That Ivermectin is somewhat a scares resource is nonsense, there were rather large countries that gave it out like candy with no problems. I can not overstate how cheap and easy to produce it is, quite different from masks. I would also be very doubtful many people would use an obvious placebo.
Its also far from a nonsensical argument. This isnt about vocalizing your opinion and communicating facts but forcing the behavior of other people without an actual harm at stake. Those are two very different things. You also shouldnt force flat earthers on ship trips around the world just because they annoy you. As they will interpret that as a hostile action on your part and react in kind.
Lets make the argument practical. Even with zero effect, I believe given enough motivation i could convince myself that Ivermectin has some sort of effect. Which would very likely induce a placebo effect. For something where there is zero home treatment options which makes it the best option available to me since i wont be able to convince myself of the benefits of homeopathics. All with neglect-able personal risk and societal impact. Differently put, a lot of what i do has higher risk and higher negative societal impact for zero upside as well.
A placebo you however want to prevent me from acquiring because it annoys you. I do believe we can get most problems solved through a reasonable discussion, impact analysis, cost benefit analysis and last but not least cooperation. But you seem to think your feelings allow you to force me to do stuff that leaves me at a disadvantage (lack of a placebo) for no reason what so ever.
This leaves me with the realization, that you are not interested in cooperation. Game theory tells me to stop cooperating immediately till you learned your lesson. Why shouldnt i? Because you get angry and start fantasying about more force?
Unrelated how right you feel on this, i do not believe that we can get anywhere as a species if everyone acted as you do. At the end of the day, forcing people has a cost and creates a reaction. Or differently put, you cant fix stupidity by force. Especially since you might overestimate your ability to identify stupid.
> This isnt about vocalizing your opinion and communicating facts but forcing the behavior of other people without an actual harm at stake
No force was applied to ivermectin proponents. I don't know what you think I'm proposing. We merely enforced the sensible existing rules that drugs should be prescribed only when there is evidence they work.
The ivermectin proponents are generally anti vaccine. People took ivermectin as a substitute for the vaccine. In that way ivermectin hurt public health.
Your placebo argument is also an argument against the entire drug testing/approval process. It's just the same tired libertarianism argument with a rationalist paint job
> This leaves me with the realization, that you are not interested in cooperation
The force is you preventing me from getting Ivermectin. If you take a step back, the rest is your description of your perspective ie why it annoys you. From my perspective, there is no noteworthy negative effect of me getting it and i can clearly describe the negative effect in you preventing me from getting a functioning placebo. From my perspective, an action you take (limiting the availability of a non harmful placebo) has a negative effect on me. This motivates me to a reaction. And i dont think you could expect otherwise, its what any rational actor would do.
So again, neither of us needs to be convinced that i am not an utter moron,
that might not be possible, but do you really want us to go on opposite sites of political camps over this? Not only am i not a nazi but i am a friendly idiot that is actually looking for cooperation, if you cant get along with me, who do you get along with? Because it seems to me like you already burned a lot of bridges and my cooperation can be bought at the very cheap price of not interfering in me getting my horse dewormer despite your utter contempt for my idiocy. Yes i do understand its a placebo, it isnt a substitute for a vaccine and i am of legally sound mind. So where do i sign?
So do you have a thought process and evaluation of the cost benefit analysis of starting a conflict over this? Because it seems not. You believing you are right doesnt make the consequences of those actions (the reactions) go away. The world is full of idiots who react to your actions unrelated to whether you are right. Which you can think about. And should unless you want to end up over time having started a conflict with all the idiots (ie everyone given the exposure to enough topics) despite being right.
I am not taking any action to prevent you from getting ivermectin. The law already prohibits it. Not enforcing laws uniformly would create a bad precedent. Such a bad precedent far outweighs whatever minute advantage you individually get from the placebo effect that you wouldn't get from some other placebo.
Everything else you talk about re: burned bridges is silly. The population causing a problem here is small. Most people got vaccinated and don't want ivermectin. I won't cave to them just like I won't cave to Q supporters or flat earthers.
You act like not giving these people ivermectin took a lot of effort or was costly. Just the opposite. It was the default no effort action of a system working properly.
It would have been no problem to allow access to ivermectin through offlabel use seeing as there was no other treatment. The fact that this didnt happen was caused by politics. And we do live in a democracy with public opinion having a great sway.
The burning bridges thing is silly as long as you look at individual problems. They sum up quickly. And your political camp just denied me lifesaving horse dewormer, didnt you? Some people might not take that lightly. I dont have to join Q anon or flat earthers to vote tactically to stop you. Especially if you think you get to act the way you do because i have no alternative.
I am pretty sure this is a very real mechanism at play explaining a lot of what we see around us. We really cant afford more confrontation over trivial stuff.
Its also far from a nonsensical argument. This isnt about vocalizing your opinion and communicating facts but forcing the behavior of other people without an actual harm at stake. Those are two very different things. You also shouldnt force flat earthers on ship trips around the world just because they annoy you. As they will interpret that as a hostile action on your part and react in kind.
Lets make the argument practical. Even with zero effect, I believe given enough motivation i could convince myself that Ivermectin has some sort of effect. Which would very likely induce a placebo effect. For something where there is zero home treatment options which makes it the best option available to me since i wont be able to convince myself of the benefits of homeopathics. All with neglect-able personal risk and societal impact. Differently put, a lot of what i do has higher risk and higher negative societal impact for zero upside as well.
A placebo you however want to prevent me from acquiring because it annoys you. I do believe we can get most problems solved through a reasonable discussion, impact analysis, cost benefit analysis and last but not least cooperation. But you seem to think your feelings allow you to force me to do stuff that leaves me at a disadvantage (lack of a placebo) for no reason what so ever.
This leaves me with the realization, that you are not interested in cooperation. Game theory tells me to stop cooperating immediately till you learned your lesson. Why shouldnt i? Because you get angry and start fantasying about more force?
Unrelated how right you feel on this, i do not believe that we can get anywhere as a species if everyone acted as you do. At the end of the day, forcing people has a cost and creates a reaction. Or differently put, you cant fix stupidity by force. Especially since you might overestimate your ability to identify stupid.