Current Events > If you're anti-vax, shut the fuck up.

(+) Yeah! (+)

No more of this "I'm not anti-vax I just think we shouldn't enforce a mandate" shit. This is a line in the sand with no room for enlightened centrism.

I'm going to be frank, I put off getting the vaccine for a number of reasons. I was sick when AstraZeneca came to Australia and I wanted to give myself some time to feel better before I got the shot and potentially got a fever or whatever. Something happened in my life that tanked my mental health and made 2021 the worst year of my adult life. I'm squeamish about needles. My reasoning got flimsier and flimsier, and I just sort of coasted along. That was wrong of me to do.

What finally motivated me to get the shot is that my town finally got its first confirmed case of COVID. Which is ridiculous on my part. I could have gotten the virus from a close contact site and suffered the full brunt of the virus, and I only committed to the vaccine in the wake of that close call - fully accept that it was the wrong thing for me to do. Now is absolutely the time to be responsible.

The problem is that not everyone is going to heed that same line of logic. COVID isn't deadly, but when it is for certain people, other people won't die by getting it and shouldn't be forced to get the vaccine, but when they might pass it onto other people, masks and vaccines are infringing on their individual civil rights and you'll have to pry their decision not to get vaccinated from their cold, dead hands.

You could be in the most virus-ridden city in America and there'll be people protesting for their right to dodge vaccination and to avoid wearing masks. And then these fucking rallies become super spreader events, and a bunch of doorknob-licking morons and any innocent victims they came into contact with catch the virus, die or obtain permanent health issues.

If you're an essential worker like a doctor or nurse - if you work in a field in which you work with vulnerable people such as children, the elderly or immunocompromised people - you don't have a fucking choice in the matter. Your sense of duty and ethics should win out in favour of the vaccine, and if it isn't, fucking retire before you hurt someone.

If you're a retail worker or a frontline worker of any stripe, you should get the vaccine for the sake of the public as well as your own health, because when everything opens up in December in time for Christmas shopping, you're basically a sacrificial lamb for your company to make as much profit as they can at the expense of everyone's health, including yours.

And if you're a private citizen, employed or not, whether your job is affected by lockdown or not - you almost certainly have older folks like parents and grandparents. You almost certainly have family members with children. You might even know a few immunocompromised people in your life, I know a woman who has to suppress her immune system due to a condition she has. There is no reason not to take every precaution to protect yourself and others.

But you want to sit on a message board and post biased research about how people with strong immune systems don't need the vaccine, and a strong immune system makes the vaccine redundant.

A couple of thoughts:

• Not everyone has your chad immune system, and you can still spread the virus to people who will be more affected by the virus
• COVID weakens your immune system
• You can get COVID multiple times
• Ergo, the less careful you are about COVID, the more likely you are to put a lethal amount of strain on your body that the virus will get the better of. And you're still objectively more likely to harm others by not using masks or vaccinating.

Here's the thing about denialism as a concept. It starts off with the seed of the idea. "All these COVID deaths are actually caused by pre-existing conditions, not COVID itself, therefore the death figures are inflated". Then that ramps up into calling the concept itself into question: "COVID is dangerous for some, but not everyone, ergo not everyone has to be responsible".

Then you have scaremongering - "the vaccine hasn't been properly tested, it could cause any number of critical side effects". If you're especially bought into it - "enforcing mask mandates makes it easier to kidnap children". This is where people say that the vaccine is what actually makes you sick. Then you have outright rejection - "I believe it infringes upon my civil liberties to become vaccinated, [all of the other denialism bullshit] are valid reasons as to not put this into my body, any body who enforces this policy is committing crimes against humanity".

And to support that outright rejection - legitimization and assimilation. "There's this study that says that vaccines lower the immune system and a strong unvaccinated immune system will always prevail over a compromised vaccinated immune system". Nevermind the millions of people around the globe who died in agony, who went from the peak physical condition of their life to being brain-dead with a machine breathing for them because their lungs collapsed. Nevermind the research we've gotten about the effect COVID has on the human body from these people who've died. Our focus is now on this flawed experiment that says that vaccines hurt people.

Look at any conspiracy movement looking to discredit something they don't agree with. They plant the seed, they feed the idea with weighted, biased inquiry based in bad faith, then they build up the thing as a boogeyman - a bad thing their campaign is trying to combat for the good of everyone. Then based on that characterisation, they outright reject it - at which point it becomes denialism. And to support their viewpoint, they take whatever they can get to legitimize the idea to as many people as they can - including flawed science that is later scrutinized, but which get people off the fence because "it's science", and they strike while the iron is hot.

