests, so that was clearly a lie. But now we have more data into precisely how it was unsafe and how many people suffered (about 1 in 45 had elevated troponin-I levels post-shot).
I got the shot when it was made availalbe in NZ. By the time boosters came around, I was skeptical but did some calculations based on the most recent studies at the time and decided I was a borderline case being in my 50s with several comorbidities, so I got the first boosters. After that, when more data came out, I decided I probably should not have gotten the boosters and I have not had any more shots. At this point I don't think anybody (even elderly people with comorbidities) should use the older COVID vaccine which is completely useless against new variants.
For those who never understood the anti-anti-covid-vaccine position, this was the gist of their arguments. This is not my position. This is me "steel-manning" their argument the best I can.
1. The modern medical establishment is trustworthy and it's collective opinion should be considered more correct than any individual doctor, and especially more correct than any non-doctor, despite not being perfect. You can't do your own research and expect to do better than people who have dedicated their lives to the topic.
2. As such, when they say a vaccine is safe and effective, and that it is crucial that everybody take it in order to stop a pandemic, you should take it.
3. Those that didn't take it:
a. Caused the pandemic to rage on, rather than fade out.
b. Killed grandma
c. Aded more burden to ER staff by clogging ERs when they could have prevented their illness.
4. We care about your freedom, but are pissed off that you are using your freedom to harm all of the rest of us.
5. Therefore we find ourselves justified in:
a. Being mean to you
b. Terminating voluntary relationships (such as your job)
c. Disallowing voluntary engagements (such as entering our restaurant)
d. Shaming you and ostracizing you
e. Demonitizing your YouTube channels, and kicking your posts off of social media
6. Nothing that you lost in (5) was your right. Your rights were respected. You refused, and we exercised our rights against you in punishment.
I've always thought these arguments were valid. But I never found them to be sound. I think it is possible for a really bad pandemic to arise, and a very safe and effective cure to be available, and for these argument to be both valid and sound. But not this pandemic and not this vaccine. And I think by now, even most anti-anti-covid-vaxxers have belatedly come to that same conclusion. Because they all got sick too.
In particular, the modern medical establishment is not trustworthy. It's collective opinion should not be presumed to be more correct than any individual opinion. It is corrupt. You need to find experts that are trustworthy and trust them, not the collective opinion. Some good vaccine experts said at the beginning that "vaccinating into a pandemic" would not work because they virus would mutate faster than a vaccine could be deployed. They were right. Being proven correct in the end is a good hint as to who you should listen to. This same logic applies to other domains (e.g. listen to Alan Dershowitz on legal matters, not Lawrence Tribe). The vaccine wasn't clearly safe, even if it had harmed nobody, because it was too new and skipped a lot of typical tests, so that was clearly a lie. But now we have more data into precisely how it was unsafe and how many people suffered (about 1 in 45 had elevated troponin-I levels post-shot).
I got the shot when it was made availalbe in NZ. By the time boosters came around, I was skeptical but did some calculations based on the most recent studies at the time and decided I was a borderline case being in my 50s with several comorbidities, so I got the first boosters. After that, when more data came out, I decided I probably should not have gotten the boosters and I have not had any more shots. At this point I don't think anybody (even elderly people with comorbidities) should use the older COVID vaccine which is completely useless against new variants.