I didn't get the context about the claim that EVERYONE who got the measles had been vaccinated. I know that in some of the outbreaks in the USA right now, they're mostly raging amongst the unvaccinated.
That said, vaccines aren't always perfectly effective. People's immune systems differ. MMR is 97% effective against measles after 2 doses. That means that 3% of people are susceptible despite vaccination.
When you have an insanely contagious disease like measles, which can infect 20 new people for every case in a population that is not immune, you can expect a good amount of cases in VACCINATED people even when they've been vaccinated.
That 3% of the vaccinated, and those who are immunocompromised by, say, antirejection drugs so that they can keep an organ that they've had donated to them, or who are on cancer chemotherapy, must depend on "herd immunity" to protect them from measles.
Herd immunity is the effect that if enough of a population is immune to a disease, it can't spread in the population, and no member of the population is likely to be exposed, ever. For highly contagious measles and with a 97% vaccine effectiveness, herd immunity requires more than 90% of people be vaccinated.
Anti-vaxxers thus put EVERYONE at risk, not just their poor helpless kids who are the primary victims of their parent's negligence of their civic duty to protect both their kids and the nation from disease. This is a big part of the reason that there is such disgust for anti-vaxxer behavior from the rest of us.
Latin Americans are generally vaccinated (MMR) at a higher rate than people in the USA.
I can tell you that when I looked it up online (google search) I found that Latin American countries had higher reported rates of MMR vaccination of their people than the USA does, by and large.
I don't know who brought measles to the USA (illegals or unvaccinated travellers, or vaccinated travellers who got sick anyway), but looking at the stats, it's more justified for Latin America to bar immigration from the USA to them than vice versa.
Kind of took the wind out of any ideas I may have had about illegal immigrants from Latin America bringing disease to USA. Either exaggerated or not true, more likely driven by racist bigotry than fact, at least when it comes to measles/mumps/rubella.
In fact, given that I have heaps of evidence of racist bigotry, (black people get criminal convictions and far harsher punishments in USA for the *exact same crime* and with the *exact same criminal record* (look it up!)) and no real information about immigrants bringing disease, I'm just going to assume claims of immigrants bringing disease in at larger rates than native spread are more likely racist bigotry than fact. Occam's razor--not guaranteed to be correct, but a good heuristic.
My coworker's child died from whooping cough. She was too young to be vaccinated. Better herd immunity would have protected her, saved her life. She didn't just suffer, she died, because the herd immunity around her was too weak to prevent her being exposed to whooping cough.
I'd vote with you on the point of whether parental rights outweighs the imperative of society's interest in protecting ITSELF and protecting these kids, and protecting those who can't be vaccinated, and those for whom vaccines weren't effective.
You know, there are news stories I've read that have found a correlation between increased autism rates and being near agricultural fields where insecticides are sprayed. I like pointing out these news stories I've read to people. (See below).
While I will concede that correlation doesn't prove causation, in the face of data contradicting other causes for autism, I find that exposure to known neurotoxins sort of plausible as a cause for autism, much more so than other soundly discredited theories.
I think the apparent correlation between autism and insecticide exposure warrants further study. How about you?
It's ironic that you're trying to prove this assertion with facts.
Good luck with that! And I mean that literally--I really wish you the best of luck, and I hope you succeed. I say the same thing as you to people when I can, might even use your links (thanks for those).
Getting vaccinations is like registering for the draft. All eligible Americans ought to do both, it's our duty as Americans to help with the national defense.
And whomever thinks that fighting contagious diseases with the most effective tool available--namely widespread vaccinations, isn't part of the national defense is really, really wrong.
Getting vaccinations is nothing more or less than everyone's minimum contribution to the national defense--and should be seen that way.
Hate to tell you this, but even intelligent people can fall prey to cognitive traps like confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and groupthink, where they adopt the beliefs of their community regardless of whether those beliefs are true or not.
You've probably got some incorrect beliefs yourself, if you bothered to put them all up for scrutiny. But that's it, many people don't have time to bother.
Those who refuse to vaccinate are, in a sense, betraying the rest of us in the war vs. merciless, pitiless, brutal enemies of all humans, namely, contagious diseases.
You could think of getting vaccinated as like registering for the US draft. It's part of the national defense. Arguably more important, in terms of casualties, than military service is.
