I think there are two main issues there: they'd have to *know* that this is the reason their values are what they are, *and* they'd have to value getting people to continue *wanting* purity *more than they value purity itself*.
Which I suppose is not necessarily fatal to the idea: that second bit, at least, *does* sound like the kind of failure mode brains would be prone to. (Although it really seems like a hell of a sacrifice to, say, deliberately expose yourself to COVID-19 *just* to encourage the birth of a new endemic disease and thereby increase people's pathogen stress.) I *do* find it sad that, if the pathogen-stress people are right (and possibly even if they're not), it is impossible to build a plague-free society whose members *appreciate* not being plague-ridden. But I still put my (currently extremely meagre) charity budget towards infectious-disease prevention: even if *others* are doomed to be ungrateful for the cleaner world I helped to build, *I* will know how important it was.
(...the *really* scary implication is that there may be an equilibrium, where diseases will always exist at whatever level convinces people to give enough fucks to keep them from going higher than that level. This might be happening right now with measles: we seem to be having trouble getting people to keep *caring* about measles long enough to eradicate it.
Like, I guess from a god's-eye view this is fine: if people are keeping disease down to a level they deem acceptable, then that is by definition acceptable. But it'd be rough for the higher-caring-than-average individuals, knowing that the world could be so much better if only other people could be bothered.)
((I think I mentioned that that's been one of the best parts of owning a P100 respirator: the ability to *unilaterally* remove myself from the web of transmission. Back before that, I hated how it was primarily up to the *customers* whether or not *I* got sick. There was only so much I could do by myself, and I was forced to place the rest of my fate in the hands of, not *even* the general population (which would be bad enough), but a population *selected for recklessness*.))
no subject
Which I suppose is not necessarily fatal to the idea: that second bit, at least, *does* sound like the kind of failure mode brains would be prone to. (Although it really seems like a hell of a sacrifice to, say, deliberately expose yourself to COVID-19 *just* to encourage the birth of a new endemic disease and thereby increase people's pathogen stress.) I *do* find it sad that, if the pathogen-stress people are right (and possibly even if they're not), it is impossible to build a plague-free society whose members *appreciate* not being plague-ridden. But I still put my (currently extremely meagre) charity budget towards infectious-disease prevention: even if *others* are doomed to be ungrateful for the cleaner world I helped to build, *I* will know how important it was.
(...the *really* scary implication is that there may be an equilibrium, where diseases will always exist at whatever level convinces people to give enough fucks to keep them from going higher than that level. This might be happening right now with measles: we seem to be having trouble getting people to keep *caring* about measles long enough to eradicate it.
Like, I guess from a god's-eye view this is fine: if people are keeping disease down to a level they deem acceptable, then that is by definition acceptable. But it'd be rough for the higher-caring-than-average individuals, knowing that the world could be so much better if only other people could be bothered.)
((I think I mentioned that that's been one of the best parts of owning a P100 respirator: the ability to *unilaterally* remove myself from the web of transmission. Back before that, I hated how it was primarily up to the *customers* whether or not *I* got sick. There was only so much I could do by myself, and I was forced to place the rest of my fate in the hands of, not *even* the general population (which would be bad enough), but a population *selected for recklessness*.))