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Ron Bailey debates a bioethicist who thinks there are some doors man was not meant to open.
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|4.7.06 @ 3:16PM|#
"Sounds about right to me" is right.
I really cannot imagine where these people are coming from. He seems like a reasonable fellow, intelligent and educated way beyond me, but yet he sees the fight against old age and dying as a bad thing? I'm not highly optimistic we'll ever be able to cheat death entirely, but I sure as hell enjoy being alive, even with all the stupid shit I do on a daily basis to cause myself grief, enough to want to keep it going for the forseeable future.
(Caveat that I can change my mind at any time!)
|4.7.06 @ 3:23PM|#
The reason server sqirrels think that there are some comments that man should never post.
Where can I send a bag of nuts to bribe the little buggers?
|4.7.06 @ 3:31PM|#
Why does BioEthicist always mean BioLuddite? What is our moral imperative to pay these people?
|4.7.06 @ 3:47PM|#
I'm sure that there were these luddite "bioethicists" (probably with different labels, of course) way back when the standard life expectancy here was, oh, I dunno, say, 45? And I'm sure that they too were blathering on about how we needed to focus on causes of death that affected 25 year olds, and ignore the ones that affected 40 year olds...because they're gonna die anyway.
I just don't see how, with the leaps and bounds that we make every year in medtech, any reasonably educated person could just throw up their arms and say, "ahhh, 75 years is where we draw the line!" Why? Who's to say that we won't or can't make leaps and bounds that push life even further, and delay the effects of aging? It just seems so rediculous to attempt to declare a certain age as the objective limit.
|4.7.06 @ 5:12PM|#
To engage in a bit of thread highjackery, I just read about an interesting biotech/nanotech development at MIT: Virus-Assembled Batteries. Hmmmmm.
|4.7.06 @ 5:41PM|#
Pro - I saw that earlier this morning.
|4.7.06 @ 9:11PM|#
bubba - I think it's because technology continues to advance, and if you're OK with that, then what's there to say, really? It's only if you feel like wringing your hands and proclaiming that progress is bad that you get called a "bioethicist" by the press.
dc|4.7.06 @ 9:45PM|#
I used to be biotech/GM's biggest fan until I read Margaret Atwood's newest novel, Oryx & Crake. Now... I'm just not so sure. Probably one of the most frightening books I've read since 1984. Well worth a read, even if (especially if?) you're pretty firmly sold on biotech, Atwood really knows how to wrangle a pen.
|4.7.06 @ 11:21PM|#
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
Kevin B. O'Reilly|4.7.06 @ 11:40PM|#
Yes to biomedical research, but compared to what? What *I* object is to government making these decisions -- from how much to invest in what kind of research to how the fruits of that research will be distributed in the marketplace. The amount of research today that yields only marginal benefits is pretty astounding. Is 10 years of R&D worth the extra two or three months at the end of life so many interventions often yield? Is it worth the thousands of dollars it costs?
Perhaps it is -- if that cost is borne by "society." But not if I'm paying the tab. It's possible that we have more research occuring than would occur in a free market, and I think that's a bad thing, because that's money that we, as individuals, could be deploying elsewhere.
|4.8.06 @ 12:13AM|#
Lowdog, ain't it cool?
|4.8.06 @ 7:21AM|#
If you switch doors the the probability of winning will increase to 1/2.
80sfan|4.9.06 @ 3:18PM|#
I'm saving this all to Google "Cache", so as to find it more rapidly in the future