Conscientious objectors to the draft are often made to serve in non-violent ways. Perhaps we should make "conscientious objectors" (if we allow this at all) to vaccination live in isolation from everyone else, on an island perhaps, where they can be quarantined.
To put a more optimistic spin upon human nature, let me repeat something I read:
What's really remarkable about people is not how much we fight and have conflict, but, by and large, how well we *get along*. There's pretty much no other animal on the planet that manages to live in big complex societies so well, and that's PRECISELY because "human nature" lets us get along in groups.
You could even argue that getting along in groups is more important to humanity's success than big brains or tools--though big brains certainly helps with getting along in groups--but isn't necessary (see ants and bees.)
I'm sorry to say that even smart people fall prey to the mental traps of confirmation bias, groupthink (where they adopt the beliefs of their community correct or not), anchoring bias, and other mental fallacies.
You may define such people as morons, but I *almost* guarantee you, that you do the same in some areas where YOU have incorrect beliefs.
Not everyone has the time to put all their beliefs under a microscope and people use mental heuristics to come to quick conclusions that are unfortunately wrong, sometimes. Even really smart people.
Such as you, in simply defining people who have some incorrect beliefs as "morons". Just as with them, the truth is a bit more nuanced, but you just simplify it.
I remember doing a bit of research and finding that vaccination rates in may Latin American countries (everything south of the US, essentially) is higher than vaccination rates in the USA, at least for measles, which is what I found data on.
I suspect that claims that people from Latin America are a risk to USA disease wise are exaggerated and probably have more to do with racism than fact.
Men within a certain age range can be drafted into the US military "at gunpoint" to fight and die for their country.
In order to defend our country from infectious diseases that have killed hundreds of millions, we need another MANDATORY civil service.
Namely, everyone must be vaccinated with just a few medical exceptions. This is what is necessary to defend our country. This is what we should expect and demand of our fellow Americans.
Your proposed punitive measures toward people for the actions of OTHER people is sure to backfire.
It becomes absolutely the incentive for the the "rehabilitators" to make sure no one ever, ever leaves their care, just so they don't face consequences.
Talk about a perverse incentive.
Think it through harder, and study how possible it is to really predict someone's behavior. You might find that rather than all this psychological stuff, it's better to invest in reintegrating people effectively into society and attack poverty, drug abuse, and other causes of crime. I don't know that this is the case, I'm just suggesting it.
I heard the omega 3 fatty acid story slightly differently than you tell it. ALA is the primary omega 3 fatty acid present in plant sources. Your body doesn't want ALA, it wants DHA or other forms of omega 3.
No problem, your body will convert ALA into DHA or whatever it needs. However, I read that this metabolic pathway competes with a process that converts dietary omega 6 fatty acids into what the body needs. So if you have a lot of omega 6 fatty acids in your diet, and not very much ALA, your body can't effectively make enough omega-3 like DHA that it needs, even though there's sufficient ALA. In this circumstance, you're better off eating DHA or whatever your body needs directly. I.e., not flax oil, but rather fish oil.
So flax definitely helps, but you'll want to dial back the amount of plant-based omega-6 as well.
As some other responses to your post have said, there's a problem with detecting too much stuff and having false, or false-ish positives.
There's a cancer researcher who has postulated that cancers show up all the time, but are mostly rejected by the immune system while still small and never really cause any problems or require any treatment.
In fact, I *think* I had a basal cell carcinoma (looked just like one, i swear) and I was on the verge of going to get it treated when it got irritated, started to bleed a bit, and then vanished over a few days. Gone. No scar. Poof. Never came back. It's been > 5 years. In my case, I would have been trading a low-risk surgery that would have left a scar with no-risk immune attack on that possible basal cell carcinoma that left no scar.
I suspect a lot of "early detections" would lead to medical interventions that caused more harm than good, and are costly. Better to put the medical resources into prenatal care and immunizations. Big bang/buck there.
I've dealt with several HP computers directly over the years, some laptops and otherwise, and am familiar with dozens of others who have had HP computers as well.
I have *no* impression that HP equipment is less reliable than any other brand of computer. I think the total number of samples within my awareness is about 30-50 computers. Yes, some have died or have had parts die, but not that many.
I don't have direct experience with any repair attempts on any of this equipment, though.
