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MechtaTheMicrodot  ·  3963 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Of Course But Maybe (Louis C.K.)

Oh, I get it, the only reason I would care about this is because I'm one of the people he said we should let die so we don't have to deal with it anymore. Funny! :)

No, not only do I not have a nut allergy, but I don't even know anyone who does, even in passing. One of my ex-girlfriends had a metal allergy. For instance if she got the wrong kind of metal belt buckle or if the button on her pants was the wrong kind of metal... it would cause a rash, but it was far from fatal.

On that point though, I'm not so convinced as he is that if we stopped worrying about nut allergies they would go away in a generation or two as all the people with nut allergies died. For instance, the medicine used to treat serious nut allergies, EpiPen, Twinject, essentially epinephrine autoinjectors didn't always exist. As a matter of fact for most of human history we didn't even know why exactly anaphylactic shock happened, much less have an emergency treatment for it.

To me this directly points to an obvious reality, it's likely just not treating nut allergies would only succeed in making us horrifying and inhuman, and food allergies would still manifest in the next generation.

http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask224

This source seems to establish that sometimes you have identical twins, one with a peanut allergy and one without.... so while it may be hereditary, not everyone who is going to carry the genes will develop the allergy. It might be a simple as one twin getting diaper rash cream made with penut oil as a baby and the other not... or the mother eating penuts while breast feeding... (If that article is to be believed.)

So really I think he's just about wrong for every point of this. Funny as it may actually be, (It got a chuckle out of me as well) it's far from being true or wise.

In fact the only way to truly do what he is talking about might be to screen and kill everyone who carries genes for food allergies, regardless if they have the allergy themselves or not. Die Endlösung der foodenfrage if you will. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution) Straight up horrifying naziish eugenics which is, in every way, objectively worse then worrying about food allergies. (Which still might not even work)