UAL to require all employees to get vaccinated
- Thread starter NovemberEcho
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jtrain609
Antisocial Monster
Holy • that's amazing.
BEEF SUPREME
Well-Known Member
Wardogg
Meat Popsicle
The question wasn't meant to be mean or derogatory in any way. I was just curious to know how big his world view is when it came to the topic he commented on.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Man I don't talk Virus *anywhere*, but I'm going to dip my toe in the nasty, brackish water here, just for the lulz.
I think the main problem (and this problem isn't by any stretch confined to Covid) is that everyone is deliriously anxious to treat it all as though it's simple. It isn't. I mean, it kinda is insofar as the question of whether getting the vaccine is safe, effective, and (imho) nearly a moral duty to your fellow man is settled (all of those are a yes). But it's not in terms of the information and belief systems of all the billions of humans involved in the question.
Sure, yeah, there are the Deplorables who are just proudly pig-ignorant and who view this ignorance as some sort of perverse badge of pride. But I think all of the people "we" all tend to (sickeningly) look down on as a matter of course are a lot more diverse than that. This calculus is changing, and the "stupid rednecks should die" attitude "we" have adopted is in large part the reason for it.
That is to say that every time one of the "us"es throws up their well-manicured, un-callused hands at the rank stupidity of the bovine fools who believe everything some dickhead on OANN told them, a kitten dies. More importantly, another basically decent, well-intentioned, but radically uniformed citizen WHO VOTES goes from "vaccine-hesitant" to "absolute loon". It does manifestly zero good to scream at the proles (or the heavens, for that matter). If you want to do any actual good, convince someone. Talk to them. Acknowledge their concerns. Explain how vaccination works to them. If you don't know, learn how vaccination works, then explain how vaccination works to them.
The flip side of the coin of all of these reprehensible, mouth-breathing morons being disease vectors who can oh-so-unfairly infect "us" is that "we" can also infect "them". With ideas, with logic, with knowledge, with learning. They aren't the Enemy, they're an Ally waiting to be liberated. We're all in this together, like it or not. Let's act like it. This virus (and the ones inevitably to follow) have no politics, and they don't care who was Right First.
I think the main problem (and this problem isn't by any stretch confined to Covid) is that everyone is deliriously anxious to treat it all as though it's simple. It isn't. I mean, it kinda is insofar as the question of whether getting the vaccine is safe, effective, and (imho) nearly a moral duty to your fellow man is settled (all of those are a yes). But it's not in terms of the information and belief systems of all the billions of humans involved in the question.
Sure, yeah, there are the Deplorables who are just proudly pig-ignorant and who view this ignorance as some sort of perverse badge of pride. But I think all of the people "we" all tend to (sickeningly) look down on as a matter of course are a lot more diverse than that. This calculus is changing, and the "stupid rednecks should die" attitude "we" have adopted is in large part the reason for it.
That is to say that every time one of the "us"es throws up their well-manicured, un-callused hands at the rank stupidity of the bovine fools who believe everything some dickhead on OANN told them, a kitten dies. More importantly, another basically decent, well-intentioned, but radically uniformed citizen WHO VOTES goes from "vaccine-hesitant" to "absolute loon". It does manifestly zero good to scream at the proles (or the heavens, for that matter). If you want to do any actual good, convince someone. Talk to them. Acknowledge their concerns. Explain how vaccination works to them. If you don't know, learn how vaccination works, then explain how vaccination works to them.
The flip side of the coin of all of these reprehensible, mouth-breathing morons being disease vectors who can oh-so-unfairly infect "us" is that "we" can also infect "them". With ideas, with logic, with knowledge, with learning. They aren't the Enemy, they're an Ally waiting to be liberated. We're all in this together, like it or not. Let's act like it. This virus (and the ones inevitably to follow) have no politics, and they don't care who was Right First.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
I think that’s well intentioned, and hopefully you’re gaining traction with it. I’ve tried with a couple people, but it’s crazy how dug in so many of the anti-vax/anti-science types are.
I just flew a trip with a nice enough guy, but like many of my hard core conservative co-workers, he’s gone pretty far down the conspiracy rabbit hole. After having what I thought was a pretty well balanced discussion, he then sent me some whack job Facebook video as the rationale behind his hesitancy. I just don’t have the energy for people like that anymore.
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Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Very little. I think I maybe convinced two people to examine their idiotic prejudices after trying gently with perhaps fifty, and I've no idea whether they got uh Red Pilled or whatever (?). But here's the thing: There are no points awarded for being Right in this game. You or I will die just as fast as anyone else (statistically, maybe you or I have a particular genetic resistance, but you get the idea) when the next, radically more virulent virus comes along. Again, this isn't a moral question, it's purely practical. Viruses do not have a conception of "should" and if they could laugh they'd laugh at Virtue. The ONLY practical thing which can be done (beyond the Herculean efforts of our Scientists) is attempting to break the waves of ignorance.
Consider: If you, and I, and everyone else convinced *one* person who was previously vaccine-hesitant early on, this thing might never have become endemic.
As ever, being on the "right side of History" (or whatever) isn't easy. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
Pilot Fighter
Well-Known Member
I have two relatives that had polio and struggle with the consequences. They are Covid vaccine skeptics.
I am perfectly okay with only returning to Eastern Kentucky for funerals.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Yeah. It's an achingly beautiful place marred only but pretty much entirely by the denizens. I say this as someone whose pops got out only because the World decided to have a War.