I agree that the *current* EZ pass system isn't horrible. However, if you start putting EZ pass or an equivalent for every time you drive out of your garage onto any road, that is when I really think that maintaining all that billing infrastructure is going to be horrifying.
So I wasn't attempting to address your "major arteries" rather pan-opticon billing of every use of every public road ever.
I can't help but think that it's actually more efficient to use taxes to fund transit. Installing ALL THAT infrastructure to collect tolls is going to be expensive too.
Think about it, tracking a gazillion micropayments has got to be more difficult and costly than taxing people once per year. While it may shift the cost to be more squarely on users, it'll cost society more as a whole. The micropayment system and the administration of it might be so high that even people who "pay more than their share" and subsidize others might end up having MORE money come out of their pocket.
In short, I think it's quite possible that WE net benefit more than the "me"'s who benefit under the micropayment system. Do we really want to screw over society with higher overall costs ("we") to benefit a minority?
And if we do that, for this and many other systems, will the US fail in competition with other societies who do NOT impose such stupid overhead on themselves, effectively wasting resources that could be used productively? (Like our health care system--2x cost for reduced benefit.)
Proton-boron fusion requires temperatures 10x higher than D-T.
What's more, because of the higher atomic number for boron, Bremsstrahlung radiation will cool the plasma (if it's thermal) faster than the fusion reactions heat it.
If the plasma isn't thermal, it's actually really hard to keep it nonthermal (entropy tends to win very quickly.) So it seems to me that aneutronic fusion reactions are hopeless for a plasma where losses due to Bremsstrahlung are larger than the fusion power will be.
The Sun can be cooler because it has a couple of things going for it: it's optically dense and gravitationally confined. That is, the core is SO big and SO dense that radiation doesn't just leak heat out into space. So the plasma doesn't cool down immediately. Also, the plasma density is maintained by the weight of all the mass of the rest of the star.
Lab experiments, and in fact any plasma on earth, have neither of these advantages going for them.
That is why the Sun can maintain its fusion reaction and why it is so hard to create fusion on earth.
I've seen unrelated news stories that have found correlations to being close to agricultural fields and rates of autism. Those news reports didn't go into a lot of detail, but evidence does seem to be mounting about a connection between autism and pesticides. It's not just these guys making isolated claims.
As is usual, the evidence is going to have to be weighed, critiqued, and the cost/benefits of a ban also considered.
Plastic is actually pretty diverse stuff chemically. Enzymes that can unzip one type of plastic are pretty unsuited to others. Also, a lot of plastics are spiked with chemicals like chlorine that aren't usually incorporated into standard molecules used by life and thus aren't likely to be all that metabolizable by just about anything.
What's more, just because something *can* digest plastic doesn't mean that it'll be that efficient about it. Lignin, a component of wood, is pretty resistant to any sort of digestion. Dead trees can take years to decay. Most forms of life just find an easier food source than lignin leaving that to a few specialists.
I'm not sure this microbe will evolve quickly if at all, and if it does, I'm not sure it'll really remove the issue on a timescale faster than humans add to the problem.
You make an analogy between physical devices and internet devices. Your analogy is dead wrong. Here is why:
An internet-connect device has potentially billions of attackers. Billions. Literally anyone, anywhere on the planet, any time. To contrast, someone has to show up to your door, car, phone.
Furthermore, hacking internet devices can be automated, so ONE attacker can potentially attack ALL the devices on the internet that share that vulnerability.
So your RISK on your internet connected device so far exceeds your risk of any of your physical devices that to make an analogy between the two is nonsensical.
Last, your unsecured devices presents a RISK to everyone else on the network: you get hacked and now your device is an offensive tool being used against others. This is not at ALL like your door lock.
So please, never, ever use the analogies you used again.
That said, I don't advocate bricking devices. I would rather that people acting in defense install patches or disable the device in a reversible way. And I would rather see manufacturers FORCED by laws to provide security for their devices commensurate with the risks they face as internet devices!
Slashdot Mirror
I didn't get the context about the claim that EVERYONE who got the measles had been vaccinated. I know that in some of the outbreaks in the USA right now, they're mostly raging amongst the unvaccinated.
That said, vaccines aren't always perfectly effective. People's immune systems differ. MMR is 97% effective against measles after 2 doses. That means that 3% of people are susceptible despite vaccination.
When you have an insanely contagious disease like measles, which can infect 20 new people for every case in a population that is not immune, you can expect a good amount of cases in VACCINATED people even when they've been vaccinated.
