Gordon made an interesting statement in regards to the news that Grindr was no longer sharing if their users had HIV or not. He said:
My imagination immediately took me to a world where people were branded based upon the diseases they have, ala The Scarlet Letter.
Anyway, the question is: does stopping the spread of communicable diseases mean more than privacy?
Louis CK did a bit once about peanut allergies where he said, "What if we did nothing about peanut allergies for 10 years? All the people with it would die off, and perhaps the gene would die with them." (I'm paraphrasing.)
Is he making a fair point? If we took steps to eliminate some diseases/conditions by preventing them from spreading would the net positive be worth the net negative?
If so, the "how" gets interesting:
-Laws requiring disclosure would be about as effective as any other law, so not at all.
-What if people actually did get branded once they were discovered to have a disease/condition? The brand could be a simple letter on the hip where it could be shown, but always hidden by clothes. Imagine a world where you check your partner's hip to see if there's a letter there. "Oh, I see you have an H for herpes. Thankfully, I have a condom." (And honestly, in this case doesn't the issue then become "your privacy versus another person's protection"?
The pros:
1. People could avoid lifetime baggage in communicable diseases.
2. Theoretically, we could eliminate some diseases/conditions.
The cons:
1. Privacy concerns.
2. Potentially labeling someone to society as worthless when it comes to sex and marriage.
This topic is easy to discuss with something like AIDS. It, literally, means your privacy and desire to bust a nut versus someone else's life. However, what about things like herpes? Or even conditions like Cystic Fibrosis (both parents have to be carriers I believe)? Could we wipe out herpes and its ilk as they are viruses? I assume wiping out things like CF wouldn't happen this way as it's in the genes, but it could make people rethink mating with someone if their chances of having a kid with it are high.
In a world where the government pays for our medical care and will be dictating our habits in relation to health is this inevitable?