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On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them.
No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures.
Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so.
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United States45481 Posts
On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so.
I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issues.
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On November 24 2021 22:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so. I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issue.
That's true. BJ's argument doesn't make sense regardless of how we label it. There is no causal link between softer and harsher measures.
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I can't speak for other countries, but regarding Poland, I doubt there will be a lockdown or any other serious measures. PiS is in a hard place, as it is their voters that are most vulnerable to COVID (they are usually older and have lower vaccination rates) and at the same time they are amongst the ones most aggressive towards any mitigating measures. So, they can either protect the population (and by extension their base) but at the same time anger them or keep everything open, please their base and let them (and some others) die. It is a lose-lose situation for them.
Our health-care system is in a terrible state after years of negligence. On top of that low pay have driven many specialist and nurses to emigration.
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On September 28 2021 05:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 28 2021 05:12 BlackJack wrote:
It's still government encroachment. The government requiring vaccines for public schools is a degree removed from the government requiring vaccines to enter private businesses or be employed by them. Which is another degree removed from the government requiring a vaccine to use public roads or have a mortgage, or whatever else they want to do. I don't think it's logically inconsistent to object to government encroachment just because it's done gradually. There is a reason that slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Also, this is not government encroachment. The government already requires people to be vaccinated for public schools. It already allows businesses to make various health requirements including vaccination. It is a strange argument because most businesses are asking for rules, and they would prefer them from the government because they want these rules (for a ton of reasons around productivity, customer confidence, expenses, and so on) and they would rather they are universal instead of jurisdictional which is way more effort and expense (so they owuld prefer they be federal rather than state). The encroachment would be if all the sudden government made rules that businesses could not do this, which has been tried and shut down by conservative courts all over the country because it is opposite to conservative values.
I edited your post down because you lack brevity. Do you really think this "context" changes the spirit of your post? Where you call my argument "strange" and repeatedly state that this is not government encroachment? Again really bizarre for someone whose position is now "This is how government policy works, they start with education and awareness and voluntary, they then move too disencentives, then fines and then jail." Also you can't seem to tell the difference between "Businesses are already allowed to make various health requirements" and "Businesses are now mandated by government to check patrons vaccine papers."
Maybe when I said COVID vaccine mandates would continue to be more restrictive you should have just said "yeah that's how government policy works" instead of calling it a slippery slope fallacy and denying that any encroachment was occurring. Of course it's hard to know how you're going to change your story months later as facts change.
On November 24 2021 21:41 JimmiC wrote:
My point was and still is that adding another vaccine to tge list of mandated vaccines is not encroachment anymore than it will be when they add the next safety feature in a car.
So Austria has a list of other mandated vaccines that adults have to take or be fined/jailed? There's a list of other vaccines that you have to show your papers for in order to go to a restaurant/bar? Oh, okay, I guess none of this is new then.
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On November 24 2021 23:06 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2021 22:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so. I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issue. That's true. BJ's argument doesn't make sense regardless of how we label it. There is no causal link between softer and harsher measures.
Softer measures lead to harsher measures by shifting the perspective of people for what is an acceptable measure. That's what the boiling frog metaphor means. You can't just come out and say "everyone get this vaccine or go to jail." It has to be done incrementally and gradually. Why do you think Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers only applied to companies of 100+ employees? If he has the authority for that don't you think he has the authority to make one for companies of 50+ employees or 20+ employees? Don't we want to vaccinate as many people are possible? Do you think it's maybe because he didn't want to piss off too many people at one time? Joe Biden said this about the COVID vaccine in Dec 2020
"No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory," he replied.
"But I would do everything in my power—just like I don't think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide—I'll do everything in my power as President of United States to encourage people to do the right thing and, when they do it, demonstrate that it matters."
So we went from "no I don't think it should be mandatory" to "take the shot or lose your livelihood." We're on Day 657 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve." We went from "flatten the curve" to "take this vaccine or be fined/jailed."
Of course you can believe this was due to changing circumstances of the Delta variant and that the government's hand was forced. Here's what our country's top expert on the pandemic said:
"When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85."
That quote was from Dec 2020, long before Delta even existed. He talks about gradually "nudging up" the numbers from 70% to 80%, the same way you might nudge up the temperature on a pot with a frog in it from 70°C to 80°C.
