I don't know of anyone who's "dictating" that you get the vaccine and I would oppose anyone who wants to make vaccinations literally compulsory.

But given how extremely well tested it is, given its utterly astonishing and indisputable efficacy, given that the upsides greatly outweigh the risks[0], I have no problem with society applying a bit of societal pressure on people to get vaccinated voluntarily.

[0] Obviously this is the case when talking about known risks, likely but unproven risks, or even unlikely but plausible risks. But it's still true EVEN IF you accepted all of the wacky paranoid nonsense about vaccine safety and their beliefs about "long term risks". I haven't heard any anti-vax argument that makes the vaccine out to be even one tenth as bad as the disease it protects you from.

>I have no problem with society applying a bit of societal pressure on people to get vaccinated voluntarily.

The problem is that you are essentially imposing your trust in the institutions, onto others.

Trust in "science" is fundamentally different from trust in "scientists". Even though it might make sense to apply societal pressure to mandate trust in "science", it makes no sort of sense to mandate trust in "scientists".

I think it is hard for a lot of people to see or acknowledge the distinction between "Science" and "Scientists" which is causing these debates..

This has nothing to do with trust any more. I no longer have to trust a single thing said by any individual scientist, any individual medical doctor, any institution of science or any institution of medicine. Why? Because sufficient evidence is now available in hard numerical statistics.

> Because sufficient evidence is now available in hard numerical statistics.

Can you show me the exact number of adverse events observed after, say pfizer covid vaccine, in real world use?

Can you show me the exact number of breakthrough infections observed after, say pfizer covid vaccine, in real world use?

Even if these numbers are available, then it is anyone take if they want to trust the entity that collected this data..

Basically, it always comes down to "trust", if you are not the once who is collecting the raw data and doing the analysis on it.

Also, you would be very wrong is "consensus" cannot be set on a single flawed metric, you would be very wrong as well.

Adverse events? Don't make me laugh. Sorry, but even the most doomsday anti-vax postulations about vaccine "adverse events" don't even come close to competing with the proven "adverse events" of COVID infection. A whole bunch of mumbling imaginings don't amount to a hill of beans when compared to four million deaths.

If you want my attention, you'll have to show me evidence that vaccines have caused millions of people to die within weeks and millions more are currently suffering serious long term illness. But you can't show anything like that. You're playing an infantile game of "I demand exact numbers" in order to hide the fact you're asserting phantom dangers while unable to offer any numbers of your own.

To be frank, I demanded the numbers because you claimed to have it. If you don't have it, it is fine.