Black Pascal’s Wager

Blaise Pascal, a 17th Century philosopher and mathematician developed an argument advocating based on a risk for believing in God. Pascal’s Wager can be summarized as follows: if you believe in God and he does not exist, you lose nothing; but, if you do not believe in God and he does exist you will experience infinite loss. Of course, there are more scenarios that have been analyzed over time that include believing in God, seeing that he does exist, and then obtaining an infinite and everlasting reward.

The rapid development and deployment of COVID vaccines has occurred along with a meteoric rise in misinformation and conspiracy theories. I previously wrote about historical and contemporary racial bias in the US healthcare. The mistrust of Black Americans in the healthcare system and medical professionals is well-founded. COVID has had a disproportionately negative impact on the Black community. Yet, I’ve had long discussions with close friends who refuse to take the COVID vaccine or have decided to wait to observe long-term side effects.

Ultimately, this is another wager — like Pascal’s Wager — risk getting COVID and dying or dealing with known long-term symptoms or take a vaccine with known and documented short-term side effects.