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Have any prominent Objectivists addressed this point II?

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DM

So by mandate you mean the government would absolve individuals of liability by following the mandate, and not that a government has a right to forcibly vaccinate individuals? As I believe Rand said that government would have the right to retaliate , eg forced quarantine, but not the right to forcibly inoculate.

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On 9/10/2021 at 6:44 AM, Doug Morris said:

I am not saying that we all are subject to the same degree of threat or all causing the same degree of threat.  I am saying that anyone who refuses to mask or refuses to vaccinate without a valid medical reason is unnecessarily increasing the threat.

The "degree of threat" was in response to the above. It is not that you are saying it is the same degree, but a blanket (treat everyone the same) mandate does treat it that way. And if one is a proponent of such a mandate, they are supporting that position. And because of that people who increase the threat actually and "highly" are treated the same as those who do not in fact pose any threat.

Keep in mind, I am not against a company creating mandates for its' employees (because they are automatically limited in their force). Worst case is you have to leave. While a threat of incarceration is a threat of death, a reaction to criminal behavior.

But you have still not  addressed the issue of the "few" who are not a threat at all.

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On 9/9/2021 at 9:07 PM, Easy Truth said:

The idea that we all have the same level of threat is a metaphor, that government is acting on. It is a metaphor that you seem to support.

You introduced the notion of same level of threat.  I used the word "degree" instead of "level"; I did not think this was an important difference.  You are too focused on how much threat there is from one person or another.  This can keep changing and is probably impossible to pin down.  I am talking about unnecessarily increasing risk.  Some increases in risk are easy to identify as such, even if we can't find exact before and after numbers.  If we don't know a person's exact pandemic status, that lack of knowledge constitutes risk from that person. 

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5 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

that lack of knowledge constitutes risk from that person. 

You just made human civilization impossible. 

 

2 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

Everyone is subject to the same laws about safe driving and safe gun use, even though different people pose different degrees of risk in both.

I don't think you can make this analogy work: the question is about what the law ought to be and why, not what it is.

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2 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

I am talking about unnecessarily increasing risk.  Some increases in risk are easy to identify as such, even if we can't find exact before and after numbers.  If we don't know a person's exact pandemic status, that lack of knowledge constitutes risk from that person. 

Doug, in a society that uses laws based on objective reality, you can't base laws on unknowable risk levels.

What if someone kills another, after being arrested, his defense is "Judge, I'm innocent, you simply can't know the risk I was dealing with".

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9 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Any mandate to mask or to vaccinate should allow exceptions when a physician certifies that there is a legitimate reason for one.

Also, please see my reply to happiness just now.

 

Quite backwards, DM. The choice rests only with the individual under advice from his physician (if he chooses to take it). To understand individual rights, one does not have his rights ¬granted¬ to him by Gvt.

One does not get one's doctor to seek special deferment from Gvt. in order to not have force imposed on one.

"...a legitimate reason for one." is creeping authoritarianism. What you get for the irrationality of treating a virus as 'force'.

"Exceptions" - to what? To coercion by state, clearly.

Edited by whYNOT
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On 9/10/2021 at 5:14 PM, dream_weaver said:

 

Early on, Michigan government was leaning on grocery stores and restaurants to be the enforcer for an executive order based on a law that later was deemed unconstitutional by a Michigan supreme court.

 

<sigh>

Yes, co-opting business owners to be stooges and enforcers of the Gvt. Glad this one at least was struck down.

It's enough that many companies would voluntarily police their customers.

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On 9/12/2021 at 11:18 PM, dream_weaver said:

The fact that you choose to remain in Africa rather than emigrate to the U.S.A.?

 

If no more that a foreign perspective is mildly interesting, would that suffice? Weird this, that "nobody cares what you say" - and I've come across it before. Most unphilosophical and unexpected from Objectivists. As if ideas and minds (liberty and rights!) are constrained by national borders. It speaks of elitism by location.

Edited by whYNOT
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15 hours ago, 2046 said:
15 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

that lack of knowledge constitutes risk from that person. 

You just made human civilization impossible. 

We need to make rational judgments about what increases in physical risk require what response.

Restraints should only be applied to identifiable increases in physical risk.

We are not entitled to impose any restraints based on a complete lack of knowledge.  We know a lot about the COVID-19 pandemic, including that people can be contagious without showing symptoms.

15 hours ago, 2046 said:

 

15 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

Everyone is subject to the same laws about safe driving and safe gun use, even though different people pose different degrees of risk in both.

I don't think you can make this analogy work: the question is about what the law ought to be and why, not what it is.

Are you suggesting that laws about safe driving and safe gun use should apply differently to different people?

 

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13 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Doug, in a society that uses laws based on objective reality, you can't base laws on unknowable risk levels.

