The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950 • Hacker News Board

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#111

Post by y4mi » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 6:28 PM UTC

andreyf wrote: post #66

abhinai wrote: post #10

"... the court held that the government was immune to a lawsuit for negligence and that they were justified in conducting tests without subjects' knowledge.". I sincerely hope there was some rationale to this decision that I do not know or understand. Otherwise it would be very hard for me to have any faith left in our judicial system.

"rationale to this decision that I do not know or understand" I imagine the rationale went like this: We have intelligence that the soviets are developing weapons with deadly bacteria X with delivery mechanisms {Y, Z, ...}. We believe they can deliver an attack on this set of cities and we have this set of probabilities of stopping it. We've conducted experiments on animals and understand how X would affect an organi…

at least create a relatively harmless agent and monitor it? something which causes several people to perish is in no way harmless enough!

but you probably don't want to take his site in this argument and only gave us his official (and sourced) stance.

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#112

Post by kiiski » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 6:32 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #100

rroriz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree: a lazy search on Google shows only a few countries where this doctrine is legal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity I was alarmed that this concept (sovereign immunity) could even exist. I thought, at first, that only in monarchies this could be a thing.

Sovereign immunity is an Anglo concept, but almost every country on your list has some form of sovereign immunity. And sovereign immunity is a well-accepted principle of international law (to the extent that exists): http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/4/853.full ("Foreign sovereign immunity belongs without doubt to the traditional domains of public international law.") Sovereign immunity serves important purpo…

If you read through the list, you'll notice that USA is the only one where the government has sovereign immunity. In all other cases it's only the monarch/president/pope personally who is immune. The article does agree that countries are immune from legal proceedings in another state.

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#113

Post by elchief » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 6:33 PM UTC

nsxwolf wrote: post #85

elchief wrote: post #77

So, do the astroturfers get a heads-up when articles like this appear so they can prepare?

Why would you think there are astroturfers for this? Do you really believe the government hangs out on Hacker News to propagandize support for testing biological weapons on unwitting citizens? That sounds really paranoid.

You're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to know what's happening.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/02/24/jtrig-manipula...

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#114

Post by thesteamboat » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 6:55 PM UTC

y4mi wrote: post #111

andreyf wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"rationale to this decision that I do not know or understand" I imagine the rationale went like this: We have intelligence that the soviets are developing weapons with deadly bacteria X with delivery mechanisms {Y, Z, ...}. We believe they can deliver an attack on this set of cities and we have this set of probabilities of stopping it. We've conducted experiments on animals and understand how X would affect an organi…

at least create a relatively harmless agent and monitor it? something which causes several people to perish is in no way harmless enough! but you probably don't want to take his site in this argument and only gave us his official (and sourced) stance.

How can you tell if an agent is harmless enough? In 1950, San Francisco had a population over 750,000 (see [0]). There was one death that we know of that seems likely linked to this bacteria. How would you find an agent that is more harmless? After all, the effect of this agent seems to be on the order of one in a million.

How can you find out an agent causes death one in a million times without testing it on (roughly) a million people?

I think that there are valid reasons to be concerned or upset about this test, but that they chose an insufficiently harmless agent is not one of them.

[0]: http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty5...

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#115

Post by rayiner » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

kiiski wrote: post #112

rayiner wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sovereign immunity is an Anglo concept, but almost every country on your list has some form of sovereign immunity. And sovereign immunity is a well-accepted principle of international law (to the extent that exists): http://ejil.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/4/853.full ("Foreign sovereign immunity belongs without doubt to the traditional domains of public international law.") Sovereign immunity serves important purpo…

If you read through the list, you'll notice that USA is the only one where the government has sovereign immunity. In all other cases it's only the monarch/president/pope personally who is immune. The article does agree that countries are immune from legal proceedings in another state.

The monarch or the crown is often a proxy for the government itself. Sovereign immunity in the U.S. arises from the fact that under English law, the Crown could not be sued in its own courts. Canada inherited the same concept, and so they have a statute that waives the immunity (the Crown Liability Act) for torts: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-50/page-1.html#h-3. That's the same thing as the U.S. did with the FTCA.

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#116

Post by MisterBastahrd » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 7:02 PM UTC

mentat wrote: post #87

beeperbot wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "philosophical debate" is about an impending, unintended catastrophe. These were conscious actions by people who could have (to use situation in your debate) replaced the live, innocent human beings with straw dummies. They shouldn't have done it at all. But even if in some twisted world they needed to, they could have warned everyone and come up with ways to protect hospitals.

They did not believe it would have any effect and believed that in good faith. It's easy 60 years later with dramatically advanced science to say "well of course it would and should" but that misses the point.

That they experimented on people at all without their consent is reason enough to be outraged.

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#117

Post by chrismarlow9 » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 7:15 PM UTC

mentat wrote: post #88

admax88q wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Add to that the fact that bacterial infections often hitchhike on other injuries, infections or conditions Who could possibly foresee that there could be other injuries, infections or conditions present in a fucking city.

I'm not clear on how this is a productive comment. We have 60 years more science on how bacterial infections work. It was only 10 years ago that it was found to be dangerous. How many things are you doing today that will be found appalling in 60 years?

Nothing he's doing today will be purposefully aimed at 800,000 people without their knowledge. If it is, he should think twice about what he's doing.

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#118

Post by unclebucknasty » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #91

unclebucknasty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To look at it the other way, the unwillingness to accept "alternative" theories is probably gated more by emotion than by logic. We need to believe in the basic good of humankind, even in spite of such aberrations as genocide, syphilis experiments, etc. But, when we look at history, it is probably more logical to be skeptical. Our history is replete with Massively Bad Things that are nearly unbelievable in scale, and…

> Where I believe skeptics get into trouble is when they move beyond questioning to actually posing an alternative story that is no more provable than the official one. Those are not skeptical. They are believers, just like the people that believe on the official version.

Exactly. I started to point out the same, but my comment was already too long.

And, I assumed others could connect those dots. :)

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#119

Post by kiiski » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 7:24 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #115

kiiski wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read through the list, you'll notice that USA is the only one where the government has sovereign immunity. In all other cases it's only the monarch/president/pope personally who is immune. The article does agree that countries are immune from legal proceedings in another state.

The monarch or the crown is often a proxy for the government itself. Sovereign immunity in the U.S. arises from the fact that under English law, the Crown could not be sued in its own courts. Canada inherited the same concept, and so they have a statute that waives the immunity (the Crown Liability Act) for torts: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-50/page-1.html#h-3 . That's the same thing as the U.S. did wit…

My mistake about UK/etc. then, but my point still seems to stand; in most countries it's only the ruler personally that's immune. If Sweden does something that harms me, I can't demand that the king be punished, but I can demand compensation from Sweden (as long as the legal proceedings take place there).

Re: The military tested bacterial weapons in San Francisco in 1950

#120

Post by fapjacks » Fri, Jul 10, 2015, 7:49 PM UTC

The important takeaway from all of this stuff is that no, the government did not suddenly stop doing all kinds of secret mass-experimentation on civilian populations. If you look at the history of these kinds of experiments and believe anything the government says, you would think they just stopped doing things like MK-ULTRA and Project SHAD thirty or forty years ago. Well, folks... They didn't. Fifty years from now on whatever the new HN is, there will be a post about some kind of massive psychological (or biological, or chemical, or whatever) experimentation the US government conducted fifty years from then on the unknowing civilian population of San Diego, or Portland, or whatever. Mark my words...