Friday
More of the same
I'm a fan of: Google's annual April Fools' Day pranks, especially, but far from limited to, Gmail Paper from 2007 and Gmail Autopilot from this year. And while I'm on the topic of April Fools pranks, it's important to remember the classics.
I'm not a fan of: the most recent Ethicist column. Randy's wrong, there's almost certainly an ethical duty to disclose one's HIV-positive status to one's housemates, because the consequences of them inadvertently finding out that you were HIV-positive and hadn't told them are likely to be severe panic and emotional harm on their part, even though it's actually the case (per Cohen and the epidemiologist he speaks to, and I don't doubt though also didn't do any independent research to confirm) that the risk of infection by shared use of household items is vanishingly low. And the possibility that housemates will find out even though not told can't be dismissed when deciding whether or not to disclose. I'm undecided on the second question, but Cohen is at best batting .500 this week. While great for baseball, that's not so good for answers to self-selected queries.
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I'm not a fan of: the most recent Ethicist column. Randy's wrong, there's almost certainly an ethical duty to disclose one's HIV-positive status to one's housemates, because the consequences of them inadvertently finding out that you were HIV-positive and hadn't told them are likely to be severe panic and emotional harm on their part, even though it's actually the case (per Cohen and the epidemiologist he speaks to, and I don't doubt though also didn't do any independent research to confirm) that the risk of infection by shared use of household items is vanishingly low. And the possibility that housemates will find out even though not told can't be dismissed when deciding whether or not to disclose. I'm undecided on the second question, but Cohen is at best batting .500 this week. While great for baseball, that's not so good for answers to self-selected queries.