This isn't a rational scientific debate we're having. COVID will kill you and your loved ones at worst, and at best it does untold amounts of damage to your lungs, your immune system as a whole and maybe even your nervous system. If you want to play softball with COVID-19, don't complain when people aren't as civil as you'd like. You have a choice to downplay this global pandemic that has killed millions and affected the lifespans of countless others - but everyone else has the choice to call you out for that, because whatever your angle is - the vaccine is bad, or the virus isn't that bad, or the virus doesn't matter because we're all gonna get it - spits in the face of the people who've died, whose death could have been prevented and whose condition could have been managed if their immune system had some sort of way for preparing itself for their brush with the pandemic.

This isn't a civil debate. This is you getting the vaccine or shutting the fuck up about it if you're that upset about it, because whatever alternative you want to push will harm more people than it will ever save.

The real question is, though - how moddable is that statement? Because it sure doesn't seem to be moddable to downplay the effectiveness of the vaccine.

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no ones gonna read that

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Why does no one reply to these

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

Why does no one reply to these

We did

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indica posted...

We did

<_<

Sure, I've seen Mr.Mallard post walls of text then bump it

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If people don't want to respond, that's their prerogative. Even if no-one responds, it's just therapeutic to get it out.

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I just don't understand questioning science by starting with the results

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Lol

Shut the fuck up

Massive wall of shit.

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I didnt really read your post but I agree that vaccines should be mandatory for all, and people should be quarantined by the military until such a time they are vaccinated

in Australia its different because its still very early days of actually being able to get Pfizer so you should give them a fair chance before putting your foot down

MedeaLysistrata posted...

I just don't understand questioning science by starting with the results

So, is he telling his prior self to shut the fuck up? I'm confused...I'm also not reading all that

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Kloe_Rinz posted...

I didnt really read your post but I agree that vaccines should be mandatory for all, and people should be quarantined by the military until such a time they are vaccinated

in Australia its different because its still very early days of actually being able to get Pfizer so you should give them a fair chance before putting your foot down

The thing about Australia is that we're making it so that only double-vaxxed people can visit areas like pubs and non-essential businesses - until December 1st, where all restrictions are going to be lifted in time for the Christmas rush. You know, that magical time of year where people are packed wall to wall inside enclosed spaces to get holiday bargains on TVs, video games and toys.

Seems like a really fucking stupid idea. Like if they were gonna commit to non-essential lockdown for unvaccinated people, why would you make it for less than two months? The decision feels extremely cynical and arbitrary

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Also I just want to say that like any of these topics I make, I try to sum up my point in the last paragraph of the post, which is usually the shortest paragraph or at least a solid, rounded summation of what I was trying to say. So in this case the tl;dr would be:

MrMallard posted...

This isn't a civil debate. This is you getting the vaccine or shutting the f*** up about it if you're that upset about it, because whatever alternative you want to push will harm more people than it will ever save.

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indica posted...

So, is he telling his prior self to shut the fuck up? I'm confused...I'm also not reading all that

Not really talking about that...

I'm actually confused too. My point is that science starts from a foundation while the the facts that result should cohere with each other, and if they don't then MAYBE the foundation is wrong.

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FACTS! (caps)

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MrMallard posted...

Also I just want to say that like any of these topics I make, I try to sum up my point in the last paragraph of the post, which is usually the shortest paragraph or at least a solid, rounded summation of what I was trying to say. So in this case the tl;dr would be:

MrMallard posted...

This isn't a civil debate. This is you getting the vaccine or shutting the fuck up about it if you're that upset about it, because whatever alternative you want to push will harm more people than it will ever save.

I was going to wait until I read the whole thing to respond, I only read some, but by highlighting this I guess you are encouraging people to be able to respond to just this right now. I might respond further when I have read everything.

It is clear you are angry. It's fine to be angry. It's fine to have strong feelings. That said, when it comes to the best course of action feelings don't really matter. What matters is science.

Studies have shown the most effective way to convince vaccine skeptics is with empathy and acknowledging their concerns. Browbeating and vitriol often hardens people into their stance.

