Consept

So wait youre posting a video about mass psychosis likening it to whats happening now by comparing a vaccination program to totalitarianism? That is such an insult to all the tyrant dictators currently and of the past (Hitler, Mao, Stalin etc). We are no where near being in a totalitarian society, if you really think that then that is mass psychosis. The government now isnt perfect by any means and has a long way to go and a lot of improvements needed but to say its totalitarian is such a reach. If you live in America or most of the western world then go and live in Russia or China or North Korea and then complain to them about living in totalitarian state, see how far you get. Do you ever consider that balancing everyones freedom is actually a difficult task and that working out everyones rights is still a work in progress? I actually like the video btw but i dont think its talking about what you think it is, thats the beauty of having fixed positions, you can attribute anything as evidence of them.

@Seed Just to clarify it is majority of experts that are for the vaccine as a route out, something like 98%, which is a scientific consensus. This doesn't mean that the vaccine is infallible there will be some issues as with any medication or drug but the efficacy is agreed upon by experts and there is currently no other plan or solution, if a better one did come up, in theory that would be the one they'd agree on. As I understand what you're saying people should have a choice of whether to take the vaccine. The issue is that a certain amount of people need to take it for it to be effective and for us to relax social distancing, reduce hospitalisations etc. So by not taking it what people are saying is that the route presented by science is not the right one. Maybe this is true but then you would have to present a feasible alternative. What science has presented is a vaccine with around 95% efficacy and let's say 1% short term side effects. Keep in mind there are no drugs without side effects. So if the vaccine is not good enough, I'm assuming people want more than 95% efficacy and basically no side effects, they also want it developed quickly but with long term testing. Which makes me think that essentially nothing science comes up with will suffice. So I would ask is in an ideal world, what would a way out even look like? Or is it just a case of letting nature take its course and decimating everyone?

@Seed I don't expect you to have a virologist knowledge or know anything about the ingredients, the reason I pointed you to the list is because you stated - "Not one car safety law involves forcing citizens to put a shot into their body, that is not sufficiently tested, have no idea what is in it, whether it even works or what the side effects are." Part of your argument for not taking the vaccine is based on this, but all this information is available. I appreciate you don't want to insult the doctors by saying you know the words on the list, but is it not more insulting to have a strong opinion that disagrees with the doctors without even knowing the words on the list, whilst also complaining that you don't know what's on the vaccine? Regarding your solution, which reading between the lines is to just let nature take its course and not doing anything about the pandemic, I don't want to misquote you but that's what I'm getting from what you said. Where do you draw the line with this, should we stop all drug research and let people just deal with whatever conditions they have for any illness, or is this specific just to covid? If we were to roll out your strategy of do nothing there would be millions more dead, not just from covid but over crowded hospitals where people will find it hard to get treatment. From an overall perspective maybe less humans would be better, it's basically thanos' argument, but would you really want to advocate for culling humans?

@Seed you can actually find out what's in the vaccine, it's all open to the public https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus/Covid-19-Knowledge-Base/Vaccine-Ingredients But what I wanted to ask is if the vaccine is the right route out what do you think is the right way out of the pandemic? Keep in mind the numbers are what they are even with all the social distancing. Also healthy eating and lifestyle are great to do but are a preventative measure and wouldn't have had too much effect on the pandemic if people only started during the pandemic.

OK but this is separate issue, personally i would call it a consciousness problem in that majority of society is in certain states of consciousness that are not good for the planet. If everyone was at say yellow and above consciousness levels there wouldnt really be the same issues or messes that we have now. But i also dont think youd find many people at yellow or turquoise whos solution would be to cull people as in not develop ways to save people if its possible, their solution would be to raise consciousness, especially turquoise people. My point was more that the reasoning given by @BadHippie was an egocentric perspective as in for him not to suffer and give his gift to the world, hes willing to not take it. You seem to be saying there shouldnt be any special treatment given to humans, which is fine but its a different argument.

These are things you want and want to do, this reasoning by definition is egocentric. Also the vaccine will not probably make you sick, at most you might not feel great for a couple days, but it is extremely unlikely you will have any sever adverse reactions, in fact you would be more likely to have bad effects from covid for a longer period, so even on an egocentric viewpoint that reasoning doesnt really work. I do understand your concerns and these are issues that are constantly being worked on and learnt about. I also respect youre decision as an egocentric one and you have a right to make that but not taking the vaccine because of a worry that it might make you sick and if it does you wont be able to share your gift with the world is not really looking outside of yourself.

