Doug Morris

They are out to get us! This is a pessimistic view of humanity. Sort of, for every victim there must be a victimizer, no? With the best of intentions by the great majority, and in spite of the failed or very dictatorial interventions to stop it, it's the nature of viruses to spread. This one, and the results evident everywhere, proves that. One can't blame 'the people' or any individual. It is irrational to depend on others' 'social responsibility' towards one, or Gvts to protect one from an invisible entity. That is how freedoms are lost, and then the end of individual rights. whYNOT seems not to have read my post.

My point was that the article you cited was only about people who had been vaccine hesitant. It has nothing with any education level in general.

What, exactly, does among the vaccine hesitant mean? The way I read this, it is repeating the statement that, among those who were already vaccine hesitant, PhD's were the least likely to change their minds. It has nothing to do with which education level among the general population is how likely to be vaccine hesitant.

This does not follow logically from what has been said here. Also, the violation consists of wrongly increasing the physical risk to the victim. It is an initiation of force to recklessly shoot a gun in a crowded place, even if you don't know whether it is loaded with live rounds or blanks and even if you don't hit anyone. By the same token, it is an initiation of force to recklessly increase the risk of the spread of disease, even if you don't know whether or not you are infected and even if you don't actually infect anyone.

I think when Ayn Rand spoke of initiating force, she meant using force as opposed to using reason and voluntary cooperation. There are lots of things that involve doing something physical to someone else, such as giving an injection, drawing a blood sample or blood donation, having sex, pulling someone back from a dangerous accidental fall, or lifting someone up to help them reach something or as part of a performance. If it is done by mutual consent, it is not an initiation of force in the sense Ayn Rand was using.

Can you point us to the study?

Not prudence? Not a desire for good health? Not necessity? Not the work that had already been done on mRNA technology? Not a desire for scientific progress? What are your grounds for saying manipulation was involved?

The vaccine has been very effective so far, including against the delta variant. Failure to vaccinate greatly increases risk, both for oneself and others. Is all you have to offer Speculation?

Offer your evidence and I'll tell you what I think of it. Again, the article you yourself linked shows your statement is simplistic and misleading. Yes, I still think they are not treating positive tests irrespective of cause as a covid death in the tally, and the article you yourself linked supports me in this. I already have. Everyone who does not have a valid medical excuse should do the same.

How many people believe something proves nothing about whether it is true or false. If you want to argue about misleading reports, how about some evidence.

I read the entire article. What it says to me is that your statement is simplistic and misleading.

The United Kingdom offers some encouraging clues, and might serve as a bellwether for America’s coming months. The variant’s recent reign triggered a climb in pediatric cases there as well, but kids didn’t seem to make up an unexpected proportion of the surge, Alasdair Munro, a pediatric infectious-disease physician at the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility, told me. As things stand, he said, “there’s no indication” that Delta poses a particular menace to kids. In this context, "young" means younger than most of the victims of the original virus.

I wasn't expecting a debate on this. I've started a search for identifiable sources. Can you show us exactly what they said?

People who died and had a positive test for covid were listed as a covid death. What I heard is that this wasn't true. What is your source?

The Delta variant is making lots of young people sick.

You ignore the other point.

What evidence do you have that this has happened? Why should they?

Based on the actual results. There have been very few COVID-19 deaths among the vaccinated. There have been a lot of COVID-19 deaths among the unvaccinated.

I looked at the article. What it amounts to is that we know the main way the virus spreads, but there is some disagreement about certain details. I don't think any of the experts were claiming or expecting a magic bullet. The vaccine, in addition to very greatly reducing the risk to the recipient, greatly reduces the risk that the recipient will transmit the disease.

I am not blaming "the people" or looking for scapegoats. I am saying that those who do not take proper precautions are increasing the risk for everyone.

As you say, we've argued this before. I stand by what I said then.

Since altruism dominates our society, it has naturally dominated discussion of the pandemic. There has been little room for more rational considerations, such as the point that increasing the risk of spreading disease puts people in physical danger and may rise to the level of an initiation of physical force.

An arbitrary choice is one divorced from one's understanding of reality. If one's understanding of reality provides no basis for picking one choice over another, the choice becomes optional, not arbitrary. It would be arbitrary if your understanding of reality indicated you should go left, but you went right on a whim.

From the Ayn Rand lexicon: It is important to note that while the choice of a given standard is optional, the mathematical rules of using it are not. It makes no difference whether one measures length in terms of feet or meters; the standard provides only the form of notation, not the substance nor the result of the process of measuring. The facts established by measurement will be the same, regardless of the particular standard used; the standard can neither alter nor affect them. The requirements of a standard of measurement are: that it represent the appropriate attribute, that it be easily perceivable by man and that, once chosen, it remain immutable and absolute whenever used. “Cognition and Measurement,” Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, 7–8 The capacity to procreate is merely a potential which man is not obligated to actualize. The choice to have children or not is morally optional. “Of Living Death,” The Voice of Reason, 55

Tossing a coin is as good a way as any of choosing when it is optional which you choose. If you are pursued by dangerous people, tossing a coin may be a good way to make it hard for them to tell what you choose.