The Cellar - View Single Post

piercehawkeye45 · 10-09-2007, 01:32 AM

Very interesting topic Vivant.

After thinking about this for a while and laying out the pros and cons I can say without a doubt that refusing to give children immunizations for diseases would spell certain disaster for whatever society that tries it.

For the pros, I can only think of two good ones. Population reduction and a rise of fitness of the human population against certain diseases.

For the cons, I can think of many more that tend not only to affect individual families, but the society as a whole. First of all, it will drastically affect individual families. How many parents would be willing to take the risk of their child dying to slightly help society in a way they can not see the effects? That type of sacrifice is unheard of, especially in societies that are naturally resistant to sacrifice, the US middle and upper class for example. Our society would be just as likely to face the effects of overpopulation than sacrifice their greatest love. The priorities of our culture just won't be able to handle it. The only way this type of practice could be implemented would be by force, which would be met with fierce resistance that would put the whole nation in danger of violent revolt.

The society aspects scare me just as much. One of the biggest changes in Western culture occurred in the early 1900s when families and society went from expecting a large number of their children dying early to expecting all of their children to live longer than their parents. If this practice did take place, what would be the consequences of our culture changing back to to a mindset where we expect many of our children to die? I mean seriously, I have seen many times how my high school has handled a single death of a classmate, what would happen if five classmates started dying a year, ten, twenty? How would the mindset of our children be changed? It would not only affect the dying children but everyone around him or her. How would that affect our society and aspirations?

Second, we would most likely revert back to a strong patriarchal society. Since a family can expect all of their children to survive childbirth and grow to be healthy adults, a mother only has to give childbirth only a few times in her lifetime. When we go back to a large number of children dying, the number of childbirths per woman will rise in order to maintain a stable population. That means women, especially married women, will start being expected to be at home more and the solidifying of gender roles will arise again. Not to mention the number of woman dying in childbirth will rise, changing another mindset of our culture.

With the number of women leaving their jobs because of childbirth, how will that affect our economy? Who will take their jobs?

Weighing the pros and cons, I will definitely say that refusing to vaccinate children would be devastating for our society and the only way you could justify it morally would to say that the effects of overpopulation would be worse than the consequences shown.

Keep in mind that this is not the only way to limit a population, and even though it would be more brutal and worse in the short term effects, outright infanticide would be better in the bigger picture than this to curb overpopulation. It is a good thought but I think a massive backfire would be inevitable and there are other ways to curb overpopulation and as long as we have vaccinations, raising the fitness of our population would never be worth it.

10-09-2007, 01:32 AM	#44
piercehawkeye45 Franklin Pierce Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Minnesota Posts: 3,695	Very interesting topic Vivant. After thinking about this for a while and laying out the pros and cons I can say without a doubt that refusing to give children immunizations for diseases would spell certain disaster for whatever society that tries it. For the pros, I can only think of two good ones. Population reduction and a rise of fitness of the human population against certain diseases. For the cons, I can think of many more that tend not only to affect individual families, but the society as a whole. First of all, it will drastically affect individual families. How many parents would be willing to take the risk of their child dying to slightly help society in a way they can not see the effects? That type of sacrifice is unheard of, especially in societies that are naturally resistant to sacrifice, the US middle and upper class for example. Our society would be just as likely to face the effects of overpopulation than sacrifice their greatest love. The priorities of our culture just won't be able to handle it. The only way this type of practice could be implemented would be by force, which would be met with fierce resistance that would put the whole nation in danger of violent revolt. The society aspects scare me just as much. One of the biggest changes in Western culture occurred in the early 1900s when families and society went from expecting a large number of their children dying early to expecting all of their children to live longer than their parents. If this practice did take place, what would be the consequences of our culture changing back to to a mindset where we expect many of our children to die? I mean seriously, I have seen many times how my high school has handled a single death of a classmate, what would happen if five classmates started dying a year, ten, twenty? How would the mindset of our children be changed? It would not only affect the dying children but everyone around him or her. How would that affect our society and aspirations? Second, we would most likely revert back to a strong patriarchal society. Since a family can expect all of their children to survive childbirth and grow to be healthy adults, a mother only has to give childbirth only a few times in her lifetime. When we go back to a large number of children dying, the number of childbirths per woman will rise in order to maintain a stable population. That means women, especially married women, will start being expected to be at home more and the solidifying of gender roles will arise again. Not to mention the number of woman dying in childbirth will rise, changing another mindset of our culture. With the number of women leaving their jobs because of childbirth, how will that affect our economy? Who will take their jobs? Weighing the pros and cons, I will definitely say that refusing to vaccinate children would be devastating for our society and the only way you could justify it morally would to say that the effects of overpopulation would be worse than the consequences shown. Keep in mind that this is not the only way to limit a population, and even though it would be more brutal and worse in the short term effects, outright infanticide would be better in the bigger picture than this to curb overpopulation. It is a good thought but I think a massive backfire would be inevitable and there are other ways to curb overpopulation and as long as we have vaccinations, raising the fitness of our population would never be worth it.