Glad to have work in Taiwan, let’s just leave it at that. 
Guy
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Good grief. Does nobody see anything even vaguely immoral about this, or quite possibly illegal?
So they got the State lawyers to say it’s OK. Result 
I suspect it won’t even have the desired outcome. Young people, already being suspicious of their elders and betters, will assume they’re being bribed to do something which is potentially dangerous and completely unnecessary. Many will therefore be more hesitant to get vaccinated, and the State will spend a shitload of money while making no difference to the uptake rate.
Some young people might also cotton onto the fact that the money they’re being given is, in fact, money being borrowed from their future selves. But perhaps US education doesn’t teach things like that.
All kinds of “get vaccinated” and “get marijuana” programs in the U.S. now.
Places giving out the green candy to get vaccinated.
Think even Sam Adams beer is doing some campaign to get free beer (or lottery for free beer, idk) after showing proof of vaccination.
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The only thing immoral is having an age cutoff.
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I refer youse guys to my “Western Civilisation is Doomed” thread. Once upon a time we had some principles. And, I’m sure, some modest understanding of finance and monetary policy.
EDIT: aha! It’s a cunning plan! The programme will attract only the type of people who will do anything for $100, who are prime candidates for the mass-sterilisation programme.
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The naysayers are antivaxxers. Their dangerous, anti-science beliefs and actions will only prolong the pandemic, kill more people, and prevent us from returning to normal. You seem fine after the first dose; please get the second and help the US reach herd immunity, so we can gradually phase back into normality.
I’m getting my first vax in 2 weeks and am excited.
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No, why would it be?
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Nice rant.
‘anti-science’ That term again. The Branch Covidians quite like using it. If ‘science’ is presented by scientists and other specialists that does not adhere to the narrative, it is immediately scorned and claims like killing people, prolonging a pandemic, prevent returning to normal (there is no plan to return to that) are used. Who gets the blame? The ‘antivaxers’.
Just give them yellow stars. That way you can spit on them in the streets and have them thrown into camps for their uncleanliness while you can return to normal with your social credit system.
Well, I rather expected that. It seems that a primary goal of COVID policy was to get everyone to jettison their basic sense of right and wrong so that they would accept lockdowns etc.
Here’s why.
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In many States, 16-17 year olds are considered to be still less-than-capable of making informed decisions about their bodies, hence e.g., a relatively high age of consent and a high age for buying/drinking alcohol. To bribe them into a course of action which has no obvious benefit to themselves and carries unknown risks is, at best, a breach of medical ethics and a raised middle finger to the spirit of the law if not the letter of it.
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Most of the vaccines have not (IIRC) been tested on under-18s. While it seems unlikely that they will react differently to older people, the fact remains that they’re being offered a medical procedure which not only uses unusual technology, it has had a very abbreviated testing schedule. It is effectively an experimental drug. Given that young people don’t have a great deal of experience of the world, there are serious issues of informed consent here.
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A savings bond represents the creation of debt, which the government must repay to the bondholders at some future date. So, those young people have effectively been promised that the government will give them some money, at some time in the future, from taxes paid by themselves. All they’re being offered is some trivial relief from the high taxes which they’re about to be hit with. It’s a scam.
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There are very few precedents for paying people to accept a medical procedure on the basis of ‘the public good’. Those that do exist are not nice examples: the one that springs to mind is India’s use of goodies and payments in the 1970s to convince low-income men and women to undergo sterilization.
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Oh, ffs. Forget it.
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Seems I hit a nerve there.
It seems you made an insulting and presumptive comment. You’re a lot more invested in this thing than I am, so you should probably look to yourself for that kind of thing.
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I was genuinely shocked that you, of all people - you post occasionally on the subject of morality in the religion threads - would make such a flippant response to such a grave moral issue. It is because you normally have high moral standards that I was suggesting you need to take a much harder look at what’s going on here, rather than just accept the government narrative.
It wasn’t a “flippant response”, it was a question.
You must surely be aware of those four points I listed; it doesn’t take much thinking to come up with some moral objections to the bond scheme. So your response came across as “meh, whatever” rather than a genuine question. I apologise if I misinterpreted that.
Fair enough, just a misunderstanding. It was genuine, I’m sure I could have phrased it better. I hadn’t considering the 16-17 year old aspect of it, it’s a very good point. But are people of that age really morally incapable of making this kind of decision in that situation? You feel it’s a scam, I understand that, but I assume the government is acting on the informed medical opinion that the vaccine is beneficial and an acceptable risk. I assume it’s medically indicated for people of that age and anyone could go and get it if they wanted. If it’s desirable as a matter or public health, is it immoral?
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Money today is money today my friends Ain’t nobody cotton on to nuthin cuz it don’t matter it’s money for nuthin (and sex for free…maybe )
Yeah got second shot on schedule yesterday because got one already so on with the second
Felt nothing yesterday except had a hard time falling asleep but slept like a log and woke up at 630 an hour earlier than usual
Feel fine except both arms hurt a bit
Expect to feel underpowered today like the last time
Some of my coworkers walked around at zombie speed for a day after their shots
I was much more hesitant for my first shot but the second I went straight for it
No lines this time . Just go there they ask to see your ID and your card from the first shot and stamp your second shot and ask to confirm it’s your second shot and it’s Pfizer or moderna there were two lines as usual
3 nurses per line giving shots and one guy directing you to sit in waiting room for 15 mins they give you a timer like the ones some chain restaurants give that buzz when your food is ready but these were set to 15 mins after which free to go
Got there on time for 130 appt and out by 2
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The law as it stands assumes that they are incapable. If you want to argue that they are in fact adults and are capable of weighing up for themselves all the moral hazards involved in accepting a payment from the government for doing something slightly dubious … well, then you have to start asking “why aren’t they legally allowed to have sex, then?”, which is (usually!) a far less complex situation.
Age-of-consent laws and sex-crime statutes in several countries take into account the (potential) power relationships involved. The rationale is that a young person might easily be coerced into doing something they might not be entirely comfortable with by someone who is an experienced influencer (eg., a much older person) or who holds some power over that person’s life (eg., a teacher or priest).
Now, consider that on one side of this situation you have an emotionally-vulnerable young person, who has been subjected to 15 months of “best not go near granny because she might die”, and similar weirdness, and on the other side you have the collective might of the US Government. That’s one hell of a power differential. So the same considerations that go into (for example) questioning whether a 17-year-old girl ought to be having a relationship with her 35-year-old maths teacher probably arise here, too.
Possibly they are, but the people making such assertions are either lying, or deceiving themselves. It is impossible to know whether the vaccine is safe; they can only make an educated guess. It has not been tested, at least not to the standards that are normally accepted. Given that it’s being rolled out to virtually everyone, you would expect higher standards than usual to apply.
Apart from anything else, it’s hard to be sure that this is an issue of public health. It’s incredibly hard to model what might happen (or what might not happen) if a significant number of 18-35s don’t take the vaccine, or don’t take it right now.
The primary legal consideration (it’s also a moral one, I suppose) should be: what’s the worst that can happen? What sort of long-tail event could really ruin someone’s day? Consider the SARS vaccine scandal, where a few dozen young people ended up with narcolepsy after receiving a “safe” vaccine. Compensation was paid. Bizarrely, only young people seem to have been affected in this way. It was a completely unexpected outcome.
I’m not suggesting that would happen again, but what if something similar happened? It would be bad enough if it happened to vaccine volunteers - but what if it happened to people who had been paid to take the vaccine? Hard questions would be asked in court.