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Comment by estearum | Hacker News Reader

Yes, they were at low risk. They were actually at far lower risk of harm from the vaccines.

It was and remains statistically correct to vaccinate young people.

Yes, but the crux of my original point was not about absolute number of lives saved or lost. It was about the trolley problem and mandates.

But the trolley problem doesn't make sense here. The statistically correct thing to do, in nearly all cases for nearly all people, both for themselves and for their community (separately!), was to get vaccinated.

It does though. A government mandate is the same as pulling the lever, it’s trading who lives and who dies. Even if more people survive as result, just like in the original trolley problem, the one who pulls the lever becomes responsible for the exchange.

I’m not even arguing the government shouldn’t pull the lever, I just want people to be held accountable for the lives lost as a result, and for the families to be treated with compassion.

> just like in the original trolley problem, the one who pulls the lever becomes responsible for the exchange.

That is a conclusion you can have, but you're speaking like its the official correct conclusion, which isn't really true.

The reason the trolly problem is so popular is because there isn't an agreed upon answer and different people come to different conclusions about it. Some people would agree that by pulling the lever you become morally responsible in a way you aren't if you take no action. Other people think you are morally culpable either way.

Ah I see, I missed that way up the thread you were scoping this to vaccine mandates.

The one who decides not to pull the lever is just as responsible, and killed a lot more people.

Should we really be using words like "correct" for something like this? It's just a tradeoff, you could say it's a better solution optimizing for fewer dead people, but it is in no way a morally superior solution. You could just as easily argue that not vaccinating at all and letting COVID spread would be a better solution for a nation since COVID overwhelmingly killed old and unhealthy people who are otherwise a drag on the economy.

Sir this is an Internet comment section

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