"If I die, that's my problem." — if it were that easy, I'd be fully on board with you. I am not a fan of being told what I should be doing. In a society (like they say, no man is an island), however, it's not always that clear cut. Once you're infected, the disease does not only affect you and your body. You pass it on to others, you may have an unexpected reaction (which can now be said with quite some certainty, is at the very last the same or worse than whatever the vaccine would do to you) and that reaction means you may use up unexpected resources provided by society. If you live on a farm out in the desert all by yourself, don't need a doctor or hospital, and end up dying or being fine without other people affected, then sure, you do you. That I fully support.

Seeing you post here in HackerNews, I'd guess you'd actually enjoy reading up (and are qualified to understand) on mRNA technology, including the Pfizer "disassembly" for it on GitHub.

In terms of your attitude being mainstream, that'll depend on how many people end up getting the vaccine. That sort of thing tends to change quickly (in both ways).

> You pass it on to others

Those "others" have spent the past five years screaming at me and threatening me.

I stopped caring about or listening to them a long time ago.

> My attitude is mainstream.

> Those "others" have spent the past five years screaming at me and threatening me.

So... you first claim that the mainstream view is yours, and that you won't be vaccinated so assumedly the mainstream won't (even though by the numbers that's clearly not true as 62% of adults already have one shot[1] and that number is sure to continue to grow), but then you claim that the "others" you don't care are the people that apparently don't share your view and you're OK with threatening them. This doesn't make a lot of sense given that the "mainstream" who shares your view will not be vaccinating so those will be the people your actions threaten, not the "others" who have been threatening you and don't share your views, as they will be vaccinated.

Your argument and beliefs aren't making a lot of sense, outside of what appears to be a desire to be in the popular in-group while also simultaneously being contrarian.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine...

> If you "trust the science", it'll give you immunity, and you don't need to worry about me at all.

Me getting vaccinated protects more than just me. It protects, for example, those who cannot get vaccinated by limiting the spread of a disease. Your perspective could be (perhaps slightly unfairly) summarized as 'your child has leukemia and caught a cold from me, well that's THEIR problem not mine'

I do not understand, and refuse to accept, that absurdist shift towards individualism at the expense of all others. It makes no sense, it is often willfully blind to the realities of day to day interaction...and its just mean spirited.

Watching the anti-COVID vaccine folks has helped me realize this isn't about medicine or science or understanding...its about selfishness.

> Watching the anti-COVID vaccine folks has helped me realize this isn't about medicine or science or understanding...its about selfishness.

It really is about science because the vaccines have not been approved for general use yet. All they have is an Emergency Use Authorization.

Edit: Also, we don't know the long-term effects of these vaccines. Those could be far worse than the virus.

For people who are not vulnerable, they shouldn't have to get a vaccine. For people who are, well, we have grocery delivery services. And masks (if they work). And vaccines (if they can get them).

If we lose liberty, then you can bet that we will lose our ability to choose whether to get experimental medical treatments or not. Trust me, you don't want to go down that road.

Do you have an example of said side effects your concerned about? As far as I'm aware most of the vaccine side effects should have popped up by now, and if you're talking long term then we can't possibly know the side effects of any medication because you can always move out the goalpost another decade.

The liberty being discussed here is to go to another country - that's never been an unrestrained freedom you had and up for that other nation to decide, so I don't know why you're concerned about a non-existent liberty.

Long-term side effects don't pop up right away, so no, I can't say what side effects I am worried about. However, I think a decade is about the right amount of time to watch.

I am not talking about a non-existent liberty. I am talking about "my body, my choice." If we decide that taking an experimental vaccine should be necessary for free and unrestricted travel across borders, what's to stop governments from implementing the same thing domestically? Or requiring vaccines to take part in the economy? We already see moves that direction, so I am not talking about a non-existent liberty.

> Long-term side effects don't pop up right away, so no, I can't say what side effects I am worried about. However, I think a decade is about the right amount of time to watch.

So we can expect in 2031 you'll get vaccinated?

> If we decide that taking an experimental vaccine should be necessary for free and unrestricted travel across borders, what's to stop governments from implementing the same thing domestically?

