Does HIV cause AIDS?

[Remster 30]

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For any other disease with the transmissability/fatality characteristics of AIDS, quarantine would be a matter of course

Really???? My understanding is that you need to have intimate sexual contact or blood contact to transmit HIV. I would not call that a desease with a high level of transmissability.

Remster

[Ripple 0]

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Granted, I concede I have possibly taken the original Darwinian definition out of its original context.. although I'm very tempted to suggest that a creature's intelligence is "...the natural selection of small, inherited variations..."

^I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. It appears that you are trying to use evolution as a blanket reason for allowing people to die without intervention from others that are 'more intelligent'. As humans, living as communities, each caring for and supporting the others is the fundamental reason for surviving.

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If a person chooses to engage in a lifestyle that is hazardous, having being informed as such, and then bitching at the world when harmed, then that is foolish, possibly even stupid.
We dont see many skydivers blaming anyone other than themselves when they hook in and femur themselves.

I'm not sure how many people with HIV/AIDS you have heard 'bitch at the world'. But I know that I have heard precisely none. However, those sufferers whether they have contracted the virus as a result of lack of education, or through a medical treatment (blood transfusion) or whether they contracted it through a moments stupidity, still have the right to treatment, care and consideration.
If you are inferring that South Africans deserve to die because they have a lifestyle that you don't agree with, then I can only say you need to learn a little more about differences in cultures before making assumptions that are based in biggotry.
The lifestyles that are currently perpetuating the situation are not being altered because of the lack of awareness, the lack of education. If it wasn't for the education we have received about HIV/AIDS, we'd all still be as promiscuous as we were in the 70's. The way Uganda have addressed the problem, illustrates this beautifully.

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True, many AIDS sufferers acquired the condition through no fault or negligence of their own and for these people I do have genuine sympathy.. but they are the exception, not the norm.

I'm afraid this is an assumption and not a fact. The vast majority of sufferers have contracted this illness through ignorance, a lack of education that has been born out of their own government's unwillingness to take responsibility. If a government is willing to take responsibility, the situation dramatically improves. Uganda being the example for this.

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Granted too; I'm thrilled that medical technology exists to save me from potentialy fatal conditions that I may foolishly inflict on myself in a lifetime, but I very much doubt that I would die feeling bitter towards mankind for not doing enough to save me if existing medical science did not allow for it.

I think you're getting confused here. The issues are 1) the lack of willingness for governments to take responsibility, to acknowledge the problem, to help their people, and 2) the fact we live as a community, we do not leave those less fortunate than ourselves to die merely because we are 'stronger' than them.

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And do you believe in God, ma'am ?
What if these four passengers were left to fight it out for the parachute ?
Chances are the businessman would win.. and it would be God's will, not so ? ..or does God not play God either ?

The only reference to God was to your apparent desire to act as though you were a 'god', and your apparent belief that you have the right to do so. This appears to be an attempt to cloud the issue. Please read Taz's posts again, it might make it clearer for you.

Next Mood Swing: 6 minutes

[metalslug 36]

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The only reference to God was to your apparent desire to act as though you were a 'god', and your apparent belief that you have the right to do so. This appears to be an attempt to cloud the issue. Please read Taz's posts again, it might make it clearer for you.

It appears that "clouding the issue" is rife in this thread.
Where, pray tell, did I suggest that I have, and/or am entitled to have, a power unique to me that solely determines the life and death of other people ?"
My posts have expressed an attitude of apathy more than divinity. I'm more inclined to let fate take its course and let the dice fall where they may.

Taz, apparently, seems to advocate the principle of persistently educating even those that dont heed the education, of somehow changing the entire culture of a developing nation so that even the poor may one day be capable of abstinence or eventualy put freely distributed condoms to proper use long after their purpose had been explained to a reluctant community.
Taz wishes to teach the unteachable, prevent the inevitable, and intercede against fate.

So.. which one of us is really 'playing God' ?

[Ripple 0]

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It appears that "clouding the issue" is rife in this thread.
Where, pray tell, did I suggest that I have, and/or am entitled to have, a power unique to me that solely determines the life and death of other people ?"

As I have already posted previously, you apparently have this attitude. You are willing to cast judgement on others, whilst exihibiting little or no knowledge, or care, about their cultural differences or specific situations. You have judged people in a completely uncaring and moralistic way that does nothing to make me suppose you are not judgemental.

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My posts have expressed an attitude of apathy more than divinity. I'm more inclined to let fate take its course and let the dice fall where they may.

Unfortunately your posts do not come across in this way, you have cast judgement on people and situations that you appear to have no understanding of. Unlike Taz, who not only has direct knowledge of the situation in SA, but knows the facts and states them as such without casting judgement about anyone, even about you.

