5 ms·

Summary: can't outlaw Scientology, can't legally compel vaccinations. I'm against Scientology, I'm for vaccination. Neither of the opinions should ever be codif

by delinka 11y ago

Summary: can't outlaw Scientology, can't legally compel vaccinations. I'm against Scientology, I'm for vaccination. Neither of the opinions should ever be codified into law. I'm pretty certain vaccination isn't "the law." The only thing compelling anyone to have their children vaccinated are the rules (not laws) for public education (keep in mind: I'm in the US and public school systems differ from county to county in my own state.) You're not required to send your children to public school; they can allow vaccination exceptions on a case-by-case basis ... there's a good amount of freedom here. That said, I want my children vaccinated. And in the rare medical cases where they can't be vaccinated, I want to know they're safe from people who might carry a life-threatening disease (i.e. others who aren't vaccinated.) It's a tough balance, but the socially responsible thing is to vaccinate, or avoid diverse social contact (such as ... public school.)

Retra 11y ago
There's a reason these freedoms are protected. They're not just axioms of a society. Most of them stem from one very strong principle: if you don't have and extremely good reason to know something, then you can't prohibit the alternatives, because you may be prohibiting improvements. And in the long run, it's better to have 9 people fail and one succeed than to have 10 people do nothing new. But you can have laws that guide behavior. Those 9 people who will fail? You can learn the lesson about that failure and make it illegal to fail in the same way. For instance, at one time, you were free to beat your children, because nobody really knew that it wasn't the most effective way to teach them. But if you have overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work, then you can make it illegal. You still have the freedom to choose how to raise your children, you just can't do it in obviously failure-prone ways. So yeah, you can outlaw (parts of) scientology and legally compel vaccinations when those actions are shown to definitively run counter to the justification of those freedoms in the first place. You are not free to make clear and obvious mistakes. Take any safety law as an example. The only thing you really need is proof.
- nine_k 11y ago
  A nitpick: you are of course free to make any costly mistake if it only affects you and no one else. Various safety laws protect innocent bystanders from mistakes other people make, e.g. losing control of a car due to excessive speed or alcohol intake, or spreading a virus. The fact that tax money is spent on various social protection things, like health care, allows to legally limit one's apparently personal choices, like smoking, that increase the tax money spending due to those choices. Such is the nature of most, if not any, tax-funded welfare features.
  - Retra 11y ago
    There are very few costly mistakes that only affect you, though. I actually can't think of a single one. Emergency healthcare is a public resource (you can only handle X patients per unit time) and it's a costly one. I would bet that most safety laws are forcing you to protect yourself by way of doing simple things that lower public medical costs. Even if you commit suicide, someone has to clean up your remains and deal with the potentially dangerous bio-materials. Yes, you are free to do things that hurt only you, but good luck finding anything that does.
    - nine_k 11y ago
      Why, damaging or destroying your property, or entering an utterly disastrous but legal contract can be examples, both pretty wide categories.
      - Retra 11y ago
        There are limits on those things, though. You can't burn your house down. You can't live in filth. You can't strip mine your land or pollute it. And you can get thrown in jail for failing to fulfill certain contracts, so it can be indirectly illegal. There's also fraud: you can't lie to enter a contract you know you can't fulfill. And it should be illegal to exploit people by offering them contracts they can't be expected to fulfill, even if it currently isn't. Sure, I can just smash up my stuff or start a risky business. But the reason for that is that there isn't proof that what I'm doing constitutes failure. (They could be very educational activities.)
- bcoates 11y ago
  It's legal to beat your children in the US. It would be incredibly controversial and a major change to the legal status of parenthood for it to be otherwise.
iamthepieman 11y ago
I want my kids vaccinated too. But I did wait until they were older to do it. It's not because I'm on-board with anti-vaxer ideology either. I had a very personal experience with vaccines and it made me cautious. My younger brother (by 7 years) had a 5 hour screaming fit and siezures after getting a vaccination (don't remember which one, I was only 8 or 9). It's one of the clearest memories from that time period that I have. Me standing on the landing, Ian convulsing below just inside the front door, my dad and mom holding him down and trying to keep him from hurting himself. I know now that it's something like a 1 in 14000 chance but I'm glad that we waited an extra year to start vaccinations and I'm glad we weren't forced to start on someone elses schedule and I'm glad that year of being nervous about measles or whooping cough is over too.
- Welprofl 11y ago
