I could have been on-board with your cynicism until the "good riddance" part. Aren't we ashamed that the climate is so divisive that people don't even trust life-saving vaccines? Plenty of the blame goes to people such as OP, really. Sush disdain.
The more high profile cases of antivax deaths due to covid the better. It will help public perception that the vaccine is useful and may convince skeptics. And for every antivax death, we get closer to 100% vaccination rate and finally get back to a normal life.
But saying "the more antivax deaths the better" just isn't OK. Those are human beings with parents, kids, siblings, extended families, and co-worker who may have made huge positive contributions to their communities and society.
Dehumanizing people isn't the answer. You can do better.
I'm not defending the prior poster's statement, but the first part of their statement specifically mentions high-profile anti-vax deaths. There are interpretations of that argument that have nothing to do with de-humanizing, but do raise legitimate ethical questions.
For example, one might argue that a prominent anti-vaxxer's lies convincing many people not to get the vaccine is extremely harmful; meanwhile the injection of reality by way of that anti-vaxxer's death could reverse some of that harm; and therefore hoping for high-profile anti-vaxxers to die in a high-profile way from the disease whose vaccine they decry is an ethical act.
Squinting a bit, we've just stumbled on something that looks a heck of a lot like a trolley problem! which of course is a famously difficult ethical dilemma with seemingly no good answer---or, at least, no one answer that satisfies everyone. Consequentialists might agree with the grandparent; deontologists would likely agree with you.
The point is: your "shame on you" response is not really engaging with the grandparent's argument, and is presupposing a not-entirely-uncontroversial view of ethics. Again, I'm not claiming right or wrong. The issue is that a "shame on you" argument has the effect, intentional or not, of obscuring your assumptions about the world and demonizing those who disagree with you.
First, I don't want to belong to a community where extolling the virtues of human death is OK. I've been around HN for over a decade and it's easily the most civil large online community I've ever run into.
Second, I'm fine engaging with the trolley problem on a conceptual / philosophical level. But based on the tone and content, it seemed the poster was happy that antivaxxers are dying: "for every antivax death, we get closer to 100% vaccination rate and finally get back to a normal life."
That's not a philosophical discussion about a real-world version of the trolley problem; that's hoping for more antivaxxer deaths so s/he can be happy.
After reflection on your post, I still think a gentle rebuke for the poster's very real schadenfreude is an appropriate response.
At some point soon, I hope we drop most of the theatrics and fear and get back to life, whether the vax rate is 68.29% or 100.00%. Once the vaccine is widely available, if you choose not to take it, that's your choice/problem, not mine. I don't need a 100.00% population-wide to go outside. I just need 100.00% within my loved ones (which, by choice, we have).
I feel a slight sadness for any early death, but even as a devoutly introverted person, I feel greater sadness for the years of social and family activities and living in fear of other humans. That's its own loss of living, even if it's not a loss of life.
I wish it worked that way too, and we could all just care about ourselves. But others refusal to vaccinate / take precautions when necessary allows it to continue to spread (killing innocent immunosuppressed people along the way) and ultimately mutate into new variations, beginning the cycle of isolation and fear all over again. It’s a catch 22 unfortunately. We can’t ever get to 100% vaccination / precautionary isolation in order to eradicate the disease, and we also can’t stop caring or trying to because if we don’t it will never end and we will continue to need to develop new vaccines (if possible) trying to catch up to new variants. It seems we just have to play this game until the dominant variant(s) really are as weak as the flu, and just hope it doesn’t mutate the other direction into a more deadly strain that sends us back to square one repeatedly (or into mass extinction). Man this blows.
If anyone wants to prove me wrong please do, I find my view of this extremely depressing.
