It has led to overcrowding, increased taxes (to pay for medicad and social security), the continuation of some genetic diseases that we should wipe out, higher demand in food and medicines, etc

12/15/2006 2:19:50 PM

If y'all keep this up, some of these threads are bound to get locked.

There are advantages to having more folks alive, though, as much as population control folks might prefer you believe otherwise.

12/15/2006 2:26:14 PM

Quote :

"the continuation of some genetic diseases that we should wipe out"

So you support eugenics, but have a problem with modern medicine?

12/15/2006 2:26:52 PM

Eugenics is fairly oldschool, really.

12/15/2006 2:33:25 PM

^^

There's a difference between eugenics and letting natural selection work itself out.

12/15/2006 3:15:59 PM

Riiiight. There's also no difference between telling people they can't have treatment and telling people they have no right to live.

12/15/2006 3:18:18 PM

Quote :

" There are advantages to having more folks alive, though, as much as population control folks might prefer you believe otherwise."

Greater pool for making soylent green, for example.

12/15/2006 3:41:34 PM

if we got rid of undesirable genetic traits i would no longer be able to watch obese children fight over the yogurt machine at golden corral

12/15/2006 3:44:30 PM

SYSTEMS THEORY FTW

12/15/2006 3:44:35 PM

One thing we can spank them for (in honesty) is creating a culture of medicine addicts. Ever notice how few medicines there are that only require you take them until your ill is cured? No, what you see instead are medicines prescribed for a person to take for the rest of his or her life.

Anyone else remember back when you just took a medicine until you fucking felt better?

Another thing modern medicine has killed is humor on television. How do you get back to laughing at the Daily Show after hearing the phrase "anal leakage" listed as a side affect about three or four dozen times during the commercial break? Medicine commercials used to be few and far between. Now they practically own the entire commercial break after 8pm.

12/15/2006 4:01:01 PM

especially VD commercials...they're always so happy they have herpes though.

12/15/2006 4:05:27 PM

i hope i get the herp just so i'll be motivated to hike and kayak

12/15/2006 4:17:16 PM

this thread is stupid

modern medicine improves quality of life

12/15/2006 6:10:53 PM

Quote :

"Riiiight. There's also no difference between telling people they can't have treatment and telling people they have no right to live."

That's not anywhere near what i'm implying, better luck trolling next time.

12/15/2006 6:25:34 PM

in the sense that we're deluding ourselves into believing we won't die, sure

but society will live on

12/15/2006 7:37:40 PM

i cant wait til we figure out the human genome and start cloning and shit

thats gonna be awesome

12/15/2006 7:41:25 PM

Quote :

"modern medicine improves quality of life"

Yes it does, but in some cases its stupid.

Lets pump a 50 year old woman (or another woman who's having problems conceiving) full of hormones and see how many children she pops out? 6? 7? Hell, lets go 8 or 9. Fuck adoption, I want 9 of my own.

Overeat? No problem, we'll get you a nice tummy tuck and liposuction.

Heart attack because you eat McDs everyday? Triple bypass coming on up

Kid a little bit hyper? Here throw some Adderal or Ritalin at him

etc

12/15/2006 11:46:47 PM

Are you really this stupid in real life?

12/16/2006 1:33:52 AM

Quote :

"i cant wait til we figure out the human genome and start cloning and shit thats gonna be awesome"

72k posts on an internet message board, lol, get a life

12/16/2006 5:45:29 AM

Quote :

"in the sense that we're deluding ourselves into believing we won't die, sure"

We probably will be able to live forever rather soon. (Only the rich at first, of course.) There's no why you shouldn't be able to sustain a human body indefinitely. You only need energy, materials, and the right tools to do the maintenance. With nanobiotech, all that is coming.

12/16/2006 11:07:00 AM

yeah i can't help but wonder sometime how some people reproduce.

like the 300lb fat woman at walmart w/ 3 kids, i wonder how drunk the father had to be

12/16/2006 11:13:45 AM

Quote :

"Modern Medicine Has Killed Is Killing Society"

True.
The exploitation of intellectual property by the Medical-Industrial Complex is to blame.

The overcrowding it causes is a huge problem. People actually think it's OK to live in dense populations. It clearly is not.

Humans are mortal, and we need to start acting that way. There is a clear analogy between...

animal cells : programmed cell death: cancer
::
individual humans : natural human mortality : lethal overpopulation

People need to understand this analogy.

The socialization of medicine, which might happen under an upcoming Democratic administration, will undoubtedly be the straw that breaks America's back.

Quote :

"culture of medicine addicts"

The fascism that exists in the Medical-Industrial Complex is to blame. Nearly the entire practice of medicine in the US constitutes a giant cartel.

