Let’s talk about eradicating illness and what that teaches us about how to change the world. Specifically, let’s zero in on how healthcare workers approach the different forms of rationality people and cultures use to understand their world, and from there, apply what we learn to global issues.
Imagine a dystopian world where government and huge for-profit businesses colluded to generate wealth for the privileged few. One where billion-dollar pharmaceutical companies manufacture poisons that governments force us to take, making us so ill we must buy the “cure” from those same companies. Imagine corporations so evil they use components from the tissue of aborted fetuses in the poisons they force on us.
Why would people living in a region afflicted with an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus burn down clinics and attack healthcare workers who are trying to contain the disease?
Why do we accept that you will trust your judgement over science when merging into traffic, but criticize parents who trust their judgement over science when withholding vaccinations from their children? Why is merging into traffic something that requires personal discretion whereas, with vaccinations, science trumps personal discretion?