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On November 25 2021 07:25 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On November 24 2021 23:06 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 22:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so. I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issue. That's true. BJ's argument doesn't make sense regardless of how we label it. There is no causal link between softer and harsher measures. Softer measures lead to harsher measures by shifting the perspective of people for what is an acceptable measure. That's what the boiling frog metaphor means. You can't just come out and say "everyone get this vaccine or go to jail." It has to be done incrementally and gradually. Why do you think Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers only applied to companies of 100+ employees? If he has the authority for that don't you think he has the authority to make one for companies of 50+ employees or 20+ employees? Don't we want to vaccinate as many people are possible? Do you think it's maybe because he didn't want to piss off too many people at one time? Joe Biden said this about the COVID vaccine in Dec 2020 Show nested quote +"No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory," he replied.
"But I would do everything in my power—just like I don't think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide—I'll do everything in my power as President of United States to encourage people to do the right thing and, when they do it, demonstrate that it matters." So we went from "no I don't think it should be mandatory" to "take the shot or lose your livelihood." We're on Day 657 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve." We went from "flatten the curve" to "take this vaccine or be fined/jailed." Of course you can believe this was due to changing circumstances of the Delta variant and that the government's hand was forced. Here's what our country's top expert on the pandemic said: Show nested quote +"When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85." That quote was from Dec 2020, long before Delta even existed. He talks about gradually "nudging up" the numbers from 70% to 80%, the same way you might nudge up the temperature on a pot with a frog in it from 70°C to 80°C. Do you think governments started with the idea 'we will mandate vaccines, how do we ease people into that' back in 2020?
Because that is what your analogy would require. That the goal is mandatory vaccinations and the process is gradually harsher methods.
Whereas reality is that they don't want mandatory vaccinations, and don't want lockdowns and don't want mask mandates but all the lesser measures failed so governments are forced to go for increasingly harsher methods to keep Covid under control.
And even if a government would think 'we're likely going to need a vaccine mandate' some time ago they can't jump strait to that because everyone, including parts of their own parties needed for a majority, will demand lesser measures are tried first.
EDIT: also, again you completely ignore context with your 'we went from flatten the curve, to vaccine mandates'. Why did we want to flatten the curve? To buy time for vaccine development. Which we now have. Which is why vaccines are now being pushed. Because more people need to take them to keep covid under control.
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You immediately imply some dastardly plan.
Numbers change because the virus changes and we know more. Strategies change because we learn more. A strategy from day 20 of a pandemic may turn out to not be ideal on day 600, because people learn more. A strategy for a dynamic situation which doesn't change if new information is gained is usually just a bad idea. However, it is also usually better to start doing something with imperfect information rather than wait for perfect information and the perfect strategy before reacting.
Secondly, the sharpening of measures also does not imply some evil plan, or that that sharpening was always planned and just hidden because of reasons. In a society which values the rule of law, it is usually expected for the government to use minimally invasive measures to achieve a goal. Which means that logically, you start at small measures which you gradually increase until you achieve your goal.
I personally am not a huge fan of mandatory vaccination, but i am mostly still confused as to why this is even necessary. Not taking the vaccine is just incredibly irrational to me. I have a hard time fitting my general view of humanity as rational, intelligent people to the fact that 20-30% of them refuse to get a good vaccine against a currently ongoing pandemic for no good reason whatsoever. I am very quickly losing the patience with the irrational idiots which make the pandemic unnecessarily hard for all of us. Having to fight tooth and nail just to stop these people from dragging us all down is getting very old very quickly. It was the same when lockdowns happened and these people ignored them, when they cannot bother to wear a fucking mask, and it is the same when they refuse to get vaccinated.
I don't understand why we can't all be on board to do our best to fight this fucking pandemic.
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Perhaps you should rethink your view of humanity, Simberto. ;-)
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On November 25 2021 07:31 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2021 07:25 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 23:06 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 22:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so. I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issue. That's true. BJ's argument doesn't make sense regardless of how we label it. There is no causal link between softer and harsher measures. Softer measures lead to harsher measures by shifting the perspective of people for what is an acceptable measure. That's what the boiling frog metaphor means. You can't just come out and say "everyone get this vaccine or go to jail." It has to be done incrementally and gradually. Why do you think Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers only applied to companies of 100+ employees? If he has the authority for that don't you think he has the authority to make one for companies of 50+ employees or 20+ employees? Don't we want to vaccinate as many people are possible? Do you think it's maybe because he didn't want to piss off too many people at one time? Joe Biden said this about the COVID vaccine in Dec 2020 "No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory," he replied.
