Ebola: The tolling bell • Hacker News Board

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#21

Post by lotsofmangos » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 6:44 AM UTC

Ancorehraq wrote: post #20

lotsofmangos wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sickness you are suffering from is much worse than Ebola and much more difficult to treat.

Your sense of holiness will surely be a comfort while you are watching your family vomit blood, courtesy of repatriating volunteers.

No sense of holiness. I don't believe in it.

However I think your outlook is that which enables the worst in us.

We like to demonise leaders when we count up the corpses of history, but it is twisted little fuckers like you who oil the way for them, make no mistake about that.

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#22

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 6:49 AM UTC

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

[deleted]

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#23

Post by a3voices » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:03 AM UTC

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

Well what about all the wildlife and rainforests that have been devastated by human population growth in Africa? The continent would be better off without so many people. After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically. They are just wrecking ecosystems and wasting resources.

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#24

Post by sal_paradise » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:19 AM UTC

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

What are the odds that I see this quote twice on one day for the first time ever?

http://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/2i418w/every...

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#25

Post by goldfeld » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:20 AM UTC

a3voices wrote: post #23

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

Well what about all the wildlife and rainforests that have been devastated by human population growth in Africa? The continent would be better off without so many people. After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically. They are just wrecking ecosystems and wasting resources.

I wouldn't believe if someone told me they've seen "After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically" spouted out in plain-sight internet and it wasn't a parody, so I'll just assume you're using really dry (actually excellent) sarcasm. In any case, just to counter the argument that they're wrecking ecosystems, why do the US get to have wrecked their ecosystems in the name of White Man's progress many decades ago and Africans can't?

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#26

Post by lotsofmangos » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:21 AM UTC

a3voices wrote: post #23

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

Well what about all the wildlife and rainforests that have been devastated by human population growth in Africa? The continent would be better off without so many people. After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically. They are just wrecking ecosystems and wasting resources.

Have we double booked the Ebola thread with the support group for "Arseholes Anonymous"?

Anyone from Europe or America who likes to sit in sneering judgment over the wide variety of cultures in Africa either has no education in their own history or hasn't the strength of character to face up to it.

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#27

Post by kayoone » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:32 AM UTC

a3voices wrote: post #23

startupfounder wrote: post #14

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” - John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotio…

Well what about all the wildlife and rainforests that have been devastated by human population growth in Africa? The continent would be better off without so many people. After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically. They are just wrecking ecosystems and wasting resources.

that is a very dangerous train of thought. The worst leaders of the past rationalized some of their actions against humanity with reasons like that. Also what you basically say is that all the good work done by people like Bill Gates helping is nonsense. Bold claim.

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#28

Post by goldfeld » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:37 AM UTC

lotsofmangos wrote: post #26

a3voices wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well what about all the wildlife and rainforests that have been devastated by human population growth in Africa? The continent would be better off without so many people. After all, they're not doing anything to advance humanity technologically. They are just wrecking ecosystems and wasting resources.

Have we double booked the Ebola thread with the support group for "Arseholes Anonymous"? Anyone from Europe or America who likes to sit in sneering judgment over the wide variety of cultures in Africa either has no education in their own history or hasn't the strength of character to face up to it.

I'm unsure what's more terrifying going forward, Ebola or the fact that at least three users on this Hacker News story--as opposed to a mainstream newspaper's website comment section where bigotry and ignorant patriotism is the order of the day--have seen no issue in declaring their views unanomymously. Much like death tolls go, how many more wanted to have made similar comments but still had a minimum sense to restrain themselves?

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#29

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:43 AM UTC

adventured wrote: post #10

"The current Ebola epidemic may well become the worst human disaster in this century. And we are not doing enough about it." Ok, I think anyone here generally understands how dangerous Ebola is and could become if it continues to spread. That being said, already this century: Smoking has killed roughly 60 million people HIV / AIDS has killed 20 to 25 million Malaria has killed eight million Diarrhoea has killed perha…

We've discussed this before. The key differences are that the first two things take quite a long time to kill you; the second two things are very easy to treat/prevent and we know they tend to improve as infrastructure is added. All four of these problems can be managed with current knowledge, at varying degrees of expense. Our failure to eliminate them or other obvious causes of mortality is largely due to a failure of political will, inadequate capital, or some combination of the two. HIV/AIDS is the best example because we don't have a definite cure, and we let it get much worse than it needed to because originally it was treated as a moral disease.

In contrast, we lack the capability to treat Ebola reliably, and it acts fast enough and powerfully enough that patients can't get meaningfully involved in their own treatment the way many HIV patients did in the early days of that epidemic. Our best strategy against Ebola right now is to just isolate people and hope that it burns itself out. Given the size of the area where it is rampant, this is a highly unreliable strategy.

Re: Ebola: The tolling bell

#30

Post by anigbrowl » Sat, Oct 04, 2014, 7:44 AM UTC

jliptzin wrote: post #11

I read somewhere about a black market for ebola survivor blood. At first I misread the title and thought it meant a black market for ebola-infected blood (or ebola-infected cadavers). Now that is a truly scary possibility - terrorists intentionally infecting themselves with ebola, then going into airports and other high density areas, infecting surfaces and as many people as they can before succumbing (or maybe even…

Terrorists could have done that years ago with AIDS or Hepatitis C but they never have - it's not obviously an effective propaganda tool and religious terrorists are likely to have hangups about dying in an unclean fashion.