While vaccine skeptics are wrong to believe current science suggests the vaccines are an unsafe unhelpful strategy, they aren't wrong to distrust institutions. There is a large swath of the vaccine hesitant who are poor (often PoC) who have been fucked over by government and the medical industry all their lives. In a country where it's a meme to say "don't call an ambulance, call an uber instead" it's reasonable to have distrust in government/healthcare.

So, if your goal is truly to get the most people vaccinated as possible, evidence shows vitriol isn't working. You can do a mandate. I think it's the wrong move, many reasonable people think it's the wrong move, but you can do it. When it comes to those who think it's wrong saying it's wrong, again you can try to be angry enough at those people they submit, but again I don't think that's a helpful or prudent tactic.

At the end of the day people have their opinion and you have yours, venting your anger is fine. I hear your frustration and it's real. I'm frustrated too (but much more at the institutions than my fellow man).

But still, a mandate IMO is a bad precedent to set. And even if we do it for some jobs it's not going to get to everybody, we need to implement solutions that actually reach those who currently choose not to get vaccinated. And we also need to be open to anything that can help.

Being reductive, or angry, or "us vs them" may feel good, but it really doesn't help anything.

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LordMarshal posted...

Lol

Shut the fuck up

Massive wall of shit.

eh

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The biggest problem with anti-vaxxers is that their concerns aren't real. They make up whatever the hell they need to justify beliefs that are unjustifiable. Their questions are disingenuous, nor do they have any interest in the answers. An infinite amount of time and studies are necessary to prove them wrong, because they know they're right. Regardless of what the evidence says.

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I doubt it's going to be enforced anyway. The bartenders, restaurant owners, retail workers aren't fit to be checking everyone's vaccine status after they've been shut for one year at this point. Plus it's just going to cause people to be aggressive. Even now i haven't a single shop or cafe who are enforcing masks or QR checkin

I work at a large retail chain during lockdown and my understanding is they aren't checking vaccine statuses for employees. It's sort of just an honor system. Give it a few months and people will care even less.

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MrMallard posted...

COVID weakens your immune system
You can get COVID multiple times

biggest problem is survival. the long term effects suck worse than the disease itself if survive.

broken weiner from covid is man's worse nightmare.
diabetus is another issue that can result which can lead to amputation if not careful enough.

covid can attack the pancreas that produces insulin.
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MrMallard posted...

This is a line in the sand with no room for enlightened centrism.

That stance is not "centrism". Centrism is not about blindly picking the middle ground; it's about not blindly siding with "the left" or "the right" on every issue. You can still agree with one or the other on individual issues, absolutely, and in cases like this where one side is objectively correct...

(Although it's only really America where this is left vs right, rather than almost everyone vs a tiny fringe movement, in the first place.)

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Blogfaqs

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this dude said ergo

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joe40001 posted...

In a country where it's a meme to say "don't call an ambulance, call an uber instead" it's reasonable to have distrust in government/healthcare.

Now account for the fact that there's ONE country where that's the situation, and there's HEAPS of countries rolling out that exact same vaccine. And for that matter, that the "privileged" in your own country are receiving the same vaccine too. There's no more validity to this claim than any other bullshit anti-vaxx excuse.

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DarkRoast posted...

The biggest problem with anti-vaxxers is that their concerns aren't real. They make up whatever the hell they need to justify beliefs that are unjustifiable. Their questions are disingenuous, nor do they have any interest in the answers. An infinite amount of time and studies are necessary to prove them wrong, because they know they're right. Regardless of what the evidence says.

this

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well it'd be great to instill policy changes that actually mean we can get out of this shit fest but half the population is either giving money to politicians who staunchly oppose vaccine policies and enforcement, voting for them, or threatening people's lives over their refusal to wear a mask or get a vaccine.

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VioletMassacre posted...

joenumbers has a point though in that adressing the concerns might be better than verbally attacking people and basically forcing them to vaccinate.

We've had easily accessible free vaccines for most people for more than 6 months in the States. Asking nicely and holding hands expired with my patience round about July.

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AldousIsDead posted...

Asking nicely and holding hands expired with my patience round about July.

last part i can agree on. had plenty of time to get the shot even. it was out to the general population before the end of april.
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Why do people have such a hate on for vaccines?
Public schools have required proof of vaccination in many places for decades.

Hell when I was in elementary school they held a "vaccine fair" so that students could get free shots, boosters, etc that were needed.
You weren't vaccinated? You didn't come to school.