Its not an either or situation, you can have compassion for both humans and animals. What i was talking about was going from a circle of compassion that only includes yourself to other people. Youre taking it a step further and saying it should also include all living beings, which is fine but you cant paint the egocentric view as caring about every living thing and then conveniently make decisions that only appear to benefit them.

I'm willing to be corrected, could you break down how asking the question - Is from a world centric view? Again im not judging or arguing im interested in how you see this as not an egocentric position

The CDC specifically says the vaccine reduces risk of spreading the virus - "Individual and community-level prevention measures in addition to vaccination have been shown to help reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2.(163-167) However, there can be individual and societal costs related to physical distancing, quarantine, school and business closures, and other prevention measures.(168-175) Modeling studies suggest that adherence to other prevention measures, such as wearing masks and physical distancing, continues to be important in the context of vaccine implementation.(176-184) In one study, complete relaxation of prevention measures for the entire population prior to adequate vaccination coverage (60-80% depending on the population considered) resulted in essentially no reductions in SARS-CoV-2 infections.(178) However, in the context of rapid vaccine implementation, the benefit of non-pharmaceutical interventions decreases: preliminary data from one study found prevention measures in the United States could begin to be relaxed 2-3 months after vaccination began if a rate of 3 million doses administered daily were attained(185). Correspondingly, preliminary data suggest that increasing vaccination rates may allow for the phasing out of some prevention measures as coverage increases.(184) With high vaccine effectiveness and increasing vaccination coverage, preliminary modeling studies conducted prior to emergence of the Delta variant predicted that vaccinated people returning to normal activities will have minimal impact on the course of the pandemic.(185, 186)" https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/science-briefs/fully-vaccinated-people.html But looking at a more meta perspective of your question, as i said its an ego-centric question, whats in it for me why should I take it. What im saying is that a world centric view would not look at it in that way. Your research is done to give justification for not taking the vaccine, maybe theres something to it, maybe there a shreds of truth in it but there is also the same and more research on the other side. I imagine you were never for the vaccine from whenever you heard there would be a vaccine therefore your decision was always not to take it and because youre somewhat intelligent, have some kind of scientific argument as to why not. If you had a world centric view your thinking would be more along the lines of 'people are suffering as a result of something, countries are completely locked down, the world is suffering is there some small thing i could do to help the situation? Will this small thing have any negative repercussions for me? most likely not ok let me do it'. All this other research and whatnot is just a justification for an egocentric action, which makes sense because not only are you doing the egocentric thing but you also want everyone to agree with that choice and praise you for being smarter than 99% of experts, which is why you spend so much time on research and explaining yourself. Im not saying this as a judgement and you are of course free to make an egocentric decision, i probably make loads myself, but at least be honest about it.

The thing with the conservatives is that they only care about power, its really a game for them that theyre trying to win, Johnson, Cameron etc have all been groomed from a young age at schools like Eton to play this game, they dont really have an understanding of the average person passed how to manipulate them to vote. Now this can be considered a good and bad thing, bad for obvious reasons but good in the sense that they can be swayed if theres enough support for a cause. The green targets for example are quite forward thinking, there have also been a ton of u-turns on things like free meals for school kids in poverty. So in reality its terrible leadership because theyre just trying to cling on to power but at least they can be pressured into doing what the people want, this is cool when you get want you want but then they can also be pressured into disasters like Brexit. Labour is just more of the same, theyve gone more centrist with the new leader but he could be a tory and no one would notice. There needs to be a realistic alternative and there needs to be strong leaders who actually care about the people. A lot of the population has been whipped up into a nationalistic rage because of the fear-creating marketing that was used for Brexit, this unfortunately has created a divide in the UK. So there is a lot to be done, question will be how bad will it have to get before a radical change happens.

