Ethical to mock the anti vax?

slant said:
At this point @acd has swayed me pretty good on this. I definitely can see the angle that this is an emotional release for people. It's probably not ethical in my opinion but at the same time, if you don't like it, don't visit the Reddit. Nobody is forcing anybody to read it. People have the right to express their frustrations and thoughts. I like looking at it from the angle that acd suggested because it can be seen as a mean spirited thing but there are reasons why people sometimes have strong reactions and communicate in ways that aren't ideal.
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Idk if it's ethical or not. Will it hurt people's feelings? Yes. I don't know that that in itself makes it not ethical. I would not be happy to see my uncle on there. I would never "nominate" someone for a HCA. But I don't think it comes from a place of hatred for those who have died.
 
Root and branch I take a positive skeptic approach to the world around me, which means I try and listen and understand conflicting perspectives on things without rushing to any of the poles of judgement. My own belief is that vaccines are a vital route out of the pandemic, and that other much more terrible diseases have been controlled with them in the past. But if I listen to the arguments of those who refuse the COVID vaccine, I cannot see that my own personal understanding is based on firmer ground than theirs - I get all my information from the media and it's a long way removed from the actual scientific, medical and epidemiological details, and the in depth training I would need, in order to form a view from first hand data. So my view is based on the stories in the media that indicate the vaccines have reduced the severity of COVID to the levels where it's becoming something we can live with in our everyday lives.

But we know that often the media stories are biased by political considerations and by what gets them the most revenue. So my sources of information are biased and tainted, just are those of the anti-vax folks. On balance it seems considerably more credible that the vaccines are relatively safe, and are effective enough to allow a slow return to normality - because if that were not the case at least some of the formal news outlets would be making a big fuss about it. But I'm not going to condemn folks who look at sources of information that are in many ways derived in the same way as my own, but present different aspects of the situation and lead folks to a different conclusion.

So I will argue that the anti-vaxers are wrong, but accept that their perspective is a valid one even so, and sincerely held. I think each side should respect the other's views and not villify them, especially as this stops any rational dialogue and leads to an inceasingly polarised and emotionally charged position. As with many things in a democratic society I think that there must be a balance between individual freedom and the wishes of the majority, and so there will be consequences for not being vaccinated when the majority consensus is the desire for us all to be. I'd limit it to the extremes, such as insisting that certain medical and care staff must be vaccinated in order to limit their absence from work, and reduce their level of possible infectiveness amongst vulnerable folks.

I think persuasion and long term experience will level things off in due course while barking at each other will just have the opposite effect.
 
acd said:
Idk if it's ethical or not. Will it hurt people's feelings? Yes. I don't know that that in itself makes it not ethical. I would not be happy to see my uncle on there. I would never "nominate" someone for a HCA. But I don't think it comes from a place of hatred for those who have died.
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Yes, I agree. The way I react to seeing it- the way it makes me feel- doesn't really dictate what the motivation of the people who posted it were. I don't need to assume bad intent just because I don't like it.
 
SlowUpTake said:
em...this is not true, not that it matters.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html

You don't want to get vaccinated, fine. Shame, however, is a highly useful and proven method of getting populations to behave in what is considered acceptable ways.
So what is "acceptable " and what is "considered" in this context. Certainly we postmodernists will look scornfully at any attempt to defer to a higher authority but isn't that simply throwing away the good because it may be contaminated with the bad?
Simply tossing in labels like "Big Pharma" and The Government" does not entirely negate substantial numerical evidence that large percentages of the population that have taken a risk and became vaccinated are saving the healthcare system billions of dollars and relieving thousands of healthcare workers from the burden of caring for them when they might have otherwise fallen gravely ill.
And should not those members of society who have taken that risk as a civic duty not hold their fellows who refuse to do so (as an expression of their individual liberty) hold those members in a form of contempt?

If your going to fart in public you will suffer the consequences .
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Hahahahahaha!
 
