Antinatalism and the Non-Vegan COVID-19 Vaccine

Many vegans (including myself) face a moral dilemma because the COVID-19 vaccine has both animal products and is tested on animals. Vegans are faced with a choice between using the non-vegan vaccine which causes harm on animals or not using the vaccine which would cause harm on humans e.g. it would cause the spread of COVID-19, which could cause an old lady in an aged care home to die.

In my opinion, this is a difficult situation, and it is hard to know how to reduce harm, but this is nothing unusual and, in my view, backs up the argument that antinatalists make that all humans cause harm.

Antinatalism is a philosophy that assigns a negative value to procreation. The reason why antinatalisms advocate against procreation is because life is suffering. When you have a child, that child is exposed to suffering. He or she may grow up and suffer from old age or from atrocities such as rape or even milder suffering such as depression. Furthermore, that child that is born will cause others to suffer. A great example of how many humans cause suffering is meat consumption. Human consumption of meat causes animals to suffer. However, even if someone is vegan, there are other ways that they cause harm. For example, if you buy a t-shirt, there is a good chance that there is slavery in the supply chain. As a result, more demand for the t-shirt causes more supply for slave labour, which increases suffering. 

Now we have another source of suffering, which is the vaccine. Life, in order to sustain itself, consumes and exploits other life. This is why, throughout evolution of life by natural selection, there has been a considerable amount of competition, aggression and suffering. Life is suffering, and so in order to reduce life we must reduce life. 

Testing medicine on animals works because many animals are similar to humans biologically. If medicine is tested on animals and if it doesn't work on animals and it is toxic for animals, there is a good chance it will be toxic for humans as well. However, even more effective than animal testing is human testing. If the COVID-19 vaccine were tested on a group of humans, many people who believe in the goodness of humanity would still take the vaccine even though it is tested on humans, but it doesn't necessarily mean they are racists. 

Could the Isolation of Low-Density Car Culture be Positive?

During lockdown, I am eager to go out for a bike ride whenever there is sunshine. Today was a sunny day, so I rode my bike, and I was entering a medium-density area. There were some people walking around. There was an Asian family also walking around. The family consisted for a mother and father and two young children. The young children were playing and making a lot of noise. An old man who was sitting nearby screamed out, "Go away! F\*\*king disease spreaders!!" The family seemed quite scared and walked off quickly.

The whole incident made me wonder about car culture. One of the features of the car is that it isolates you from others. You are isolated in a bubble that is your car as you move from one bubble to another, and these bubbles can be safe spaces. The benefit of high density is often cited as being more connectednes to the community, but if the community in which you live is racist, sexist, homophobic, etc then it makes me realise that connectedness to the community is not always a positive.

This family is likely to want to shield themselves from similar incidents in the future, and perhaps they may drive a car more so they can shield themselves off from others and only enter those premises they can feel safe in.

US Dollar Continues to Fall

For a brief moment when Covid hit, the US dollar spiked, likely due to rapidly falling asset prices triggering margin calls in USD denominated accounts. However, since then the US dollar has been falling. Some reasons why include the high Covid cases in the US as well as extreme money printing. All this explains why assets such as gold and crypto have performed well as the USD falls. 

Remote Relationships to Reduce Risk of Divorce

As a result of the pandemic, many are working remotely and find that it works well. They do not need to commute, they get to sleep in, they don't need to wear work attire, etc. There are many benefits.

Many argued that working face-to-face is essential and that working remotely does not match it. This may be somewhat true, but even if face-to-face work is better, the additional benefits may not outweigh the costs. The convenience of working remotely may be so great that it outweighs any additional benefit of working face-to-face.

It is interesting to look at working remotely and relationships. For a long time the belief has been that face-to-face interaction with people for socialising and intimate relationships was sacred and cannot be replicated online. However, over time that has been challenged by various social media as well as pornography.

If you cohabitate with someone, after two years you are open to the risk of divorce and division of assets. However if you never cohabitate with them and maintain a relationship with them online and only meet with them when necessary, then you eliminate cohabitation risk, which saves a considerable amount in expected future divorce costs.