3 ms·

> identify all 'forever infected' people and imprison them for life Presumably this "forever infection" is due to the person lacking an immune response to over

by derefr 3y ago

> identify all 'forever infected' people and imprison them for life Presumably this "forever infection" is due to the person lacking an immune response to overcome the disease. You probably just need to treat their HIV or whatever it is that's causing that, and they'll stop having COVID.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
Some folks may remember the saga of the TB-infected woman in Tacoma[0]. This is a difficult tightrope to walk. In her case, I suspect she's mentally ill, which is a very real problem. The issue is that there's a "slippery slope," where all kinds of conditions could become used as excuses to lock people up. Those of us "of a certain age," will remember that the Soviet Union routinely declared dissidents as "mentally ill," and threw them in gulags. The CIA and NSA also generally call whistleblowers and rouge agents "mentally ill," in order to discredit them. If we can be locked up, because someone has decided that some characteristic, or chronic condition, warrants lifelong lockup, what will the world look like? [0] https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/06/woman-with-untreated-tb-finally-in-custody-held-in-negative-pressure-room/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/06/woman-with-untreated-...
- throwway120385 3y ago
  Slippery Slope is a fallacy unless you can also demonstrate that the people in power genuinely want to throw us in gulags but are slowly rolling out their gulag policies to keep it on the down-low.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    We shouldn’t discuss possible excesses of policy framework just because we can’t demonstrate that there’s genuine intent? If I look out at the current incarceration rate and the loosening of marijuana policy, I can see a projected drop in future incarceration. (I’m all for releasing everyone whose only crime is non-violent drug possession or sales.) But we have all these prisons and all these people whose income depends on them being fairly full. That’s a lot of pressure to find other what the private sector would call revenue streams. Pharma companies created a great fairly novel technique to target specific viruses. You don’t think it’s likely that they’ll create pressure for governments to use that capability to encourage at first and later to force multiple annual flu/other shots? That there won’t be sanctions for non-compliance as there are today for existing inoculations? (I say this as someone who took a handful of C19 vaccines and gets a flu shot most years. This isn’t an anti-vax rant, but rather exploring the pressures that allowing government too much leeway to restrict individual freedom and violate bodily autonomy has. I don’t want to allow the burden of proof to shift to the individuals to prove the government has ill intent or else submit to a novel, restrictive policy.)
    - throwway120385 3y ago
      On the first subject, you are demonstrating likely intent from the private prison company so I wouldn't call it fallacious. On the second point, There has always been pressure from public health organizations to vaccinate at least healthcare workers. What has changed recently is the push to get EG public transportation workers vaccinated specifically for COVID. I don't think there's widespread support for that after the way everything went down. The thing I think you're missing is that I'm not making the point there is never any ill intent from the people involved. Rather, you have to show intent in each case for the slippery slope to apply. In the case of private prisons it's pretty obvious that the organizations involved would like everyone to be incarcerated because there's a pretty clear income stream they can derive from incarcerated persons. The other thing about "excesses of policy frameworks" is that there will always be excesses no matter which side you err on. What matters is the specific situation and the specific excesses and whether they were intentional or not. I think in discussion we have to stick to specifics or we risk painting each other with a really broad brush. If you were to engage on a case-by-case basis I would probably say yes or no to slippery slope being a fallacy. Suggesting at the top that I think all applications of slippery slope are fallacious is painting with a broad brush a statement I made about the specific situation. To bring it back to the original argument(and to paraphrase), I believe that going from "A woman in Tacoma who has been spreading TB and has been refusing reasonable requests to get treatment and to quarantine is being imprisoned" to "public health wants to throw us in the health gulag whenever we're sick and we don't immediately quarantine" seems like a stretch, and there's no evidence of the latter from the former or from any expressed or implied opinions that I've heard. So yes you need more evidence for that slippery slope argument for it not to be fallacious.
- derefr 3y ago
  In the case of COVID+HIV, though, even the "totalitarian solution" to the problem wouldn't need to involve locking anyone up for non-compliance. We're lucky enough to live in an age where we've invented things like injectable slow-release intramuscular gel-matrix drug-delivery systems. So someone noncompliant would be potentially forcefully subdued (probably by police), so that a doctor could then administer them a one-time shot of antiretroviral drugs (without their consent), that would slowly leach into their body over one or several months, treating them all the while. As soon as that single shot is in their body and treating them, they'd be released. Keep in mind that the goal here wouldn't be to make them HIV-free. Just to get their immune system working long enough to get them COVID-free. They can go back to having HIV if they want; HIV isn't an epidemic risk. So they don't need to be held captive for regular maintenance injections.
- kevinmchugh 3y ago
  Typhoid Mary was locked up for life a century ago. When someone is chronically ill with a dangerous, infectious disease, their mental illness isn't the reason to lock them up, their infectiousness is. Mary Mallon doesn't seem to have been mentally ill, just in denial of the impact of her actions, and so poor that she couldn't afford not to cook. It seems to be legally sound and hasn't caused a slippery slope since that very famous case.
ssnistfajen 3y ago
User suggesting defaulting to literal imprisonment instead of just providing medical assistance to someone being infected by a virus is why HN gets a bad name in some places. A lot of tech bros have this incurable tendency to give the worst takes on non-tech subjects.