Regarding restriction your movement, as GP states countries have had rules for vaccination during travel for a long time. You have no right to visit another country and countries are free to restrict your freedom of movement within their laws. That's not a liberty you possess, and you're making up scenarios to maximize your potential persecution. Unless that's seriously in discussion, which it's not, it's being dramatic for drama's sake.

I am talking about domestic travel, not international.

During the hysteria, I believe either New York or Rhode Island restricted travel across those state borders, despite such restrictions being explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.

So I am not making up a scenario.

Also, by 2031 (if not already), COVID will be endemic. So no, I probably won't take the vaccine. But taking the vaccine at my age was not a good idea anyway (in my opinion).

Was anyone else talking about domestic travel?

> Also, by 2031 (if not already), COVID will be endemic. So no, I probably won't take the vaccine. But taking the vaccine at my age was not a good idea anyway (in my opinion).

I don't know what age you are, but you must not be talking statistically.

> Was anyone else talking about domestic travel?

No, no one else was talking about domestic travel, but I was. Because it's important to me, and because I can see how it will be lost easily. And it is a liberty that I have.

Also, what about being shut out of the economy? No one was talking about that either, but it's already happening, and I also don't want to lose that.

> I don't know what age you are, but you must not be talking statistically.

I am at an age where I could have kids. There is very little evidence that the vaccines do not affect the ability to have kids. So no, I am not talking statistically, but if I was, 99.97% of the people who get COVID in my age group do just fine. So statistically, the virus isn't very dangerous to me, while the vaccines are unknown. I'll go with the devil I know, thank you very much.

Also, your questions show that you have no good faith interest in engaging in healthy debate and instead wish to make me look bad. So this will be my last message to you. You can have the last word if you want.

> There is very little evidence that the vaccines do not affect the ability to have kids.

That's fine, my last word is simple - you're not assuming the null hypothesis with this. You're creating a list of bad things, for which you have no evidence, and assuming they could be true. In that case it could also very well be the case that somehow it causes benefits in fertility or some other effects. And it seems foolish to worry about the unobserved effects of the vaccine, especially given the huge sample size we currently have, and especially when there is currently research being done, based upon actual observations and not just unfounded conjecture, that COVID may be able to affect fertility.

I guess we're not worried about the long term effect of the virus either? Planning on avoiding getting infected for the next 10y so that we can learn more about it as well?

Especially ironic if it ends up that the virus was escaped from a lab.

There is a chance that I will not get the virus at all.

To quote another thing you said:

> Also, by 2031 (if not already), COVID will be endemic.

Still a chance that I won't get it. Endemic also means that it's constantly mutating, like the flu. I may never get the current strain of COVID-19.

Yeah, but the next strain could be even worse. You seem comfortable playing the odds if you can be passive while doing it instead of making the active choice of getting a vaccination, even if the odds of the worse thing happening is many orders of magnitude greater.

That's because of the Precautionary Principle. Also, as viruses mutate, they tend to get less dangerous.

'it really is about the science'

so what is your education level regarding interpreting vaccine trials data?

it really is about the liberty...which really is about the selfishness...I may disagree with your perspective but my bigger problem is that you won't own it.

There is no data about long term effects, so my education doesn't matter.

Also, focusing on liberty is not selfish. It is a false dichotomy that liberty leads to less safety. In fact, loss of liberty means the loss of different kinds of safety than the virus takes away.

Right now, in the US, we have the safety that the government is not just going to haul us away to reeducation camps if we hold opinions that go against the official narrative. Lose liberty, and that safety is gone.

I focus on liberty because I don't want my posterity, or yours, or anyone's, living in a dystopian dictatorship where they fear for their lives every day.

If you call me selfish because of that, I'll accept that label because you just made it meaningless.

Oh, and I have a college education with statistics and a bit of experience in chemistry research.

Mainstream: I agree. We are reasonable, independent-minded Americans who are rightly skeptical of a highly experimental new..

Ohio couples vaccine jabs with a lottery

Mainstream: Hot damn I like them odds!

Public health workers have known for a long time that low health literacy is a huge problem. People will keep getting into preventable accidents and abusing drugs. All you can do is to make the facts and medical tools widely available to those who want to use them.