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Jake Gruber's avatar

Are the vaccines are a net positive or net negative? I don't know, I'm not an immunologist. I suspect they're a net positive.

But here's what I DO know: the claims people make in favor of mandating this intervention are in NO WAY justified by their level of knowledge. Period. Full stop.

Immunology is SO unimaginably complex it makes almost every categorical claim a foolish conceit. If you presume the right to force someone to take this medication, you're an ignorant and/or smug fool...a DANGEROUS fool.

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¡Andrew the Great!'s avatar

Even if it IS a "net positive"...y'know what else would be a "net positive"?

Forced organ harvesting.

Take one person, remove 3 vital organs, transplant them in 3 people who would otherwise die without the transplants.

1 dead, 3 alive, "net positive" of 2.

Let's mandate organ harvesting next. After all, it's for the "greater good."

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Kohi's avatar

Yes, getting vaccinated is exactly like having your organs harvested. Amazing example.

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¡Andrew the Great!'s avatar

Can you do anything other than straw man arguments?

I'm talking about the PRINCIPLE of "net positive". If the PRINCIPLE is valid, then it's valid wherever it can be applied. That's the point of the organ harvesting analogy.

If forcing people to be injected with experimental drugs about which we have literally zero long-term safety and efficacy data is a "net positive" and on those grounds it's worth doing, no matter how many it kills (VAERS says 17,000 in America alone), then so too is it worth sacrificing one life to save three by forced organ harvesting. After all, it's a net positive.

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Jake Gruber's avatar

I conditionally agree: the issue of Choice is really the relevant factor here. For many reasons, compelling a medical treatment obviates any utilitarian benefit derived, in my opinion. Is the vax BY ITSELF a net positive? I suspect so. But vax PLUS mandate? It drops so deep into "negative" territory it borders on monstrous.

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Jake Gruber's avatar

Of course, I'm starting from the place where I think an individual human being is inherently valuable, and not just some breathing bag of guts to be used and sacrificed for my own convenience, benefit, or fear.

Sadly, a shocking number of people do NOT start from that place...

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