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Agreed on everything up to the last sentence, but I would also be one to say that we should mandate vaccines and not allow bullshit objections to override publi
by hobs 11y ago
Agreed on everything up to the last sentence, but I would also be one to say that we should mandate vaccines and not allow bullshit objections to override public health for all.
I am not a geneticist, and I imagine the state of the art of CRISPR wouldnt even be close to something like this now, but couldnt conceptually someone create an environment in their body that causes problems with unengineered people? (and then call into question whether bioengineering yourself is actually something we should protect)
For instance, comparing what is effectively "natural engineering" of people's immune systems living in cities and close proximity decimating native populations by bringing their diseases to the new world. Their resistance allowed them to breed a whole new set of horrible things.
- pmoriarty 11y agoMany people considered objections to eugenics to be bullshit as well. It was considered very scientific, modern, and a great advance of public health.
- hobs 11y agoYou might not think I would say so, but that is a fair point; basing our decisions on the flavor of the times is not actually a way to determine whether something is right. However, do you think the ethical considerations of eugenics and vaccines are the same? I think that would be a disingenuous claim.
- pmoriarty 11y agoForcing people to get vaccinated because "we know better", and especially with some objectors' voiced concern that the vaccinations are harming them in some way (whether that's true or not) do bear some similarities to the forced sterilizations undertaken by proponents of eugenics, yes. Furthermore, some victims of eugenics programs were considered mentally inferior to the those who were sterilizing them, and generally considered not intelligent enough to make their own decisions in this matter or to know any better. That also has some echoes in the vaccination vs anti-vaccination debate today, with the latter being accused of being stupid, uneducated, misled, ignorant of or unjustly fearful of modern science and the vaccines that some propose forcing on them for their own good or the greater good.
- hobs 11y agoSimilarities yes, but nobody is being murdered, and the claims of harm are vastly overblown if not complete paranoia. I am saying this is a false equivalence, and frankly, I am simply not swayed that vaccination = hitler.