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chinesebear
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Harbin, China
 
2021-02-23, 18:58

Quote:
Originally Posted by turtle View Post
That's the thing. I can logic through the corner cases and spend my time about how unlikely that is to happen to me or my loved ones. That is no different than going off of gut instinct though.
I'm not sure I'd agree with that statement. Gut instinct and thinking rationally through reality are very different things.

I think it's also important to look at the inverse. Is it safe to get Covid? We do have data to back that up (though long term effects are still unknown). So often, the vaccine arguments are "I heard that in one case, this bad thing happened. I don't want that to happen, so I won't get it." But, we do know that in 500,000 cases in the US, people died from Covid. So then the numbers (currently) are what, 20+million who had covid and 500,000 who died (plus more with serious to just annoying lasting effects) or the 10 million (?) vaccinated (I've got no idea on that actual number) and the complications from that (under 50). That's how I try to think of it. The challenge with these things so often is that we've become so used to accepting a certain risk, that we discount it. Then, when something that can minimize that risk, we focus on the new risk, even if it's infinitesimally smaller, and say then "I'm not gonna do it."

I remember when the seatbelt laws were starting to come in. And so many people told those stories of "Oh, I know this one person who was in a car crash, and didn't wear a seatbelt, was thrown from the car and survived. If they had a seatbelt on, they would have burned alive in the car." So, then, people didn't wear seatbelts. This is the same sort of phenomenon, quite honestly.

Though, there is the bigger issue of trust. And I think that's a big part of what you're alluding to as well. A big part of certain segments of modern American culture is the whole "I can only trust myself" mythos. I fight that in myself all of the time, quite honestly. But it comes down to, are you willing to trust, not a corporation, but the sum total of the group of people who are working hard to create these vaccines (or whatever it may be, because this is bigger than just vaccines). There is certainly a long track record of vaccines in the world, so the general idea works. And there are testing regiments that have been gone through to check for the "normal" complications. Philosophically, trust is a choice. And for me, I think life is a lot more pleasant to live if I chose to trust others (with a caveat - I'm not ignorant to deceiving and conniving people in the world - I just chose to not focus on them and default to thinking everyone is that way).
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