3 ms·

This is one of the reasons I love game theory. So, if no one gets vaccinated, lots of people die preventable deaths. If everyone is vaccinated except me (or m

by mdasen 18y ago

This is one of the reasons I love game theory. So, if no one gets vaccinated, lots of people die preventable deaths. If everyone is vaccinated except me (or my child in this case), no one will die because there are no carriers. So, in the face of the vast majority being vaccinated and wild claims about autism (I agree with the author), parents decide "well, my child has no chance of getting one of these diseases if all their classmates are vaccinated and I've been reading trumped up news reports that make me scared so i'll just not have my kid vaccinated!" The problem becomes that there's a tipping point. If 5% aren't vaccinated, that's a lot of potential carriers. Then it becomes a fight of "i don't want my child vaccinated, but i want your child vaccinated to protect my child." It's not hard to imagine parents of immunized children then saying, "well, screw you trying to get us immunized while not taking the risk for your kid!" Ah, the rights of the individual and the rights of the society! It's really fun to think about.

ConradHex 18y ago
>"...and I've been reading trumped up news reports that make me scared so i'll just not have my kid vaccinated!" That's a fairly biased representation of those parents' viewpoint, isn't it?
- mdasen 18y ago
  Totally! I mean, whether that's the reason why or because they have some secret knowledge, the game scenario is the same (and I'm way more interested in that). If you're in that camp, I meant no offense and I'm sorry if I offended you. Mostly, I like to make fictional people sound funny whether I agree with them or not because it makes the harsh reality that can be life more fun. No one would claim that vaccination = autism. It's more like 0.001 * vaccination = autism if you're in that camp (1 in 1,000 times vaccination causes autism for those that might not understand my quasi-programmer speak). For a lot of things in life, belief and reality are the same thing. Whether or not vaccinations cause autism, the belief that some have that it does cause autism alters behavior. Whether or not the economy is going to crash, if everyone believes it will and stops spending so they have money when it does crash will cause it to happen (since if everyone stops spending money, very soon businesses will have no money coming in). There is reality, but from a game theory perspective it often doesn't matter since people's behavior will be altered by perception of reality probably as much as by reality. So, let's say it's real that vaccines cause autism in 1 out of 1,000 cases. If everyone looks at that and says, "no way my kid's getting vaccinated," we have a huge public health problem. On the other hand, if most submit to the social good, there will be large resentment of those who don't and are relying on the vaccination of others not to become infected. We're not anywhere near the levels where it becomes a big issue in society, but if more parents go down this road there might be more heat to force them not to (for the public good). I'm not saying that's good or bad. Morality is better left to people better than me. I'm just saying it'd be interesting (I guess in the way a car wreck is interesting) to see how it played out socially.
  - timr 18y ago
    "We're not anywhere near the levels where it becomes a big issue in society, but if more parents go down this road there might be more heat to force them not to (for the public good)." Actually, this is a problem. California has had several measles outbreaks in past few years -- a deadly disease that was effectively eradicated a few decades ago: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm Not vaccinating your child should be classified as abuse. There is no personal liberty argument that overwhelms the public good in this situation.
showerst 18y ago
Another econonmic (but non game theory) perpective on this is that non-vaccinators are incurring a cost to everyone else (paying for health care, the risk of getting sick via failed vaccinations, gov't costs for health campaigns, etc), thus imposing a 'negative externality'. The general approach to preventing a negative externality is to tax it, so that before you can take an action that 'costs' everyone else, you pay that much into the system. So raw economics suggests that we figure out the marginal 'cost' of adding one unvaccinated person, and offer to let them 'choose' not to vaccinate if they pay the cost to society up front. Of course in reality that's all bollocks because the cost goes up once you hit a tipping point (as you said), and trying to identify a monetary damage per-non-immunized is sure to result in a WAG. Fun problem to think about though.

by mdasen 18y ago

ConradHex 18y ago

>"...and I've been reading trumped up news reports that make me scared so i'll just not have my kid vaccinated!" That's a fairly biased representation of those parents' viewpoint, isn't it?

mdasen 18y ago
Totally! I mean, whether that's the reason why or because they have some secret knowledge, the game scenario is the same (and I'm way more interested in that). If you're in that camp, I meant no offense and I'm sorry if I offended you. Mostly, I like to make fictional people sound funny whether I agree with them or not because it makes the harsh reality that can be life more fun. No one would claim that vaccination = autism. It's more like 0.001 * vaccination = autism if you're in that camp (1 in 1,000 times vaccination causes autism for those that might not understand my quasi-programmer speak). For a lot of things in life, belief and reality are the same thing. Whether or not vaccinations cause autism, the belief that some have that it does cause autism alters behavior. Whether or not the economy is going to crash, if everyone believes it will and stops spending so they have money when it does crash will cause it to happen (since if everyone stops spending money, very soon businesses will have no money coming in). There is reality, but from a game theory perspective it often doesn't matter since people's behavior will be altered by perception of reality probably as much as by reality. So, let's say it's real that vaccines cause autism in 1 out of 1,000 cases. If everyone looks at that and says, "no way my kid's getting vaccinated," we have a huge public health problem. On the other hand, if most submit to the social good, there will be large resentment of those who don't and are relying on the vaccination of others not to become infected. We're not anywhere near the levels where it becomes a big issue in society, but if more parents go down this road there might be more heat to force them not to (for the public good). I'm not saying that's good or bad. Morality is better left to people better than me. I'm just saying it'd be interesting (I guess in the way a car wreck is interesting) to see how it played out socially.
- timr 18y ago
  "We're not anywhere near the levels where it becomes a big issue in society, but if more parents go down this road there might be more heat to force them not to (for the public good)." Actually, this is a problem. California has had several measles outbreaks in past few years -- a deadly disease that was effectively eradicated a few decades ago: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm57e222a1.htm Not vaccinating your child should be classified as abuse. There is no personal liberty argument that overwhelms the public good in this situation.

showerst 18y ago

Another econonmic (but non game theory) perpective on this is that non-vaccinators are incurring a cost to everyone else (paying for health care, the risk of getting sick via failed vaccinations, gov't costs for health campaigns, etc), thus imposing a 'negative externality'. The general approach to preventing a negative externality is to tax it, so that before you can take an action that 'costs' everyone else, you pay that much into the system. So raw economics suggests that we figure out the marginal 'cost' of adding one unvaccinated person, and offer to let them 'choose' not to vaccinate if they pay the cost to society up front. Of course in reality that's all bollocks because the cost goes up once you hit a tipping point (as you said), and trying to identify a monetary damage per-non-immunized is sure to result in a WAG. Fun problem to think about though.