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Comment by TameAntelope | Hacker News Reader

There absolutely is something optional about the need (as in food, water) for physical social interaction, and the people who disagree with me are, factually, incorrect, know they're incorrect, and are acting selfishly at the cost of human lives.

Is it entirely pleasant? No. Is it temporary? Yes. You will survive without physically being around your buddies for a few years while a global fucking pandemic is resolved...

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That is one way of looking at it, the other is why force yourself to suffer if neither you nor anyone around you is at threat from the virus.

My threat model is different, everyone around me is healthy and young--with I myself being the only one with a chronic condition leaving me more vulnerable to Covid but still no that much--locking myself would be more unhealthy.

I don't see it as selfish, I'm not forcing anyone who is at risk to take the risks I am taking. They can stay at home for as long as they want, it is their life after all.

There is a long religious tradition of suffering for the sake of faith in order to signal one's virtue or gain favor with a deity. While some pandemic control measures such as vaccination and mitigating co-morbid conditions are well supported by evidence based medicine, others have become kind of a weird secular religion largely detached from science.

I think some people just want to feel like they're in control. Surely if I dance in a circle while beating a drum the rains will come. Surely if I wear the sacred garment and perform the proper cleansing rituals the virus will see my piety and spare my life.

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