I thought about this some more today. What makes me sad about the HCA posts is always the very last slides where family and friends are mourning the loss of someone they loved. I sometimes have to remind myself that underneath all the fucking stupid shit that people post on Facebook and Twitter these people have relationships with others around them that might look completely different than what I might expect based on how bad they seem to want to snuggle up with someone like Trump or post outrageous Q Anon inspired conspiracies that are so easily disproved that I wonder if they have wings to support how far they're trying to leap.

I had someone today tell me that COVID isn't really a pandemic and he's seen nothing that suggests that it's a real pandemic. I asked him what he would personally need to see in order for him to consider it a pandemic. His answer was that he would have to see people actually dying - people he knows personally and not people who are "old" or who have "pre-existing conditions." I told him that there are many people that would envy the position he's in if he doesn't know anyone who has died or who has been gravely ill. I don't relate to this way of thinking at all. So having these conversations is what puts me on the fence about all of this. The complete disregard for the loss and suffering of others doesn't qualify COVID as a pandemic for him because he hasn't had to suffer except to put a fucking mask on his face once in a while.

I often find it really difficult not to harshly judge. I also know that social media algorithms are pretty fucked up and are no joke and that having to stay home for months on end and nothing to do but go online and get sucked into all the garbage.
 
Nixie said:
On Reddit, there is a thread called the Herman Cain Awards.

It is meant to show posts of anti vaccination / conspiracy theorists. The FB pages are scanned and memes collected and when an anti vaxxer dies from COVID, they post to make fun of their stupidity.

I find myself drawn to this subreddit, the horrible , idiotic shit that gets posted is mind numbing.

Is it ethical? The place maintains they show the "covidiots" to encourage vaccination. A part of me thinks it isn't ethical.

Regardless of vax status, they are people. At the same time, the horrific accounts on the subreddit seems like hurting feelings is the last thing I should worry about.
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I sometimes find myself mocking people who can't engage with sincere disagreement. However, I see mockery as detestable, lazy, and pointless. So even though I occasionally engage in it, I don't approve of my engaging in it.

As a distinct consideration, no one should be forced or pressured to take any medicine, treatment, etc., if they don't want to. It's their body.
 
Some of us have a horrible sense of humor. I can laugh at horrible things, lol. But I can also be disturbed, can get creeped out, etc. Just because I can laugh, doesn't mean I think it's right to laugh at it, and I can still be empathetic/sympathetic to the subject of the joke even if I laugh. Did I answer the question? I have no idea. Ambivalent, as always.

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I don't think it's ethical. I also think it's a natural reaction to the situation for people with a certain viewpoint who may have gone through their own tragedy. (a.k.a. part of being human)

Whether they're right or not I think that many of the people who are anti-vaccine genuinely think they're doing the right thing. They see a world where if they do get vaccinated it would cause greater harm than if they didn't. I think there are good and bad choices but ultimately what is the right choice is very difficult to figure out. I think mocking people who are trying to do the right thing is a bit ironic, but something we're innately prone to do if we think the other side is making the wrong choice. Just like the people who are anti-vaccine, the people mocking anti-vaxxers believe that they are making the right choice.

People are always more similar to each other than they're different.
 
Nixie said:
We do "penalize" people for health concerns, we tax them .

Think cigarettes and liquor
We should tax the anti vaxxers to make up for the money and effort they take to deal with.
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I am an anti-vaxxer.

What about me do you want to tax? I am not telling anyone what to do.

Do you want to tax me for my beliefs? Is that how you want people to be governed?

addendum:
Just an fyi that the Covid shot is not a vaccine. So also, that while all anti-vaxxers are opposed to the Covid jabs, there are many, many pro-vaxxers that are also opposed to it. Malone being a prime example.
 
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Pin said:
I don't care if jokes are made at the expense of people who are factually and morally wrong. They deserve the ridicule.
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Not saying I entirely disagree, but many, such as Galileo and Copernicus, were deserving recipients of ridicule because they were factually and morally wrong.
 
