When we are convinced that we are right, it is tempting to crank up our determination, making us stray into the land of fallacies. But we can avoid this!
Thanks for the insightful article but I believe one point has been missed: Death is not the only binary, there's more damage that a disease can cause.
Further, with people with such limited access to healthcare (1/3 rd unvaccinated), do we expect the reasons of death to be so well recorded?
Additionally doesn't a public intellectual need to exhibit more responsibility while tweeting what can unknowingly be used by bad actors as a support of a propoganda?
I think we need to address these to move towards a stronger argument, and then will we close the loop on the true culture of debate...
You are absolutely right: death should not be the only focus. This is why I also looked at the incidence of tetanus in my essay, observing that the total number of cases in the US per annum is around 25, i.e. exceedingly rare.
I am not sure I agree with your inference that the 1/3 people who report not having had a booster in the last 10 years have "limited access to healthcare". I have no reason to believe that there are a significant number of deaths caused by tetanus that are not recorded properly.
As for Caplan's tweet being capable of being used by bad actors... that is indeed a possibility. But I do not think that suppressing the a legitimate (and correct) analysis is a sensible approach. If anything, I think that the poorly-considered criticism (also by public intellectuals - one responder was UBI advocate Scott Santens) can be much more damaging by undermining the case for vaccination when appropriate.
Thanks for the insightful article but I believe one point has been missed: Death is not the only binary, there's more damage that a disease can cause.
Further, with people with such limited access to healthcare (1/3 rd unvaccinated), do we expect the reasons of death to be so well recorded?
Additionally doesn't a public intellectual need to exhibit more responsibility while tweeting what can unknowingly be used by bad actors as a support of a propoganda?
I think we need to address these to move towards a stronger argument, and then will we close the loop on the true culture of debate...
Would love to hear your views on the same :)
Glad you liked the article!
You are absolutely right: death should not be the only focus. This is why I also looked at the incidence of tetanus in my essay, observing that the total number of cases in the US per annum is around 25, i.e. exceedingly rare.
I am not sure I agree with your inference that the 1/3 people who report not having had a booster in the last 10 years have "limited access to healthcare". I have no reason to believe that there are a significant number of deaths caused by tetanus that are not recorded properly.
As for Caplan's tweet being capable of being used by bad actors... that is indeed a possibility. But I do not think that suppressing the a legitimate (and correct) analysis is a sensible approach. If anything, I think that the poorly-considered criticism (also by public intellectuals - one responder was UBI advocate Scott Santens) can be much more damaging by undermining the case for vaccination when appropriate.