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> Now we've got a huge swath of US citizens that will never take the vaccine.

Some never will. But it's been less than two years. If they started telling the truth, the real truth, the hard truths, and kept at it, consistently, for two or five or ten years, at least some of them would come around.

Oh, yeah, and if you stopped trying to manipulate and force them. Treat people like grown-ups, even when they disagree with you, even when you think they're wrong, even when you think the data proves they're wrong. In case you[1] haven't noticed, people aren't robots that will do what you want. They are fiercely independent, and they resent being forced into something, and they will fight you just because you're trying to force them, whether or not what you're trying to get them to do is a good thing.

[1] "You" here does not refer to you, gentle reader. It refers to the "you" in authority who think that they can force people to get vaccinated without it backfiring spectacularly.



Fully agree.

One of the best takes I read on this argued that the public health institutions failed the US because they were so intent on forcing outcomes ("don't buy masks") rather than, as you said, simply saying hard truths and giving guidance.

People can tell when they're being talked down to, and there's been a lot of that since this started. I don't even think anyone's doing it maliciously, they're just really, really bad at PR.

Now, I think there are plenty of people who over-corrected for this and love endlessly nursing a grudge against Evil Big Government. That's on them.


Genuinely asking: how does this compare with other safety mandates like seatbelts? Those were also government mandated and highly unpopular for the exact same reasons.


Seat belt mandates:

- Have accumulated evidence of well quantified effectiveness, however small.

- Have no practical downsides, even speculative.

- Practically are not 100% enforceable, and therefore are not 100% adhered too. Technical means of enforcement (like beeping) are lame and easily bypassed, at least for now.

- Are related to a man-made activity of reasonably increased danger and, importantly, licensed. Someone may choose not to participate in such activity (driving), with relatively low downsides. Public health mandates are, effectively, an attempt to license the mere existence.

- Do not have religious symbolism attached to it. No one is ever yelled on by strangers for not having a seatbelt fastened. No one has a sticker on their facebook photo saying "proudly wearing my seatbelt".

- Seatbelts are "reversible", i.e. you don't wear them for life. You are not forced to have seatbelt mounting points implanted in your body. You cannot "un-vaccinate", though, if it ends up a bad decision.




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