7 ms·

Sounds quite laudable, but I always wonder about the unintended consequences of things like this. Saving millions of lives, particularly in poorer regions, seem

Sounds quite laudable, but I always wonder about the unintended consequences of things like this. Saving millions of lives, particularly in poorer regions, seems like an unpredictable situation at best.

mattmiller 17y ago
When someone gets sick they don't just die, they are sick and requiring assistance from others for sometimes long periods of time. This might make the potential productivity of these places higher. I guess the new problem is finding them something productive to do.
- thinkbohemian 17y ago
  I love this community. I had the exact same question, and couldn't decide if I would be judged as callous for posting it. Here, i find the question posted, and to great replies. Thanks!
  - maxwin 17y ago
    No, you're not callous. You are just damn ignorant. What you need is a little compassion and try to imagine if you are that poor person and that you mom now gets sick and now try to think should she die just because there's no cheap vaccine ,should she die so that she can sacrifice herself and you can be productive writing your damn programs because you don't need to take care of her. Think About it. Think about it in these people's shoes. They are human beings like you and me. Their sufferings are real. You're saying you can't feel this in your heart? just because you're born in a rich country and all the resources? Yeah, you need to get out of your little world and try to understand not everyone is as lucky as you. And they deserve EVERYTHING you deserve. They shouldn't just die.
    - Radix 17y ago
      You've misunderstood Matt. When he says "This may increase productivity..." he means vaccines preventing disease will increase productivity, not that his mothers death will increase productivity. He assumes people will take care of their mothers and thus lower their productivity. He's making the same point. This is why you will probably be down voted.
    - Seiwynn 17y ago
      I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country. It is exactly like marciovm123 says, "This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions." If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form. I agree with some of the above statements that the money would be better spent developing the infrastructure of 3rd world countries, rather than trying to solve a more isolated problem. Simply making vaccines cheaper is treating a symptom and not the problem itself.
      - foldr 17y ago
        >I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country. It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards. >If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
        Seiwynn 17y ago
        >It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards. I'm not sure if the money would stretch this far, but what if instead of saving you, the money was spent developing the country in a way that would save 10x more people. Looking at this problem from a personal perspective gets in the way of doing the most good for the most number of people. >I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right. Or action is worthwhile if it treats multiple forms, which I believe infrastructure development would do. Perhaps I'm wrong and vaccination is the first step in the path to pull the countries out of poverty.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
    - Tichy 17y ago
      I think 3rd world aid could do with a lot less "imagining" and more hard facts about causes and effects. I am not saying "don't help them", but I think it is naive to think to just give them things or money would make things fine. More likely than not they are poor because they are being exploited and suppressed. Who knows, maybe some dictator will just take all the vaccine shipments and sell them to another country. (Granted, I am imagining here, too).
- marciovm123 17y ago
  how does the productivity of a place increase if someone previously doing something productive is now forced to stop doing that to spend time and resources taking care of someone else?
  - sp332 17y ago
    Wrong antecedent - "this" refers to the vaccines, not to taking care of sick people.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- w00pla 17y ago
  Most countries with these problems have high unemployment - so increasing the number of healthy workers would not do anything for their problems.
ComputerGuru 17y ago
I know you didn't mean to come off so harsh, but what you're saying sounds so very selfish. Who's to decide that person x is to live while person y is to die? Everyone deserves a chance to be the one that lives. Yes, sure, with the famine and the wars and the political problems in these regions it is an interesting thought that perhaps more people will lead to more problems, but it is so very cruel to say that maybe it's best that people die to disease and sickness rather than be given a chance to prove themselves.
- mberning 17y ago
  Yes, you are right, I do believe everybody deserves a chance and we shouldn't allow people succumb to disease as a means of population control. It seems like there are a lot of other pieces to the puzzle that you need to figure out before you introduce a population swell, otherwise you could be creating a generational problem. Save a few million lives today and at the expense of future misery for rather more people. On the other hand, it could work out great and alleviate a lot of the problems that are holding people back in the first place.
  - shaddi 17y ago
    This is a good point. In fact, the most effective form of population control turns out to be girl's education (both sexual education and otherwise), which reduces the birth rate. High burdens of disease prevent girl's education from happening, especially in regions where there already exists an education imbalance based on gender. Girl's education has a variety of positive non-population control effects as well (consider that without educating women, 1/2 of a nation's population will not be as productive as they would be otherwise). So the current situation is high birth rates with high death rates, which keeps population in a grim equilibrium while the rest of society's resources are spent trying to keep as many people alive as possible rather than engaged in productive development. Reducing the burden of disease is a necessary first step in freeing up these resources to be used in other ways, like girl's education, which will help to alleviate many of the problems of a "sudden" population boom that you mention.
- sp332 17y ago
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
kingkawn 17y ago
There will be no messiah to solve everything at once. You deal with these problems as you can. First the lives to be saved by vaccine are saved, and then they will be alive to face the next round. Sorry its not cleaner.
fatjonny 17y ago
I recently started thinking about this after reading Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons essay from 1968 about the "population problem". After reading the essay I started on his 1993 book Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. I just passed the halfway mark in it, but I highly recommend it if you like his essay and the way he presents ideas. The book really does a good job of covering the evolution of the ideas of population control from Malthus onwards. The essay Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor from 1974 is probably the essay available online that is more applicable to the current discussion. I do not yet have a well-formed opinion on this one way or the other, I simply find Garrett Hardin's arguments to be thought-provoking. Saving millions of lives will mean that those millions of lives need to be sustained in some way. The resources to do this have to come from somewhere. By saving those millions of lives is that going to lower the quality of life of millions of others? It is a tough problem with, as Hardin mentions, "no technical solution". Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et... Tragedy of the Commons essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...
- maxwin 17y ago
  It's not a tough problem. Think about it this way. Imagine you and your mom, your wife , your siblings are born and lived in a poor country. And they get sick. Will you want to save them because they deserve to be alive? Or will you want to let them die just because they could be a burden to the already poor society. Just let all loved one dies? How difficult it is to answer this question? Oh, that's because it's somebody else's moms so just let them die so that the society has enough resources for the rest?
  - fatjonny 17y ago
    The problem I am referring to in my post is the overall population problem of the world. There are a finite number of resources to sustain the population on this planet and we currently have a very high population growth rate in the world. At some point, the resources we have won't be enough. That is the overall problem. I am fully aware that if someone close to me was sick that I would do what I could to help them. It doesn't change the problem. I was replying to a question about unintended consequences. One of the potentially unintentional consequences of this is that it might make a lot more people suffer in the future overall. It is a tough problem.
ximeng 17y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1087226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1087226 The video linked above talks about exactly this issue.
FlemishBeeCycle 17y ago
Although not directly related, I found this to be an interesting read (I believe it was posted here a few days ago as well): http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are-poor/print http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are... It would seem to me that focusing on only one aspect of the hardships suffered by a people is like you said, going to give rise to many unintended consequences. Granted "improving infrastructure" isn't quite as sexy as "providing vaccines", it would probably make more sense to focus on a holistic approach than an isolated problem.

