
Anti-vaxxer leaflet found inserted in book sold by Amazon - mprev
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/apr/29/amazon-investigates-after-anti-vaxxer-leaflet-found-hidden-in-childrens-book
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dsfyu404ed
How is this news? You buy books on eBay and half the time they come with
random crap like that in them. Usually it's religiously driven but I think
that's just the difference between the eBay demographic and the Amazon/Whole
Foods demographic.

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yumraj
Perhaps some lawyers here can opine:

Is it not possible for some of those affected by the recent measles outbreak,
and others adversely impacted, to file a class action against the anti-vaxxers
?

Call me paranoid, but lately I've been thinking about getting the MMR as an
adult who is in mid 40s - and I'm pissed. So, I can't even imagine what
someone who is directly impacted might be feeling.

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thatfrenchguy
Aren't you only affected by the measles outbreak if you're an anti-vax in the
first place... ?

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Piskvorrr
Or too young, or immunodeficient, or your vaccination expired (some of the
older models only provide some decades of immunity, where a lifetime
protection was expected) etc. Nope, this is not "mere" self-harm: innocent
bystanders have already been killed this way.

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thatfrenchguy
I didn’t know, thanks for the explanation !

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CharlesColeman
My understanding is that Amazon commingles FBA inventory from different Amazon
marketplace sellers with their own, so maybe this leaflet ultimately came from
an Amazon Marketplace Seller, even if the book wasn't directly ordered from
them.

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shaki-dora
Funny how everyone is in this threat is objecting to „this useless crap on the
frontpage“, on an article describing parents upset about useless crap coming
with their book.

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modzu
a perfect opportunity to start a conversation with her coming-of-age son about
critical thinking and how to make informed decisions. ignorant ideas and
opinions are everywhere. the best defense is being capable of logical
reasoning.

it's also important that we are exposed _and open_ to ideas that challenge our
beliefs. wisdom begins in doubt.

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shaki-dora
By that logic, no propaganda could ever have any negative impact. We should
therefore put fliers with all sorts of maybe just random text, or even a
sampling of the most vile hate speech we can find into every book sold. Then,
we sit back and watch the world improve. Because a thousand monkeys with
typewriters may not be Shakespeare, but they are a learning opportunity.

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modzu
what do you mean "by that logic"? i can't even follow your argument.

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angel_j
Who gatekeeps the front page? How does inane crap like this get up here, with
only 11 upvotes?

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gus_massa
The order in the front page is essentially points/age^2. (The exact details
are elsewhere [1].)

This post has less than an hour, so the priority is 11/1^2=11

The third post is currently
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19778023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19778023)
that has 98 points in 3 hour, so the priority is 98/3^3=10.9

So ... probably just a weird order when the story is too young, let it age and
drop.

[1] The exact formula is something like (poins-1)/(age+1)^1.6 or something
like that. points/age^2 is a not very bad approximation, but it's much easier
to calculate by hand. There are also flags and penalties applied
automatically, by the mods and by the users. (The exact details are
elsewhere.)

