Part of the phenomenon, also, is the inability of the next highest reluctant category to avoid social interaction. You can't work a mass production or mass delivery job from home no matter how smart you are. Or how dumb you are. Civilization requires a certain number of us to socially interact even when most of us would rather not.

Some people who are reluctant to be vaccinated are refusing just because they comprehend that a control group is necessary if a worst case is to be survived. That category includes a variety of IQ and educational ranges, people who just "get it" that some of us need to take a wait and hold position.

@govols

You may be right, you don't want to put all your soldiers on the front line.

That said it a question of when to stop following orders. Certainly our generals have been criminally incompetent. They let the Trojan horse in and were poorly prepared. Good generals always listen to dissenting opinions but we got lies to prop up morale. Bad leadership will eventually be ignored and that is where we are at.

Just out of curiosity are you taking any medications. I ask because I find people are taking medication with well known serious side effects and questionable efficacy while refusing the vaccine.

@wolfhnd

Yes, I take medications. Yes there are risks, but the one I'm on has proven effective. So far.

@govols

The point I'm trying to make is that our chemistry has outpaced our biology. The vaccine highlights this general trend. Big pharmacy is only part of the problem. The miracle of modern medicine comes with a price. The more effective it gets the more demand there is and the more costly it becomes. The problem is compounded by the public's expectations.

The pandemic has also illustrated the weakness of many public health care systems. Before the pandemic public healthcare systems could hide those weaknesses and talk about how much more cost effective they were compared to private systems. Again the problem is compounded by the public's expectations.

One of the costs of modern medicine is complications from advanced pharmaceuticals that may not show up for years. The vaccines illustrate this problem. It's a compounding problem because those complications require additional medical care.

The final component of this catch 21 scenario is that pharmaceutical companies have focus research on drugs that are taking as health maintenance not one off drugs that cure. Research into antibiotics to stem the tide of resistant pathogens for example is known to be underfunded because they are not profitable. Vaccines that have to be administered on a regular basis and are government subsidised offer a road to profitability. It is one of the down falls of capitalism that not everything a society needs to do will be profitable.

Turning to the government to do that which the private sector cannot do profitably has proven problematic. People attracted to government are generally neither innovative or the best minds. The pandemic has illustrated another problem with capitalism, it siphons off the best people for profitable enterprises.

Knowing the problems with capitalism doesn't get us any closer to a solution because socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried. I offer the decline of California as an example. Despite heavy regulation of potential carcinagogens California only has slightly lower cancer rates than unregulated states.

The low hanging fruit of the modern medical revolution appears to have been exhausted and we need to reassess the way we calculate risk/benefit. Going back to a time before better living through chemistry is not an option. That said chemistry multiplies risks in the aggregate. What we have done is create a new environment to adapt to. We now are in the process of adapting to chemicals not pathogens. The problem is the chemicals change so rapidly that there is no time for adaptation. As far as I can see the only solution is gene therapy. Playing god as it were. mRNA vaccines are a form of gene therapy but are clearly not ready for prime time. The responsibility for that is multifaceted. First there is the publics understandable distrust of anyone playing god but we have been doing that since the first ape made a stone tool. Then there is the pharmaceutical companies understandable reluctance to expend resources on cures, especially when those cures run counter to the general publics intuition and traditions. Finally there is the ever present incompetence of government.

Sadly we are in a state where shit happens. Our control over our destiny not in our hands to the extent we once believed. Coming to grips with that is causing social chaos.

The administration state encourages careerists who in general are not able to deal with complexity or lack imagination. It's a historical pattern that should be evident to an educated person.

The flip side is that the highly intelligent or at least geniuses tend to be disagreeable. The steady decline in per capita innovation is a side effect of the administrative state. Careerists are networkers who manipulate our common instincts oblivious to the demands of civilization.