Depends on your outlook, if youre looking at it from an egocentric view as in how what is the cost and benefits to you personally, then potentially theres a slight benefit in that if you do catch it you wont affect you as much, the cost is time and getting a needle, theres also the fear that the vaccine could damage you in some way, although being in the top 0.1% of healthy people Germany that most likely wont be the case for you. We can even level it and say theres no benefit to you and a slight risk. Now if we flip it to a world centric view or even a community view then theres the same cost to you as before but the benefit is that youre less likely to catch it and spread it, meaning that potentially less people will die or get sick. The reduce in hospitalisations also mean the healthcare system isnt stretched and so has a positive knock on effect. You maybe healthy but healthy people have been to hospital for this, taking the vaccine reduces the possibility of this happening which means hospitals arent over worked. Another thing is that governments are more than likely to keep other measures and restrictions in place if the vaccine take up isnt where it needs to be so that more lives arent at risk, so not taking it will also prolong these restrictions. So its basically what view you take ego or world centric, from the framing of your question it would sound like youre looking for an egocentric reason for taking it and although there is to some extent i dont think its the best reason to take it.

There are always many narratives on everything, but if you want to go down the scientific route, what is the scientific consensus for this vaccine?

Anti-vaxxers will be proved wrong by history, you can have all the debate you want but it will 100% be the case. The epistemology is just all over the place and the lack of awareness that the position is entirely fear based shows the where people are at. I know there will be strong negative reactions to this but that is how it is when ideological positions are challenged, I hold a lot of compassion regardless of the position but it will play out that youll be on the wrong side of history on this one unfortunately

Bang on, this is the key and i guess where freedom eats its own tail. Is true freedom being able to dismantle the structure that gives you freedom in the first place?

I think the question I would have for Russell is if covid is a serious issue, what would be a reasonable reaction by the goverment to get people to take the vaccine? Let's say the people protesting are just wrong, with normal conspiracy theories previously they would never have been shut down, simply put no one cared because it didn't really affect anyone but them. There were numerous conspiracies about 9/11, marches, protests etc. If we had a heavily authoritarian government that would've never been allowed, even Putin would've shut that shit down. The difference now is that not getting a vaccine or adapting your behavior etc is going to cause real world consequences for many people. This isn't conjecture, we've seen the effects of covid and we've seen how they've been improved by the vaccine so it's not even theoretical anymore. The balancing act the government has to do because its not authoritarian, is to convince those that don't want to take it subtly and its a tough job. It's like a green parent dealing with a rebellious child if they don't want to eat vegetables. Freedom comes with responsibility and I don't think these people are as of yet able to make such choices, especially if they are just anti-government by default

Sorry if i wasnt clear, the death rate as in people who have died after contracting covid over 80 is 7.8%, this declines a couple percent per age group, but either way this is a lot of people when you consider its a pandemic. Another stat (i will leave a link below) - "reported that 0.04% of 10-19 year olds would probably require hospital care—as would 1.0% of people in their 20s, 3.4% of people aged 30-39, 4.3% aged 40-49, 8.2% aged 50-59, 11.8% in their 60s, 16.6% in their 70s, and 18.4% of those over 80". Now even if we bypass the deaths and say we're happy for them to die because they were old or have illnesses, we would still have to deal with this very significant amount of hospital admissions, which will basically cripple already stretched health systems and cause chaos. Meaning that other patients will not be able to be seen. Heres your link on these stats ive mentioned - https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1327 Keep in mind im just pointing out what would happen if there was no vaccine or no other solution. Regarding long covid, lets take the example of the UK since im there. There have been around 5.8 million covid cases and 1.1 million have self reported long covid symptoms with 674,000 claiming it has adversely affected their day to day activities. So we're talking about 20% having it and 16% saying its affected them on a daily basis. So i wouldnt say its been exaggerated unless all those people are lying or are creating psycho somatic conditions because of fear. - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/1april2021 So just looking objectively at statistics the question would be is taking the vaccine going to make the population better or worse? The vaccine has so far been proven to be around 95% effective against the virus with very low side effects (0.003%) so to take the stand that no vaccine would be the better option doesnt really make sense to me considering the amount of negative consequences. Even if you think it will not be effective to just assume it would be dangerous would either mean the government is actively trying to kill you or make you ill through a vaccine, which if that was the case why not let covid just do its thing? Or you think the development of the vaccine was sub par and will lead to problems in the future, but if that was the case then we might as well give up on the whole medical industry as most drugs are not able to have 20 year test periods.