If a young benevolent entrepreneur sees that 100% of the existing pharmaceutical companies (or medical research companies in general,) are creating this culture of medicine addicts and wants to do the American thing by starting his/her own pharmaceutical company that does things differently by developing cures and not simply treatments, he/she can't--because of bullshit laws that the fascist Medical-Industrial Complex paid legislators to pass.

The very system that America is founded on--THE FREE MARKET--must actually be free in order to work. If the Medical-Industrial Complex were to be abolished, hundreds if not thousands of highly educated and motivated young students/graduates would quickly REDEFINE what medicine is in this country. They would be able to start companies to compete with the current public-private medical oligopolies and drive prices down so that EVERYONE HAS ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE AGAIN!!! Drugs, non-drug treatments and cures would be developed to replace the "take-these-pills-every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life" BULLSHIT TREATMENTS that are ACTUALLY AND WILLFULLY DESIGNED to be that way.

Quote :

"We probably will be able to live forever rather soon. (Only the rich at first, of course.) There's no [reason] why you shouldn't be able to sustain a human body indefinitely. You only need energy, materials, and the right tools to do the maintenance. With nanobiotech, all that is coming."

First off, you are wrong. (I can only hope you are trolling…..)
Second, I'm not going to debate it.
Third, douchebags with that kind of stupid, irresponsible, fantastical nonsense of a perspective on life, humanity and the future, SHOULD ALL BE SENT TO MARS--LEAVING THE NATURAL ORGANIC EARTH ALONE. I WANT TO LAUGH AT YOU AS YOUR FLAWLESS "TITANIC" 100%-ENGINEERED LIFE COMES CRASHING DOWN. I WANT TO DRINK THE TEARS OF YOUR DYING DAUGHTER AS SHE ASKS WHY DIDN'T THE FAMILY STAY ON EARTH AND SIMPLY GROW ORGANIC VEGETABLE LIKE HUMANS ARE SUPPOSED TO.

God Damn--If you aren't trolling.....you, and everyone like you, should be executed.
(I'd go even further to say that your dead bodies should fertilize my tomatoes, but you're probably full of toxic metals and shit.....)

12/16/2006 11:43:38 AM

Quote :

"We probably will be able to live forever rather soon. (Only the rich at first, of course.) There's no why you shouldn't be able to sustain a human body indefinitely. You only need energy, materials, and the right tools to do the maintenance. With nanobiotech, all that is coming."

You apparently know nothing about nanotechnology, but it's sweet that you're one of the delusional I mentioned.

12/16/2006 2:19:51 PM

Oh come on. Combine the advances in nanotech with the advances in AI and I think there might be a little smoke to the idea, if not a fire.

12/16/2006 2:45:13 PM

Seriously, if you knew how much work went into making even one computer chip, you wouldn't say "We'll totally cure death in our lifetime!"

That's just absolutely insane. I have no idea why nanotechnology is viewed as some kind of miracle worker, but no, I really don't see that happening at all.

12/17/2006 12:52:14 AM

Quote :

"God Damn--If you aren't trolling.....you, and everyone like you, should be executed. (I'd go even further to say that your dead bodies should fertilize my tomatoes, but you're probably full of toxic metals and shit.....)"

Settle down, dude. Smoke some weed if you have to. It's all speculation, of course, but assuming things will stay the same is much more a leap. Denial isn't going to help anyone. It's going to possible. Whether living indefinitely is good thing, though, is an open question.

Quote :

"Seriously, if you knew how much work went into making even one computer chip, you wouldn't say "We'll totally cure death in our lifetime!""

That doesn't follow. Besides, not that much work goes into making a single computer chip. Those suckers are mass produced.

Look, the only part that is debatable is how soon it'll happen.

http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/ap_Kurzweil_050213.html

It may not happen in Ray's lifetime, but it'll almost certainly happen by the end of yours. 50+ years is a long, long time.

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 1:33 AM. Reason : weed]

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 1:35 AM. Reason : question]

12/17/2006 1:29:44 AM

hempster, speaking in absolutes, "overpopulation" has not yet been invented. According to a U.N. study with existing technology (the study was back in 2001 or something) this planet could easily support 20 billion people. By the time we have 20 billion people (the demographics say never) we will have technology the likes of which are unknown today.

As for your analogy that "people need to understand", it is bullshit: people are as unlike cells as can be possible. For example, to use a 17th century example: the more foxes introduced into an ecosystem, the fewer chickens there will be; conversely, the more humans introduced into an ecosystem, the more chickens there will be.

This example was driven from an odd correlation noticed in rural areas: as the human population grew, so did the fox population (later traps were introduced and this correlation was broken) because more humans meant more farms and therefore more opportunities for pilfered chickens.

To your example, the more cells there are, the less nutrients are available for new cells. Conversely, the more people there are, the more nutrients will be produced through the application of intellect for new people.

