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Ben Curthoys
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Nina "Erina" Satragno 💫

@bencurthoys @tychotithonus @robertatcara "let's harm hundreds of thousands of kids and kill a good chunk of them to see if it teaches their ignorant parents a lesson!"

sheesh

2 January at 0:01 | Open on hachyderm.io
Royce Williams

@nsa
@bencurthoys

I concur with Nina here. I hadn't looked at the link until now. It completely sets aside the fact that some harmful behaviors have effects that extend beyond the primary actor, and the nature of epidemiology or second-hand / second-order effects. (Along the same line of "let them smoke" without regard to the direct impacts to spouses and children, etc etc. But ... worse.)

@robertatcara

2 January at 0:14 | Open on infosec.exchange
pasta la vida

@tychotithonus @nsa @bencurthoys @robertatcara

if it were something without such a huge blast radius, maybe

the trouble is, it doesn't just harm their kids. (even if it did, that's uncomfortable)

there's some amount of "leakage" out of any particular neighborhood lead by stupid people.

leakage that can help the virus evolve by being harbored

a similar kind of thing happens with other infections like racism

giving them respite to regroup and rebuild vs eliminating any "daughters of the confederacy" remaining

@tychotithonus @nsa @bencurthoys @robertatcara

if it were something without such a huge blast radius, maybe

the trouble is, it doesn't just harm their kids. (even if it did, that's uncomfortable)

there's some amount of "leakage" out of any particular neighborhood lead by stupid people.

leakage that can help the virus evolve by being harbored

2 January at 0:58 | Open on tech.lgbt
Misuse Case

@risottobias @tychotithonus @nsa @bencurthoys @robertatcara Yeah the problem is that these people are basically biological suicide terrorists it won’t just be them who get hurt

So we should shoot them

I mean we should give them shots

2 January at 1:47 | Open on twit.social
LiveByReason

@bencurthoys @tychotithonus @robertatcara

It seems to me that the problem with the idea in that essay, is that the people who will lose their lives to plagues are largely not the same idiots who reject medical expertise about vaccines, masking, etc. It will be immunocompromised and other vulnerable populations.

In other words, we are talking about making literal human sacrifices to convince idiots to protect other humans. Which appears to be the road we are heading down, not through choice, but because of Idiocracy.

On top of that, experience says that the idiots will first deny that deaths are increasing, then pivot to blaming conspiracy theories, never accepting that they and their demands are to blame.

So more people will die, and things won't change even then.

@bencurthoys @tychotithonus @robertatcara

It seems to me that the problem with the idea in that essay, is that the people who will lose their lives to plagues are largely not the same idiots who reject medical expertise about vaccines, masking, etc. It will be immunocompromised and other vulnerable populations.

2 January at 3:47 | Open on universeodon.com
Ben Curthoys

@LiveByReason @tychotithonus @robertatcara@infosec.exchange The essay was from 2019. Events of the last five years have certainly shown it to be over optimistic in its assessments of the extent to which contact with reality will change an idiot's mind.

I still maintain that it is a good, thought provoking essay, which neatly explains the paradox of expertise, even if the deliberately provocative and unpalatable conclusion obviously isn't what anyone would actually do.

2 January at 7:01 | Open on mastodon.social
Ben Curthoys

@LiveByReason @tychotithonus The point of it to me is not to follow the argument, become convinced, and then resolve to allow pro-plague parents to sacrifice their children's health to their wonky beliefs, but rather to follow the argument and identify where you think it wrong - perhaps you believe that state coercion is the best way of dealing with this problem - and approach the issue from a different direction.

2 January at 7:01 | Open on mastodon.social
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