That 3% of the vaccinated, and those who are immunocompromised by, say, antirejection drugs so that they can keep an organ that they've had donated to them, or who are on cancer chemotherapy, must depend on "herd immunity" to protect them from measles.
Herd immunity is the effect that if enough of a population is immune to a disease, it can't spread in the population, and no member of the population is likely to be exposed, ever. For highly contagious measles and with a 97% vaccine effectiveness, herd immunity requires more than 90% of people be vaccinated.
Anti-vaxxers thus put EVERYONE at risk, not just their poor helpless kids who are the primary victims of their parent's negligence of their civic duty to protect both their kids and the nation from disease. This is a big part of the reason that there is such disgust for anti-vaxxer behavior from the rest of us.
--PeterM
Latin Americans are generally vaccinated (MMR) at a higher rate than people in the USA.
I can tell you that when I looked it up online (google search) I found that Latin American countries had higher reported rates of MMR vaccination of their people than the USA does, by and large.
I don't know who brought measles to the USA (illegals or unvaccinated travellers, or vaccinated travellers who got sick anyway), but looking at the stats, it's more justified for Latin America to bar immigration from the USA to them than vice versa.
Kind of took the wind out of any ideas I may have had about illegal immigrants from Latin America bringing disease to USA. Either exaggerated or not true, more likely driven by racist bigotry than fact, at least when it comes to measles/mumps/rubella.
In fact, given that I have heaps of evidence of racist bigotry, (black people get criminal convictions and far harsher punishments in USA for the *exact same crime* and with the *exact same criminal record* (look it up!)) and no real information about immigrants bringing disease, I'm just going to assume claims of immigrants bringing disease in at larger rates than native spread are more likely racist bigotry than fact. Occam's razor--not guaranteed to be correct, but a good heuristic.
--PeterM
I have a lot of empathy for your points:
My coworker's child died from whooping cough. She was too young to be vaccinated. Better herd immunity would have protected her, saved her life. She didn't just suffer, she died, because the herd immunity around her was too weak to prevent her being exposed to whooping cough.
I'd vote with you on the point of whether parental rights outweighs the imperative of society's interest in protecting ITSELF and protecting these kids, and protecting those who can't be vaccinated, and those for whom vaccines weren't effective.
--PeterM
You know, there are news stories I've read that have found a correlation between increased autism rates and being near agricultural fields where insecticides are sprayed. I like pointing out these news stories I've read to people. (See below).
While I will concede that correlation doesn't prove causation, in the face of data contradicting other causes for autism, I find that exposure to known neurotoxins sort of plausible as a cause for autism, much more so than other soundly discredited theories.
I think the apparent correlation between autism and insecticide exposure warrants further study. How about you?
https://www.iflscience.com/hea...
--PeterM
It's ironic that you're trying to prove this assertion with facts.
Good luck with that! And I mean that literally--I really wish you the best of luck, and I hope you succeed. I say the same thing as you to people when I can, might even use your links (thanks for those).
--PeterM
Let's leave politics out of this. Politics is the absolute *worst* source of ignorant tribalism in this country.
And tribalism is EXACTLY what hardens a lot of people into insane positions such as refusing vaccinations.
They go with their TRIBE instead of with the FACTS.
So leave politics out, for the love of humanity and our hope of being FREE of infectious disease!
Getting vaccinations is like registering for the draft. All eligible Americans ought to do both, it's our duty as Americans to help with the national defense.
And whomever thinks that fighting contagious diseases with the most effective tool available--namely widespread vaccinations, isn't part of the national defense is really, really wrong.
Getting vaccinations is nothing more or less than everyone's minimum contribution to the national defense--and should be seen that way.
--PeterM
Hate to tell you this, but even intelligent people can fall prey to cognitive traps like confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and groupthink, where they adopt the beliefs of their community regardless of whether those beliefs are true or not.
You've probably got some incorrect beliefs yourself, if you bothered to put them all up for scrutiny. But that's it, many people don't have time to bother.
--PeterM
Herd immunity is a real factor in vaccinations.
Those who refuse to vaccinate are, in a sense, betraying the rest of us in the war vs. merciless, pitiless, brutal enemies of all humans, namely, contagious diseases.