That said, those scumbag hillbillies you can only *fully and properly* loathe if they're in your family tree are just as effective at being a disease reservoir/breeding ground as Tyson, Bohr, Feynman, or Einstein. That's the reality. *shrug*
///AMG
Well-Known Member
My feeling is that humans lost control over this virus almost 2 years ago. I do blame the Chinese government for that, and I do think that they should pay trillions of dollars to the rest of the world, and probably default in the process, along with all the societal consequences that go along with such a predicament. I also don't hold it against their citizens personally, and more importantly of course Chinese Americans (or just asian americans in general) are not at fault. I hope that explains my practical grievance beyond one just held due to racism or xenophobia.
In that vein, I really don't think this virus has shown us that we have the ability to really alter its course. Some of that is due to the politicization it has received. Some of that is just simple science. At this point, unvaccinated people are just dying. I have given up hope that they will change their minds. My sister in law is one of them. She is the farthest thing from a moronic Trump supporter. She is just a pure liberal (as in the original rather than disingenuous) anti-vaxxer. My wife and everyone in their family has tried their hand at it, literally because they are concerned that she will die (she is asthmatic). Nothing but arguments and anger at their insinuations. None of my conservative anti-COVID reality friends are any different. You will not change their minds, and it isn't worth trying or being angry about. The idea that there are "vaccine hesitant" people at this point is laughable, and a myth. It's a nice way of not admitting to yourself that most people are as dumb as Jenny McCarthy. Just my 0.02
In that vein, I really don't think this virus has shown us that we have the ability to really alter its course. Some of that is due to the politicization it has received. Some of that is just simple science. At this point, unvaccinated people are just dying. I have given up hope that they will change their minds. My sister in law is one of them. She is the farthest thing from a moronic Trump supporter. She is just a pure liberal (as in the original rather than disingenuous) anti-vaxxer. My wife and everyone in their family has tried their hand at it, literally because they are concerned that she will die (she is asthmatic). Nothing but arguments and anger at their insinuations. None of my conservative anti-COVID reality friends are any different. You will not change their minds, and it isn't worth trying or being angry about. The idea that there are "vaccine hesitant" people at this point is laughable, and a myth. It's a nice way of not admitting to yourself that most people are as dumb as Jenny McCarthy. Just my 0.02
JordanD
Chinese Food Enthusiast
Except those guys (the metaphorical those guys) probably didn't spend 2020 licking strangers and are probably vaccinated now.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Sure. The intended point was that the virus doesn't care about anyone's virtues. Deputy Doofy is just as deliciously fertile a ground in which to grow and mutate as any Nobel Laureate. This seems to stick in a lot of people's craws, as they (I think correctly, btw) care about and order people based upon an evaluation of their virtues or their value to society. Viruses don't evaluate Virtue, and it seems like a lot of people are having a lot of trouble grasping that.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
I think a lot of people, on both sides, would like the virus to affirm their political beliefs. COVID kills liberals because they are terrible. COVID kills conservatives because they are terrible. It is the same BS from both ends. But it really isn't about the virus. It is about the hatred we have for the other. And I am no different. I am tired, and have been for 20+ years, of listening to the evangelical right try and force their insane immoral minority beliefs on me. And they believe the situation to be the opposite. This is all just years long underlying hatred coming out in the form of something else. To be fair, only one side tried to fundamentally and forever destroy our country last January though. They can get •ed.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
Yeah, and in my darkest moments I feel exactly the same way. There's nothing wrong with that. They're increasing your probability of an early demise. But the perverse thing about contagions is, again, that they they have a null relationship to virtue. Neither positive nor negative. I keep repeating this, but I think it bears repetition because while on one level it's obvious, it's also diametrically opposed to our eh what would you say "automatic method of thought"? All of the stuff we spend way too much time worrying about regarding our fellow humans doesn't even exist in the evolutionary soup. Consciousness is, I fear, very likely to be an evolutionary dead-end. Just another mistake which will be rectified in the fullness of time. But whether I'm right about that or not, it seems obvious to me that the evolutionary pressure is coming down extremely hard on sentience, and we aren't doing a very good job at fighting back, at the moment.
TL;DR: We are going to have to find a way to stop chimping out at each other and instead use our reason and language, or all of the fruits of that reason and language will be lost to time.
///AMG
Well-Known Member
Oh for sure Boris. I think the answer is to stop trying to control others......that is the root of maybe all our societal problems. I guess that was my unspelled point. Stop trying to legislate me into going to church (that's a stretch, but I know it is the end goal, if not the handmaid's tale), and I can stop bothering people about getting a vaccine (I don't actually bother anyone) that might save their life. No skin off my back.
ASpilot2be
Qbicle seat warmer
Well said. Beers on me when I end up your way.
Boris Badenov
This is no laughing matter.
I agree, of course. In my estimation, the road to not trying to tell people what to do is to take charge of our own damned selves and stop viewing every disagreement as a hill to die on, at which point people will be free to make the obvious and sensible choice, but that's worth about what you paid for it.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
What is the statistical likelihood of Deputy Doofy being vaccinated vs. that Nobel Laureate of yours? That's what sticks in my craw (although as I'm not a bird or insect I don't think I actually have one). This virus will continue to mutate as long as it is in the wild. We can't control that. However, it will mutate less (or rather, with less success) if people aren't good hosts for it. One way of being a bad host is getting vaccinated. The other is being born with genes that make you a bad host. Only one of those is controllable.
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