Is it selfish not to take the covid vaccine?

[Consept]

46 minutes ago, Persipnei said:

1) You are very welcome. In a way, expressing this is part of my healing process, so thank you for reading it!

2) I completely agree

3) I'd argue that as long as there was nothing in your life that triggered your feelings about meat, it was not a selfish act. The more and more you realize what your relationship with meat is, the more eating it CAN be a selfish act, but doesn't have to be. I went from 7 days meat a week to 0 days a week to 2 days a week. My body has (currently) need for that little bit of extra proteines and not giving it to my body would be a form of selfishness because the idea would be more important than my body (which is my temple and my Dharma to keep it healthy).

4) I have put a lot of time in reading about the topic since March, from official sources to conspiracy sources. I've put Pasteurs theory next to Antoine Bechamp's, learned about the difference between virusses and exosomes, ... In the end, I understood that I would never be able to make an intelligent choice, because there is no certainty to built on. I realize that my resisting point of view is colored by my experiences and perception, but I want to point out that the trusting mindset on the other side of the spectrum is as much colored and thus inherently not more or less true. My feeling says the vaccine will bring lots of bad shit. I can't stop others from taking it (and why would I, THAT would be selfish ), but I can do what I feel I need to do for myself and my family. Time will tell who (if anyone) was right.

1) Thats great, im glad i could contribute in some way and i hope you healing progresses well 

2) cool lol

3) OK i think we maybe a little stuck on definitions, i realise that saying something is selfish maybe can come across judgemental. I mentioned this in the op, potentially it might be more accurate to say its an unconscious behavior which has negative consequences. The logic i was using behind saying not taking the vaccine is selfish, is that, for the most part if a person had some kind of illness that was dramatically affecting their life they would most likely take whatever medication is put in front of them, experimental or otherwise if their was sufficient testing and it worked of course. However in the vaccine situation, the persons life is not in danger or at least they dont believe it to be, so they are not willing to take it even if they know that it will most likely save others, the only distinction between the 2 examples is one is just for the person and the other is not for the person but solely for others. In which case if youre happy to do a similar thing just to save yourself rather than others i would say thats selfish. Whether your conscious of this or not is another thing, you maybe wilfully unconscious of it just like the child who reaches for a story about its sibling not to share, from the childs perspective its not selfish, but from the objective view of the parent, it is selfish and would need to be worked to improve the behavior. 

4) I agree that you shouldnt just trust government or docs telling you what to do by default, some do that and of course that is also unconscious behavior. So even though im saying i would probably take the vaccine im aware that vaccines are not perfect and that there could even be problems with this one, but when i weigh up the damage covid has done within less than a year, and i look at the information behind vaccines, the history of them both positive and negative, the tests theyve done, i cant really see how it would be that bad or worse then what has happened this year, not just with deaths but keep in mind we also dont know the long term effects of covid, the damage its done to the economy etc. So my weighing up of that puts potential damage of taking a vaccine at quite a minor thing compared to the actual measurable damage covid has done thus far. You might come to a different conclusion and thats cool. My main point of the op however was the dynamic i looked at in point 3, we're both not scientists so we are looking at information and coming to a layman conclusion, but the psychological dynamic of would do it for me but not for the whole is a different thing 

[Scholar]

On 15.12.2020 at 8:19 PM, Leo Gura said:

So as usual, selfishness and fear tends to backfire.

 

[Persipnei]

@Consept Although we seem to have a slightly different approach to the word, I think we mean the same thing. Selflessness is in my eyes doing the correct thing  (whatever it may be, most of what society expects is NOT the correct thing, although we want to believe it is), and selfishness is when you go again the Divine Current (fueled by ego).

Defining the correct thing is not easy off course but when I stop thinking I can feel very obviously what is right for me. Not saying it's the Truth, but at least it's mine 

[Village]

I guess she was just shocked by how safe and effective the vaccine was.

[Forestluv]

22 minutes ago, Village said:

I guess she was just shocked by how safe and effective the vaccine was.

Shot and stage fright anxiety has nothing to do with vaccine safety and effectiveness.

Yet the optics of this is the exact opposite of the intention.

[Consept]

3 hours ago, Persipnei said:

Although we seem to have a slightly different approach to the word, I think we mean the same thing. Selflessness is in my eyes doing the correct thing  (whatever it may be, most of what society expects is NOT the correct thing, although we want to believe it is), and selfishness is when you go again the Divine Current (fueled by ego).

Defining the correct thing is not easy off course but when I stop thinking I can feel very obviously what is right for me. Not saying it's the Truth, but at least it's mine 

Fair play, although i would say its definitely possible to do a selfish act whilst also believing youre not, and i think this is the game the mind plays, no one would say theyre being selfish and this is the point, whether someone is doing this consciously, unconsciously or wilfully unconsciously is another thing and is hard to judge. I will also say that if someone was to see and love everyone in the world the same way that they loved their own family, i dont think that person would not take something that could help others, considering the death toll, like imagine if you lost half of your family (endgame style) and you had to take a vaccine otherwise you may lose more, probably youd take it. 

Anyway i appreciate the discussion and its true what you say, you can come to your truth without it necessarily being the truth. 

14 minutes ago, Village said:

I guess she was just shocked by how safe and effective the vaccine was.