  I'm sincerely glad you waited until they were older so you could maximize your chances of getting your kids infected with previously eradicated diseases. You are the problem, and you should feel bad. Unless there is an explicit medical reason why (your child is legitimately allergic to the contents of the vaccine) there is no good reason to not vaccinate your child immediately. You are in the same crowd as the anti-vaxxers, because you're afraid of some 1 in 14000 boogeyman. Do you not drive your car because you're very likely to be seriously injured in the process of doing it? Your idea of waiting until they were older is absolutely just as ridiculous. Just to clarify, you should never hold someone having a seizure. You should clear out things they could hurt themselves with, but never hold them. I see clearly that smart decisions runs in your entire family. I seriously hope you didn't hurt your children's health by getting them vaccinated later in life.
  - philh 11y ago
    AFAIK, pieman's brother's seizure could have been related to some genetic trait or environmental exposure that could have been in pieman's kids too. Even if the population risk is 1/14000, I'd put the risk in his own kids significantly higher than that - maybe 1/1000. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can tell me that no, there's no chance seizures like that are going to run in the family. But knowing what I currently know, I can't fault pieman.
cbd1984 11y ago
As for Scientology: There's a distinction between the faith and a specific organization. It's entirely possible to crush the Church of Scientology, the specific organization, without outlawing the Scientology faith. That's both legally possible and possible to imagine, even though a lot of people seem hard-pressed to understand the distinction I'm drawing here. Which leads into another idea some people seem unable to grasp: Being a cult is a property of some specific organization, not a belief system.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  If I recall correctly, those who study such things have a formal definition of "cult". It doesn't just mean "new religion", or "weird religion", or "religion I don't like". From memory, there are four parts of the definition. First is aberrant theology. That is a property of the belief system. Second is emphasis on "you must be part of our group". That's a property of the organization. Third is that they are heavy on control of their members. Again, that's a property of the organization. And I don't remember what the fourth thing was, just that there were four of them.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    The number of points defining a cult change depending on who you ask, but from my experience they all have this in common - whatever the definition you take, Roman Catholic Church is definitely a cult under them. Some companies too, likely. Or pretty much any organization formed by people who decided to approach some issue seriously. Hell, haven't you heard that Hacker News itself is a cult, and pg is its leader? Or Less Wrong and Eliezer. Of course, it is useful to have a concept to describe organizations centered around some bullshit beliefs, that lure people in and then harm them, but it is very hard to make a definition (especially for the "bullshit beliefs" part), partially because a lot of features assigned to cults are in fact features of efficient organizations. You have to evaluate beliefs and intent on a case-by-case basis.
    - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
      There's a fair amount of research into cult psychology and working definitions of a cult. Here's an informal example: http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html It takes a lot more than bullshit beliefs. In fact it's not about beliefs at all, so much as exploitative, manipulative, controlling behaviours. IMO HN really doesn't qualify. Nor does Less Wrong. YC may have culty tendencies, but it's still quite a way short. Some businesses and startups are close to the edge, and a few are probably on the wrong side of it. Scientology certainly qualifies. (I suspect people who haven't looked into it have little idea just how incredibly weird Scientology is as an org, never mind as a belief system.) So do some churches. The hard part isn't finding cults, it's working out how damaging the experience is. I know a couple of people who spent a lot of time volunteering for a cult in California. The leader was a genuinely dangerous psychopath and exploiter, but they don't seem to mind because they never met him personally, most of the people they met were nice, and it's where they met each other. That may be unusual, but cults often collect curious, generous, and rather insecure people who are herded and abused by a few crazies. So it may not be that unusual to have a good experience, as long as you can avoid becoming a toy/servant/sex slave/cash cow for the leadership. Creating all of the above is the true aim of every cult. The bullshit beliefs are just the window dressing.
gh02t 11y ago
> Neither of the opinions should ever be codified into law. There's a really good reason to make vaccines mandatory/heavily incentivized however, which is because you need a certain critical portion of the population to get them before they really are effective at reducing the spread of a particular disease. If, say, only 10% of the population is vaccinated against polio then there will always be plenty of people around that the disease can spread to. Those 10% won't get polio, but it doesn't really benefit society as a whole. On the other hand, if 95% of people are vaccinated then the disease will have a very hard time spreading and [ideally] can be completely eradicated. Even the un-vaccinated 5% benefit since their chances of exposure are much lower. Assuming you agree that vaccines are harmless (I realize some people don't, nor are they totally without negative side effects), it's in the best interest of society as a whole to vaccinate widely.
hobarrera 11y ago
> can't legally compel vaccinations vaccionation is about public health. Certain diseases could reappear if you don't vaccinate, and you'd pass that onto other people. It stops being a personal decision when it affects the health of others, and the state must intervene.

