This is a remarkably callous philosophy, @Mongrove. More important than my personal immunity to these diseases is the herd immunity of all of us, preventing the illness from establishing a foothold locally. There are folks that can’t get immunized for legitimate reasons (Gillian-Barre, for example, or kids too young for the shot) and folks that are immuno-compromised (chemo, AIDS, &c) whose vaccine records don’t matter when walking down the street can give you whooping cough. Also, sadly, it is often kids that die when their parents make these choices. I don’t want some 4yo to croak because her Mom reads Goop.
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Yes, I agree that it’s a callous philosophy. That doesn’t make it wrong.
I’m responsible for myself, and take responsibility for my mistakes. I’m not talking about mistakes made because I don’t have enough information… I’m talking about deliberate choices that people make in defiance of real, concrete information.
Yes, I understand that herd immunity is a thing, and that innocent bystanders can be hurt. But the reality is, innocent bystanders are hurt everyday from a wide variety of factors and decisions. Life sucks sometimes, and horrible, preventable things happen to people who don’t deserve it.
I also don’t want some 4 year old to die because her mom reads Goop. But I can’t save the world, or be responsible for it, or micromanage every person’s life choices to ensure they’re being safe. I can provide accurate information (or at least as accurate as possible), and then it’s up to the individual to decide what they want to do.
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I suppose if you aren’t concerned about societyas a whole, then sure, I could be self-centred and say “It doesn’t affect me so it’s fine”. I don’t personally believe that I have to be personally affected by an issue to believe it deserves to change, however.
In fact I’d go so far as to suggest an attitude of “It doesn’t affect me so I don’t care” is a big part of another serious modern societal issue overall… especially if those deciding they don’t care happen to be in the privileged majority, since, you know, it’s minority or elderly populations suffering from this issue:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743501909831
Maybe it’s because I’m Canadian, but my views on society are that I, as a white male, should care significantly more than others about this issue, because I am in the best position to do something about it. That includes lamenting the fact that just providing information isn’t enough on its’ own, and supporting organizations who are trying to remedy the issue.
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FYI, I’m going to stop this right here:
“Who said I wasn’t concerned about society? I’m saying, if an idiot wants to kill themselves because they can’t or won’t accept actual, concrete information, it may actually benefit society for them to… uh… leave it.”
Vaccination issues disproportionally affect minority populations worldwide. Posts suggesting that “brown people would be better off left to die than helped” or that it isn’t an issue to be taken seriously as a result are subsequently racist and will be eaten.
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There is a legitimate state interest in vaccination and the prevention of
communicable diseases. Your response here seems so automatic I have to
presume its some well-practiced Randian libertarianism. The “I Got Mine”
religion of the modern monied world.
Are you opposed to fluoride in the water? Probably, right? After all, you
can just go buy some mouthwash. Fuck anyone that can’t, after all they
chose to be poor and drink city water. They had all the information that
says they should have gotten fluoride in their water but chose instead to
not do that. A shame the state has to intervene in their lives and deprive
them of the liberty of having rotted out teeth.
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It’s not an issue of the phenomenon being new, but one of the scale and consequences being greater. It’s one thing to walk into the E.R. and have to wait an extra 30 minutes thanks to some macho goober who shot himself due to stupidity and another thing entirely to have to wait an extra 4 hours because a bunch of local kids just showed up due to a mumps outbreak (and no, they won’t be sent to the back of the line because their parents demonstrated themselves to be idiots).
Absent the current situation of mass denialism we’d see a lot more action than we’re seeing now on large-scale remediation.
It does make it short-sighted. One my favourite callous and misanthropic science fiction authors is CM Kornbluth, and even he understood that if all the idiots were to suddenly be the victims of a die-off prompted by their own stupidity the remaining de facto smart people would be left with the practical problem of clearing up billions of corpses amongst other unpleasant tasks (for the solution read “The Marching Morons” [PDF], which partly inspired “Idiocracy”).
tldr; version: even if self-interest is the only thing you care about you’re doing yourself a disservice with this approach.
There’s no such thing as society. /s
The kind of person who says that without the sarcasm tag is also usually the kind of person who believes there’s such thing as “away” from all the consequences of stupidity and denialism. Microbes and viruses and global warming don’t pay much attention to the barriers and “no trespassing” signs surrounding gated and guarded communities, private islands, oil-rig republics, and various other Galt’s Gulch/Farnham’s Freehold fantasies.
