Also, the pharmaceutical companies have been lobbying against marijuana legalization. Even if the drug war were entirely at fault, the companies are partially responsible for the drug war.
The Sacklers have caused more pain in more people because of the "abuse". And the med establishment has only fed onto those fears.
Now, everyone in med is 'deeply concerned' with abuse, that many people with legitimate pain are being denied access. The Sacklers lied about addictivity - seriously, how did the FDA allow a morphine derivative to say 'non-addicting'??? But it's also the whole medical establishment's fault in thinking that all pain should be extremely restricted.
>All you are doing when you post something like this is causing a visceral reaction in the people that need to get vaccinated of "fuck you internet guy, I am not listening to you, I am not getting vaccinate!"
This hypothetical person was never going to get vaccinated anyway. The only way "preaching" would cause the outcome you describe would be if that adult had the maturity and oppositional defiance of a toddler.
I would love it if the government required vaccination but the last time the government did something controversial, a bunch of looters and thugs stormed the US Capitol and killed several police officers.
Posting this sort of ideological flamebait to HN is abusive. If it isn't arson, it's criminal negligence.
Since we've asked you many times not to do this on HN and you've continued to do it repeatedly, I've banned your account.
If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
You've been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of their ideology, because it's destructive of the intended use of this site.
I'm not going to ban you for this right now because we haven't warned you before, but your account is way over the line for bannability. (The criteria we apply are explained in past comments here: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme....) Seriously not cool. If you keep this up, we will have to ban you, so please stop and use HN as intended.
>Brian Sicknick, a 42-year-old responding Capitol Police officer, was pepper-sprayed during the riot, and had two thromboembolic strokes the next day, after which he was placed on life support, and soon died.
>In the immediate aftermath of the attack, some members of Congress and press reports included these two suicides in the number of reported casualties, for a total of seven deaths. In July, two more members of law enforcement who responded to the attack died by suicide.
>I would love it if the government required vaccination but the last time the government did something controversial, a bunch of looters and thugs stormed the US Capitol and killed several police officers.
As sennight said, that is a lie. The one person who died violently was one of the rioters, an unarmed woman who was shot by Capitol Police. Four other rioters died of natural causes around the time of the riot.
>Diaz told the Washington Post that there was no evidence that Sicknick had an allergic reaction to chemicals or was otherwise injured, but stated that "all that transpired played a role in his condition."
>Dr. Cyril Wecht, a forensic pathologist, said that Sicknick's manner of death could have been classified as accidental, a homicide, or undetermined.
It sure would be a strange coincidence if his stroke was entirely unrelated as you say.
Please stop using HN for political and ideological battle. We've already had to ask you this. If you keep it up, we're going to have to ban you, because it's destructive of what this site is supposed to be for.
Why does the freedom to infect others outweigh the freedom to survive a preventable disease? You don't get to pick and choose which parts of the social compact to follow as it suits you.
These people want to not have the vaccine AND to work at home so they don't infect others. You'd have a point if they wanted the right to remain unvaccinated while demanding they be allowed to work in the office. Would you prefer if companies just fired everyone who, for whatever misguided reason, don't want the vaccine?
Could a taxi company fire a driver refusing to wear a seat belt?
Could a construction company fire some refusing to wear a helmet?
Could a hospital fire a surgeon who refuses to wear a mask and gloves during operation?
Is "vaccine refuser" a protected class or something inalienable about a person? Does everyone have the right to work anywhere they wish? Plenty of other vaccines are required to attend college and to participate in other parts of society, why is this vaccine different?
In this case its different because UBS apparently doesn't want to fire a bunch of people. Plus, as the article says, different countries have different rules about what an employer is legally allowed to make a condition of employment.
Vaccines don't prevent transmission, you are not helping anyone but yourself with the vaccine, except for not making yourself into a burden for the medical infrastructure.
If you leave quarantine you expose yourself to risk.
It's your choice to leave quarantine or not. It's your choice to get a vaccine or not.
This is a personal responsibility issue.
Not a society wide issue.
It's never been anyone's responsibility to wear a bubble suit to protect immuno-compromised people, or stop eating meat because of people with high cholesterol..
and it's not anyone's responsibility to get a vaccine to protect other people from covid.
Personally Im a hurricane evacuee and we are grateful for the help we don't demand you help us at risk to your livelihood.
Even the most extreme views of libertarianism have the principle of "do not harm others" as the limit for one's freedoms. In fact, other political philosophies have a softer view on this principle, like utilitarianism (maximize wellness even if it goes against a minory).
Rothbard, and I doubt you can find anyone much more libertarian than him, wrote that if you knowingly cause suffering or death of another human being, you must be punished "an eye for an eye". In this case, if you spread covid and somebody dies or gets injured because of it, you should fully restitute the victim, even being executed if the heirs decide so.
From a philosophical point of view, freedom or libertarianism doesn't help you here. I would like to read any libertarian serious author that supports your views.
The societal risk of infecting immuno compromised people with random generic disease is small. Scale matters. Similarly you're not allowed to walk around new york if you're confirmed to be carrying a novel strain of ebola.
Permitting individuals to choose to be vaccinated and building owners to choose to forbid vaccinated people seems reasonable to me. Sacrificing individual freedoms for the mutual benefit of the larger group is the very core concept of society.
