Hacker News Reader

Comment by leopoldj | Hacker News Reader

There are two independent issues that bear discussion.

1. Should we be mandated to do something that while a good thing appears to infringe on personal freedom. Such as, mandate good diet, exercise, vaccine etc. People here have made very good points about why sometimes we have to forgo certain freedoms for the greater good. At the same time, we should not forget how some countries take this too far and become nanny states.

2. Are the Florida officials spreading misinformation and fear against vaccinations? Some of Dr. Ladapo's recommendations can certainly be viewed that way.

View on HN

Everything is a matter of degrees. Could regulation and rules be taken to an extreme? Sure. The opposite is true, as well. There are several libertarian utopias with no functioning government on the planet, but it is telling that Free Staters move to New Hampshire and not Somalia

The answer is yes, we should be mandated to do things that help the greater good. If we're going to have a society and function as a cohesive population with common goals and morals and the idea that we are going to improve ourselves, you're going to have to force some people to come along

It's insane that preventing polio is being compared to a "nanny state" at this point

> Should we be mandated to do something that while a good thing appears to infringe on personal freedom

Depends on what it is, the effort it takes on the part of the individual, and how much the state needs to intrude on privacy to ensure compliance.

Traffic lights infringe on personal freedom. It doesn't take individuals much effort to stop at a red light and start again when it turns green. It's easy for the state to enforce.

Diet and exercise mandates are hard to comply with, hard to enforce. The immediate benefits are limited to the individual while the societal benefits are more diffuse.

Childhood vaccination requirements are more like traffic lights than diet and exercise mandates.

> Some of Dr. Ladapo's recommendations can certainly be viewed that way

That's a an awfully charitable way to say "quack moron grifter". He's compared vaccination requirements to slavery there's really no other words to describe him.

The freedom argument from who amounts to be autocratic proto-nazi already got old.

"Nanny state" is word they use when their only argument is mockery.

> "Nanny state" is word they use when their only argument is mockery.

Is it even an insult? Who didn't love their nanny as a kid? Lmao

Reply on news.ycombinator.com