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Anti-Vaxxers are the new Crossfit/Vegan people. No one asked, nor cares about their opinion, but brother, they're gonna tell you why your lifestyle is wrong.

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DarkRoast posted...

The biggest problem with anti-vaxxers is that their concerns aren't real. They make up whatever the hell they need to justify beliefs that are unjustifiable. Their questions are disingenuous, nor do they have any interest in the answers. An infinite amount of time and studies are necessary to prove them wrong, because they know they're right. Regardless of what the evidence says.

The antivaxxers I've talked to play the he said she said game. "My sister works at a hospital and has seen a ton of people with complications from the vaccine". That was the last one I heard. His sister was antivax before this and a little nutty, but that's what dude believes now and why he won't get it. Before my dad got covid he said the vaccine gave someone he knows a stroke.

That's what we're dealing with.

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LeoRavus posted...

Before my dad got covid he said the vaccine gave someone he knows a stroke.

there's risks to vaccine but it's very low. the stroke thing is a lie
it was either pfizer or moderna that carried risks of blood clots but that happened mostly in women on birth control.
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tldr

kingdrake2 posted...

there's risks to vaccine but it's very low. the stroke thing is a lie
it was either pfizer or moderna that carried risks of blood clots but that happened mostly in women on birth control.

AstraZenica got pulled in my area for like a month because of blood clots

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kingdrake2 posted...

there's risks to vaccine but it's very low. the stroke thing is a lie
it was either pfizer or moderna that carried risks of blood clots but that happened mostly in women on birth control.

I think that was Johnson & Johnson. They pulled it for a while.

No medication is without possible side effects. They're usually extremely low. I'd rather take my chances with that than join the 5 million dead from covid.

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Eat More Beef posted...

Anti-Vaxxers are the new Crossfit/Vegan people. No one asked, nor cares about their opinion, but brother, they're gonna tell you why your lifestyle is wrong.

It's literally the opposite. You're trying to force them to get the vaccine. They just want to live in peace.

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TerraSeeker posted...

It's literally the opposite. You're trying to force them to get the vaccine. They just want to live in peace.

Bioterrorists dont get to live in peace.

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I think this anti-vax stuff is stupid but I also think that TC's post is cringey and not going to change anyone's mind

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Feline_Heart posted...

I think this anti-vax stuff is stupid but I also think that TC's post is cringey and not going to change anyone's mind

You honestly think any posts on the internet is going to change any minds let alone antivaxxers? If an antivaxxers mind could be changed, it would have been once the vaccine was FDA approved.

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MrMallard posted...

, but when they might pass it onto other people

vax people can catch it and spread it, so that is a moot point.

pupeye posted...

MrMallard posted...

, but when they might pass it onto other people

vax people can catch it and spread it, so that is a moot point.

Another fucking 2004 account
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Are people STILL making a big fuss about having to wear masks? When are we gonna move on from April 2020?

TerraSeeker posted...

It's literally the opposite. You're trying to force them to get the vaccine. They just want to live in peace.

Sheeeiiit. I didn't realize that by being a janitor I was setting government mandates. Glad I know now.

I ain't forcing shit. I keep my mouth shut, but every anti-vax human can't stop reeee'ing and flooding social medias with their horseshit.

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I read all of that and its very interesting - actually I also have something to get off my chest:

No more of this "I'm not anti-vax I just think we shouldn't enforce a mandate" s***. This is a line in the sand with no room for enlightened centrism.

I'm going to be frank, I put off getting the vaccine for a number of reasons. I was sick when AstraZeneca came to Australia and I wanted to give myself some time to feel better before I got the shot and potentially got a fever or whatever. Something happened in my life that tanked my mental health and made 2021 the worst year of my adult life. I'm squeamish about needles. My reasoning got flimsier and flimsier, and I just sort of coasted along. That was wrong of me to do.

What finally motivated me to get the shot is that my town finally got its first confirmed case of COVID. Which is ridiculous on my part. I could have gotten the virus from a close contact site and suffered the full brunt of the virus, and I only committed to the vaccine in the wake of that close call - fully accept that it was the wrong thing for me to do. Now is absolutely the time to be responsible.

The problem is that not everyone is going to heed that same line of logic. COVID isn't deadly, but when it is for certain people, other people won't die by getting it and shouldn't be forced to get the vaccine, but when they might pass it onto other people, masks and vaccines are infringing on their individual civil rights and you'll have to pry their decision not to get vaccinated from their cold, dead hands.

