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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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I never got a flu shot. Why would I? I'm neither old nor immunocompromised.

Because A) getting the flu can suck even if you're young and B) you might infect a child or elderly person, or infect someone who does.

It comes, it goes, its effects are negligible.

I suspect you've had colds rather than the flu. When I was young I had a flu which kicked my ass. Though I'd actually been vaccinated, so I suppose that's not the strongest argument for vaccination!

Covid was not a problem

Well not for those who didn't die I suppose.

Nobody I know had any problems from covid more serious than flu symptoms, no matter how sickly or old they were.

Your anecdote; mine is that people I cared about died.

I will not accommodate the opposition by retreating into mistake theory while they sit on their conflict theory gains.

My initial post regarding the face tattoo wasn't conflict theory enough?

validates the ideological crusaders and policy-makers and nudges the overton window in their favor.

Let me get this straight: the insurmountably small protection you get from a covid shot is negligible, but the insurmountably small influence on policy you exert by getting one isn't?

I would rather spite them for all the harm they've done than cooperate to attain some minor benefit.

This is hard sentiment to sympathize with, because you're hurting everyone to spite them. This is the type of thing I was comparing to a face tat. Or spitting in people's hamburgers because you hate your boss at McDonald's.

Do you care about me and mine

I would prefer that y'all not get sick, if that matters to ya.

where you are afraid of society's vulnerability to viruses and I'm afraid of society's vulnerability to totalitarianism/social engineering/witch hunts.

I see 'surrendering to a virus' as just as dangerous a meme as what you've listed. We are mankind and we make shit extinct, damn the consequences.

You assume incorrectly.

That might explain some of the disconnect then. Maybe you live somewhere where the lockdowns were truly draconian. Stateside they, well, weren't. Unfortunately, having not actually imposed a lockdown from the top down, nobody had the proper authority to lift the lockdown either, so you've still got some folks for whom 2020 never ended, which is its own kind of problem, while the rest of us have long since resumed our lives.

Because A) getting the flu can suck even if you're young and B) you might infect a child or elderly person, or infect someone who does.

Then those are people for whom a flu shot seems like a good proposition.

I suspect you've had colds rather than the flu. When I was young I had a flu which kicked my ass. Though I'd actually been vaccinated, so I suppose that's not the strongest argument for vaccination!

That might be, I'm no doctor. But then the argument just turns into: Nobody ever gets the flu here anyways.

Well not for those who didn't die I suppose.

Your anecdote; mine is that people I cared about died.

That sucks and you have my sympathy, but it's my policy to trust my own observations above most else. If it's any olive branch: When I did have covid, I locked myself up tight and didn't leave the house for four weeks. It's not like I'm advocating for running around retirement homes while you're fully symptomatic. Did the people you lost catch it from the unvaccinated?

My initial post regarding the face tattoo wasn't conflict theory enough?

It possibly was, but the later post seemed to stray into mistake theory.

Let me get this straight: the insurmountably small protection you get from a covid shot is negligible, but the insurmountably small influence on policy you exert by getting one isn't?

No, they're both negligible, if I were to attempt objectivity. But covid did me no lasting harm whereas policy did, so there's my enmity.

This is hard sentiment to sympathize with, because you're hurting everyone to spite them. This is the type of thing I was comparing to a face tat. Or spitting in people's hamburgers because you hate your boss at McDonald's.

To my knowledge I haven't hurt anyone. I think

I would prefer that y'all not get sick, if that matters to ya.

I see 'surrendering to a virus' as just as dangerous a meme as what you've listed. We are mankind and we make shit extinct, damn the consequences.

Agreed on the second point. I started out with that position, you know - early on the in the so-called pandemic I was all for closing the borders and exterminating that foreign invader. I changed my mind as a) it became clear that it wouldn't work no matter what and b) most around me were hypocrites who valued being vaccinated for its own sake more than getting rid of the virus or protecting anyone.

As for the first point - I disagree for this specific virus.

That might explain some of the disconnect then. Maybe you live somewhere where the lockdowns were truly draconian. Stateside they, well, weren't. Unfortunately, having not actually imposed a lockdown from the top down, nobody had the proper authority to lift the lockdown either, so you've still got some folks for whom 2020 never ended, which is its own kind of problem, while the rest of us have long since resumed our lives.

I'm a German in Germany. The lockdowns were middle-of-the-road, I suppose. Bad, but nothing like China. What infuriates me is a) how all the measures and the public discourse ended up revolving around punishments for the unvaccinated - no idea whether you had that in America - and b) all the damage done and c) how nobody learned anything from it all.