by delinka 11y ago

Retra 11y ago

There's a reason these freedoms are protected. They're not just axioms of a society. Most of them stem from one very strong principle: if you don't have and extremely good reason to know something, then you can't prohibit the alternatives, because you may be prohibiting improvements. And in the long run, it's better to have 9 people fail and one succeed than to have 10 people do nothing new. But you can have laws that guide behavior. Those 9 people who will fail? You can learn the lesson about that failure and make it illegal to fail in the same way. For instance, at one time, you were free to beat your children, because nobody really knew that it wasn't the most effective way to teach them. But if you have overwhelming evidence that it doesn't work, then you can make it illegal. You still have the freedom to choose how to raise your children, you just can't do it in obviously failure-prone ways. So yeah, you can outlaw (parts of) scientology and legally compel vaccinations when those actions are shown to definitively run counter to the justification of those freedoms in the first place. You are not free to make clear and obvious mistakes. Take any safety law as an example. The only thing you really need is proof.

nine_k 11y ago
A nitpick: you are of course free to make any costly mistake if it only affects you and no one else. Various safety laws protect innocent bystanders from mistakes other people make, e.g. losing control of a car due to excessive speed or alcohol intake, or spreading a virus. The fact that tax money is spent on various social protection things, like health care, allows to legally limit one's apparently personal choices, like smoking, that increase the tax money spending due to those choices. Such is the nature of most, if not any, tax-funded welfare features.
- Retra 11y ago
  There are very few costly mistakes that only affect you, though. I actually can't think of a single one. Emergency healthcare is a public resource (you can only handle X patients per unit time) and it's a costly one. I would bet that most safety laws are forcing you to protect yourself by way of doing simple things that lower public medical costs. Even if you commit suicide, someone has to clean up your remains and deal with the potentially dangerous bio-materials. Yes, you are free to do things that hurt only you, but good luck finding anything that does.
  - nine_k 11y ago
    Why, damaging or destroying your property, or entering an utterly disastrous but legal contract can be examples, both pretty wide categories.
    - Retra 11y ago
      There are limits on those things, though. You can't burn your house down. You can't live in filth. You can't strip mine your land or pollute it. And you can get thrown in jail for failing to fulfill certain contracts, so it can be indirectly illegal. There's also fraud: you can't lie to enter a contract you know you can't fulfill. And it should be illegal to exploit people by offering them contracts they can't be expected to fulfill, even if it currently isn't. Sure, I can just smash up my stuff or start a risky business. But the reason for that is that there isn't proof that what I'm doing constitutes failure. (They could be very educational activities.)
bcoates 11y ago
It's legal to beat your children in the US. It would be incredibly controversial and a major change to the legal status of parenthood for it to be otherwise.

iamthepieman 11y ago

I want my kids vaccinated too. But I did wait until they were older to do it. It's not because I'm on-board with anti-vaxer ideology either. I had a very personal experience with vaccines and it made me cautious. My younger brother (by 7 years) had a 5 hour screaming fit and siezures after getting a vaccination (don't remember which one, I was only 8 or 9). It's one of the clearest memories from that time period that I have. Me standing on the landing, Ian convulsing below just inside the front door, my dad and mom holding him down and trying to keep him from hurting himself. I know now that it's something like a 1 in 14000 chance but I'm glad that we waited an extra year to start vaccinations and I'm glad we weren't forced to start on someone elses schedule and I'm glad that year of being nervous about measles or whooping cough is over too.

