[ExI] 23andME - Company issues: privacy

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Sun Oct 19 16:57:08 UTC 2014


On Sun, Oct 19, 2014 at 9:13 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> *>…* *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] 23andME - Company issues: privacy
>
> >…That is shouting fire in a crowded theater territory.  The First
> Amendment never gave an absolute right to say anything at any time…
>
> Indeed sir?  So the first amendment assures that citizens have the right
> to free speech unless of course they say something to which the government
> disagrees?
>
Not quite.  Something to which the government believes is of danger to the
public.  This has been the situation since well before we were born.  See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_theater for a
primer.

> Who gets to say what is allowed speech and what is not?
>
The lawyers and judges, for the most part.  Note that this is not the
executive branch, try though they have, and even though they have carved
out some portions that have not been ruled against - or have even been
ruled in favor of - by the judges, but the ultimate power here has come
from the judicial branch.

BTW, this is one case where you really need to stop thinking of "the
government" as a monolithic entity if you are to have much hope of
understanding the full picture.  True, the executive branch usually
appoints the judicial...but in many cases the judicial has ruled against
the executive anyway, just as it was designed to do.

> I agree that harmful misinformation is spread regarding vaccines, but I
> disagree that spreading that misinformation is illegal.  That too is
> covered under first amendment rights.
>

Not all misinformation is illegal to spread.  The exception we are talking
about here is when there is a direct link between misinformation and
negative health consequences to the public.  Your cited examples of the ADA
and ebola do not come near the same threshold as vaccine deniers do, and
the judges have ruled that this is a matter of degrees, not absolute yes/no.


> ebola cannot go airborne
>

http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/ebolaairborne.asp


> The white stuff in this photo is a bodily fluid and it is in the air.
> Ebola gets in all the bodily fluids.  That big white aerosol cloud in the
> photo would contain viruses if the sneezer is infected.
>

Many viruses can not survive suspended in the air long enough to infect
anyone else.  Also note the specific logic and - far more importantly -
observational evidence that ebola is not airborne in that Snopes article.

Please research these things when you go on long rants like this.  You do
yourself a disservice otherwise.  In general, if you can not make the
argument concisely, and it is not a complex matter - and especially if this
is something that a lot of other people would have spent a lot of time
studying and their work can be easily googled yet your conclusion runs
counter to what they seem to be saying - you have almost certainly
overlooked something so you should be unsure of your conclusion...at least
until you have verified it with other people knowledgeable in the field.

Calling out that bit in the hyphens in particular.  Long chain of logic
starting from what you think you plainly see, the experts seem to be saying
something else, and their arguments are trivial to find?  Look up their
studies so you can either see where you went wrong or find out where they
all keep messing up.  Which isn't to say that they aren't all messing up,
but if you're going to argue the topic you need to point out what they're
missing.

"Medics dealing with ebola have directly observed ebola not being
transmitted by sneezes, and all documented cases of ebola's spread involved
far more contact than sneezes," is pretty strong evidence that ebola is not
transmitted by sneezes.
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