[ExI] enough time has passed...

Rafal Smigrodzki rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
Wed Jan 26 04:53:16 UTC 2022


On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 6:08 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Sun, 23 Jan 2022 at 20:18, Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 2:02 AM Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>> And don't get me started on masks, these dehumanizing, humiliating
>>>> pieces of medically useless trash.
>>>>
>>>
>>> OK, so your objection is a practical one, not a moral one. If masks were
>>> effective, say reducing R0 from 1.1 with voluntary use to 0.9 with mandated
>>> use and thereby potentially ending the epidemic, you would be OK with
>>> mandating them, right?
>>>
>>
>>  ### Let's continue exploring the misogynistic virus counterfactual:
>> Let's now posit that women can be vaccinated and fully protected from harm.
>> Do men still have an obligation to be vaccinated? No, since everybody who
>> needs protection can obtain protection at low cost to herself and there is
>> no justification to impose on the lives of men. The changed premise of
>> vaccination availability for women changes the calculus of what constitutes
>> efficient action, and equitable apportionment of burdens among members of
>> society, and therefore it changes the type of action that is justified.
>>
>> Let's now look at your example. Obviously, an intervention that reduces
>> R0 below 1 in a population is only effective in ending an epidemic if there
>> are no reservoirs of the pathogen capable of re-introducing it into the
>> population (such reservoirs may be other human populations not affected by
>> the intervention or they may be animals). If there are significant
>> reservoirs, e.g when the infectious agent is endemic, such as Covid, the
>> intervention that only slightly affects R0 will fail, and therefore is not
>> justified under almost any circumstances. Full-blown epidemics usually end
>> when the population dies out or reaches herd immunity by infection or
>> vaccination, not through measures that only slow the spread of the disease.
>>
>> Sure, in a counterfactual world where mask wearing eliminates epidemics I
>> would in certain situations endorse mask wearing despite their dehumanizing
>> nature but in the real world masks provide absolutely no long-term benefit
>> and should be vigorously opposed. It's easy to construct counterfactuals to
>> justify just about anything (like my misogynistic virus world that
>> justifies vaccine mandates) but so what?
>>
>
> As long as you’re not a nasty man who doesn’t care if others die.
>
>>
>
### I don't quite understand what you wrote. Who is that nasty man who
doesn't care if others die?

Rafal
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