You could think of getting vaccinated as like registering for the US draft. It's part of the national defense. Arguably more important, in terms of casualties, than military service is.
Conscientious objectors to the draft are often made to serve in non-violent ways. Perhaps we should make "conscientious objectors" (if we allow this at all) to vaccination live in isolation from everyone else, on an island perhaps, where they can be quarantined.
--PeterM
Hello,
To put a more optimistic spin upon human nature, let me repeat something I read:
What's really remarkable about people is not how much we fight and have conflict, but, by and large, how well we *get along*. There's pretty much no other animal on the planet that manages to live in big complex societies so well, and that's PRECISELY because "human nature" lets us get along in groups.
You could even argue that getting along in groups is more important to humanity's success than big brains or tools--though big brains certainly helps with getting along in groups--but isn't necessary (see ants and bees.)
--PeterM
I'm sorry to say that even smart people fall prey to the mental traps of confirmation bias, groupthink (where they adopt the beliefs of their community correct or not), anchoring bias, and other mental fallacies.
You may define such people as morons, but I *almost* guarantee you, that you do the same in some areas where YOU have incorrect beliefs.
Not everyone has the time to put all their beliefs under a microscope and people use mental heuristics to come to quick conclusions that are unfortunately wrong, sometimes. Even really smart people.
Such as you, in simply defining people who have some incorrect beliefs as "morons". Just as with them, the truth is a bit more nuanced, but you just simplify it.
--PeterM
I remember doing a bit of research and finding that vaccination rates in may Latin American countries (everything south of the US, essentially) is higher than vaccination rates in the USA, at least for measles, which is what I found data on.
I suspect that claims that people from Latin America are a risk to USA disease wise are exaggerated and probably have more to do with racism than fact.
--PeterM
Folks,
Men within a certain age range can be drafted into the US military "at gunpoint" to fight and die for their country.
In order to defend our country from infectious diseases that have killed hundreds of millions, we need another MANDATORY civil service.
Namely, everyone must be vaccinated with just a few medical exceptions. This is what is necessary to defend our country. This is what we should expect and demand of our fellow Americans.
The End.
--PeterM
Your proposed punitive measures toward people for the actions of OTHER people is sure to backfire.
It becomes absolutely the incentive for the the "rehabilitators" to make sure no one ever, ever leaves their care, just so they don't face consequences.
Talk about a perverse incentive.
Think it through harder, and study how possible it is to really predict someone's behavior. You might find that rather than all this psychological stuff, it's better to invest in reintegrating people effectively into society and attack poverty, drug abuse, and other causes of crime. I don't know that this is the case, I'm just suggesting it.
Hello,
I heard the omega 3 fatty acid story slightly differently than you tell it. ALA is the primary omega 3 fatty acid present in plant sources. Your body doesn't want ALA, it wants DHA or other forms of omega 3.
No problem, your body will convert ALA into DHA or whatever it needs. However, I read that this metabolic pathway competes with a process that converts dietary omega 6 fatty acids into what the body needs. So if you have a lot of omega 6 fatty acids in your diet, and not very much ALA, your body can't effectively make enough omega-3 like DHA that it needs, even though there's sufficient ALA. In this circumstance, you're better off eating DHA or whatever your body needs directly. I.e., not flax oil, but rather fish oil.
So flax definitely helps, but you'll want to dial back the amount of plant-based omega-6 as well.
--PM
As some other responses to your post have said, there's a problem with detecting too much stuff and having false, or false-ish positives.
There's a cancer researcher who has postulated that cancers show up all the time, but are mostly rejected by the immune system while still small and never really cause any problems or require any treatment.
In fact, I *think* I had a basal cell carcinoma (looked just like one, i swear) and I was on the verge of going to get it treated when it got irritated, started to bleed a bit, and then vanished over a few days. Gone. No scar. Poof. Never came back. It's been > 5 years. In my case, I would have been trading a low-risk surgery that would have left a scar with no-risk immune attack on that possible basal cell carcinoma that left no scar.
I suspect a lot of "early detections" would lead to medical interventions that caused more harm than good, and are costly. Better to put the medical resources into prenatal care and immunizations. Big bang/buck there.
Best,
--PeterM
I've dealt with several HP computers directly over the years, some laptops and otherwise, and am familiar with dozens of others who have had HP computers as well.
