this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2026
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Yeah, that's basically it.
Harm is harm. If my recklessness gives you covid, that's harm. I harmed you. If my wanton habits strain the Healthcare system such that they're expending money on my emphasima instead of more MRIs, and the lack of MRIs mean the diagnostic delays kept you from finding a brain tumor before it became inoperable, that's harm too. I harmed you.
It's comfortable to hide behind layers of abstraction. That's just morality laundering.
If I give you covid, and you die, that's bad.
If I give you covid, and you spread it to your grandma and she dies, that's bad.
If I give you covid, and you give someone else covid, and THEY give it to THIER grandma and she dies, that's bad.
And if I give... etc etc etc etc. How far down this chain do I gotta go before you say "ah ok, no morality issue there"?
Does it matter if you expose people but none actually get it? Does it matter if people get it, but as a result of the chain reaction nobody dies?
Probably not, right? The irresponsibility of the act has already established that it was wrong, regardless of the dilution along a chain and regardless of the actual outcome. You don't KNOW what will happen, you just have statistical models.
You might never know WHICH bean made you fart. It doesn't matter. The collective effect produced a result.
And what if spending money on the MRI for the guy with the brain tumor delays a study on Alzheimer's disease? And what if that Alzheimer's study took money that could have been used to further develop gene therapy?
I don't really understand the point of this.
If a guy has a dildo stuck up his arse, he needs help. ...There's no follow up point, he just needs help.
I would find a medical industry that harbors contempt for the indignity of having to help this guy... pathetic. Like, it's silly.
[edit] Let me amend one thing, 'cause I reread the original comment.
I think that neglectfully spreading an illness is more morally objectionable than recklessly contracting one. A known one, anyway. Covid is somewhat special because disease vectors and not actually knowing if you had it or how it spread was more on people's minds.
Does this touch on anything you're saying?
Kinda, I think we're in the same zone, but I feel you're kinda glancing off some important points, and also bringing in unrelated concepts.
What if the money spent on the mri could have been spent on alzheimers?
Well, if at the time it was reasonable to expect that the investment in MRIs was the most effective thing to do for society that's fine. That's just a choice made with reasonable expectations of a positive outcome that ultimately turned out to be suboptimal. It isn't reasonable to expect that smoking won't statistically be detrimental to your health. It's a self-inflicted wound, done knowing this was a likly outcome. This is the critical difference there.
Now, as for unrelated topics, you've muddled two distinct ideas: "moral evaluation of actions", and "evaluation of worthiness to recieve care".
If you need an ER doctor to pull a dildo out of your ass, but didn't reasonably expect to demand society to end up having to pay for it, then I see no moral issue, just like if someone forgets thier hair straightener on and thier house lights on fire and the firefighters risk thier lives to rescue you.
If you fully expected to require an ER doctor beforehand, yah, morality issue there. If you light your own house on fire on purpose because you wanted to get carried down a ladder, same deal.
Doesn't mean you don't deserve to be helped. Doesn't imply that you must not, may, or are obligated to feel contempt or whatever. Evaluating the STATE of a moral agent RESPONDING to a moral transgression of another is several steps removed from the ideas of the morality of self-harm in a social collective with finite support resources.
Anyways, long story short... I don't mean to say that the two cases are morally identical. They're both actions that needlessly risk degrading the overall health of your society. I think if you want to frame ONE as a moral issue, they BOTH are.
So, to my original point... I don't know if the public health angle for the moral evaluation is a great one here. I think it's hard to build a consistent and reliable moral model around.
The only reason that I keep bringing up worthiness to receive care is to reaffirm that idea that the hospital is a safety net. That is the only way I think about it. I'm not looking for efficiencies. Its efficiencies do not affect my moral calculus.
If there were enough smokers that the hospital had to triage the issue to focus on some guy's brain tumor, that's fine. That's a budgeting issue. I would also choose the nicer of two people if both were hanging off either end of a bridge.
Would it be nice to spend obesity money on something else? Sure. It can't be, though. It's hard to see obesity and cost as a moral issue when I don't actually view the obese, nor the smoker, nor the drug addict, nor the suicidal, nor the adrenaline junkie, nor the MMA fighter, nor the venomous snake guy as burdens. Every one of these people "should know" that they will cost the medical industry money; they might be the ones to "kill" a guy with a brain tumor. I'm not bothered by this because these are the very people the medical industry is built to serve. It exists for them.
A medical industry that cannot accomodate obesity is one that is failing its own constituents. It is failing to serve its purpose. So, becoming obese, and costing the healthcare system money, is immaterial. It doesn't matter.
But, a guy in the supermarket sneezing on people is a burden. Not because he is straining medical services and indirectly murdering in-care patients, but because there are people in the supermarket who now must be burdened with illness.
So this is what my view comes down to:
This view is useful because it means I am socially equipped to punish people for anti-social and irresponsible medical behavior, but also that I remain sympathetic to victims of the tobacco and sugar industries. And that guy with the snake.
It's also not that complicated, because my problem is chiefly with anti-social behavior.
How does this relate to necrophilia?... I don't know. He probably shouldn't do that.
Ok. I think I need to tap out. I don't think we can have the same conversation.
There are two conversations: one about morality, and one about how a hospital should be run. They're both great conversations.
I keep trying to talk about morality and ethics. To me, it's the much more interesting conversation. It's extremely rare to actually get the opportunity to get into moral philosophy, so even fucking roadkill is great.
It's not that I necessarily disagree with what you're saying. It's just that you're not at all talking about morals and ethics, and each attempt i make to pull you back in is met in failure. Now you're talking about "fault" which is a completely distinct philosophical concept and "failure of the hospital system" which is not really anything.
Yeah hospitals should treat everyone. I have universal Healthcare. How to run a hospital or a health system is a tedious conversation for me. The moral and ethical discussion and examination of right and wrong of actions when a moral agent is part of a social collective with health support and limited resources is interesting.
But that's OK. Im not saying you're necessarily wrong about anything.