Consept

Should get that cough checked out. Interesting, what about excess deaths? In the US I think it's nearly 300,000 extra deaths than the average year, this would point to people who were not going to die in 2020, dying this year. Your point seems to be the people dying from covid would've died anyway, do you think the excess deaths are coincidence, what's your take?

Its misleading in that it has bias, but its not necessarily wrong on everything. Its quite clear that Trump and his team did have seem kind of herd immunity strategy, its also clear this wasnt really explained to the public at large. A herd immunity strategy is not necessarily terrible, obviously Sweden have undertaken that and no one wouldve reported on it the way its been reported in the news report. Ultimately its still terrible leadership from Trump, he also didnt pivot from this strategy when it wasnt going well, but the report is biased and obviously hates Trump, so its more the framing. It will be hard to find somewhere completely free of bias, what you can do is just be aware of the bias and look at different sources. You want to be able to build up a skill where you can see a bit of content and extract what you think is the relative truth, how its being framed and what the incentive is behind it. Then of course also watch your own bias.

Steve Irwin has taken from his dad in the awestruck department. There's also an English scientist called Brian Cox who I guess is our equivalent of Bill Nye

What do you think a proportional response would be considering 1.6 million deaths and rising so far worldwide?

I dont know but they seem to be guided by scientists and experts in the field so im not really in a position to question it with any authority, it more comes down to whether you trust the scientific method or not, you could bypass the politicians and read into why theyve come to their conclusions about this new strain. Theres a whole picture to this, so in general people dont really trust politicians, but i think the last few years with the amount of deception and manipulation that was involved in the brexit campaign, of which Johnson played a big part in, the trust has really been eroded. Trust in government is obviously important at any time but during something like this pandemic its 10x more important because youre asking people to sacrifice their lifestyles for the greater good, in some countries its not a problem but in the UK it is. Further to that countries like America and UK have a kind of 'you cant tell me what to do , im free kind of attitude (not everyone but enough) which is obviously very damaging in this situation, and i think Johnson was in a tough spot whatever he did, he initially went with herd immunity which he was torn apart for and now hes gone with the standard lockdowns and measures but is trying to balance it, and hes getting torn for it. People have to understand that its just gonna be a bit shitty for them for the next few months. It feels like theyre blaming him for the actual pandemic. Now could he have done things different at the start, like you mentioned? Definitely, he messed up, and theres been a few things that hes messed up on, i dont think hes a particularly good leader, but i will say the UK is probably one of the hardest places to lead along with America

I live in Buckinghamshire, obviously everyone's pissed about it. Basically what they've been trying to do for a while is balance people getting back to normal with controlling the spread of the disease, so if cases are rising in one area it doesn't make sense to shut down the whole country, people were complaining about that, like if they live in a town where there no cases why should they shutdown, people are also complaining about the economy. Its a shit situation in general so its hard to keep everyone happy whatever route is taken. The other thing is that you're not actually allowed to go to other areas if you live in a tier 4 area. It's a hard job, I don't know what I would do different, but a criticism I would have is that Johnson (who I wouldn't consider the best of us lol) needs to tell people earlier what's going on, this telling people to celebrate Xmas and then changing his mind 2 days later is obviously gonna piss everyone off, I don't know if he got new information or whatever, but maybe he should've held off until it was certain. There's a lot of distrust for him anyway because of the whole brexit debacle, but at least with covid they've listened to science and taken measures, the way it was done wasn't the best but I think the core idea is to save lives and balance the economy

The herd immunity strategy at least at the beginning of the pandemic, wasn't necessarily a terrible strategy in theory, but as its played out it hasn't worked, only Sweden went down that route and now the king of Sweden and the head epidemiologist are saying it might not have been the best move. Plus Sweden people are actually considerate and a lot self isolated and took precautions off their own back. In the UK they announced they were gonna do herd immunity at the start but because of the backlash it was abandoned early on. The problem with Trump (amongst many) is that he didn't even inform the public of what was going on, which creates division. He also didn't change course when things started getting worse, essentially he has caused more deaths than there needed to be. In terms of convincing a trump supporter, I think at this stage you can manipulate anything to look as you want it to, we're living in a post-truth world currently, hopefully that will change and we'll get some sanity back next year

I agree but in most places that is the case where you just wear masks in closed public spaces like public transport or in shops etc. Potentially it could be a bit overboard with the rules in some places but i think theyre taking a better safe than sorry approach

Do you think theyre useless for professions like doctors, dentists and tattoo artists?

