Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

highline.huffingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 145 posts

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#71

Post by rpglover64 »

sageikosa wrote: post #66
saulrh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?

By leaving yourself unvaccinated, you are bearing the risks of contamination. The risks that someone else takes leaving themselves unvaccinated is up to them.

Except that herd immunity is a thing.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#72

Post by Retra »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #63
Retra wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you attribute the US's success in this area to its economic system and not it's massive population, fertile & expansive territory, socio-political isolation, and worldwide military presence?

Russia has all this and its GDP per capita is one quarter ours. Not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union, etc. Yeah so "just having resources equals success" is asinine. Not to mention all the academic research on the success of open markets, low regulation, etc.

Russia doesn't have all that. Russia has half the US population, its territory is largely frozen taiga. That's one of the reason Russia works so hard to maintain dominance over countries like Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus, etc.. They are much more fertile.

The US doesn't have to do anything like that. We don't even need foreign oil as much as most countries do.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#73

Post by LordKano »

Retra wrote: post #46
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple…

Compelling to do good things and compelling to prevent bad things are a duality. They're equivalent in their effects, and you can easily transform one to the other. Punishing people for doing wrong is compelling them to receive a punishment deemed good. "Thou must go to jail." "Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice." That's a nice slogan, but it isn't actually realized anywhere. It's always your choice when there…

And the state has a responsibility to ensure those resources are available and used efficiently

Can the state be sued for failing to fulfill that responsibility?

The state may well have an interest in doing that but it does not have that responsibility.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#74

Post by [deleted] »

roc wrote: post #41
jonstokes wrote: post #9

The tragedy here goes far beyond the direct damage to the patents who were prescribed this vile stuff off-label. There's also the collateral damage to the medical establishment that supports this -- can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma? I myself am an anti-anti-vaxxer (a pro-vaxxer?) who actually supports state-mandated…

> can anyone argue that the anti-vaxxers don't have a point when they're on about exactly this sort of profit-driven evil from Big Pharma Yes; they do not have a point as regards vaccines. Because vaccines are so essential to public health, they're very closely regulated and monitored by the FDA. Samples from each and every lot of each and every vaccine are passed to CBER and tested (for efficacy, sterility, etc) at…

[deleted]

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#75

Post by LordKano »

saulrh wrote: post #35
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple…

How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?

Adding conditions to commercial activity isn't the same thing as imposing conditions on existing.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#76

Post by Retra »

LordKano wrote: post #73
Retra wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compelling to do good things and compelling to prevent bad things are a duality. They're equivalent in their effects, and you can easily transform one to the other. Punishing people for doing wrong is compelling them to receive a punishment deemed good. "Thou must go to jail." "Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice." That's a nice slogan, but it isn't actually realized anywhere. It's always your choice when there…

And the state has a responsibility to ensure those resources are available and used efficiently Can the state be sued for failing to fulfill that responsibility? The state may well have an interest in doing that but it does not have that responsibility.

The reason we have states is to manage public resources, including the people who make up the state.

But really, you might sue them, but that's not the only way to fix that kind of problem. You could also elect a new government, or create laws or regulations to prevent mismanagement, or usurp the government. Suing is only one way to interact with a government that makes mistakes, and it's certainly not a necessary mechanism for doing so.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#77

Post by LordKano »

amyjess wrote: post #38
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the whole purpose of a state is to compel people to do things I'd argue that the purpose of the state is to prevent people from doing certain things. To illustrate, most of our laws are "Thou shall not..." versus "Thou must..." to punish "bad" behavior instead of compel "good" behavior. I'm wondering what basis you have for drawing the line there. Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Or why a simple…

> Personal autonomy. Your body, your choice. Except that it's not your body. If you don't get vaccinated, and you get sick, then you infect everyone else. You don't have the right to choose to infect other people. Vaccination needs to be mandatory, and if the state has to send agents to burst into people's homes, tie people down, and forcibly administer the vaccinations, then I'm all for it.

Except that it's not your body.

Of course it is. Do you feel the pain when I get stuck by a needle?

If you don't get vaccinated, and you get sick, then you infect everyone else.

This is a possibility. Life is risk.

You don't have the right to choose to infect other people.

That is true. They also have the right to decide for themselves if they want to be vaccinated. As I said, I was vaccinated and I had my children vaccinated. I hope that everyone does. I am opposed to using the coercive force of government to make them do it.

Vaccination needs to be mandatory, and if the state has to send agents to burst into people's homes, tie people down, and forcibly administer the vaccinations, then I'm all for it.

Should the state be willing to kill people in order to administer vaccines to keep them from getting sick and dying?

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#78

Post by bdisraeli »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #63
Retra wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you attribute the US's success in this area to its economic system and not it's massive population, fertile & expansive territory, socio-political isolation, and worldwide military presence?

Russia has all this and its GDP per capita is one quarter ours. Not to mention the fall of the Soviet Union, etc. Yeah so "just having resources equals success" is asinine. Not to mention all the academic research on the success of open markets, low regulation, etc.

Russia was also one of the least industrialized countries in Europe in 1900 and had about 27 Million people killed in the Second World War vs about 400 Thousand Americans. This is not a valid comparison.

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#79

Post by Karunamon »

ceejayoz wrote: post #39
Someone1234 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just petty. Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away. So, no, that is silly and helps nobody. If you're going to do that just go full hog and fine people, at least it doesn't feel like petty revenge. Ultimately it is the fact that vaccines AREN'T required that forces the government to spend the time, resources, and effort promoting vaccines. Without that they ca…

> That's just petty. As the parent of twins born the day before the third trimester, I assure you my motivations here are not petty . > Even assuming liability, you cannot sue dead people back to life, or sue an epidemic away. Negligent homicide is punishable both civilly and criminally in most other situations. Why not in refusing to be vaccinated? > We are actually in a good-ish place. Most of the population is vac…

Negligent homicide is punishable both civilly and criminally in most other situations. Why not in refusing to be vaccinated?

Because it doesn't actually do anything with the problem of there possibly being an outbreak of some disease with the potential for widespread death.

Okay, great, you can hold the one person accountable for not vaccinating their kids liable for the deaths of ten people. Fantastic. Ten people still died.

Our justice system is very much a "If X, then Y" system - but what if your goal is not to deal with X the consequences of X, but to prevent it in the first place?

You could argue the deterrent effect, but if someone is irrational enough to ignore the conclusive logic that vaccines prevent you from getting sick, they're probably not going to be much more convinced by a (low) possibility that they might end up in front of a court and possible face prison. (And that's even if it can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the one person not getting vaccinated was the direct cause of the deaths beyond a reasonable doubt)

Re: Johnson and Johnson, America’s Most Admired Lawbreaker

#80

Post by saulrh »

LordKano wrote: post #75
saulrh wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving yourself unvaccinated", by analogy to "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by selling tained food" or "Thou shalt not spread deadly diseases by leaving your hair out when you're working in a restaurant's kitchen"?

Adding conditions to commercial activity isn't the same thing as imposing conditions on existing.

"Thou shalt not do anything that could cause a huge fire". "Thou shalt not build buildings that could fall down in an earthquake". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_safety#List_of_some_typic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_code
Post reply on HN