To a large number of people.... a survivability of 99.99% is an acceptable risk for people to go out in society freely, like you have with most age groups in Covid.
To some people ONE death is too many because the value of a human life is priceless.
What's the correct, scientifically determined, objective scale of people dying, to allow the government to turn things into a medical fascist state?
My argument is that there is no objectively correct 'scale' because it's not a scientific measure therefore doesn't matter.
It's just the news and government yelling scary death numbers until enough kind-hearted but ignorant people are scared enough to sacrifice their freedoms.
1) Things don't fall into the set of {objective, irrelevant}. There is also "subjective". Which is why we vote to agree on things as a group.
2) There are middle grounds between fascist states and passing some regulations
3) The news being a fearmongering whore doesn't invalidate the fact that some of what it reports may be a genuine threat
4) The right of america has historically fond of "if you don't like it, you can go to another country". Surely it's strictly less impactful to say "if you don't like it, you can work from home".
I agree with your assessment and reasoning. Unfortunately, a large portion of the public, who are disproportionately powerful because of the structure of state and federal governments, are against immigration. Remember the "crisis" of migrant caravans?
Not sure why you've been downvoted, Trump's main distinguishing policy areas were immigration and trade. He played heavily into the "they're stealing our jobs" motif which has been extremely common in US history, going back to immigration waves of the 1800's.
>Based on these figures, MarketWatch reported Bezos donated just .5 percent of his net worth last year - a quarter of the 2 percent the average American donates each year.
Also, why should money be concentrated in the hands of the ultra-wealthy, does their wealth make them more qualified to decide how it's spent compared to society/government?
>First off, the amounts involved are tiny relative to the fortunes behind them. Bezos’s $100m, for example, amounts to about 11 days of his income.
>Well-publicized philanthropy also conveniently distracts attention from how several of these billionaires are endangering their workers and, by extension, the public.
>And why should we believe that Gates or any other billionaire’s “boldness” necessarily reflects society’s values and needs? Oligarchies aren’t the same as democracies.
I think you're getting off track or putting words in my mouth.
"Based on these figures, MarketWatch reported Bezos donated just .5 percent of his net worth last year - a quarter of the 2 percent the average American donates each year."
I'm not looking at percent of net worth. Most of the time that is not the "money" that we are talking about here and would not be subject to the utility and use being discussed. For example, the vast majority of Bezos' worth is tied up stock. Also, not every billionaire is the same. Some may not be giving much, but there are many who have pledged to give away the majority of their fortunes.
"Also, why should money be concentrated in the hands of the wealthy, does that make them more qualified to decide how it's spent compared to society/government?"
I've made no claims or mention on this topic.
"Well-publicized philanthropy also conveniently distracts attention from how several of these billionaires are endangering their workers and, by extension, the public."
Again, not part of my discussion. However, I will say that I find this to be untrue when you see articles coming out discussing this very thing (ie your quote).
"Oligarchies aren’t the same as democracies."
Again, off topic. I agree that they are different. I even agree with the implied part about living in an oligarchy. However, that oligarchy in my opinion is more based on if someone is in the ruling class with special privileges and the power to ignore laws when they want (politicians, judges, cops, DAs, etc) than being a billionaire (although money can help influence).
>Most of the time that is not the "money" that we are talking about here and would not be subject to the utility and use being discussed. For example, the vast majority of Bezos' worth is tied up stock.
It could be subject to the same utility if we taxed it, that's what I was getting at. Wealthy people aren't using money that society could put to great use.
>Also, not every billionaire is the same. Some may not be giving much, but there are many who have pledged to give away the majority of their fortunes.
Why settle for "some" when we could tax all of them?
Again, this whole 'tax the rich' bent you are on is off-topic. In fact, it seems you are not understanding utility in this context of marginal utility.
"It could be subject to the same utility if we taxed it, that's what I was getting at."
"Wealthy people aren't using money that society could put to great use."
Then you could say that the average person's 401k isn't being used either. But investments are a use of money that do contribute to society in providing capital to businesses and individuals. Gains on those investments are also taxable.
There are plenty of things we could do, but that's not really what we are discussing here.
>Then you could say that the average person's 401k isn't being used either.
But the average person has much more marginal utility for their amount of wealth. Going by the average 401k balances here (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/01061...), the marginal utility of dollars $38,401, $160,001, etc is much greater than even millions of dollars at Bezos and Gates level wealth. What else am I missing about utility in this context?
>Gains on those investments are also taxable.
At a much lower rate than income, further cementing the advantages of the ultra-wealthy.
> Also, why should money be concentrated in the hands of the ultra-wealthy, does their wealth make them more qualified to decide how it's spent compared to society/government?
This is why Bill Gates is still a monster to me. The amount of damage he did through Microsoft over the decades (both corrupting culture so everyone is tied to using MS Windows and the people MSFT economically wiped out) cannot be measured. His after-the-fact giving does not make up for it.
Your comment is very well put and reminds me of this quote from Boethius:
>It's my belief that history is a wheel. "Inconsistency is my very essence" -says the wheel- "Rise up on my spokes if you like, but don't complain when you are cast back down into the depths. Good times pass away, but then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away".