by derefr 3y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

Some folks may remember the saga of the TB-infected woman in Tacoma[0]. This is a difficult tightrope to walk. In her case, I suspect she's mentally ill, which is a very real problem. The issue is that there's a "slippery slope," where all kinds of conditions could become used as excuses to lock people up. Those of us "of a certain age," will remember that the Soviet Union routinely declared dissidents as "mentally ill," and threw them in gulags. The CIA and NSA also generally call whistleblowers and rouge agents "mentally ill," in order to discredit them. If we can be locked up, because someone has decided that some characteristic, or chronic condition, warrants lifelong lockup, what will the world look like? [0] https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/06/woman-with-untreated-tb-finally-in-custody-held-in-negative-pressure-room/ https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/06/woman-with-untreated-...

throwway120385 3y ago
Slippery Slope is a fallacy unless you can also demonstrate that the people in power genuinely want to throw us in gulags but are slowly rolling out their gulag policies to keep it on the down-low.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  We shouldn’t discuss possible excesses of policy framework just because we can’t demonstrate that there’s genuine intent? If I look out at the current incarceration rate and the loosening of marijuana policy, I can see a projected drop in future incarceration. (I’m all for releasing everyone whose only crime is non-violent drug possession or sales.) But we have all these prisons and all these people whose income depends on them being fairly full. That’s a lot of pressure to find other what the private sector would call revenue streams. Pharma companies created a great fairly novel technique to target specific viruses. You don’t think it’s likely that they’ll create pressure for governments to use that capability to encourage at first and later to force multiple annual flu/other shots? That there won’t be sanctions for non-compliance as there are today for existing inoculations? (I say this as someone who took a handful of C19 vaccines and gets a flu shot most years. This isn’t an anti-vax rant, but rather exploring the pressures that allowing government too much leeway to restrict individual freedom and violate bodily autonomy has. I don’t want to allow the burden of proof to shift to the individuals to prove the government has ill intent or else submit to a novel, restrictive policy.)
  - throwway120385 3y ago
    On the first subject, you are demonstrating likely intent from the private prison company so I wouldn't call it fallacious. On the second point, There has always been pressure from public health organizations to vaccinate at least healthcare workers. What has changed recently is the push to get EG public transportation workers vaccinated specifically for COVID. I don't think there's widespread support for that after the way everything went down. The thing I think you're missing is that I'm not making the point there is never any ill intent from the people involved. Rather, you have to show intent in each case for the slippery slope to apply. In the case of private prisons it's pretty obvious that the organizations involved would like everyone to be incarcerated because there's a pretty clear income stream they can derive from incarcerated persons. The other thing about "excesses of policy frameworks" is that there will always be excesses no matter which side you err on. What matters is the specific situation and the specific excesses and whether they were intentional or not. I think in discussion we have to stick to specifics or we risk painting each other with a really broad brush. If you were to engage on a case-by-case basis I would probably say yes or no to slippery slope being a fallacy. Suggesting at the top that I think all applications of slippery slope are fallacious is painting with a broad brush a statement I made about the specific situation. To bring it back to the original argument(and to paraphrase), I believe that going from "A woman in Tacoma who has been spreading TB and has been refusing reasonable requests to get treatment and to quarantine is being imprisoned" to "public health wants to throw us in the health gulag whenever we're sick and we don't immediately quarantine" seems like a stretch, and there's no evidence of the latter from the former or from any expressed or implied opinions that I've heard. So yes you need more evidence for that slippery slope argument for it not to be fallacious.
derefr 3y ago
In the case of COVID+HIV, though, even the "totalitarian solution" to the problem wouldn't need to involve locking anyone up for non-compliance. We're lucky enough to live in an age where we've invented things like injectable slow-release intramuscular gel-matrix drug-delivery systems. So someone noncompliant would be potentially forcefully subdued (probably by police), so that a doctor could then administer them a one-time shot of antiretroviral drugs (without their consent), that would slowly leach into their body over one or several months, treating them all the while. As soon as that single shot is in their body and treating them, they'd be released. Keep in mind that the goal here wouldn't be to make them HIV-free. Just to get their immune system working long enough to get them COVID-free. They can go back to having HIV if they want; HIV isn't an epidemic risk. So they don't need to be held captive for regular maintenance injections.
kevinmchugh 3y ago
Typhoid Mary was locked up for life a century ago. When someone is chronically ill with a dangerous, infectious disease, their mental illness isn't the reason to lock them up, their infectiousness is. Mary Mallon doesn't seem to have been mentally ill, just in denial of the impact of her actions, and so poor that she couldn't afford not to cook. It seems to be legally sound and hasn't caused a slippery slope since that very famous case.

ssnistfajen 3y ago

User suggesting defaulting to literal imprisonment instead of just providing medical assistance to someone being infected by a virus is why HN gets a bad name in some places. A lot of tech bros have this incurable tendency to give the worst takes on non-tech subjects.