COVID Vaccine Mandates are super effective if the goal is to plunge the world into further political turmoil

The risk of increased political radicalization and domestic terrorist activity from COVID vaccine mandates far outweighs the benefits of the few lives saved. 

I would normally be pro vaccine mandate if it hadn't become so politicized, but the fact is it has. Some people have chosen to distrust mainstream media (which is reasonable), yet instead of doing the rational thing of looking directly at the original scientific studies and data, decided to put their faith in their alternative/conspiracy media outlets, hypocritically becoming their own version of the "sheeple" they love to make fun of. 

Think about it: These people genuinely believe that the vaccine does more harm than good. The mandates are forcing people to inject something they believe is extremely dangerous and serves no benefit, into their bodies. 

Imagine someone was religious and you forced them to do something that they believe will cause them to go to hell. Would it be legal? Of course not; there are religious exemptions for many things, including vaccines. Now for the million dollar question: Why is a religious exemption accepted for vaccines, but a political exemption isn't? Don't people cling to political beliefs exactly the same way as religious beliefs? An anti-vaxxer who calls everyone "sheeple" physically cannot change their minds based on new evidence. Their faith in their stance is unshakeable, exactly the same as a religious person's faith. 

The exemption shouldn't require religious faith. It should simply require the person swear they genuinely 100% believe the scientific data is all a lie and the vaccine is more risky than COVID. 

The common refrain is that COVID vaccines get an exception because lives are at stake. I think this is a bandaid solution which ignores longterm repercussions. The anti-vaxxer who loses their job doesn't just crawl under a hole and hide. They go on the internet, fume and rage and become even more radicalized. At this point, the risk of accidentally grooming large-scale domestic terrorism is way more serious than a tiny increase of COVID deaths in a largely vaccinated population. Anyone who disagrees probably hasn't seen the kind of anti-left videos which have been trending on Youtube recently, replete with comments unironically advising each other to become terrorists and mass shooters in order to stop the globalized elite from taking over the world. 

Hard Problem of Consciousness Proof

The Hard Problem of Consciousness asks why a subjective inner world (your mind) arises from objective physical processes (your brain). It's controversial because it's frequently misunderstood. People think it's about consciousness being caused by some supernatural thing other than your brain, so if scientists map the whole brain and correlate every physical process with every emotion, the problem no longer exists. This is a complete fallacy and misrepresentation of what the Hard Problem of Consciousness means. Many people who agree with the Hard Problem also believe your mind is completely based on physical deterministic processes in the brain and nothing else. The catch is: "The brain 100% causes the mind" does not mean "the brain 100% explains the mind". 

In order to prove consciousness is really an unsolved and possibly eternally unsolvable problem, I first need to establish what we really refer to as "consciousness", which I would rather refer to as "subjective inner mind" to reduce ambiguity. To do that, I will introduce a special attribute that no objective thing in the world can possibly have, then show that what I call "subjective inner mind" does have that attribute. That attribute is: Certainty. Specifically, 100% totally absolutely certainty beyond any doubt (even unreasonable doubt). 

Here are examples of things that are not 100% totally absolutely certain beyond any doubt (even unreasonable doubt): 

• The Earth exists (maybe it's just a simulation)
• You have a brain, made of neurons (maybe your whole life and the whole world is a dream and your real brain is made of something else)
• You existed 1 second ago (You could be a simulation turned on just now, similar to "Last Thursdayism")

Anyway, you get the point. Literally no observable thing in the universe satisfies this "100% totally absolutely certain beyond all doubt (even unreasonable doubt)" attribute. 

Now you're wondering how in the world I'm going to prove that what I call "subjective inner mind" is 100% totally absolutely certain beyond all doubt. To clarify what I mean by "subjective inner mind" I'm going to ask you a question: 

Is it absolutely "100% totally absolutely certain beyond all doubt" that something exists or is happening in some way shape or form? 

• Sure, the universe might be a simulation, but at least that simulation would exist.
• Sure, you might not have a brain, but something that thinks it has a brain and feels like it's "you" is experiencing something at this moment
• Sure, maybe you didn't exist 1 second ago, but at this very moment you are totally certain of feeling some experience in some way shape or form, even if you're not sure what physical form it takes. 

No matter what crazy conspiracy theory or Matrix theory you make up about how the universe really is, there is no getting around the undeniable fact that some experience of something is taking place right now. That thing/experience is your subjective inner mind, and it has an attribute of certainty which definitively separates it from any objective thing in the universe that could ever be observed. 

Therefore, even though it's right to say the brain causes the mind, you can't say the brain or brain activity is the mind. At best, you can say the two are perfectly correlated. Since the two are not literally the exact same thing, there's always going to be the question of how/why the subjective inner mind even exists in the first place. 

Covid Vaccine Rant

To vaccinate the population against COVID-19 it seems most governments have designed policies that involve phasing in huge groups of people at once. For example in California, on 4/1/2021 everyone 50 years or older will become eligible; on 4/15/2021 everyone 16 years or older will be eligible. 

My question is why are there set days for expanding eligibility instead of a priority queue (or something similar)?

The problem with set days for suddenly expanding eligibility is two-fold: If it's too early then the at-need won't get it soon enough before being overrun by others; if it's too late then you momentarily hoard a surplus and didn't get the general population vaccinated as fast as you could've. On top of that, once the less-at-need people become eligible, there is no way to prioritize someone who's more-at-need and didn't get an appointment yet. 

Why not just have a priority queue where the most at-need group gets first dibs on an appointment date, then lower tiers get progressively lower priority "dibs". For example, say in general appointments are available up to 10 days in the future. You could make 65+ able to book 1-10 days ahead, 50+ able to book 1-7 days ahead and 16+ only able to book 1-4 days ahead. So at first only 65+ can make an appointment for day 10, but as that day gets closer, more people can book an appointment for that day. Such a system seems simpler, more efficient, and more moral; in fact it appears to do away with the flaws of the current system without introducing any downside at all. So, is this a classic case of government inefficiency, or can someone come up with a legitimate reason the current system is preferable? 

(Implementation detail: In the very beginning, only the most at-need group is eligible to ensure they fill up all the appointment slots. After that, everyone 16+ is "eligible" but of course the less at-need groups will be lower priority and will be unlikely to see any open slots until the more at-need groups have been fully vaccinated. As the more at-need groups become more vaccinated you can tweak the numbers of allowed lookahead days to give the less at-need groups more freedom to book in advance. For example, after most 50+ are vaccinated, then they only get first dibs for appointments 9 or 10 days in the future, and everyone else can look at days 1-8.)