"But I would do everything in my power—just like I don't think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide—I'll do everything in my power as President of United States to encourage people to do the right thing and, when they do it, demonstrate that it matters." So we went from "no I don't think it should be mandatory" to "take the shot or lose your livelihood." We're on Day 657 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve." We went from "flatten the curve" to "take this vaccine or be fined/jailed." Of course you can believe this was due to changing circumstances of the Delta variant and that the government's hand was forced. Here's what our country's top expert on the pandemic said: "When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85." That quote was from Dec 2020, long before Delta even existed. He talks about gradually "nudging up" the numbers from 70% to 80%, the same way you might nudge up the temperature on a pot with a frog in it from 70°C to 80°C. Do you think governments started with the idea 'we will mandate vaccines, how do we ease people into that' back in 2020? Because that is what your analogy would require. That the goal is mandatory vaccinations and the process is gradually harsher methods. Whereas reality is that they don't want mandatory vaccinations, and don't want lockdowns and don't want mask mandates but all the lesser measures failed so governments are forced to go for increasingly harsher methods to keep Covid under control. And even if a government would think 'we're likely going to need a vaccine mandate' some time ago they can't jump strait to that because everyone, including parts of their own parties needed for a majority, will demand lesser measures are tried first. EDIT: also, again you completely ignore context with your 'we went from flatten the curve, to vaccine mandates'. Why did we want to flatten the curve? To buy time for vaccine development. Which we now have. Which is why vaccines are now being pushed. Because more people need to take them to keep covid under control.
The government's initial intention was to vaccinate as many people as possible. That should be the obvious goal of any government that possess a safe vaccine against an ongoing pandemic. The methods they use to vaccinate as many people as possible will be by any means that the broader population deems acceptable. As you said, they can't jump straight to the harshest measures, they have to ease into it with softer measures. So we seem to agree that softer measures are the necessary lead-in to the harsher measures. I don't think the intentions were nefarious, I think the end result is nefarious: that we are getting closer to a society where the government tells me what I have to put in my body.
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The government forces selfish idiots to make the right decision at no risk to those individuals. It's a public health matter. It's not a personal decision if it affect the whole society. You'd have a point if there was a risk associated with taking the vaccine. There is practically none. It's just irrational people making stupid decisions.
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On November 25 2021 07:36 Simberto wrote:
Not taking the vaccine is just incredibly irrational to me. I have a hard time fitting my general view of humanity as rational, intelligent people to the fact that 20-30% of them refuse to get a good vaccine against a currently ongoing pandemic for no good reason whatsoever. I am very quickly losing the patience with the irrational idiots which make the pandemic unnecessarily hard for all of us.
Steve Jobs was a brilliant guy that led Apple to a trillion dollar valuation and he thought the best course of treatment for his cancer was herbal remedies, acupuncture, psychics and whatever else.
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
-George Carlin
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I don't think we'll ever get to the point that Mohdoo Island™ becomes a reality and they start hauling off the unvaccinated to camps. But if we do JimmiC will be here to tell us it's no different than requiring seatbelts in a car.
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On November 25 2021 08:18 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2021 07:31 Gorsameth wrote:On November 25 2021 07:25 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 23:06 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 22:47 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On November 24 2021 22:13 maybenexttime wrote:On November 24 2021 21:35 BlackJack wrote:On November 24 2021 21:01 WombaT wrote:
The application here of the slippery slope is some variant of ‘if the government seizes control here, what else will they do?’ Or an inference that they’ll just keep expanding the scope of mandates for some nebulous goal.
If, on the other hand you’re making the observation that a precedence for mandates is established with a particular goal, in this case reducing spread/hospitalisations, and, in some capacity that end goal isn’t met, then it’s logical that the scope will be expanded to attempt to hit that goal.
They’re superficially similar, but different arguments. As everyone in this thread knows by now my reading comprehension and memory are both pretty ropey, but I think Blackjack has mostly been making the latter argument, the non-slippery slope one.
Some posters have got their rubber tire out and had a good wee ride down the slippery slope at almost any available opportunity, but I don’t think Blackjack is making arguments on that basis.
Yes, precisely. It's the difference between a slippery slope and the Boiling Frog. It's obvious from that post I was going for the latter metaphor. JimmiC just likes to poorly apply the term slippery slope to arguments he disagrees with because he thinks it makes him win the argument, even though as DarkPlasmaBall pointed out, a slippery slope is not necessarily a fallacy if there is evidence for them. No, you literally said that softer measures led to the harsher ones. That is the definition of the slippery slope. No, the lighter measures did not lead to harsher measures. Flipping to the Boling Frog analogy doesn't help here. It's equally stupid. As WombaT said, that would require believing that the government is out there to expand the scope of the measures for some nebulous goal. As Gorsameth pointed out, the measures have changed because the circumstances have changed, and drastically so. I think it'd be useful if we stopped trying to categorize these arguments using debate-bro lingo, especially since (per the Boiling Frog Wiki article) there's an overlap between these two approaches - Boiling Frog and Slippery Slope - when the former "may be invoked in support of a slippery slope argument". Labeling an argument as either of these (or both of these) does nothing to establish whether or not the perspective is a good one, and it seems like it's just creating needless confusion and potential semantics issue. That's true. BJ's argument doesn't make sense regardless of how we label it. There is no causal link between softer and harsher measures. Softer measures lead to harsher measures by shifting the perspective of people for what is an acceptable measure. That's what the boiling frog metaphor means. You can't just come out and say "everyone get this vaccine or go to jail." It has to be done incrementally and gradually. Why do you think Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for employers only applied to companies of 100+ employees? If he has the authority for that don't you think he has the authority to make one for companies of 50+ employees or 20+ employees? Don't we want to vaccinate as many people are possible? Do you think it's maybe because he didn't want to piss off too many people at one time? Joe Biden said this about the COVID vaccine in Dec 2020 "No, I don't think it should be mandatory. I wouldn't demand it to be mandatory," he replied.
