Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
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@jpages Massive public education campaigns and immediate isolation of outbreak patients put the brakes on. As did better living conditions (it's hard to isolate in a slum with eight people sleeping to a room; also hard to isolate when there are ten kids in a family).
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@cstross https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Alexander_(polio_survivor)
Considering he died not that long ago means there are polio survivors probably still floating around, so it isn’t that long ago polio was killing people. I also remember my mom talking about her mom taking them and standing in line for the vaccine when it came out because she knew how deadly it was.
We all stood in line at school for the smallpox vaccine too
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@cstross No, put them where they want to be. Greenland.
We had a visitation from Greenland this week, major ice storm in Mississippi and Tennessee. Lots of fun with downed power lines and broken trees.
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
@cstross Unfortunately, there is nothing that will convince vaccine skeptics.
I once watched the BBC programme "Unvaccinated" by Hannah Fry, who meets seven unvaccinated people in an experiment.
She showed them the evidence, they slowly started to believe the evidence, or said that they did, but they remained skeptics at the end of the programme.
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@cstross No, put them where they want to be. Greenland.
@RafeCulpin @cstross I don't think Greenland wants them anymore than we do.
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@Infoseepage @suzannealdrich @cstross I binged through the @empirepoduk podcast, haven't finished it, but listened to 150+ episodes. It's good.
There was a fascinating one where a British woman brought the concept and technology of #smallpox #inoculation home with her from #Turkey...
Here it is:
'She was a pioneering scientist, proto-feminist, and letter writer extraordinaire. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu escaped a marriage to Clotworthy Skeffington to become one of history's most incredible women. Listen this week as William and Anita are joined by Katie Hickman to tell the tale of her life.'
'Clotworthy Skeffington,' I think that might be my next fake name.
@morgan @Infoseepage @suzannealdrich @cstross @empirepoduk@bird.makeup
"Clotworthy Skeffington" is just...wow
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If they *were* just a death cult that would also be true.
Not saying it's that simple, but if someone said "Look out, that death cult is coming to get us" I don't think "But they only want to kill people like us, not themselves" would be responsive to the situation. Which is why I think *from outside the cult* there's no important terminological distinction.
If they could be reasoned with, you could apply reason to their goals as they perceive them, yes.
@petealexharris Taking it personally is a barrier to understanding, and understanding is necessary to (reliable) victory.
In a just or kind world, one should not be required to deal with such people, and yet the world we have is one subject to selection.
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@cstross Not to put a too fine point on that, but people in iron lungs also don’t breed easily.
Pure eugenics.
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@cstross Unfortunately, there is nothing that will convince vaccine skeptics.
I once watched the BBC programme "Unvaccinated" by Hannah Fry, who meets seven unvaccinated people in an experiment.
She showed them the evidence, they slowly started to believe the evidence, or said that they did, but they remained skeptics at the end of the programme.
@MartinEscardo @cstross there is at least one coordinated "vaccines are bad" misinfo/disinfo/propaganda op thats been running and evolving since 2013 at least, based out of Russia and targetting Americans and Europeans with very similar points and techniques, just localized to each target audience. I once did some work to try help counter-acting it. for the US State Dept. you know, as one does lol
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@arafel@mas.to @bjn@mstdn.social @cstross@wandering.shop @lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org It's not a misapprehension of how evolution works, something that could be corrected by real-world experience.
It's eugenics. It's an ideology with internal contradictions large enough to fly a Boeing through, and one that unfortunately many liberals share (for evidence see US COVID death toll 2020-2024). You only need to see one picture of Francis Galton to recognize that the folks pushing this ideology would not fare well were its dictates evenly applied. But this sort of thing is always about forceful exclusion.
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L luettdeern@plasmatrap.com shared this topic
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
@cstross I mean, Polio is a disease I am very interested in. The vaccine came shortly before I was born, so I was one of the generation who felt very fortunate to have it.
And my wife had an aunt who had been paralysed for life by Polio. I knew her - she was one of the very lucky ones. She lived. She was able to have a fairly normal life - married and had children.
I lived at a time when vaccines were saving so many lives. So many thousands of lives.
And this fuckbrained heap of scum wants to turn all that back. The sooner he rots in hell, the better.
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@petealexharris It is, alas, nowhere near 99%.
The distinction may have operational utility in opposing their policies; for example, the "all these babies will die! look at the tombstones in old graveyards!" response to anti-vax policies functions to confirm the objectives and purposes of the anti-vax movement. It's about killing babies; that's what it wants. Telling its members that babies will die is not an effective means of dissuasion.
@graydon @petealexharris @cstross but the set of babies that seem to end up killed by their policies is often their own. Conning *other people* into not vaccinating their children might make sense, but so far, it's mostly their own political supporters (whom of course they might regard as mere meat for the grinder).
To me it looks like panic at the loss of white majority and political power, and they are flailing, destructively, hoping to blow up the world so that the rubble will land "better".
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RE: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren/115963873612884664
Reminder that in the UK in 1900, before mass vaccination for childhood diseases began, 20% of all babies died before their fifth birthday (from diseases we currently vaccinate them against).
RFK jr's appointee wants to kill roughly 20% of all newborn Americans "to improve the breed" or something.
(Not including those paralysed for life by polio.)
@cstross Social Darwinism might have been discredited, but that doesn't mean anything to people trying to apply it here.
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