Thank God we have doctor internet to show us the truth. This gets personal for me as I can't get back surgery as the hospital is over run with covid. So a big thank you to all those that refuse to act as though covid is real. You are why we get the variants, and why we continue to require the precautions you don't take or follow..
By the way, I'm not interested in doctor internet videos,for any other anti vax b. s ..
 
o2b said:
addendum:
Just an fyi that the Covid shot is not a vaccine. So also, that while all anti-vaxxers are opposed to the Covid jabs, there are many, many pro-vaxxers that are also opposed to it. Malone being a prime example.
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This is a fair point if you define a vaccine as providing immunity from a disease. By this definition the polio vaccine when it was first introduced was only 50% effective at stopping any given individual from succumbing to polio and therefore was not a vaccine, yet it was called one and accepted as such.

Standards changed over the decades and public health programs aimed at eradication diseases focused on the idea of immunization as being a guaranteed result of vaccination. As a result prior to the covid-19 pandemic the colloquial definition of a vaccine was that it immunized one from contracting a disease, that said my experience was with children that were vaccinated 20 years ago; the discussion between parents and pediatricians emphatically included the caveat that the shots were protection against infection and very good protection at that.

If you do a time restricted internet search on vaccination vs. immunization you see the words used interchangeably until recently, now public heath sites are putting distance between the concepts.

I think it is a fair criticism by the anti-jabbers. But ending the discussion with 'if a vaccine does not provide immunization it is not a vaccine' leaves too much on the table. The mRNA [insert term here] do in fact provide protection from severe covid in most cases and, by many studies, reduce the amount of virus shedding by infected individuals therefore they do reduce hospitalizations and are probably reducing infections.

What do you want to call it? I have no problem with "Vaccine" .
 
o2b said:
Not saying I entirely disagree, but many, such as Galileo and Copernicus, were deserving recipients of ridicule because they were factually and morally wrong.
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I'm not going to weigh in on Galileo or Capernicus. What I do know is that most people who tend to disagree with scientific experts on matters of science are not usually experts on science.
 
Pin said:
I'm not going to weigh in on Galileo or Capernicus. What I do know is that most people who tend to disagree with scientific experts on matters of science are not usually experts on science.
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It's intreresting that Galileo is actually quite a good example of how all this sort of thing can go wrong. He was a brilliant guy, who laid down some of the deepest and most important foundations of modern science - a complete genius - but by many accounts he was also an opinionated arsehole who was clueless about the best way to navigate the complicated politics of his time and got up the noses of people who mattered. It seems bizarre these days that the relationship of the sun and planets to the earth should matter to the states of those times, but for better or worse, it did. From what I understand, he had people in influential positions who tried to help him present his ideas in ways that would have led to a gradual and effective change, not only in science but in the consitutional politics. His ego would not allow him to do that, and he suffered the inevitable consequences of not taking into account a bigger picture than his own specialities. .

I think this is why using ridicule on either side of the COVID vaccination argument is wrong. It simply backs folks into their corners and makes them dig in instead of listening to each other and building trust and consensus. The argument is not simply about the validity and the safety of the medical and political approaches and their scientific basis, but is centred on fear - the fear of health service provision being overwhelmed by the pandemic, the fear of economic collapse, the fear of the harm that the treatments may cause as side effects, and the fear of suffering and death of ourselves and our loved ones on both sides of the equation. There will be no concensus as long as these conflicting fears aren't reconciled with each other.
 
David54 said:
Thank God we have doctor internet to show us the truth. This gets personal for me as I can't get back surgery as the hospital is over run with covid. So a big thank you to all those that refuse to act as though covid is real. You are why we get the variants, and why we continue to require the precautions you don't take or follow..
By the way, I'm not interested in doctor internet videos,for any other anti vax b. s ..
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If you think it the right thing to do, perhaps you can differentiate between one's outward act and one's underlying reason why.

I act as though covid is real.

You are really good at judging people.
 
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