12/17/2006 1:51:26 AM

Quote :

"That doesn't follow. Besides, not that much work goes into making a single computer chip. Those suckers are mass produced. "

Mass production does not make the work less intricate by any stretch of the imagination. The development of the goddamn things took forever, with all the layers of photoresist and metal required to make the transistors, etc. Honestly, you're making an insane jump by saying that we'll be able to live forever eventually.

Not to mention that life would cease to be as important if we all could.

12/17/2006 4:07:10 AM

Quote :

"the more people there are, the more nutrients will be produced through the application of intellect for new people"

Angiogenesis uses "on/off switches".
Cancer's exploitation of these mechanisms follows the same metaphor as the programmed cell death part of my analogy. In a way, you supported my point instead of refuting it.... aha

Quote :

"As for your analogy that "people need to understand", it is bullshit: people are as unlike cells as can be possible."

It really bothers me when people don't know how to use analogies:
http://www.thewolfweb.com/message_topic.aspx?topic=382094&page=1#8196445

I'm not comparing people to cells.
I'm comparing the relationship between {people, mortality & lethal overpopulation}
and the relationship between {cells, programmed cell death, & cancer}
plx 2 learn logic, kthx.

Quote :

"cure death"

....so then, abortion is how you cure pregnancy?

Seriously though, no one should EVER use the phrase "cure death"....
....except to say that it shouldn't be a used as a phrase--like I just did. Wait, what?

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 9:02 AM. Reason :

12/17/2006 8:58:08 AM

everytime i stumble in here im amazed at how much you people care about so little.

12/17/2006 9:42:31 AM

hempster, I got your analogy. I did not miss it, it was just incorrect. Curring mortality DOES NOT automatically lead to lethal overpopulation.

If I wanted to fix your analogy, it would look like this:
animal cells : programmed cell death : cancer : nutrient starvation
individual humans : natural human mortality : higher population : higher carrying capacity

Do you get my analogy? The more people you have the more people can be supported. The more cancer cells you have the fewer cells can be supported.

12/17/2006 10:11:17 AM

Quote :

"The development of the goddamn things took forever, with all the layers of photoresist and metal required to make the transistors, etc."

Not forever by a long shot. Forty years ago, microprocessors didn't exist.

Quote :

"Honestly, you're making an insane jump by saying that we'll be able to live forever eventually."

Indefinitely, not forever. I'm not saying we'll be able survive the end of the universe, if that happens. But as long as you have energy and materials, why shouldn't you be able to sustain a human life? It's only a matter of finding the right tools. That'll happen sooner or later.

12/17/2006 2:11:48 PM

An overall increase in life span won't necessarily lead to an increase in population. In the short term, it would, but as more people started living longer, people would likely naturally have less kids, or have kids later in life, causing population growth to even out.

It would probably fix some problems if we could live as long as we wanted to, with people not feeling desperate to achieve certain life goals before they die.

12/17/2006 2:36:12 PM

Not losing the most knowledgable members of society could also be a plus.

Or a minus. Those old bastards might hold back change. Who knows.

12/17/2006 2:54:55 PM

Quote :

"i hope i get the herp just so i'll be motivated to hike and kayak"

hahahahahahahaha awesome

12/17/2006 5:59:30 PM

Quote :

"Indefinitely, not forever. I'm not saying we'll be able survive the end of the universe, if that happens. But as long as you have energy and materials, why shouldn't you be able to sustain a human life? It's only a matter of finding the right tools. That'll happen sooner or later."

Uh, people already live indefinitely- I really don't see why you'd even want to live for 5000 years. And no, it won't happen. But seeing as how you don't understand the science, I don't expect you to be reasonable about this.

12/17/2006 7:32:52 PM

Quote :

"Uh, people already live indefinitely-"

So far, no human has managed to live more than 122.4 years.

Quote :

"And no, it won't happen. But seeing as how you don't understand the science, I don't expect you to be reasonable about this."

What is your scientific objection to idea of greatly extending life using nanotechnology?

"OMF T3H K0MPUT3R CHIPZ IS HARD TO MAKE!" doesn't really cut it.

Note that some other lifeforms do not switch off as we do. The bristlecone pine is the most dramatic example. And certainly AIs, which will be at least as smart as people in forty years, should be able to sustain themselves indefinitely.

12/17/2006 8:21:18 PM

Quote :

"What is your scientific objection to idea of greatly extending life using nanotechnology? "OMF T3H K0MPUT3R CHIPZ IS HARD TO MAKE!" doesn't really cut it. Note that some other lifeforms do not switch off as we do. The bristlecone pine is the most dramatic example. And certainly AIs, which will be at least as smart as people in forty years, should be able to sustain themselves indefinitely."

