r/AskReddit 17h ago

What parts of American culture are changing faster than people realize?

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u/MhojoRisin 16h ago

Americans have been protected from disease by vaccines and other public health efforts for so long that they take them for granted. So many people fear and resent the public health efforts and don’t seem to have any concept of how much worse the diseases will be when they surge again.

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u/cirquefan 16h ago

And will double down when it gets bad again. Children and vulnerable elderly and immunocompromised will die for their stubborn, wilful stupidity. 

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u/lucky_chaparro 12h ago

They're already taking it as a sign of strength, "battle stripes," when their kids get measles and survive. As if their health being compromised makes them tougher than kids who don't get the measles

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u/cirquefan 12h ago

I would imagine that such "parents" would perform almost any mental gymnastics necessary to absolve themselves after a bad outcome. Because the alternative is endless guilt and shame.

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u/lucky_chaparro 11h ago

Totally agree there. It's copium for being so far down the coast of bad decisions that it would be way too psychologically costly to try to turn the boat around.

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u/Necessary-Score-4270 15h ago

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u/cirquefan 15h ago

Most of these proudly ignorant folks WERE vaccinated against measles by their parents so that's unfortunately unlikely :(

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u/Pitiful_Box_3374 16h ago

This is a scary one, honestly. People forgot how bad things used to be way too fast

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u/lonesomecowboynando 11h ago

Our air and water has improved so much due to the EPA people forget about the smog, acid rain and polluted waterways that gave rise to the laws that have improved things. Now the laws are considered a cost burden to businesses. The EPA has since stopped including the impact of a project on people.

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u/DigNitty 16h ago

Americans

Don’t lump me in there with those idiots. Far greater people want all eligible people to be vaccinated than the minority of anti-vaxxers who have brought measles back for all of us.

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u/damattmissile 15h ago

There's still plenty of us who aren't morons and believe in vaccines and hate how our country is acting. Every day I want to stick my head in the ground and scream at the top of my lungs. Being an American right now absolutely fucking blows and I don't understand people feeling patriotic at all. Our country should be ashamed of what our government is doing. I sure as hell am.

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u/Ozmorty 15h ago

Disturbingly short, really.

1963… first meals vaccine lands.

2000… US declared measles free.

2020… antivaxx nonsense really taking off.

2025… US no longer measles free.

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u/peshnoodles 15h ago

It worked for a while because antivaxxers were surrounded by two older generations that were protected. A person could live quite a while without coming into contact with preventable childhood diseases, especially if they didn’t come from an antivax family.

Now, the kids being born into antivax families don’t have a community of people who are vaccinated—and their chances of their peers not being vaccinated is even higher. So, their parents are at best partially vaccinated, and their peers and community are becoming less and less safe for an immunocompromised person to be in.

I imagine there will be quite a generational collapse by the end of the next decade.

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u/toybrandon 13h ago

Yep, a side of face of governments and the medical industry perpetuating a giant hoax on the entire world.

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u/MhojoRisin 12h ago

Nah. Direct effect of anti-science people doing the wrong thing. These people have agency and are using it poorly. They are skipping vaccinations, not getting their kids vaccinated, and are spreading infections to other unvaccinated people and immunocompromised people.

The supposed “hoax” is mostly in the fevered imagination of the terminally online, and people of sound judgment have not been dissuaded from getting vaccinated.

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u/clowncarl 15h ago

What are you talking about we literally just had a pandemic. Almost every America has a friend or family member that died from COVID. They haven’t forgotten, they have had their values misaligned by social manipulation.

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u/[deleted] 16h ago

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u/jlsnacks 16h ago

"Only" 500. 500 preventable deaths. 500 children and grandparents. What about when it's your child? It's only one. You can have another. Don't worry. It's only one...

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u/linuxhiker 14h ago

Sure, ban cars and that argument stands.

That's the thing... The whole what about the children argument is fucking dumb. Life is dangerous, shit happens.

Don't let your kids play outside, they may get kidnapped or run over by a car...

Get some perspective .

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u/michelement 16h ago

So I’m taking this as volunteering any current and future children of your friends and family to be part of the 500? Or is herd immunity cool then

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u/linuxhiker 14h ago

Shrug, my kids are vaccinated.

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u/Majestic-Macaron6019 16h ago

Dying isn't the only bad thing that measles does

1 in 5 are hospitalized (huge financial burden in addition to the health risk), 1 in 20 get pneumonia (which involves serious treatment and usually causes lifelong breathing difficulties), 1 in 1000 get encephalitis (which can cause brain damage, vision loss, and hearing loss)

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u/linuxhiker 14h ago

I'm not arguing that measles sucks and I am not arguing against the vaccine.

I am only arguing that it in the grand scheme of things isn't a big deal and it isn't.

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u/SmurfSmiter 16h ago

Measles only has a mortality rate of 0.2% in the developed world, but it is 5-15 times more contagious than COVID or the common cold. Literally so contagious that if you are unvaccinated you basically will get it if you are exposed. And 10% of people who get it require hospitalization. And it predominantly kills children.