There are very few experts saying that the vaccine shouldn't be taken. There maybe some disagreememt about the lockdowns or face masks, but there would be a recognition that 'something' has to be done, its not going to go away by itself. I don't think you'd find 5% of experts that are saying the vaccine shouldn't be taken, this doesn't mean that you should just blindly listen to them, but if your argument is based on this or even factors it in, you'd have to throw out the scientific method as the consensus would be against you. Also yes you're right younger people are not dying en masse but there are sever issues with long covid symptoms which a lot of people are getting, we also don't know how this will affect people in years to come. With no vaccine and a strategy of just building up herd immunity a lot of old people will die, something around 7%. Not only that the hospitals will be jam packed, meaning other treatments will be pushed back as we've seen earlier in the pandemic. To go through all that risk or take a vaccine that has a scientific consensus, imo a vaccine would be the way out, unless there's another solution I'm missing

If we accept that the pandemic is real, there would of course naturally be fear. The question would be whether its been exaggerated or if its even real, in which case you could say people are being deceived and the fear is being enhanced. I think what scares people the most is when someone they know or are close to dies or gets ill from it, in which case their fear makes sense in context. Most people I know including myself know of someone that has died from it and definitely many that have got sick from it. Those that have got sick from it, a lot have said its the worse illness they've had. So these are very real things that people are basing their fear on. When it comes to anti-vaxx there isn't the sane concrete happenings to say that the vaccine is dangerous, potentially there could be in the future but even that's doubtful, either way nothing has actually happened to justify the fear, hence why its fear. Also reporting of the pandemic still has restrictions on it, you can't just outright lie about it although they may only show certain facts, this is not so much the case with alternative media. I also don't buy that alternative media doesn't have anything to gain from an alternative narrative, many you tubers have increased the subscriptions by millions since the start of the pandemic. Ultimately most are choosing a side, it's just are you choosing the side with no restrictions and very few experts

Let's say that you're right and your scientific conclusions are more informed and accurate than epidemiologists and virologists that have spent their life studying this topic. Even if you are 100% correct with your alternative view of health, most who are in the same camp as you have not done the same amount of research. You can see that, so if we are looking at that 'normal' anti-vaxx perspective I think fear plays massive role.

After talking to people who have the anti-vaxx perspective and contemplating this topic for a little while I've come to a conclusion on it. I think it really just comes down to fear and this is a somewhat justified fear, but it's also the inability to admit and face that fear. There's 2 types of fear involved, one is fear of government which manifests in distrust of anything they try and impose on the population. The second is just a fear of having to have something stuck in their arm and injected into them, this is actually a fear many people have had since childhood, what's worse is that they feel pressure to have the shot which makes them feel bad as they're unable to overcome this fear. These 2 fears also cross over of course. Now the big factor is that people are not willing to face this fear, which is to say to recognise where this fear comes from and either go through it and take the shot or just admit that you're fearful of it and don't want to take it. Because the fear is strong, people selling the anti-vaxx narratives can target these people and stoke up the fears within them, because it gives them a rationale and 'evidence' no matter how tenuous it might be. The implication is that these are just 100% rational people who don't have any particular emotions either way, they have looked at the research and it's clear that it's more in favour of the anti-vaxx view. This is simply not the case. The fear was there first and the 'research', came after making it an exercise in looking for a justifiable reason not to take it. The weighting that's given to anti-vaxx research compared to normal research is far greater. For example there can be an anti-vaxx meme given more weight than a peer reviewed scientific paper, not by everyone but a lot of people will give the meme greater significance. This doesnt strike me as a cold hard 'stick to the facts' perspectives. The anti-vaxx perspective doesn't exist without fear, as I said it somewhat makes sense as the government and big business have a history of not having our best interests at heart, so I do get why the fear is there and that shouldn't be shamed its a real thing. However I feel it would be a more honest assessment if the anti-vaxxer would just say I'm scared and its not necessarily rational, this would gain a lot more understanding from other people. What has been happening is that people are so scared that they don't want to admit they're scared and are getting defensive calling others sheeple etc. Also the smarter you are the better you can probably put together a complex argument against the vaccine, but again if you look honestly at it fear is still a big component. Also extra note, I'm not saying people who take the vaccine are fearless, of course they will have their fears too, either they do fear the vaccine but still go ahead with it or they really fear covid or they're just not that fearful either way and do what they think is the best thing, which is probably the majority.