Now, in order to keep this on topic: instead of picking on the detail that was raised merely for illustrative purposes, perhaps you'd like to reply to the points raised in reply to you. Afterall, I wouldn't be able to accuse you of 'clouding the issue' then

edit: 'cos i'm a prat!

Next Mood Swing: 6 minutes

[billvon 3,069]

>It's a form of Darwinism. The weaker people, whether intellectualy or physicaly, will die..

That's not Darwinism. Darwinist evolution states that organisms unable to reproduce will die, and in most cases this leads to expression of traits that allow the organism to survive and reproduce. This in turn leads to expression of traits that make one strong enough to survive to reproductive age, that make one attractive to the opposite sex, and that make one strong enough to protect offspring. HIV/AIDS, which is usually a late-onset disease, generally allows reproduction; indeed, copulation is one of the ways it can be spread.

In addition, we now counter evolution in many ways. We protect and even extend unusual benefits to the disabled (financial benefits, medical benefits, parking, transportation etc) making it easier for them to do well in society, and thus make it easier for them to reproduce and raise a family.

[Skyrad 0]

'There are four people in an airplane that is going to crash, and one parachute that will save someone's life. One is a child going to school, the second is a young woman supporting her entire family financially, the third is a successful businessman, and the fourth is an old man with children and grandchildren. If given the choice, who would you save? (Assuming the person who gets the parachute will use it and live). '


1) Is it a tandem rig?
2) How fast is the aircraft traveling?
3) Rear exit or side exit?
4) Are Mr Bills allowed?

When an author is too meticulous about his style, you may presume that his mind is frivolous and his content flimsy.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[Taz 0]

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Where, pray tell, did I suggest that I have, and/or am entitled to have, a power unique to me that solely determines the life and death of other people ?"
My posts have expressed an attitude of apathy more than divinity. I'm more inclined to let fate take its course and let the dice fall where they may.

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Taz wishes to teach the unteachable, prevent the inevitable, and intercede against fate.

We think very differently about what "fate" means, which in other contexts would not elicit such a protracted argument from me. You believe that your fate and that of your family is unrelated to the fate of the world. I believe that all of our individual fates necessarily depend on whether and what kind of world we create through our actions, our beliefs, and our votes. Using what you call apathy as an excuse, you have made some statements here that demonstrate the kind of prejudice that is spreading a fatal disease across the globe. Using Darwinism as an excuse, you have shown open discrimination towards people who are poor, uneducated, disenfrancished, and culturally different from yourself.

Your assumption that people who suffer from HIV/Aids are "unteachable" and that the disease is "inevitable" reveals ignorance rather than apathy. I don't believe that as an individual you have an obligation to spend time educating people against HIV/Aids. But as a matter of policy, as I have said before, providing education and treatment to some populations and not others is an incredibly prejudicial form of judgment; one that does assume power over who will live and who will die.

It seems that one of your underlying assumptions is that everyone in the world has an equal understanding or knowledge of the mechanisms and consequences of HIV/Aids: therefore, we can all be held equally responsible as individuals for getting the disease. Not so. There are still millions of people in the world who have no idea what HIV/Aids means; and those who have heard of it but don't know how it works. If you want to say that these people, whether they are white or black, American, African, Chinese, male, or female, are unworthy of the kind of knowledge you would pass to your daughter to keep her safe, then you are more than just apathetic. At worst, that would display tolerance for a kind of genocide (kill the ignorant by keeping them in the dark). At best, it would mean you have no disregard for the world that your daughter, and all of our children, will inherit; a world where, as someone earlier in this thread pointed out, someone with nothing to lose could show up on your doorstep and demonstrate his version of "apathy" with a gun.

It's the Year of the Dragon.

[Taz 0]

Good questions! See, now we are all thinking critically about the issues I don't think Mr Bills would go so well, but you're welcome to try in your hypothetical scenario! Let me know how it goes...

-T

It's the Year of the Dragon.

[Scratch 0]

I have been following and posting to this thread with great interest.
Hell I have been around Dizzy.com for years and seen all sorts.

What I find breathtaking is that the attitude of Metalslug appears to be the norm rather than the exception. Or maybe his side of the fence is simply more vocal. Be that as it may what is quite amazing is the shock and horror he and his ilk show when a couple of their buildings get knocked down.
"Why?" they cry "what did we do?"
Well, read this thread and find out.
I don't condone things like 9/11 but I certainly understand them and why they happen.
Wake up guys.....the man with the gun has started to knock at the door.

[Tonto 1]

They were not his buildings.

Metalslug is in South Africa.

t

It's the year of the Pig.

[Taz 0]

There are plenty of South Africans who have uninformed attitudes towards HIV/Aids. Almost makes it worse when it's happening in your own backyard.

-T

It's the Year of the Dragon.