NationStates Jolt Archive

This post in the HIV thread got me thinking:

Make it mandatory, round all the HIV-Positive people up and invite them all into super happy fun camps for the decade it would take to eliminate it... ohnoes, wait...!

Say there was an outbreak of a virus that is rapidly spreading between humans. The outcome of this disease include all types of pain and complication, and even death. There is no way to stop the spread of the virus, and no known cures. There have been some who are resistant to the virus' damage, although they still carry the virus within them, and are still able to pass it on. Thus, because it is rapidly spreading(think that millions in your respective country have it already), and endangers killing off much of the human race, with only a few people resistant to it, would it be morally right to round up those with the symptoms of the virus and kill them, either by letting the disease take its course, or by violent means? Is it okay to take one life, in exchange for the security of another?

No, why kill them you could just isolate them.

This post in the HIV thread got me thinking:



Say there was an outbreak of a virus that is rapidly spreading between humans. The outcome of this disease include all types of pain and complication, and even death. There is no way to stop the spread of the virus, and no known cures. There have been some who are resistant to the virus' damage, although they still carry the virus within them, and are still able to pass it on. Thus, because it is rapidly spreading(think that millions in your respective country have it already), and endangers killing off much of the human race, with only a few people resistant to it, would it be morally right to round up those with the symptoms of the virus and kill them, either by letting the disease take its course, or by violent means? Is it okay to take one life, in exchange for the security of another?

This is not a new or all that controversial topic:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/quarantine

The scale of imposing it on HIV or some future viral bad-ass is the only thing that makes your idea debatable. Of course, movies have taken this idea about as far as it can go, starting, at least in my lifetime of popular culture, with Night of the Comet (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087799/).

EDIT: Okay, I missed the "and kill them" part. No. I bow to inevitability when it's too big a force to oppose.

Yeah, and the end-result would be the same; the resistant-people (without noticeable symptoms) would quite probably survive, and everyone else would die. So perhaps making sure the resistant people survive would be best.

EDIT: And by the way, if the world was that doomed, morality would be thrown out the window anyways, you know, what with trying to survive by any means necessary and all that, which is why someone would have to be smart and protect the resistant people.

It largely depends on how the virus is spread, and whether you can get the infected to refrain from behaviours that spread it. In the case of a blood-borne contagion (like, for instance, HIV) this is pretty easy, in the case of an airborne virus, on the other hand...

in the case of an airborne or simple-contact virus, you HAVE to isolate the infected (the term is "Quarantine") because there's no way for an infected person to voluntarily prevent the spread to non-infected neighbours, friends, and family.

Education and widespread testing have probably done MORE to prevent the spread of HIV than any laboratory medical treatments have to treat it-we still don't have anything lab-developed that will kill a virus and not kill the host.

It largely depends on how the virus is spread, and whether you can get the infected to refrain from behaviours that spread it. In the case of a blood-borne contagion (like, for instance, HIV) this is pretty easy, in the case of an airborne virus, on the other hand...

in the case of an airborne or simple-contact virus, you HAVE to isolate the infected (the term is "Quarantine") because there's no way for an infected person to voluntarily prevent the spread to non-infected neighbours, friends, and family.

Education and widespread testing have probably done MORE to prevent the spread of HIV than any laboratory medical treatments have to treat it-we still don't have anything lab-developed that will kill a virus and not kill the host.

It largely depends on how the virus is spread, and whether you can get the infected to refrain from behaviours that spread it. In the case of a blood-borne contagion (like, for instance, HIV) this is pretty easy, in the case of an airborne virus, on the other hand...

in the case of an airborne or simple-contact virus, you HAVE to isolate the infected (the term is "Quarantine") because there's no way for an infected person to voluntarily prevent the spread to non-infected neighbours, friends, and family.

Education and widespread testing have probably done MORE to prevent the spread of HIV than any laboratory medical treatments have to treat it-we still don't have anything lab-developed that will kill a virus and not kill the host.

He's repeating himself...that's a symptom, KILL HIM!!! *click-clack*, *BOOM* :p

quarantine and treatment have been standard procedures for a long time.

its best used when only quarantine will stop the spread of disease.

When it comes down to morality or species survival, survival wins.

the idea of a quarantine has been around for quite a while...

The scale of imposing it on HIV or some future viral bad-ass is the only thing that makes your idea debatable. Of course, movies have taken this idea about as far as it can go, starting, at least in my lifetime of popular culture, with Night of the Comet (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087799/).
Night of the Comet wasn't about a disease, it was about radiation that turned people into dust/zombies. The trick being that the scientist bad guys had built a shield that was supposed save them, but it failed because scientist bad guys can't ever build anything that works properly. For some reason (probably stupid), sleeping in a shed is the perfect defense against radiation.

Night of the Comet wasn't about a disease, it was about radiation that turned people into dust/zombies. The trick being that the scientist bad guys had built a shield that was supposed save them, but it failed because scientist bad guys can't ever build anything that works properly. For some reason (probably stupid), sleeping in a shed is the perfect defense against radiation.

A world where the element known as Lead had never been known?

Night of the Comet wasn't about a disease, it was about radiation that turned people into dust/zombies. The trick being that the scientist bad guys had built a shield that was supposed save them, but it failed because scientist bad guys can't ever build anything that works properly. For some reason (probably stupid), sleeping in a shed is the perfect defense against radiation.

The reaction by the government to the zombification makes the movie a relevant example. I wasn't looking for dead-on, I was looking for the go-into-isolation vibe.

A world where the element known as Lead had never been known?

No doubt it's a world where our commie-pinko overmasters have banned it in paint because of their desire to sissify our children, thus dooming us all.

Damn liberals.

Your scenario is too far down the line for Quarantine to work. Too many carriers with resistance to make it effective.

It depends on how easily communicable it is. If it's highly communicable, or extremely communicable like in The Stand, your only option would be to basically wipe out infected areas. Otherwise, there is no chance of containing the epidemic and disaster will naturally ensue.

As much as I hate to ever advocate killing (since it's easy to kill millions when they are simply statistics and not people you know and love), that's the only way that might work...and the only other option might be extinction, which means everything is lost.

There's an option few of you have considered. Emergency temporal shift. The healthy end up a few hundred thousand years in the future, where the Earth has recovered sufficiently since the apparent distinction of humanity to mean that climate change is no longer a problem. Bonus. Don't worry, we'd transport all our technology too, so the production process could start afresh immediately.