Okay, speaking from the research projects on things like cholesterol regulators or sensors in bloodstreams (one of which I remember was an extender that kept blood vessels open in case of plaque buildup), for example, are nowhere near completion. The research done at these levels is built up in such small steps that I doubt we'll ever make these things. Seriously, the mechanisms aren't downpat yet- there're problems with attachment, blood pH, and most of all, making a device that'd perform forever. That just doesn't happen yet. Unless you want to get these replaced every few years (which would cause significant damage to the vessels over and over), then there's no easily implementation that could possibly suffice for so long.

Why are we even fighting nature so hard on this? Sure, bristlecone pines have lived for 4700 years- but if we aren't supposed to, why the fuck are we trying to?

Quote :

"So far, no human has managed to live more than 122.4 years."

I meant in the sense that none of us know how long we're going to live. Just because someone hasn't lived longer doesn't mean it couldn't naturally happen.


[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 8:51 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2006 8:49:44 PM

What is this "supposed" to? Doesn't sound very scientific to me.

12/17/2006 8:51:14 PM

If we all die in less than 4000 years, then evidence suggests humans can't and won't live that long. I don't see what's wrong with nature's death system.

fucking semantics bullshit

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 9:00 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2006 8:53:59 PM

It's not semantics bullshit. You're assuming that humans are built with some sense of purpose or design.

Quote :

"If we all die in less than 4000 years, then evidence suggests humans can't and won't live that long. I don't see what's wrong with nature's death system."

Because we haven't done it in the past, we can't do it in the future? Wow, I'm glad you're not controlling where the funding goes.

12/17/2006 9:15:46 PM

No, I just don't see why this is the final aim of medicine. Why is longevity the most important thing?

And by saying that, aren't you also assuming our purpose is to cheat death eventually?

I definitely think science can solve problems, but I don't think death should be one of them.

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 9:28 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2006 9:25:38 PM

Quote :

"No, I just don't see why this is the final aim of medicine. Why is longevity the most important thing?"

Because being alive is awesome.

Quote :

"And by saying that, aren't you also assuming our purpose is to cheat death eventually?"

Uh, we define our own purpose as humans. Let's try to stay alive.

12/17/2006 9:28:32 PM

By all means, try to do so. I'll believe it when I see it.

12/17/2006 9:37:43 PM

It might be hard to do, it might not be possible. But you oppose the quest for longer life with a weird amount of vitriol. Not everybody hates life as much as you.

12/17/2006 9:43:11 PM

Quote :

"Okay, speaking from the research projects on things like cholesterol regulators or sensors in bloodstreams (one of which I remember was an extender that kept blood vessels open in case of plaque buildup), for example, are nowhere near completion. The research done at these levels is built up in such small steps that I doubt we'll ever make these things."

Scientific progress tends to be exponential. That's why projects can seem almost infinitely far away from completion at first, yet still finish on time. Just look at the human genome project for an example of this.

Quote :

"That just doesn't happen yet. Unless you want to get these replaced every few years (which would cause significant damage to the vessels over and over), then there's no easily implementation that could possibly suffice for so long."

Yes, obviously we can't do it now. Advances have to, and are, being made. Self-repairing materials are coming soon. That may help with the maintenance problem.

Quote :

"Why are we even fighting nature so hard on this? Sure, bristlecone pines have lived for 4700 years- but if we aren't supposed to, why the fuck are we trying to?"

That's a different question entirely. But I can assure you, people are trying. Obviously, there's a market for technology that extends life.

Quote :

"it might not be possible."

Only if you believe human beings are something more than physical. As far as we can tell, we're up of matter, just like anything else. We've got plenty of energy and repair materials. The problem is finding the right tools, the precision to repair our bodies. That's where nanotechnology comes in.

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 9:53 PM. Reason : d]

12/17/2006 9:49:22 PM

Quote :

"Only if you believe human beings are something more than physical. As far as we can tell, we're up of matter, just like anything else. We've got plenty of energy and repair materials. The problem is finding the right tools, the precision to repair our bodies. That's where nanotechnology comes in."

Things are materially possible but still not tractable for a long time.

12/17/2006 10:08:35 PM

I agree it might take a long time, though I rather doubt it. If something stopped research (and there are a few things that could), it might even never happen. But I don't see how it could be physically impossible.

12/17/2006 10:13:20 PM

Quote :

"But you oppose the quest for longer life with a weird amount of vitriol. Not everybody hates life as much as you."

I don't hate life at all, and I have no idea why you'd think so. Life is, however, only important because it is so short. Will it cease to mean anything if we could all live forever? People have been asking these questions for a long time.

[Edited on December 17, 2006 at 10:23 PM. Reason : .]

12/17/2006 10:23:05 PM

And you presume an answer. Your attitude towards this is defeatist. You've provided no good argument against the possibility of this other than "we haven't yet" and "lol like to see you do it."

12/17/2006 10:26:00 PM