You could be in the most virus-ridden city in America and there'll be people protesting for their right to dodge vaccination and to avoid wearing masks. And then these f***ing rallies become super spreader events, and a bunch of doorknob-licking morons and any innocent victims they came into contact with catch the virus, die or obtain permanent health issues.

If you're an essential worker like a doctor or nurse - if you work in a field in which you work with vulnerable people such as children, the elderly or immunocompromised people - you don't have a f***ing choice in the matter. Your sense of duty and ethics should win out in favour of the vaccine, and if it isn't, f***ing retire before you hurt someone.

If you're a retail worker or a frontline worker of any stripe, you should get the vaccine for the sake of the public as well as your own health, because when everything opens up in December in time for Christmas shopping, you're basically a sacrificial lamb for your company to make as much profit as they can at the expense of everyone's health, including yours.

And if you're a private citizen, employed or not, whether your job is affected by lockdown or not - you almost certainly have older folks like parents and grandparents. You almost certainly have family members with children. You might even know a few immunocompromised people in your life, I know a woman who has to suppress her immune system due to a condition she has. There is no reason not to take every precaution to protect yourself and others.

But you want to sit on a message board and post biased research about how people with strong immune systems don't need the vaccine, and a strong immune system makes the vaccine redundant.

A couple of thoughts:

• Not everyone has your chad immune system, and you can still spread the virus to people who will be more affected by the virus
• COVID weakens your immune system
• You can get COVID multiple times
• Ergo, the less careful you are about COVID, the more likely you are to put a lethal amount of strain on your body that the virus will get the better of. And you're still objectively more likely to harm others by not using masks or vaccinating.

Here's the thing about denialism as a concept. It starts off with the seed of the idea. "All these COVID deaths are actually caused by pre-existing conditions, not COVID itself, therefore the death figures are inflated". Then that ramps up into calling the concept itself into question: "COVID is dangerous for some, but not everyone, ergo not everyone has to be responsible".

Then you have scaremongering - "the vaccine hasn't been properly tested, it could cause any number of critical side effects". If you're especially bought into it - "enforcing mask mandates makes it easier to kidnap children". This is where people say that the vaccine is what actually makes you sick. Then you have outright rejection - "I believe it infringes upon my civil liberties to become vaccinated, [all of the other denialism bulls***] are valid reasons as to not put this into my body, any body who enforces this policy is committing crimes against humanity".

And to support that outright rejection - legitimization and assimilation. "There's this study that says that vaccines lower the immune system and a strong unvaccinated immune system will always prevail over a compromised vaccinated immune system". Nevermind the millions of people around the globe who died in agony, who went from the peak physical condition of their life to being brain-dead with a machine breathing for them because their lungs collapsed. Nevermind the research we've gotten about the effect COVID has on the human body from these people who've died. Our focus is now on this flawed experiment that says that vaccines hurt people.

Look at any conspiracy movement looking to discredit something they don't agree with. They plant the seed, they feed the idea with weighted, biased inquiry based in bad faith, then they build up the thing as a boogeyman - a bad thing their campaign is trying to combat for the good of everyone. Then based on that characterisation, they outright reject it - at which point it becomes denialism. And to support their viewpoint, they take whatever they can get to legitimize the idea to as many people as they can - including flawed science that is later scrutinized, but which get people off the fence because "it's science", and they strike while the iron is hot.

This isn't a rational scientific debate we're having. COVID will kill you and your loved ones at worst, and at best it does untold amounts of damage to your lungs, your immune system as a whole and maybe even your nervous system. If you want to play softball with COVID-19, don't complain when people aren't as civil as you'd like. You have a choice to downplay this global pandemic that has killed millions and affected the lifespans of countless others - but everyone else has the choice to call you out for that, because whatever your angle is - the vaccine is bad, or the virus isn't that bad, or the virus doesn't matter because we're all gonna get it - spits in the face of the people who've died, whose death could have been prevented and whose condition could have been managed if their immune system had some sort of way for preparing itself for their brush with the pandemic.

This isn't a civil debate. This is you getting the vaccine or shutting the f*** up about it if you're that upset about it, because whatever alternative you want to push will harm more people than it will ever save.

The real question is, though - how moddable is that statement? Because it sure doesn't seem to be moddable to downplay the effectiveness of the vaccine.


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