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hh
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In principle, no.

So basically just one year before you went to uni (if you did), and in a special class? That's another difference besides the age -- for us it was just the normal math class. All kids did it.

I had a constant, relatively low fever for around 8 days, then ended up developing pneumonia (I have a history of it) and it got really bad, and I was fucked for months (again, due to the secondary lung infection).

But for me the smell-taste thing it was basically water tasting funny, like extremely sugary. Not that I ate much at all. Very weird and specific, but it seems there was no permanent damage to my nose or taste buds.

OK sometimes I get really confused about the current state of education, whether I am too old already, or if I went to an extraordinary school when I was a kid and never knew, or what the fuck.

I am watching a 7 hour YT video about Linear Algebra just because that's how bored I am, and the presenter is going through the outline of the contents and how this is the fundamentals of data science, machine learning, AI and I guess the prevention of balding too.

So an intro about vectors, vector operations, Pythagoras, trig, angles, etc., then dot product, then on to matrices, Gaussian reduction, transposition and inversion of matrices... and she says how this is stuff that people encounter in 2nd or 3rd year... of university? What?

I am pretty sure I did this in middle school, or maybe it was high school already ("high school" started after 8th grade back then) but I know I did it.

Especially Gaussian reduction and matrix transposition and inversion, because yes, that shit is traumatizing when they make you solve it on the blackboard with the other 40 kids watching, so how could I forget.

The point is, I studied languages in uni, nothing even remotely mathematical in nature, so whenever all that was, it happened when I was a kid.

Are you seriously telling me *kids these days* do not learn any of that in middle school, or at least high school?

That's not correct. It was the militiaman, not the soldier. Soldiers, like cops, are agents of the State. They defend the State, not the citizens. And in case of conflict, they pick the former.

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I think a scenario of non-mandates in either direction (pro- or anti-vaccines), with the state "just" as enforcer of contracts (verbal or written, doesn't matter) would be a huge improvement. I'm more of an anarchist myself, but many libertarians (minarchists, etc) would be happy with such status quo.

To concede your point to a significant extent:

It's true that one of the non-State options in a free society was available in the real scenario, as you said, namely not accepting the change of conditions, quitting (or accepting being fired, or not getting the job), and then taking to the public square to try to inflict a reputational punishment to the violators.

It's just that the effect of the State as the default enforcer over the real scenario is so large, that the result of the non-State option would be negligible compared to what it would be in a free society attuned to such mechanisms.

That wasn't my point. In fact, I agree with what you're saying.

But what happened with the covid vaccination was, firstly, that the State mandated it, either explicitly, or indirectly by discriminating against those who did not take it, including companies. The degree to which each of those happened depended on the jurisdiction.

Second, and more to the point that we're discussing, forget about the written contract then. There was no "and you will take experimental vaccines if I tell you so" condition of employment. So there had been no agreement, and unilaterally breaking an agreement is punishable, State or no State. In a free society, there would still be enforcement. In a variety of ways that can range from physical to merely reputational.

In any case, you cannot make an abstraction and move to the ideal libertarian scenario what happened to millions upon millions of real people in the actual conditions of 2020-2022. In those, the State is there to enforce contracts, and my position is that vaccine mandates are a flagrant breach that should be legally prosecutable.