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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31626 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023

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As an observer of the vaccine debates, its not useful to me on the specifics of the vaccine. I didn't take it and probably wont have to ever, had covid, its over.

But the meta-debate does allow me to calibrate my opinion of who to trust. Whose predictions panned out, who lied, who was okay with lying for the "greater good", etc. Im predicting in the coming years, a lot of people will be vindicated and a lot of people will have pies on their faces. The rhetorical stakes are too high for it to be any other way now.

If anything, atleast now I know who (almost everyone) is totally okay with me being a second class citizen on the premise of refusing certain medication. Some masks are off permanently. Them denying this in the future wont change my opinion of them.

its over

Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of people for which it's not yet over. The federal gov't is still litigating at least two of their mandates, a mandate is now firmly implanted in immigration law, and there may well be state mandate battles still going on to boot. I probably cannot capture the absurdity of it, either, because what they are still trying to force on people is the original vaccine. Not even updated vaccines that are tailored to the current strains. They're still fighting in courts for the ability to force people to take shots now that are essentially useless (especially since most non-vaxxed folks have almost certainly had some strain of COVID by now), under threat of firing them, taking away their contracts, or prohibiting them from entering the United States.

In the Fifth Circuit's en banc oral argument, the fact that the vaccines don't do a great job at preventing infection or transmission came up, and the gov't said that their position could still be sustained on the grounds that it reduces the risk of severe cases/death. When pressed on whether the gov't could, on the same grounds, require everyone to get below a certain BMI, as obesity brings severe risks which are endemic in our society, they basically just said, "Yeah, we wouldn't do that tho."

If anything, atleast now I know who (almost everyone) is totally okay with me being a second class citizen on the premise of refusing certain medication. Some masks are off permanently. Them denying this in the future wont change my opinion of them.

This is why it's still so important. If there is not enough anti-authoritarian energy to form a hard consensus that the gov't should not even have the option to do such things, those people will go beyond the mask of "we won't force you to take certain medication". There will be more masks to come.

the absurdity of it

I am fully aware that the "real fight" is far from over given that many questionable laws are put into place and there is no precedent that all that was done for covid would not be repeated in the future. If anything the probability that it would be repeated is not infinitely higher. So that is a new CW battlefront in the making.

However, this seems to be mostly a (country with high state capacity) problem. Many countries have really left covid in the past and anything associated with it altogether.

As an observer of the vaccine debates, its not useful to me on the specifics of the vaccine. I didn't take it and probably wont have to ever, had covid, its over.

same here. i got it twice. the first time it was like a cold, second time only very mild. it's over .

Isn't there some worry that repeated Covid infections (or boosters) could cause long-term damage? I've definitely heard this claimed. Not sure how much of this is crackpot.

Agreed. I personally have a high esteem for many people on both sides of the issue - that's what makes this query so incisive and important.

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