Welprofl 11y ago
I'm sincerely glad you waited until they were older so you could maximize your chances of getting your kids infected with previously eradicated diseases. You are the problem, and you should feel bad. Unless there is an explicit medical reason why (your child is legitimately allergic to the contents of the vaccine) there is no good reason to not vaccinate your child immediately. You are in the same crowd as the anti-vaxxers, because you're afraid of some 1 in 14000 boogeyman. Do you not drive your car because you're very likely to be seriously injured in the process of doing it? Your idea of waiting until they were older is absolutely just as ridiculous. Just to clarify, you should never hold someone having a seizure. You should clear out things they could hurt themselves with, but never hold them. I see clearly that smart decisions runs in your entire family. I seriously hope you didn't hurt your children's health by getting them vaccinated later in life.
- philh 11y ago
  AFAIK, pieman's brother's seizure could have been related to some genetic trait or environmental exposure that could have been in pieman's kids too. Even if the population risk is 1/14000, I'd put the risk in his own kids significantly higher than that - maybe 1/1000. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can tell me that no, there's no chance seizures like that are going to run in the family. But knowing what I currently know, I can't fault pieman.

cbd1984 11y ago

As for Scientology: There's a distinction between the faith and a specific organization. It's entirely possible to crush the Church of Scientology, the specific organization, without outlawing the Scientology faith. That's both legally possible and possible to imagine, even though a lot of people seem hard-pressed to understand the distinction I'm drawing here. Which leads into another idea some people seem unable to grasp: Being a cult is a property of some specific organization, not a belief system.

AnimalMuppet 11y ago
If I recall correctly, those who study such things have a formal definition of "cult". It doesn't just mean "new religion", or "weird religion", or "religion I don't like". From memory, there are four parts of the definition. First is aberrant theology. That is a property of the belief system. Second is emphasis on "you must be part of our group". That's a property of the organization. Third is that they are heavy on control of their members. Again, that's a property of the organization. And I don't remember what the fourth thing was, just that there were four of them.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  The number of points defining a cult change depending on who you ask, but from my experience they all have this in common - whatever the definition you take, Roman Catholic Church is definitely a cult under them. Some companies too, likely. Or pretty much any organization formed by people who decided to approach some issue seriously. Hell, haven't you heard that Hacker News itself is a cult, and pg is its leader? Or Less Wrong and Eliezer. Of course, it is useful to have a concept to describe organizations centered around some bullshit beliefs, that lure people in and then harm them, but it is very hard to make a definition (especially for the "bullshit beliefs" part), partially because a lot of features assigned to cults are in fact features of efficient organizations. You have to evaluate beliefs and intent on a case-by-case basis.
  - TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
    There's a fair amount of research into cult psychology and working definitions of a cult. Here's an informal example: http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html http://www.neopagan.net/ABCDEF.html It takes a lot more than bullshit beliefs. In fact it's not about beliefs at all, so much as exploitative, manipulative, controlling behaviours. IMO HN really doesn't qualify. Nor does Less Wrong. YC may have culty tendencies, but it's still quite a way short. Some businesses and startups are close to the edge, and a few are probably on the wrong side of it. Scientology certainly qualifies. (I suspect people who haven't looked into it have little idea just how incredibly weird Scientology is as an org, never mind as a belief system.) So do some churches. The hard part isn't finding cults, it's working out how damaging the experience is. I know a couple of people who spent a lot of time volunteering for a cult in California. The leader was a genuinely dangerous psychopath and exploiter, but they don't seem to mind because they never met him personally, most of the people they met were nice, and it's where they met each other. That may be unusual, but cults often collect curious, generous, and rather insecure people who are herded and abused by a few crazies. So it may not be that unusual to have a good experience, as long as you can avoid becoming a toy/servant/sex slave/cash cow for the leadership. Creating all of the above is the true aim of every cult. The bullshit beliefs are just the window dressing.

gh02t 11y ago

> Neither of the opinions should ever be codified into law. There's a really good reason to make vaccines mandatory/heavily incentivized however, which is because you need a certain critical portion of the population to get them before they really are effective at reducing the spread of a particular disease. If, say, only 10% of the population is vaccinated against polio then there will always be plenty of people around that the disease can spread to. Those 10% won't get polio, but it doesn't really benefit society as a whole. On the other hand, if 95% of people are vaccinated then the disease will have a very hard time spreading and [ideally] can be completely eradicated. Even the un-vaccinated 5% benefit since their chances of exposure are much lower. Assuming you agree that vaccines are harmless (I realize some people don't, nor are they totally without negative side effects), it's in the best interest of society as a whole to vaccinate widely.

hobarrera 11y ago

> can't legally compel vaccinations vaccionation is about public health. Certain diseases could reappear if you don't vaccinate, and you'd pass that onto other people. It stops being a personal decision when it affects the health of others, and the state must intervene.