mattmiller 17y ago

When someone gets sick they don't just die, they are sick and requiring assistance from others for sometimes long periods of time. This might make the potential productivity of these places higher. I guess the new problem is finding them something productive to do.

thinkbohemian 17y ago
I love this community. I had the exact same question, and couldn't decide if I would be judged as callous for posting it. Here, i find the question posted, and to great replies. Thanks!
- maxwin 17y ago
  No, you're not callous. You are just damn ignorant. What you need is a little compassion and try to imagine if you are that poor person and that you mom now gets sick and now try to think should she die just because there's no cheap vaccine ,should she die so that she can sacrifice herself and you can be productive writing your damn programs because you don't need to take care of her. Think About it. Think about it in these people's shoes. They are human beings like you and me. Their sufferings are real. You're saying you can't feel this in your heart? just because you're born in a rich country and all the resources? Yeah, you need to get out of your little world and try to understand not everyone is as lucky as you. And they deserve EVERYTHING you deserve. They shouldn't just die.
  - Radix 17y ago
    You've misunderstood Matt. When he says "This may increase productivity..." he means vaccines preventing disease will increase productivity, not that his mothers death will increase productivity. He assumes people will take care of their mothers and thus lower their productivity. He's making the same point. This is why you will probably be down voted.
  - Seiwynn 17y ago
    I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country. It is exactly like marciovm123 says, "This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions." If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form. I agree with some of the above statements that the money would be better spent developing the infrastructure of 3rd world countries, rather than trying to solve a more isolated problem. Simply making vaccines cheaper is treating a symptom and not the problem itself.
    - foldr 17y ago
      >I disagree, simply saving someone's life from a sickness doesn't matter, if they die from starvation because there is not enough food in the country. It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards. >If a country is really that badly off, what difference does it make if we save people from one form of suffering only to have them be subjected to a different form I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right.
      - Seiwynn 17y ago
        >It would matter to me if someone saved my life from sickness, even if I did die of starvation shortly afterwards. I'm not sure if the money would stretch this far, but what if instead of saving you, the money was spent developing the country in a way that would save 10x more people. Looking at this problem from a personal perspective gets in the way of doing the most good for the most number of people. >I don't understand. By that logic, action is only worthwhile if there is exactly one form of suffering. Surely that can't be right. Or action is worthwhile if it treats multiple forms, which I believe infrastructure development would do. Perhaps I'm wrong and vaccination is the first step in the path to pull the countries out of poverty.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
  - Tichy 17y ago
    I think 3rd world aid could do with a lot less "imagining" and more hard facts about causes and effects. I am not saying "don't help them", but I think it is naive to think to just give them things or money would make things fine. More likely than not they are poor because they are being exploited and suppressed. Who knows, maybe some dictator will just take all the vaccine shipments and sell them to another country. (Granted, I am imagining here, too).
marciovm123 17y ago
how does the productivity of a place increase if someone previously doing something productive is now forced to stop doing that to spend time and resources taking care of someone else?
- sp332 17y ago
  Wrong antecedent - "this" refers to the vaccines, not to taking care of sick people.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
w00pla 17y ago
Most countries with these problems have high unemployment - so increasing the number of healthy workers would not do anything for their problems.