"But I would do everything in my power—just like I don't think masks have to be made mandatory nationwide—I'll do everything in my power as President of United States to encourage people to do the right thing and, when they do it, demonstrate that it matters." So we went from "no I don't think it should be mandatory" to "take the shot or lose your livelihood." We're on Day 657 of "2 weeks to flatten the curve." We went from "flatten the curve" to "take this vaccine or be fined/jailed." Of course you can believe this was due to changing circumstances of the Delta variant and that the government's hand was forced. Here's what our country's top expert on the pandemic said: "When polls said only about half of all Americans would take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70 to 75 percent," Fauci said. "Then, when newer surveys said 60 percent or more would take it, I thought, 'I can nudge this up a bit,' so I went to 80, 85." That quote was from Dec 2020, long before Delta even existed. He talks about gradually "nudging up" the numbers from 70% to 80%, the same way you might nudge up the temperature on a pot with a frog in it from 70°C to 80°C. Do you think governments started with the idea 'we will mandate vaccines, how do we ease people into that' back in 2020? Because that is what your analogy would require. That the goal is mandatory vaccinations and the process is gradually harsher methods. Whereas reality is that they don't want mandatory vaccinations, and don't want lockdowns and don't want mask mandates but all the lesser measures failed so governments are forced to go for increasingly harsher methods to keep Covid under control. And even if a government would think 'we're likely going to need a vaccine mandate' some time ago they can't jump strait to that because everyone, including parts of their own parties needed for a majority, will demand lesser measures are tried first. EDIT: also, again you completely ignore context with your 'we went from flatten the curve, to vaccine mandates'. Why did we want to flatten the curve? To buy time for vaccine development. Which we now have. Which is why vaccines are now being pushed. Because more people need to take them to keep covid under control. The government's initial intention was to vaccinate as many people as possible. That should be the obvious goal of any government that possess a safe vaccine against an ongoing pandemic. The methods they use to vaccinate as many people as possible will be by any means that the broader population deems acceptable. As you said, they can't jump straight to the harshest measures, they have to ease into it with softer measures. So we seem to agree that softer measures are the necessary lead-in to the harsher measures. I don't think the intentions were nefarious, I think the end result is nefarious: that we are getting closer to a society where the government tells me what I have to put in my body. The governments intention is to vaccinate as many as are needed. If 70% would have been enough (as it may well have been pre-Delta then none of these discussions would exist. Softer measures are a necessary lead-in because people are stupid but harsher measures are not the goal, they are a necessity which defines the context. No one wants to implement harsher measures, we have to because Covid is so infectious and people are stupid,
And no I don't think the end result is nefarious. The beginning of the end didn't start in the 1800's when smallpox vaccine mandates existed. Why would this time be the end of civilization, when all the previous times weren't?
We didn't complain much about mandatory children vaccinations, we don't complain about seatbelts being mandatory.
Why this, why now?
I legit think if we had a full on Resident Evil zombie outbreak and we found a vaccine we would have people in the street protesting for their right to turn into a zombie and eat their fellow man. Its lunacy and just shows how fucked up we as a society are that ~1/5 of the population refuses a safe and tested vaccine that saves millions of lives because of what? Because they feel that no one should tell them what to do?
But let me throw it back at you. The unvaccinated a burden on society that we cannot sustain and everyone, including those that get vaccinated, suffer for their stupidity. If they want their freedom of choice, then suffer the consequences. No vaccine mandate, no corona passes. Freedom for all.
But anyone not vaccinated signs a slip that if they catch Covid they will be refused all medical aid and let rng decide their fate. (yes yes, exemptions for those who cannot take the vaccine for medical reasons). The problem with solve itself eventually and gz to those who survive, your own fault to those who don't.
You can't shout about wanting freedom but make everyone else suffer for your stupid choices.
Let the rest of society get on with life.
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EPT