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No man is an island; whether folks who think like that care about the plight of others or not, eventually what affects one affects all.
All the antisocial attitude in the world won’t save them from succumbing to the same demise.
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And by far those put most at risk by anti-Vaxxers are children who have no say in the matter. And not only the children of anti-Vaxxers, but the children who are too you for the vaccines older children should have already had to dilute the host pool.
If you’re going to provide a shield for this Randian bullshit then you’re not some hapless bystander, you’re an enabler.
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Yes, I agree.
No, I’m not, and I’m not sure how you got that from my comments. My point is, if an idiot doesn’t want to brush their teeth, use mouthwash, or use fluoride, that’s they’re perfect right, and I’m not going to worry about it.
No, they had information that fluoride prevents tooth decay, whether it’s in their water or in their toothpaste. I support both. But I’m not going to cry if they choose to drink bottled, non-fluoridated water, and brush their teeth with Tom’s of Maine non-fluoridated toothpaste. They’re adults. If they choose to opt out of using fluoride because Goop says so, well, that’s their perfect right to do so.
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Plus…
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The problem with that approach is that not everyone who gets a vaccine is fully protected. Some vaccines have an efficacy rate of 80% or even less.
What keeps these people from getting sick is “herd immunity” - the fact that the rest of the person’s social circle has been vaccinated means that the underprotected person will come in contact with relatively few sick people.
The more of the herd that is vaccinated, the lower the chances an underprotected person will get sick. So if you’re one of these underprotected people, you really want as many people as possible to acquire immunity.
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Came here to say what Jaded said. We can’t let the idiots weed themselved out of the gene pool without taking some of us with them.
And when babies are dying, that’s not really an acceptable loss.
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Y’all get how the antivax issue is basically another liberal/libertarian vs socialist debate?
In many of the DemSoc countries, unnecessarily unvaccinated kids aren’t allowed into the schools. Individual choice can go fuck itself when kids are getting killed by stupid and selfish choices.
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What makes this anti-science campaign unique is that it’s propagators aren’t bible thumpers or HS dropouts or scientists well paid to deny science, they’re secular, liberal and usually well educated. A lot of them went to very expensive universities and learned nothing but relativism and “personal empowerment”. They see no difference between refusing vaccination and shopping exclusively at Whole Foods.
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The tragedy of the commons is that they were enclosed by the wealthy and taken for themselves.
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Ironically, immigrants and refugees here in Finland are more likely to want their kids vaccinated than native Finns; a lot of those parents are coming from countries where serious epidemics are well within living memory, and they appreciate a cheap and effective way of protecting their kids.
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This has got to be a Fairfield county thing… the rest of Connecticut does not seem to be anti-vaxx… (of course, we’re also not nearly as rich). We don’t really consider fairfield county part of Connecticut - it seems to be a world all its own…
If you apply it, it wrongs people. If you encourage people to imagine that course of action, they will see the future wrong coming to them, and try to avoid that.
What you said is like saying “yes, the sports car looks fast, but that doesn’t mean you can give it a ticket”. which is false, because it sure can earn one as soon as it acts fast.
A defense of a proposed course of action which hasn’t been acted on, as harmless, because ‘it’s only an idea, and ideas don’t hurt people’ is semantics. Boring.
I am too. I mean for you. And me. And when you want to join me in mutuality there we can have a civil society. What you describe strikes me as antisocial.
You can save your world, be responsible for it, and micromanage your life choices to ensure you’re not contributing to making other people unsafe.
The Devil doesn’t need advocates, certainly not pro bono.
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If anything, the anti-vax movement began on the left – RFK jr. was a major early supporter of Wakefield. It fits in with the general distrust of medical science and “big pharma” that unfortunately is common among many leftists. But it has spread across the political spectrum these days, with Trump even making anti-vax comments during the campaign (fortunately among all the awful stuff he’s done, he hasn’t followed through with that),
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Finally, a bright future. The wealthy are segregating themselves. Robots are replacing servants and will help minimize exposure to decent folk and their families.
I for one welcome localized small pox breakouts that can be contained in gated communities with a padlock and a quarantine sign. I do weep for their children though.
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