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.

Trying to write more, just some thoughts on this subject - Is it selfish to not want to take a vaccine? When history is read in 100 years 2020 will stand out for all the wrong reasons, whatever anyones achieved this year will pale in comparison to the Covid 19 virus. It has now claimed over 1.6 million lives and changed how we all see the world, the effects of it as I’m writing this at the end of 2020, have yet to fully be seen, both in terms of health and society. Daily deaths continue to rise with no clear way out. Various measures have been employed including lockdowns, face masks and social distancing. Many dispute these measures, from a mild perspective of just wanting to get back to normal to the extreme covid is a hoax and we shouldn’t listen to the government at all. A vaccine has been recently approved, this would be a major step in reducing cases and ultimately saving lives and getting life back to some semblance of normality if it works as proposed. The take up right has to be fairly high for it to be effective, the issue is that many are hesitant about taking the vaccine, a recent Oxford University survey showed 12% strongly hesitant and 16% unsure. Now the question i want to consider in this piece is whether it is a selfish action to not get this vaccine. First of all i would like to quickly define what a selfish action would be, a selfish action according to the dictionary term, is an action or motive that lacks consideration for others and is concerned chiefly with ones own personal profit or pleasure, also similar to egocentric. The opposite of that is selfless which is an action or person more concerned with the needs and wishes of others than with ones own. So if we take something like the decision for a person to fight for the army and go to war, this can both be selfish and selfless depending on the circumstance. If they decide not to go it could be selfish because the reason they’re not going is self preservation, they know they are likely to die and fearfully they avoid it despite others fighting and dying for their country. However it could also be self less as maybe they dont want to be part of an invasion or attack on another country, they may even protest against others going to war. If they do decide to go to war it could be selfish in that they’re doing it for money or status or it could be selfless in that they want to defend their country. It really comes down to the intent and the level of consciousness of the individual, if they are generally an egocentric person and think in those terms it will be more likely that whatever they choose is because of selfish reasons and that follows for ethnocentric and worldcentric. Another factor is fear, giving into fear is a selfish act, although it might feel to the person that it is valid reason. The idea of a selfless act would be to complete the action irrespective of how fearful you are as you realise its not about you. Fear is a very strong emotion and can affect perception of a given situation. In the case of covid 19 vaccine there is a lot of fear on both sides, there are some that are fearful of not having the vaccine in circulation and some that are fearful of taking the vaccine. The arguments against taking the vaccine are that its claimed it hasn’t been tested, its been rushed out, the government can’t be trusted and may have nefarious intentions. So the question is are these rational fears and is opting out and convincing others to do likewise selfless or selfish? Im not going to debunk each point but there are reasonable explanations for all the points but i want to look at it from a different angle. Although its hard to quantify as there aren’t any stats, i would say a lot of people if they are seriously ill or come down with some sort of life threatening disease would most likely take whatever medication is offered to them. I myself have a condition called ulcerative colitis and am part of a group of people with similar condition on facebook, every person on that group has taken medication, in most cases experimental and new medication in which it hasn’t been on the market for decades and so is impossible to know for certain the long term effects. Ulcerative colitis may not kill you but it can make your life terrible and so many will take any medication that may help. Now taking this medication is for the self but its not selfish as it doesn’t affect others in any tangible way. However when asked whether they would take the vaccine a lot of my fellow UC group members said they would decline. Now if it was just for them and their specific condition there was no problem taking an untested medication, if it is for others there’s a big problem and they would decline. This is not limited to them, they’re not different from anyone else put in that situation, most people if it came down to it and it was for them and their health would definitely take any medication given to them, some of those same people would decline a vaccine that helped people other than themselves. I understand some people may actually be allergic to the ingredients of the vaccine or may have a particular illness in which it maybe dangerous, in these cases there is no need for unnecessary risk or sacrifice. But for the majority the vaccine has been tested and has not caused any deaths or serious injury. So in this context i would say it is a selfish act not to take the vaccine. There will be people saying that there are legitimate reasons not to take it, that might be the case but the intention behind that is to avoid taking it, its not to weigh up all the scientific information, studies, testing as well as the fact that over 1.6 million people have died so far, its really looking at self preservation. Even if the argument is vaccines are dangerous and we’re trying to stop others from taking it, you would have to prove that vaccines are more dangerous than the disease for it to be a selfless act in that the person has seen something that everyones missed, this of course is not the case. The core fear behind it is taking a medicine that is not necessary for that person in an individual sense and that there is a risk taken that is not needed, but that is the point in terms of bing selfless, you’re taking a risk so that others may potentially benefit. This isn’t to say that its impossible that a government could do nefarious things, of course we’ve seen this before with the Tuskegee tests on African Americans in the 30s. However now we live in the information age, which of course means there could be too much information to decipher, but the information is there in terms of everything that’s been done with the covid 19 vaccine, if someone is concerned about it they can find out everything they need to, but it would be very important to have critical thinking and really question what your intention is in researching, is it driven by fear and distrust or are you just trying to find out the reality of the situation. Governments are somewhat responsible for the distrust that is laid at their door, the way politics has been played has led to many not trusting the system and so when something like a pandemic happens people can look back at what the government have done and have a sufficient target of their fear. There is a power in the word ‘selfish’ for many it is an insult that strikes to our core, probably a result of some unconscious, psychological programming from our parents when they tried to get us to share as a child and berated us with the word selfish if we didn’t comply. Now as older people we take exception to being described in such a way and we do anything to avoid that description of us being valid, we attack the person who labeled us as that, we try to explain how our actions weren’t at all selfish and the accuser just doesn’t get the situation. When looking at levels of consciousness an egocentric outlook is a natural stage of development and must be gone through to then transcend it, there is a negative connotation but that is a trap, when you are not able to see your own selfish actions you are doomed to stay within that perspective and constantly defend the fact that you’re not egocentric. The very action of defending an egocentric action is in itself an egocentric action, you don’t want to look bad. Does that mean you have to take the vaccine? No of course not, but you should try to acknowledge that this is an egocentric action, if you can be fully conscious of the actions you take at some point you will raise you’re level of consciousness automatically.