The risk levels are not completely unknowable.  COVID-19 is objectively part of reality.  While our knowledge of it is incomplete, a lot is known about it.

13 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

What if someone kills another, after being arrested, his defense is "Judge, I'm innocent, you simply can't know the risk I was dealing with".

If someone kills another and wants to claim this was justified by risk, they should be under a heavy burden of proof to justify this claim, and they should be required to fully explain themselves.  

If A is pointing a gun at B, B may be justified in shooting A even if B does not know for sure that A intends to shoot. The situation should still be examined rationally.  

We are not entitled to do anything to another person based on a complete lack of knowledge.

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10 hours ago, whYNOT said:

Quite backwards, DM. The choice rests only with the individual under advice from his physician (if he chooses to take it). To understand individual rights, one does not have his rights ¬granted¬ to him by Gvt.

One does not get one's doctor to seek special deferment from Gvt. in order to not have force imposed on one.

"...a legitimate reason for one." is creeping authoritarianism. What you get for the irrationality of treating a virus as 'force'.

"Exceptions" - to what? To coercion by state, clearly.

You are ignoring the key point of disagreement between us:  whether unnecessarily increasing the risk of spread of disease can rise to an initiation of physical force.

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53 minutes ago, Doug Morris said:

Restraints should only be applied to identifiable increases in physical risk.

Hence having human civilization should be restrained, by this logic. The counter argument to this is simply: Life is inherently an identifiable increase in risk, so that is not the standard for restraint-application.

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Doug, a major problem with your argument is simply using the word "risk". If you said 50 percent risk, you would get far more agreement than now. The problem with Covid or the flu is the relatively small risk compared to ebola.

I was wondering why you don't use Ebola, but I think it's because the contrast would reveal the problem with Covid or the flu. After all the flu also kills a lot of people every year.

Just living in your house has a risk of an airplane crashing into it.

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6 hours ago, 2046 said:

Hence having human civilization should be restrained, by this logic. The counter argument to this is simply: Life is inherently an identifiable increase in risk, so that is not the standard for restraint-application.

I was stating a necessary condition, not a sufficient one.

If you are dead, the risk of death is 100% for all future times.  If you are alive, the risk of death is less than that for some future times.  So life reduces risk.

Civilization also reduces risk unless the civilization is malfunctioning so horribly that it does not deserve to be called civilization.

 

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3 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Doug, a major problem with your argument is simply using the word "risk". If you said 50 percent risk, you would get far more agreement than now. The problem with Covid or the flu is the relatively small risk compared to ebola.

I was wondering why you don't use Ebola, but I think it's because the contrast would reveal the problem with Covid or the flu. After all the flu also kills a lot of people every year.

Just living in your house has a risk of an airplane crashing into it.

As I have repeatedly said, I am talking about unnecessarily increasing risk, not about the mere existence of risk.

Ebola outbreaks tend to burn out quickly, so in that respect Ebola is less risky than COVID-19 or flu.  But Ebola is scarier because people bleed from places they don't normally bleed from and because of a higher mortality rate among those who have the bad luck to be infected.

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15 hours ago, Doug Morris said:

You are ignoring the key point of disagreement between us:  whether unnecessarily increasing the risk of spread of disease can rise to an initiation of physical force.

I've heard you often. "Unnecessarily increasing the risk of the spread..." Possible "initiation of physical force". You have not deviated from your stand.

"The Risk".

Two contexts that you drop: a. Risk is relative and variable. b. Risk has another side to the equation, risks can't be assessed in isolation from corresponding rewards. e.g. "risk-benefit", as the sensible immunologists insist about vaccination decisions.

Both contexts were ignored by scientists, national health departments and by governments, from the pandemic start (lockdowns for all) now through to vaccines (for everyone, imposed by any means) on the back end.

Different people will have ¬much¬ differing threats from Covid, healthwise - and/or from the possible exposure to Covid they allow themselves. Second, different people have differing hierarchies of values, goals and life-requirements. As I've seen, quite elderly men and women who are technically at a higher risk refused to stop normal functioning, working to keep their businesses afloat, and so on this past year. You see the point, knowing the greater risks, they were prepared to make a higher risk-benefit choice, which is rational - if riskier.

When those risk -benefit, moral decisions which only each individual can make - were assumed and taken over by bureaucrats and mostly concrete-minded scientists they naturally responded as governments can only understand, collectively. With a blanket, uniform distribution of potential risks, equally and dogmatically applied for everyone in society, regardless. That meant of course no one's life was their own any longer. Self-responsibility turned to and was loaded with other-responsibility.

Then, with draconian measures made lawful, we saw here, e.g. the utter stupidity of police interventions on surfers out in the waves, charged for not masking, not distancing or some-such crime.

Mass lockdown for all was the hugest, global policy error back then as it is now with mass vaccinations: scientifically, rights-wise, ethically.

Edited by whYNOT
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