All of these comments following the pattern "I'm vaccinated but [insert vaccine hesitancy content here]" sound quite a lot like the "I'm a democrat but [insert pro-trump content]" comments that abounded in the last cycle.
I don't know what to make of it. Is this a rhetorical strategy that really works? A tic of people experiencing cognitive dissonance?
They could be like me: a weak person who took it because I was forced, but I still don't agree it's worth the risk for young people (I'd definitely agree for very old people).
What makes you think it isn't worth the risk for young people i.e. what are the risks of the vaccine that you are worried about compared to the risks of covid for a young person?
Based on Israel's vaccine data, we would need to see 2/100k 20-29 year olds or 6/100k 30-39 year olds die or experience side affects worse than severe covid for it to make sense to avoid the vaccine.
Its totally healthy to both believe that the vaccine makes sense for you, and still respect, love, include, and accomodate people who decide it isn't right for them. We're all different, and the world is very complicated; that's what makes life so awesome.
That's a nice sentiment[1], but why couch it in such an odd construction? "I took it, but here's a bunch of reasons not to" doesn't come across as an argument for equanimity and individual decision making, it comes across as an argument not to take it.
[1]: though 'include' carries a _lot_ of potential interpretations there :)
Everyone interprets arguments differently. Some reason against the vaccine may be insufficient to dissuade you, but it may dissuade another.
"I took it, but here's a bunch of reasons to not to" is THE best argument for equanimity and individual decision making; its Informed Consent. You should try to learn everything you can; the stuff the media tells you, the stuff the government tells you, the stuff doctors tell you, and even the stuff on the hard anti-vax it'll give you autism side says. Take all of it with a grain of salt, but different amounts of salt depending on the credentials and biases of the source. Sieve it through your own personal belief system. Then act to your beliefs. You'll probably be wrong, but you were already wrong before; the goal isn't to always be right, but to continually improve your ability to recognize when you're wrong.
There is no one truth to any aspect of our reality. You may actually find some compelling arguments against a belief system you once had. For example, one soft anti-vax argument I've heard recently stuck with me: that these vaccines are effectively the "kills 99.9% of germs" equivalent of ultra-fast evolving viruses, imperfect vaccines which allow both the host to live and the virus to evolve, thus creating even more vaccine resistant strains of COVID. And, maybe, at a global public health level, these vaccines are a REALLY bad idea long-term, and our efforts to save a few million people today will kill millions more in the future. Maybe. Its hard to say, but its an interesting thought.
You won't hear that from the CDC. Their bias in PR right now is: everyone get vaccinated, downplay anything negative about the vaccine, don't allow for nuance because we can't trust the public with nuance, we just need them vaccinated. That's fine! Its a legitimate goal that will almost definitely result in a lot of good. But that doesn't mean the whole truth is everything they say.
Its a common turn of phrase in modern English. Everyone talks like that. I know its in vogue right now to assume everyone who doesn't agree with you is a bot or paid shill for some agenda seeking group, and maybe many of them are. But not everyone. People really do talk this way in every day conversation.
As for mine. I got my first shot in December. Probably one of the first in my area. Got second 2 weeks after. I think everyone should get it as soon as they are comfortable with doing so. There is such a thing as being unreasonably suspicious and antivaxxers fall into that pretty easily but there is nothing inherently wrong with wanting more than emergency approval. Furthermore, private companies can definitely make it a term of employment but I am strongly against the government requiring it. I am a firm believer that everyone has the right to be a dumbass.
Scientific matter:
Vaccines save lives, protect people around you and improve your personal odds as well. (I am a biochemist)
Political matter:
What is the extent to which we want to allow people to make their own decisions when these decisions have an impact on the well-being of others?
Whatever your answer to the second question is (an exercise which I leave to the reader) is going to have an impact on the degree of inclusion and on the degree of accommodation that should be extended to people who choose not to vaccinate. Respect and love is possible and encouraged in all cases.
As a bonus, for further consideration...
Ethical matter:
What is the moral value of an ill-informed decision, and is the moral value of an ill-informed decision sufficient to support the principle of individual autonomy?
Nearly every decision one makes has an impact on the well-being of others. On the one end, you can't shoot someone just because you feel like it. On the other end, a teenage boy asks a girl out, the girl Decides to reject him, and he is so devastated he commits suicide. Somewhere in the middle, I decide to drive to work today, my wheel goes flying off, I careen into oncoming traffic killing myself and another; if only I had Decided to take the bus today.
Obviously we, as a society, draw a line somewhere. I don't know if where we draw that line today is actually the correct place, or if there even is a "correct" place to draw it.
My opinion on vaccine mandates, right now, is: They're probably bad. Not because of personal liberty, though that may be a valid argument; I'm just not sure (I'm not sure I'll ever be sure; I'm willing to admit that decision is above my pay grade). But because the vaccines we have right now are actually not great at stopping the spread of the virus. They do save lives and keep people out of the hospital, but that's separate from the argument that they keep your coworkers safe. We're definitely sacrificing personal liberty, which may be bad, for tenuous benefit.
