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Comment by phil248 | Hacker News Reader

It can't always just be about being nice, unfortunately. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children could get us all killed. It's a serious threat.

If being nice turns out to be the best strategy for curbing this movement, then I am all for it. If screaming in their faces about it turns out to be more effective, then we have to do that.

I would love for everyone to be able to "rejoin society" but at a certain point we also have to defend society against those who reject it in harmful ways. Not every illogical cult-like community is as harmless as flat-Earthers.

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>It can't always just be about being nice, unfortunately. Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children could get us all killed. It's a serious threat.

It's not your job to enforce your views on people. Let the government handle it, no one elected you. At least in the US, the government has proven the best institution to protect the public while also giving due consideration to people's rights.

Humans have existed for hundreds of thousands of years with no vaccines. Let's not be needlessly fearmongering when it comes to their necessity.

In this day and age, given the quality of medical treatment available to most of the population, any outbreak of diseases can be handled in a much better way, and with less comparative casualties than ever before, regardless of the use o vaccines.

Vaccines are useful, there is no doubt about that, but they are in no way a necessity without which we cannot live.

We also have unprecedented population density. 10,000 years ago I wouldn’t have walked within sneezing distance of 1,000 people before lunchtime.

Just because something wasn’t needed before doesn’t mean it isn’t needed now that circumstances have changed. We also existed for hundreds of thousands of years without seatbelts.

So maybe just a few unnecessary deaths resulting from actions of anti-vaxxers is okay as long as it's not an extinction-level event?

Back in the real world of today, where one infected person can infect thousands more, if prefer my child not die of polio if it can be avoided.

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