Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston: income tax, low, appointed)

[bostongymjunkie]

Originally Posted by Amontillado

Isaac Asimov famously said:
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

There's a disease that's killed over 600,000 of us, and people still have to go around making up nonsense about it. It's evidently a pretty powerful urge.

Ray Dallo not so infamously said:


Distinguish open-minded people from closed-minded people. Open-minded people seek to learn by asking questions; they realize that what they know is little in relation to what there is to know and recognize that they might be wrong. Closed-minded people always tell you what they know, even if they know hardly anything about the subject being discussed. They are typically made uncomfortable by being around those who know a lot more about a subject, unlike open-minded people who are thrilled by such company.


Albert Einstein infamously said:
“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.”

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Meh, somewhat. But what is done more so here among the people that like to ask questions is look for validation of their already formed beliefs and conclusion shop.

I have some STEM degrees, two in a bio field. I KNOW I'm not smart enough to understand the details of this research. If I had questions I'd be asking of it to someone with a Ph.D. in the field and specific experience in this research. A smart person knows they're limitations to understand some fields.

A TON of really self proclaimed "smart people" push "do your own independent research" (horrible bleeping advice for a layperson!!!) and they end up on some crazy rabbit hole like vaccines cause autism. They're not smart people. They think they're being smart. Huge difference.

And those "smart people" aren't actually being smart or being "independent thinkers" by searching out reddit chats or youtube videos by the "they're suppressing my information" rando so they "can hear all sides".

Those people are the antithesis of "smart" or "intellectually curious" people, in reality. Smart people have some self awareness about their limitations. That's sorely lacking, these days.

When I've seen someone say "I do my own research", what that really seems to translate to is: "I reject what the mainstream scientists and doctors say, and listen closely instead to the fevered rantings of some political hack or establishment outlier/fringe figure". That's not "doing research" at all, it's simply rejecting the views and facts presented by knowledgeable people simply because you're biased against them, and then accepting without proof tall tales that paint them as involved in some far out conspiracy to hurt or enslave everyone - because that's how you roll. Research, my ash.

[bostongymjunkie]

Almost like applying your own biased interpretation of a simple sentence to an entire group and applying an ignorance-based presumption about all of them? Yeah, okay pal. LOL. The resident coronavirus thread know-it-all, has spoken.

[yesmaybe]

Does appear that hospitalizations are flattening. Guess Delta is on it's way out. Course they are now hyping Mu.

[justyouraveragetenant]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

So if employers can't mandate a 'medical procedure' that the government says is safe and a plurality of experts say will help control the pandemic, what can they do? Does someone have such an absolute right to 'figure out for themselves' whether something is safe, to the point that no employer may tell them to stay away and no private business may mandate they do not enter?

Even if it's 100 percent safe no one or buisness has a right to tell you what you can put in your body. It's a slippery slope too. Once they can tell you to get a vaccine can they tell a women working there to take birth control? If you can not decide what goes in your body it's one of the worst freedoms to lose. You have no freedom then

[western mass and love it]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

Even if it's 100 percent safe no one or buisness has a right to tell you what you can put in your body. It's a slippery slope too. Once they can tell you to get a vaccine can they tell a women working there to take birth control? If you can not decide what goes in your body it's one of the worst freedoms to lose. You have no freedom then

So by this logic , if you owned the company I worked for you’d be cool with me doing heroin at my desk. Because no one or business has a right to tell you what to put into your body.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

Even if it's 100 percent safe no one or buisness has a right to tell you what you can put in your body. It's a slippery slope too. Once they can tell you to get a vaccine can they tell a women working there to take birth control? If you can not decide what goes in your body it's one of the worst freedoms to lose. You have no freedom then

Saying that requiring a vaccine is giving up all your freedom is like saying allowing your boss to tell you what to do at work is a slippery slope to slavery. Once your boss can tell you what to do with a single second of your time at work, what’s to stop them from telling you what to do with every waking hour? I guess the only reasonable thing to do is to completely abandon the idea of making people work at their jobs. If you want to do something, that’s great, but your boss can’t make you. Not only that, they can’t even fire you if you refuse to work.

It’s not a slippery slope. It’s a single point on a long continuum. I think allowing employers to require a government-cleared vaccine in the middle of a pandemic is acceptable. That doesn’t mean I think employers should be allowed to require gender-reassignment surgery or unnecessary amputations. Like almost everything, there is a line where something goes from being unacceptable to being acceptable. Not everyone agrees where the line is. That doesn’t mean that we have to agree there shouldn’t be a line.

If you want to ask me where that line is, it is probably based on a two-fold criteria: is it safe and is it necessary. As with everything else in the world, people generally don’t get to just decide for themselves what does and doesn’t fit those criteria. If you want to sell a commercial aircraft, there are government-appointed bodies that approve your plane. If you want to sell a medical device, there’s the same kind of structure. And there is a government infrastructure for determining when vaccines are safe and effective. You don’t have to agree, you definitely don’t have to like it, but when it comes to what others can do and what others can ask you to do, that is how the game is played.


No one has suggested forcibly vaccinating anyone. This is simply a discussion of whether employers can set vaccination requirements for their employees. Maybe we should make the discussion about actual forced vaccination, because when faced with actual physical coercion, simply allowing employers to make decisions about their employees might scare people less.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

So by this logic , if you owned the company I worked for you’d be cool with me doing heroin at my desk. Because no one or business has a right to tell you what to put into your body.

I don't understand why these people aren't ranting about drunk driving laws too? You can say all the same stuff:

- Drunk driving (the pandemic) doesn't hurt anyone
- Drunk driving (mask/vaccine usage) is a personal decision, and I know what I am doing
- So-called "safety mandates" around drunk driving (the pandemic) aren't about safety, it's a conspiracy, it's about mind control
- Resistance is noble, it's about freedom, and if you're not free, life isn't worth living
- It's a slippery slope, one day you're following drunk driving laws (vaccine/mask mandates), and the next thing you know, you're living in a totalitarian state

Makes just as much sense, that is to say, not much.

[bostongymjunkie]

Based on some of the comparisons it seems clear that several people know little about the very ugly history of this world and of some ugly aspects of human nature, not to mention the difference between putting something IN your body and following laws governing behavior. smh

[justyouraveragetenant]

Originally Posted by western mass and love it

So by this logic , if you owned the company I worked for you’d be cool with me doing heroin at my desk. Because no one or business has a right to tell you what to put into your body.

You are on company time so no you can't do heroin at your desk. Just like you can't drink at work. Forcing Somone to take a medicine that could harm them is very different. An employer has no business knowing anything I do medically.