This would be projection, you dont know what my opinion on liberals is, I didnt give any indication in the post. By definition a liberal would lean toward more socialist policies therefore it wouldnt make sense for them to not teach MLK was a socialist. Its the the equivalent of conservatives being in charge of education and teaching that Ayn Rand was a great economist but leaving out her ideas of free market capitalism

@Claymoree so if education is run by liberals what is the motive behind whitewashing radical figures? My assumption would be liberals would want to show how radical and socialist people like mlk were

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. 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?

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

Thank you for being so open, i really appreciate it. I can also somewhat relate to you in terms of having ways of thinking pushed on me, maybe not literally punched in to me but that idea of having to think or be a certain way to be accepted is definitely something i have experienced and still effects my psyche to this day. OK so i agree to some extent that the true intention behind the action could be selfless but come across selfish, but the issue with that is that the mind is very tricky, most of the time no one actually thinks theyre doing a selfish action, because doing selfish things can almost get you exiled out of your community or society (this could come from stage purple tribal development when survival was based on doing things only for the group), the mind has to defend against seeming to be egocentric, the mind can then come up with whatever story. You can see this a lot in kids, if theyre told to share with a younger sibling they might come up with an elaborate story about how that younger sibling didnt share with them one time and so justify their position of not wanting to share, the truth is they were looking for a reason not to because it benefits them not to, but they cant just say i dont want to share. So in terms of working out your own intentions it will take a lot of witnessing of the mind to get to the truth, it is important to be aware if your action is egocentric and from that awareness you can build to higher possibly worldcentric perspectives. I myself eat meat and im aware that it is a selfish act on my part, my awareness of this has led me to eat less meat, the alternative would be to justify my position by arguing something like animals dont have legitimate feelings or they dont feel pain in the same way or some other justification. If i wasnt conscious of this it wouldnt make it less selfish because im not aware and see my justifications as true. Again i understand your position that you dont want things pushed on you, i appreciate it is almost like an invasion of your will and i think its a lazy way of debating, having to resort to emotionality and making the person feel guilty, anyone can do that but doesnt help you get to the truth of the subject. So in regards to vaccine safety, really if youre going to make a stand and say 'im definitely not taking this' you yourself would have to thoroughly research vaccines, the history of them how the work and have a genuinely open mind. Because of your developmental experiences you could overly resistant to doing what someone tells you and that can get your guard up, notice that bias and do research as open minded as possible, ultimately it is your choice, so no one is forcing you to do anything, but i think it would be imperative on you, if you do care about other human beings, to fully understand and weigh up what would equal a better outcome for all.