ComputerGuru 17y ago

I know you didn't mean to come off so harsh, but what you're saying sounds so very selfish. Who's to decide that person x is to live while person y is to die? Everyone deserves a chance to be the one that lives. Yes, sure, with the famine and the wars and the political problems in these regions it is an interesting thought that perhaps more people will lead to more problems, but it is so very cruel to say that maybe it's best that people die to disease and sickness rather than be given a chance to prove themselves.

mberning 17y ago
Yes, you are right, I do believe everybody deserves a chance and we shouldn't allow people succumb to disease as a means of population control. It seems like there are a lot of other pieces to the puzzle that you need to figure out before you introduce a population swell, otherwise you could be creating a generational problem. Save a few million lives today and at the expense of future misery for rather more people. On the other hand, it could work out great and alleviate a lot of the problems that are holding people back in the first place.
- shaddi 17y ago
  This is a good point. In fact, the most effective form of population control turns out to be girl's education (both sexual education and otherwise), which reduces the birth rate. High burdens of disease prevent girl's education from happening, especially in regions where there already exists an education imbalance based on gender. Girl's education has a variety of positive non-population control effects as well (consider that without educating women, 1/2 of a nation's population will not be as productive as they would be otherwise). So the current situation is high birth rates with high death rates, which keeps population in a grim equilibrium while the rest of society's resources are spent trying to keep as many people alive as possible rather than engaged in productive development. Reducing the burden of disease is a necessary first step in freeing up these resources to be used in other ways, like girl's education, which will help to alleviate many of the problems of a "sudden" population boom that you mention.
sp332 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

kingkawn 17y ago

There will be no messiah to solve everything at once. You deal with these problems as you can. First the lives to be saved by vaccine are saved, and then they will be alive to face the next round. Sorry its not cleaner.

fatjonny 17y ago

I recently started thinking about this after reading Garrett Hardin's The Tragedy of the Commons essay from 1968 about the "population problem". After reading the essay I started on his 1993 book Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos. I just passed the halfway mark in it, but I highly recommend it if you like his essay and the way he presents ideas. The book really does a good job of covering the evolution of the ideas of population control from Malthus onwards. The essay Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor from 1974 is probably the essay available online that is more applicable to the current discussion. I do not yet have a well-formed opinion on this one way or the other, I simply find Garrett Hardin's arguments to be thought-provoking. Saving millions of lives will mean that those millions of lives need to be sustained in some way. The resources to do this have to come from somewhere. By saving those millions of lives is that going to lower the quality of life of millions of others? It is a tough problem with, as Hardin mentions, "no technical solution". Lifeboat Ethics: the Case Against Helping the Poor essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_ethics_case_against_helping_poor.html http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_lifeboat_et... Tragedy of the Commons essay: http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html http://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_...

maxwin 17y ago
It's not a tough problem. Think about it this way. Imagine you and your mom, your wife , your siblings are born and lived in a poor country. And they get sick. Will you want to save them because they deserve to be alive? Or will you want to let them die just because they could be a burden to the already poor society. Just let all loved one dies? How difficult it is to answer this question? Oh, that's because it's somebody else's moms so just let them die so that the society has enough resources for the rest?
- fatjonny 17y ago
  The problem I am referring to in my post is the overall population problem of the world. There are a finite number of resources to sustain the population on this planet and we currently have a very high population growth rate in the world. At some point, the resources we have won't be enough. That is the overall problem. I am fully aware that if someone close to me was sick that I would do what I could to help them. It doesn't change the problem. I was replying to a question about unintended consequences. One of the potentially unintentional consequences of this is that it might make a lot more people suffer in the future overall. It is a tough problem.

ximeng 17y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1087226 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1087226 The video linked above talks about exactly this issue.

FlemishBeeCycle 17y ago

Although not directly related, I found this to be an interesting read (I believe it was posted here a few days ago as well): http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are-poor/print http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are... It would seem to me that focusing on only one aspect of the hardships suffered by a people is like you said, going to give rise to many unintended consequences. Granted "improving infrastructure" isn't quite as sexy as "providing vaccines", it would probably make more sense to focus on a holistic approach than an isolated problem.