There's another similar argument: Keeping preventable cases out of the Hospital is a public good, because medical care is a limited resource that is VERY stressed right now. This, actually, resonates more with me. I think this is a stronger argument for vaccine mandates. Your personal liberties may have to end when you call 911 and expect someone else to answer and save your life, and I think demanding wide vaccination is morally superior to refusing care to a dying man because he chose not to get vaccinated.
But the bigger issue with this argument is determining why the medical system is so close to the brink of collapse; I suspect it has less to do with COVID, and more to do with doctors and nurses being treated like shit, which significantly pre-dates COVID, leading to burnout and people leaving the industry. I have a vivid memory from 20 years ago, being 10 or something, sitting in the car with my mom after her nurse shift, she's near tears and asks me if I think its fair that Brittany Spears can make millions but nurses make almost nothing. I still feel guilt today, making so much money in tech, while our nurses (and teachers, and many other insanely important industries) make so little; it isn't right. If we, as a society, were significantly better at supporting our healthcare providers, its possible we could support personal liberty and manage the consequences of that liberty, at least in this domain. (and, to be clear, that support isn't just paying more; its also mental health, and time off, and streamlining management, and training more people to join the industry. its a big problem)
There's also one argument against mandates which resonates very well with me: That the systems we have in place to validate vaccinations rarely take into account natural immunity. If this were intentional, e.g. natural immunity sucks so we need you to get a vaccine, then that's one thing. But it seems like this is a discussion we simply haven't had, in the US. Natural immunity seems to be a thing, so we should be inclusive and give people that path. But we aren't; we demand the Record Card. This seems to be a net bad; either policymakers need to say "natural immunity isn't effective at stopping infection" or mandates need to allow for a positive test result, at any point in the past (e.g.) year, to be sufficient as a replacement for a vaccine.
One local company has taken on the policy "vaccination or get tested twice a week". This is utter insanity, and its a big reason why so much of America, on both sides of the political spectrum but especially the right, has lost faith in the system. These policies essentially, to many people, say "sacrifice your personal liberty, or significantly inconvenience both you and our health care system by getting tested a ton." Private companies should not have the ability to put that kind of stress on our already stressed health care system in the dumb pursuit of utilizing their expensive office real estate. At the very least, the government needs to step in and say that companies cannot demand ongoing testing; that I 100% support. If a company decides to mandate only vaccination after that, I think that's far more gray, and while I am fully vaccinated, it still doesn't sit right with me. But, maybe its the right decision for them and their workers.
Policymakers play the hand they're dealt; disliking a policy because you dislike the conditions it's predicated on is a valid thing to feel, but not an argument that the the policy is wrong or suboptimal. It would be better if the healthcare system were less burdened, but 'dramatically increase capacity of the healthcare system' was not a feasible response to the acute crisis of the last 18 months. Of course we should work toward that (and in particular toward making a more elastic healthcare system) but that's a long term solution, and under-provisioned in a crunch to over-provisioned during slack is two problems, not none.
The naturally immunity thing is fraught. Accepting for argument that naturally immunity is exactly as good as the best vaccine, it's reasonable to equate vaccinated and recovered at a point in time. Covid has done all the damage it's going to do to the recovered group, and both are as protected as the other going forward (per assumption).
However, offering 'vaccine or recovery' as an option going forward is more harmful if there are any remaining unvaccinated/uninfected people. Some _will_ choose the 'recovery' option, at immense personal (illness, possible long-term damage, possible death) and societal (health-care over-burden, transmission effects, etc.) expense. Splitting the currently-recovered from uninfected/unvaccinated for policy-making purposes would require either faith in self-reporting or significant invasion into health records. Neither seem tenable in the US, for obvious reasons of culture and law. IIRC other countries are taking that route.
Which leaves you, I think, where your comment started. Are the external costs of assuming the risk large enough that policy should proscribe that option and mandate vaccines?
The fact you "don't know what to make of it" implies you haven't noticed how hard it is to convey sane opinions that align with team A to people of team B out of fear of being ostracized. If you haven't noticed this, now you know, and so don't need to be puzzled about why people do this to try to avoid being labelled and demonized.
Don't know what to make of the frequency, to be precise. I understand the difficulty there, I'm just surprised that the prophylactic "I'm a ___" is so prevalent and apparently so effective.
It is a desperate plea for people to not be written off entirely out of tribal affiliation.
Discussion has devolved into two camps largely villainizing each other, so it is an appeal to address the content of their posts opposed to some claim of the 5G/ microchip/ reptilian crowd
I think it's "please don't reflexively ignore the opinion that I am about to express, which is the kind of opinion that people on the other side reflexively ignore".
Yes this is exactly why people are prefacing their comments with such details, because after participating in enough HN discussions on topics like these you'll quickly realize how reflexive people can be - down-voting and flagging without any charitable interpretation or engaging in nuanced and informed responses that tease out the important themes of the discussion.
I don't know what to make of it. Is this a rhetorical strategy that really works? A tic of people experiencing cognitive dissonance?