Im not really saying i know exactly where the line is and I am very glad i dont have to make such decisions. My main point is that its not a binary choice of there should be no government control or there should be full government control. The assertion has been made that complete free choice for the individual is paramount over having laws or policies that protect the majority sometimes from themselves. Also keep in mind if there isnt a sign on the road saying how fast you can go or if all the ingredients arent printed on a bottle of coca cola, the individual will sue the company for negligence. So its like the governments is screwed either way. Regarding your thought exercise, it is an extreme one but of course if the human race would become extinct youd have to do whatever it takes really and most likely it would have to involve deception as people wouldnt be willing to just give up their life. Of course youd exhaust every other possibility. The analogy is to say that would people still do something thats significantly bad for their health despite warnings and information, in the case of cola, cigarettes, alcohol, whatever, the answer is a resounding yes, these companies are some of the biggest and most profitable in the world. But i think what your missing is this idea of freedom that you have, it literally would not exist without government control. Its not like youre completely free and government are just annoying and getting in the way, you are free, at least more than ever before, because of government control. Theres no real way around this. Saddam Hussein was obviously a red strongman, dictator, but he had a good amount of control over Iraq. When he was taken out did everyone enjoy the freedom that was expected, well no, there was no control and order which meant anyone could do anything and that turned into a mess. The control we have today is more Orange/Green meaning that its no where near as bad as either a red dictatorship or our society if there was no control.

I get what you're saying but then how far do you go with this? Should we be allowed not to wear seat belts? Which of this wasn't a law millions would most likely die. What about enforcing protective equipment for cycling or even having rules for the road, all these things could be seen as a nanny state in which the government purports to know better but bottom line is millions of lives are being saved. Also the very idea that we have any freedom is only possible because the government has immense security, laws and structure. If that wasn't in place there wouldn't anything stopping someone running into your house taking everything you have and beating the crap out of you. You having any freedom is specifically due to government of which you are also free to buy land off and live off grid not taking or giving anything to them. Imagine you were the leader of say Italy and they said to you, 'experts have told us that Coca-Cola consumption will be the cause of 2 million deaths over the next 10 years, if we significantly lower the sugar content we can save all these people, however there could be protests and people won't be happy about us choosing their sugar content because they want freedom to choose'. Would you give them that free choice knowing you're condemning so many people to death?

The thing here though is that you're making an assumption people will make the best choices for themselves. Take Coca-Cola for example, it's been one of the most popular drinks for the last 100+ years. Is it responsible for the government to allow the same sugar content which will mess up peoples health, lead to numerous diseases etc in the name of freedom? Or is it more responsible to reduce the sugar or even ban the drinks as this will definitely save lives? It's not a simple choice as people will complain either way, so I guess as long as people are complaining you might as well save their lives. Either way I don't buy into this thing that everyone's going to make the best choice, not only for them but society, we're not even close to that level of consciousness on a wider scale.

I understand the green perspective and i get the red perspective, i dont necessarily agree with these perspectives but i think Leos laid this out quite well. If we say that what we currently have now in terms of the pandemic solution is a Blue/Orange (vaccines, lockdown etc) then what would be a red or green solution, as in if there was a green leader in charge who didnt believe in the current course of action what would their solution be? Also how effective would it likely be? We've had red leaders deal with it, most notably Bolsanaro in Brazil, which was a complete disaster and led to the state leaders simply not listening to him. We also had hints of it with Trump, although he was hindered by a good amount of the population and a system that includes weighted expert opinion. Had he been allowed to do what he wanted i think we can see it wouldve been pretty damaging. But would like to hear from someone who is a green anti-vaxx or vaccine hesitant person to break down the steps for what would have been an alternative strategy to what we have had.

Turquoise can be very proactive, they basically live their life in service, whether it be giving daily talks to help people raise consciousness or doing what Sadhguru does with his eco efforts and volunteers. I think they realise that they can have a powerful impact on the planet and humans and so they use their higher perspective to carry it out. There are of course some that would probably just meditate in a cave but i dont think its intrinsic. Turquoise also is more community orientated, each stage of sd goes from individual to communal, yellow is individual and so next stage would be communal.