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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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A pure hypothetical thought experiment: imagine it occurs that the Pfizer mRNA vaccination + all booster follow-ups (4+ shots) regimen is disastrous to health, and has a high 10-year mortality rate. In other words, those who strictly adhered to the recommended CDC/Pfizer vaccination schedule have a 25% of dying by the decade’s end, or some such risk. What would be the public’s response and what would be the just punishment for those involved?

I think in such a hypothetical, the whole political climate of 21st century neo-neoliberalism will be fundamentally altered. There would be a huge rightward shift on distrust to authorities, especially but not limited to scientists and public health authorities. I don’t think the public would be satisfied with Fauci and other heads being tried, and will demand sentences for the thousands of individuals involved in the decision similar to what we would see in the Nuremberg trials. This would also fundamentally change the political climate, as the “vax-maxxed” lean left.

This kind of "all the sheep will die" fantasy seems not healthy. I thoroughly oppose things like mandates on liberty grounds but the demand for the rolling out countermeasures to a widespread deadly disease to somehow also have been irrational is unseemly. Consider it in a world where they were not mandated, a new vaccines rolls out that seems quite effective but as all things has some risk of unknown very negative long term side effects. The disease itself may have very negative long term side effects in addition to the immediate risk of death. So you must decide between rolling the dice on the vaccine or the disease and given the information available the vaccine seems like a better bet. You can only blame people so much for rolling a snake eyes at a critical juncture. As far as I can tell there was no mistake made in actual risk management.

edit:post originally mangled by phone autocomplete.

When was the vaccine mandate rational? I remember when the debate got big here in Austria, there were already multible countries with 90%+ vax rates that had new flareups.