@PurpleTree It's difficult to compare countries anyway but a fairer comparison would be swedens direct neighbors ie Norway, Finland, Denmark. The countries you mentioned had massive issues stemming from their proximity to the covid hotpots in Europe like Italy and Spain. With Sweden their numbers stand out in comparison to their direct neighbors, some of which they have 10x more deaths than.

@PurpleTree https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/17/king-sweden-failed-covid-strategy-rare-royal-rebuke-lockdown-hospitals-cases

Check it compared to other nordic countries

Yes i think it is a lot to do with that, think how many times over the past few thousand years its been claimed and predicted but obviously never happened. Its a delusion that is the extreme of an imagined self

I probably wouldnt just because i think it causes more resistance, i get the feeling people who are brazenly not wearing masks are looking for someone to argue with so i think its better not to feed that. On personal level it doesnt annoy me its just a little disappointing. Whats interesting is that recently the King of Sweden has come out to say that the Swedish approach of not really having a lockdown has failed, even Anders Tegnall, the head epidemiologist has said that he didnt expect the second wave to be as brutal as now the health service has said many cancer other treatments have had to be pushed back and theyre struggling. Keep in mind Sweden has a very good health service, so in other countries where they dont plus dont take measures, it could be catastrophic. This is the strongest indication that measures do need to be taken (if you need more than numbers) and shows masks are not just about telling you what to do and government control https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/17/king-sweden-failed-covid-strategy-rare-royal-rebuke-lockdown-hospitals-cases

If i thought that was a serious possibility then of course i wouldnt, but you would have to prove to me that that is the case. There have been no deaths from all the tests so far and all the work thats been done doesnt lead me to believe that would be the case. So with that in mind, if its not really provable that i would get the side effects you speak of but it is provable that 0.1% people in the world will die according to your number thats one in a thousand which works out at 7 million people worldwide, 1.6 million have already died plus we dont know side effects and long term effects for those who have contracted it. So if i was to weigh up those two things i would say the disease is worse, unless you can somehow prove the vaccine is worse

Interesting perspective, so you see being selfish as having expectations on anothers behavior, of course if the pressure wasnt there in the example i gave, i would still say that its a selfish act in running away in that you are thinking of yourself rather than another and your action can in fact make anothers life harder, the pressure part maybe considered selfish but it doesnt then validate the running away action as not selfish, but i guess youre right thats just a definition of being selfish. Apart from pressuring someone to do something, what would you say is a general definition of a selfish action? Hope you dont mind the questions, im really interested in this perspective

Your issue seems to be more with being forced or pressured in anyway to do something that youre not 100% sure about or dont agree with, as you believe this compromises your freedom. Ultimately you are allowed to say no to the vaccine, i wasnt saying anyone should be forced, i was just saying objectively speaking it is a selfish act, as would be deserting when your country is being invaded (im not saying this is the case with your grand-father, i dont know the circumstances). In both instances the scale is seemingly quite big, so lets take it down. Say its just you and me getting a beer or something, 2 guys approach us and it seems like theyre going to attack us, you say to me 'i think we're gonna have to fight here', i say 'I dont want to fight and i dont like the idea of you pressuring me to fight, even if you did fight by yourself, youll probably be ok anyway'. Now if you pressure me to fight, i can say 'i just dont believe in violence i dont think it will help, in fact im going to go', leaving you to fight and giving a greater chance that youll get hurt. Within your logic im 100% right to do this and in a way and from a certain perspective i am right because im not risking my survival, however im making your survival doubly risky and in that way its undoubtedly a selfish act, you would definitely see it like that if you were in that circumstance.

Interesting, so you would rather possibly die than trust modern medicine? OK what if it was your son who was in that unfortunate position and you had to make a choice for him, assuming hes not at an age where can consent either way, would you not let him take the new medicine with a good chance that if he didnt he might die? Separate, what if an illness was making your life hell, you couldnt go out, you felt like shit all the time, would you take the medicine yourself?