I have *no* impression that HP equipment is less reliable than any other brand of computer. I think the total number of samples within my awareness is about 30-50 computers. Yes, some have died or have had parts die, but not that many.
I don't have direct experience with any repair attempts on any of this equipment, though.
I agree that the *current* EZ pass system isn't horrible. However, if you start putting EZ pass or an equivalent for every time you drive out of your garage onto any road, that is when I really think that maintaining all that billing infrastructure is going to be horrifying.
So I wasn't attempting to address your "major arteries" rather pan-opticon billing of every use of every public road ever.
--PM
I can't help but think that it's actually more efficient to use taxes to fund transit. Installing ALL THAT infrastructure to collect tolls is going to be expensive too.
Think about it, tracking a gazillion micropayments has got to be more difficult and costly than taxing people once per year. While it may shift the cost to be more squarely on users, it'll cost society more as a whole. The micropayment system and the administration of it might be so high that even people who "pay more than their share" and subsidize others might end up having MORE money come out of their pocket.
In short, I think it's quite possible that WE net benefit more than the "me"'s who benefit under the micropayment system. Do we really want to screw over society with higher overall costs ("we") to benefit a minority?
And if we do that, for this and many other systems, will the US fail in competition with other societies who do NOT impose such stupid overhead on themselves, effectively wasting resources that could be used productively? (Like our health care system--2x cost for reduced benefit.)
--PeterM
What is this "thallium fusion" of which you speak? Or was that a typo, like the word "therdynamic" in your post?
Proton-boron fusion requires temperatures 10x higher than D-T.
What's more, because of the higher atomic number for boron, Bremsstrahlung radiation will cool the plasma (if it's thermal) faster than the fusion reactions heat it.
If the plasma isn't thermal, it's actually really hard to keep it nonthermal (entropy tends to win very quickly.) So it seems to me that aneutronic fusion reactions are hopeless for a plasma where losses due to Bremsstrahlung are larger than the fusion power will be.
--PeterM
The Sun can be cooler because it has a couple of things going for it: it's optically dense and gravitationally confined. That is, the core is SO big and SO dense that radiation doesn't just leak heat out into space. So the plasma doesn't cool down immediately. Also, the plasma density is maintained by the weight of all the mass of the rest of the star.
Lab experiments, and in fact any plasma on earth, have neither of these advantages going for them.
That is why the Sun can maintain its fusion reaction and why it is so hard to create fusion on earth.
I've seen unrelated news stories that have found correlations to being close to agricultural fields and rates of autism. Those news reports didn't go into a lot of detail, but evidence does seem to be mounting about a connection between autism and pesticides. It's not just these guys making isolated claims.
As is usual, the evidence is going to have to be weighed, critiqued, and the cost/benefits of a ban also considered.
--PeterM
Hello,
Plastic is actually pretty diverse stuff chemically. Enzymes that can unzip one type of plastic are pretty unsuited to others. Also, a lot of plastics are spiked with chemicals like chlorine that aren't usually incorporated into standard molecules used by life and thus aren't likely to be all that metabolizable by just about anything.
What's more, just because something *can* digest plastic doesn't mean that it'll be that efficient about it. Lignin, a component of wood, is pretty resistant to any sort of digestion. Dead trees can take years to decay. Most forms of life just find an easier food source than lignin leaving that to a few specialists.
I'm not sure this microbe will evolve quickly if at all, and if it does, I'm not sure it'll really remove the issue on a timescale faster than humans add to the problem.
--PeterM
You make an analogy between physical devices and internet devices. Your analogy is dead wrong. Here is why:
An internet-connect device has potentially billions of attackers. Billions. Literally anyone, anywhere on the planet, any time. To contrast, someone has to show up to your door, car, phone.
Furthermore, hacking internet devices can be automated, so ONE attacker can potentially attack ALL the devices on the internet that share that vulnerability.
So your RISK on your internet connected device so far exceeds your risk of any of your physical devices that to make an analogy between the two is nonsensical.
Last, your unsecured devices presents a RISK to everyone else on the network: you get hacked and now your device is an offensive tool being used against others. This is not at ALL like your door lock.
So please, never, ever use the analogies you used again.
That said, I don't advocate bricking devices. I would rather that people acting in defense install patches or disable the device in a reversible way. And I would rather see manufacturers FORCED by laws to provide security for their devices commensurate with the risks they face as internet devices!
--PeterM