People often faint when given any needle, this nurse esp was prone to fainting (she says). But aside from that im guessing you dont like the idea of vaccines, what would be your solution to the pandemic? Ive heard many ideas such let it run its course as people die all the time or its not real and so on, what are your ideas on this complexed topic?

[Forestluv]

A form of selfishness on the flip side: wealthy people in California are offering to donate $25,000+ to skip the line and get the vaccine shot now.

 

[Striving for more]

@Roy

On 16/12/2020 at 10:27 PM, Roy said:

Contemplate and appreciate this for a moment;

80 years ago our grandparents were forced to drop their entire lives to go overseas and fight in a war and probably die horrifically for people they've never met, and they barely complained.

The government now is simply asking people to wear a cloth mask and to take a flu shot so millions don't needlessly die, yet people are whining grotesquely that they are being crushed under an authoritarian boot.

Think about the absurdity of the selfishness going on here. We truly are some spoiled brat generations.

I get your thinking but I don't appreciate your moral / social judgement. 

The problem is the flow of information and confirmation bias, NOT being a " spoiled brat". 

Most people that are against vaccines or masks genuinely believe that doing so is actually harmful to society, that "acquiescing" to tyranny will harm society and only by rebelling the government can we save lives by saving the economy ect.. 

I am not saying this is true ^^ Just trying to get you to empathize with the other POV - It's that peoplle are litterally convinced that what they think is right, they are being noble. 

Trust me I fell into this myself, not once did I not care about old people, I am an empath at heart. But I was convinced for a bit that I needed to disobey the rules to be courageous and stick up for the people because "Lockdown kills" "poverty kills", all the people not being treated for other illnesses because the hospitals so fixated on covid, which is being "exaggerated by the media "

I feel kinda stupid now. But not 1 bit do I feel selfish. Because my intention wasn't selfish. I genuinely thought I was the heroic one. 

It's irrelevant if we are spoiled brats, it' more that we're a generation of paranoid and impressionable citizens with access to the internet and a algorithm that keeps suggesting we watch the same people with the same POV.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Striving for more

[Striving for more]

P.S What are people's opinions on the Pitzer vaccine ? 

I am for the covid vax but I really don't know with the Pitzer, they don't have a good rep 

[Consept]

13 hours ago, Striving for more said:

@Roy

I get your thinking but I don't appreciate your moral / social judgement. 

The problem is the flow of information and confirmation bias, NOT being a " spoiled brat". 

Most people that are against vaccines or masks genuinely believe that doing so is actually harmful to society, that "acquiescing" to tyranny will harm society and only by rebelling the government can we save lives by saving the economy ect.. 

I am not saying this is true ^^ Just trying to get you to empathize with the other POV - It's that peoplle are litterally convinced that what they think is right, they are being noble. 

Trust me I fell into this myself, not once did I not care about old people, I am an empath at heart. But I was convinced for a bit that I needed to disobey the rules to be courageous and stick up for the people because "Lockdown kills" "poverty kills", all the people not being treated for other illnesses because the hospitals so fixated on covid, which is being "exaggerated by the media "

I feel kinda stupid now. But not 1 bit do I feel selfish. Because my intention wasn't selfish. I genuinely thought I was the heroic one. 

It's irrelevant if we are spoiled brats, it' more that we're a generation of paranoid and impressionable citizens with access to the internet and a algorithm that keeps suggesting we watch the same people with the same POV.

This is a very interesting POV as essentially youve seen it from both sides, being fully government control narrative but then also now dropping that narrative. 

So your take is that the thinking behind your initial pov was flawed and potentially damaging however there shouldnt be a moral or social judgement because the intention wasnt selfish, in fact you believed yourself and others who thought similar to be heroic, in terms of really trying to defend people from in this case, the government. I totally empathise and understand why you felt like that and why probably a lot of people do now, I would say its unconscious behavior but i think there are different levels to it, for example a) you could be completely unconscious and bought into a particular narrative through manipulation, confirmation bias etc, so you really believe that you are doing the right thing b) You could be wilfully unconscious so you dont want to learn or look at both sides because you fear it may change your mind, maybe your identity is built around it or you make a living from it, think Candace Owens on climate change c) You actually know the damage its doing but for whatever reason you choose to go with this narrative and even get others to follow it. 

Realistically Id say most people are a) some are b) and probably those at the top making money or seeking power are c).

So its quite easy to say c) is selfish thats obvious and maybe b) but its more tricky with a). However, I think just because you commit an act unconsciously it doesnt and probably shouldnt protect you from being told that its a selfish act. For example, if we take the Nazis, most normal people in Germany at that time probably felt they were being heroic and fighting for a great cause, in no way would they have thought of themselves as wrong or evil for supporting the nazi party, however our perspective now we can say that the people were very ethnocentric and supported a terrible system, the intention is almost irrelevant. The problem with not calling these actions out for what they are is that it then legitimises them, so if we say 'oh actually the nazis have their pov and we have ours' it allows that behvior to be acceptable and the ones at the top who are agitating for this it allows them to enter the debate, when the thinking is quite obviously flawed from the jump.

Selfish is not meant as an attack it is an accurate description of the act of not wearing a mask lets say when you know theres at least some chance it could stop the spread of a disease that kills people. If we shy away from that it is dishonesty so that people who are behaving unconsciously can feel better about it.