3 ms·

I'd be interested to see more concerted research into contagious/self-replicable vaccines that are self-replicating and spreadable to a wider swath of people. T

I'd be interested to see more concerted research into contagious/self-replicable vaccines that are self-replicating and spreadable to a wider swath of people. That seems like a step forward in public health prevention for seasonal illnesses that we have well-engineered and safe vaccines for. I understand the bar for deployment would need to be high to ensure that side effects are even rare compared to typical voluntary vaccinations.

alex43578 3mo ago
1) There’s no way the public would buy in to this idea. 2) This seems like a serious violation of medical ethics. 3) If we already gave a well-engineered and safe vaccine, why not take that? Supply chain and immunization itself isn’t a practical choke point: it’s vaccine accuracy for things like flu, and vaccine misinformation for something like measles. But again, take the vaccine or don’t: for most illnesses and most scenarios, you’re only hurting yourself.
wizzwizz4 3mo ago
Self-replicating vaccines? We already have those. They're called diseases.
- imhoguy 3mo ago
  I still amazed how so many people don't get this entire planet is one feedback loop system of competing life processes and they think hiding in their dusty houses with artificial cures will keep them away from competition and immune against death.
  - wizzwizz4 3mo ago
    That's not a very good characterisation. There is competition, but there's also cooperation: the behaviour of an ecosystem is only really dominated by competition in the wake of a catastrophe, as a new status quo is established. Competition is, after all, energetically wasteful: nobody wants to do it if they can honestly signal instead. (Even competing organisms tend to perform a degree of cooperation, if their ancestors co-evolved.)
    - DoctorOetker 3mo ago
      and at no point did previous commenter say cooperation doesn't occur, there is more substance in the comment before yours than in yours
      - wizzwizz4 3mo ago
        And at no point did I say that the description was technically incorrect: I said that it did not characterise the behaviour of the system very well. HN comments are another example of a system that is technically competitive, but is better characterised as collaborative: we argue, we vote, the ranking system surfaces the "best" comments at the expense of "lesser" ones… and yet we're all working together to produce something hopefully interesting for the lurkers to read.
9dev 3mo ago
This sounds like a wonderfully deadly bio-weapon platform you're planning there. Maybe introduce some gene filter to target specific population groups..? The possibilities are endless!

alex43578 3mo ago

1) There’s no way the public would buy in to this idea. 2) This seems like a serious violation of medical ethics. 3) If we already gave a well-engineered and safe vaccine, why not take that? Supply chain and immunization itself isn’t a practical choke point: it’s vaccine accuracy for things like flu, and vaccine misinformation for something like measles. But again, take the vaccine or don’t: for most illnesses and most scenarios, you’re only hurting yourself.

wizzwizz4 3mo ago

Self-replicating vaccines? We already have those. They're called diseases.

imhoguy 3mo ago
I still amazed how so many people don't get this entire planet is one feedback loop system of competing life processes and they think hiding in their dusty houses with artificial cures will keep them away from competition and immune against death.
- wizzwizz4 3mo ago
  That's not a very good characterisation. There is competition, but there's also cooperation: the behaviour of an ecosystem is only really dominated by competition in the wake of a catastrophe, as a new status quo is established. Competition is, after all, energetically wasteful: nobody wants to do it if they can honestly signal instead. (Even competing organisms tend to perform a degree of cooperation, if their ancestors co-evolved.)
  - DoctorOetker 3mo ago
    and at no point did previous commenter say cooperation doesn't occur, there is more substance in the comment before yours than in yours
    - wizzwizz4 3mo ago
      And at no point did I say that the description was technically incorrect: I said that it did not characterise the behaviour of the system very well. HN comments are another example of a system that is technically competitive, but is better characterised as collaborative: we argue, we vote, the ranking system surfaces the "best" comments at the expense of "lesser" ones… and yet we're all working together to produce something hopefully interesting for the lurkers to read.

9dev 3mo ago

This sounds like a wonderfully deadly bio-weapon platform you're planning there. Maybe introduce some gene filter to target specific population groups..? The possibilities are endless!