Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>That itself is categorically false. unvaxxed folks provide a tremendous wealth of externalities, such as undue burden on the healthcare system, behavioral and legal changes that require masking due to lack of critical mass in vaccinations, etc.

Again, it's not the unvaxxed doing that to you. That's who you're currently being told is what's preventing you from returning to normal. And again, the last last 18months have been an ever shifting goal post of "if group X would do then..." or "if we had just done Y then..." and yet here we are. Too bad HN doesn't have RemindMe!, as we could check back in a few months post mandate to see what dastardly group/cause/issue is the problem this time.

Those "tremendous wealth of externalities"? That's called living in a society. There's no getting around it. Lots of negative, bad individual choices/actions have Nth order effects on everyone else. Americans specifically make a lot of very, very bad choices over the course of decades that causes "undue burden on the healthcare system" (pick you fav from the CDC's health report). Just because they're not as visible and 1st order as COVID doesn't mean they're not there and a massive portion of the hospital's load.

>you do have the personal liberty to not vaccinate. That is not being taken away from you. >never at any point is your choice to remain unvaccinated impinged upon.

Ok. Honestly, I don't know where people come from with this argument. "You don't have to, we'll just remove your ability to work, feed yourself, and pay for housing until you comply." These sorts of things are generally challenged because in practice, it's a de facto mandate/ban/whatever. "You're free to choose size of the whip," where previously there was no beating involved, is not actually that great of a deal.



I don't think we're going to agree here, and that's fine.

There is one interesting outcome of this discussion, though:

Given our discussion, one of us has to bite the bullet on a particular point:

Artifact A: > Those "tremendous wealth of externalities"? That's called living in a society. There's no getting around it.

Artifact B: >These sorts of things are generally challenged because in practice, it's a de facto mandate/ban/whatever. "You're free to choose size of the whip,"...

I will bite the bullet, and accept that unvaccinated people are not directly causing me harm (unless, for example, one punches me in the face). I will wave my hands and accept the externalities as simply "living in society", (even though, as societal beings, unvaccinated folks do have a significant detrimental effect...)

Accepting, for the sake of argument, that personal responsibility ends at what the individual does (rather than any 2nd to n-order effects, i.e., "externalities"), then it also means that the argument "in practice, it's a de facto mandate/ban/whatever." doesn't hold, since no one individual is holding a syringe up to you and forcing you to take it.

again, can't have it both ways.

Thus, if we accept that we are societal beings, and externalities matter (e.g., 2nd to n-order effects), then my right to swing my fist ends at your face, and vice versa, directly and to a tolerable n-th degree.

Just as an employer can choose not to hire you for toxic behavior or any numerous reasons (particularly at at-will states), the only thing they cannot use as a factor is anything that makes you a protected class.

You are effectively proposing that the choice to be unvaccinated should be a protected class.

That is what I disagree with. There is no justification to make it a protected class.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: