Jan Jekielek

It's another thing about Poland, right?

You mentioned something about how shocking what the Germans did.

My comment was, well, that was like the 15th time they did that.

So there's a lot of history, both from the East and the West, of Poland being overrun and then sort of surviving against all odds.

You're actually hitting the nail right on the head.

And this is such an important lesson.

It's something that we've somehow forgotten, I think.

From the medical perspective, actually, and this is sort of a central theme in Killed to Order, there's kind of two poles around how you can approach medicine or public health even.

One is what you would call Hippocratic medicine.

And that is where there's doctor-patient relationship

And the doctor looks at the patient and tries to understand the totality of their issue, who they are, their genetics, their biology, the environment, everything.

And at the same time, if they're going to do an intervention, they want to harm that person or the potential for harm has to be minimized.

That's where this do no harm maxim comes.

That's traditional Hippocratic medicine.

It's this population of doctors working with their patients, trying to do their best for each individual.

The other side of that is something called utilitarian bioethics, okay?

And utilitarian bioethics is the greatest good for the greatest number, okay?

And that is something where basically you can sacrifice a few people if it is for the greatest good, right?

Then it's okay to sacrifice the few for the good of the many.

The problem with that, and this is one of the things I realized to your point, right?