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Comment by Telemakhos | Hacker News Reader

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> ... a solved problem if people are willing to give up sex with untested strangers

It's wired into our DNA to do this, and while we can be socialised out of it, you'll never get anywhere close to the near 100% you'd need.

It's not a small number, and like you point out, this is human nature, so asking people to stop is pointless. If people always acted rationally and with empathy for others, everything would be much easier. There would have been no Covid pandemic, no global warming, no drunk driving, and so on.

Yet here we are, needing laws, cops, vaccines, and so on. Asking people to only have absolutely safe sex due to its external effects is about as useful as asking them to stop eating meat due to its external effects.

Besides that, PrEP has enabled the return of non-HIV STIs in major cities like Berlin where a lot of the community has returned to raw-dogging since the AIDS-Scare has become a historical artifact.

Is that a huge problem? Doesn’t almost everything else have a prophylactic and is curable? Hep-C might be the only other one I believe and I’m unaware if it’s treatable or not.

Antibiotic resistant syphilis and ghonerrea don't sound like a fun time

More or less fun than dying of AIDS?

Don't move the conversation goalposts (and we don't do "gotchas" here, as you well know)

And AIDS is not considered a death sentence btw. It's not the 1980s

This subthread is specifically about better HIV treatments leading to an increase in other STIs. Did you forget about what you were replying to?

When I reply to a comment, it's a reply to that comment. Which I don't think you even read

So we’re supposed to ignore all the context leading up to it? What did I supposedly not read, then? Some other comment that’s no longer relevant here?

Abstinence has been shown to be an extremely, hilariously, stupidly ineffective strategy in all questions of human sexual health.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic would not have been nearly as serious as it was if people like you and the Catholic Church hadn’t advocated for it over all other measures.

It doesn’t work. Change your mind.

I agree but asking your partners to get tested is not abstinence

The post I replied to criticized people’s choice to have “random sex”, i.e. they suggest a behavioral change.

Getting tested is great practice, but you can’t rely on partners being diligent or consistent with that for your own safety.

Literally no one asks for proof of an STD test before sleeping with them. You might ask someone if they have STDs and use a condom but that’s how 99.99% of how people sleep with other strangers.

Most things are a solved problem if we give up the things that make life worth living. Obesity is a solved problem if you just eat for health. Road traffic deaths are a solved problem if you never leave your house. Suicides are a solved problem if you just don't kill yourself.

So in other words… it’s not a solved problem. What point are you trying to make?

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