Is It Right To Stop A Global Killer?
MonsieurEvil
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
Join Date: 2002-01-22 Member: 4Members, Retired Developer, NS1 Playtester, Contributor
<div class="IPBDescription">Inspired by a previous topic</div> Thousands of scientists are right now working around the clock and around the globe to end the great killers of mankind. Cancer, AIDS, heart disease, respiratory disease, other infectious diseases, etc. - all are scourges of humanity and the end of millions and millions of lives every year.
But if you were to cure, say, cancer - would you be doing the world a great service, or disservice? Millions would live, only to lead to the starvation of millions more as food, land, and water became shorter. Ending heart disease, the greatest killer of them all, would spare many - to live out their next 30 twilight years in miserable squalor as overwhelmed systems for caring for the aged succumbed and cities reach massive population density.
Are we going too far, trying to end the great pandemics of the world? Are we unnecessarily fighting Nature's natural methods of keeping balance? I am not offering opinion either way yet, just seeing what others have to say...
But if you were to cure, say, cancer - would you be doing the world a great service, or disservice? Millions would live, only to lead to the starvation of millions more as food, land, and water became shorter. Ending heart disease, the greatest killer of them all, would spare many - to live out their next 30 twilight years in miserable squalor as overwhelmed systems for caring for the aged succumbed and cities reach massive population density.
Are we going too far, trying to end the great pandemics of the world? Are we unnecessarily fighting Nature's natural methods of keeping balance? I am not offering opinion either way yet, just seeing what others have to say...
Comments
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Are we going too far, trying to end the great pandemics of the world? Are we unnecessarily fighting Nature's natural methods of keeping balance?<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
No we are not. We have entered this nice game and we have instincts to survive so we can´t just hang around and get killed/watch other people get killed with starvation
--Scythe--
<!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
More thoughts from everyone please, so far the surface has only just been scratched.
Peter's dad is explaining how things that are meant to be for good purposes somehow end up being used for evil. Sometimes trying to do something that is right and good can have negative effects as seen with Venom.
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(03).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(04).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(05).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
It kinda skips 18 pages from there.
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(19).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(20).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(21).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
<img src='http://www.members.shaw.ca/orichalc/Ultimate%20Spider-Man%20038%20(22).JPG' border='0' alt='user posted image'>
I hope this isn't illegal or whatnot, but if it is, just delete it mods.
1) people aren't forced to stay alive if they don't want to
2) assisted suicide is legalized
In this, I say, "Find a way to ease their suffering, and let them pass on." Nature should take its course. Curing every disease known to man is no guarantee a new one will not crop up all the deadlier, but it does imply that people will live longer, eat more, require more geriatric-type care and if it goes unchecked, Monse will be proven correct. If you can't even sit up in bed, how are you helping the condition of the rest of humanity? Hell, Stephen Hawking can't walk, but he's sure as hell pulling his weight...what are the half-comatose group of Depends users at the local nursing home doing to help out the world that provides them that 24/7 wetnurse and spongebath because they haven't seen their toes or genitals in 30 years? Let them be carried off in their sleep, free of pain, but don't eliminate that which eliminates them...it's a necessary function of life. Just as killing any insect-eating animal (ie, a specific type of bird or bat in an area) can lead to overinfestation of those insect populations, the elimination of disease would allow humans to grow unchecked.
Getting into moral and ethical debates over this is a very touchy subject. If we had a cure for, say, AIDS, and it was cheap and easy to produce, many would say that it would be inhummane to restrict it's usage to only certain people. On the other hand, looking at the Africa scenario (which I assume you're basing this topic off Monse), the deaths of millions there would likely mean greater, better lives for the survivors. The Black Death in Europe for example virtually ended Feudalism and gave the peasentry a lot more freedom.
Now I would tend to think that the second line of reasoning does make quite a bit of sense. However, purposely bringing about such a mass-slaughter would be unthinkable. If no AIDS cure does arrive on the scene and the disease does decimate Africa, it may be for the better. But if we have a cure and don't make it availible to people in the hope of causing such a calamity in poor, over-populated regions, we would be branded as monsters. Does this mean that causing such a calamity wouldn't be better for humanity? Well no, as said if you cure everyone in Africa it just means most will starve to death anyway. Hence, in the long run, Africans would probably be better off if many of their number were wiped out.
So in returning to the original question, is it <i>right</i> to stop such killer diseases, I find it best to answer like this. It is best for the individual to stop the disease. It is best for humanity as a whole to let the disease wipe out those people who cannot feed themselves. I say this because a person will almost always chose life over death, regardless of how wretched that life may be. Whereas in terms of groups, some decisions require many to die so that others may live. Take China's One Child Policy: unthinkable in the US, but a logical step in China.
As a side note there's an interesing part in a book by John Elton called "This Other Eden", which looks at a futureistic world. In that, a cure for AIDS was developed long ago, but it turned out to be a very simple formula that could be easily copied. The company that found this cure has thus been spending the past decades creating eleborate chemical additions that mask the actual cure. The reason? They spent billions in research developing the cure, and thus don't want to see their investment not net much of a profit. It's an interesting take...
Suppose you and a few other people get in a plane crash in some foreign place with no signs of civilization anywhere. You have no more than a can of beans for food, and 2 out of the 5 people are horribly wounded. There is a med kit in the plane, and they can't get up to get it.
You have a choice. You can either get the med kit, probably save their lives, but lose more valuable food for the extra 2 mouths to feed. Or you can tolerate his horrid face as he realizes you won't give him the med kit so that you might have a slightly better chance to survive.
I think the choice is obvious. The decision should always be whatever choice you'd be willing to live with aftewards. I don't think I could let myself live with the guilty conscience that I let someone die to let myself live (when in fact, I might have lived without the extra food). However, supposing I saved their life, and we all starved to death, at least I know I did the right thing. And in heaven, where you might be ending up anyway, that would give you major brownie points with the man upstairs.
There should be no doubt. You do the right thing and save their life, because if you were in their shoes, you would want your life saved.
Sorry, I'll post when I'm not high and try to make more sense.
On topic: Cancer is natures way telling you to die.
But if you were to cure, say, cancer - would you be doing the world a great service, or disservice? Millions would live, only to lead to the starvation of millions more as food, land, and water became shorter. Ending heart disease, the greatest killer of them all, would spare many - to live out their next 30 twilight years in miserable squalor as overwhelmed systems for caring for the aged succumbed and cities reach massive population density.
Are we going too far, trying to end the great pandemics of the world? Are we unnecessarily fighting Nature's natural methods of keeping balance? I am not offering opinion either way yet, just seeing what others have to say... <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
If cancer and AIDS were cured, then problems liked starvation could be worked on. The problems just have to keep being cleared up, one at a time.
After AIDS and cancer, next comes getting the Europeans to stop starving africans with their stupid anti-GMO policy.
My grandfather suffered for an entire year. He was incapable of lifting himself off his bed. My grandmother had to tend to him, feed him, bathe him... clean up after him. He would vomit blood consistently. He lost a tremendous amount of weight, to the point of being unrecognizable. My grandmother said his heart was so strong that he just would not pass away without a fight. She refused to let us visit him, because she wanted us to remember the times when he was strong and able. Until you've experienced this for yourself, you cannot possibly imagine a more horrific and painful way to die.
Take note: both smoked their entire adult lives.
Speaking from a "conscientious objector" point of view in regards to what finding cures to these diseases means to the human race (and the Earth) in the long haul, I think recent news stories help to paint the picture for what is going to happen, regardless of what one wants to happen. The Hippocratic Oath states "do no harm." Doctors are required to abide by this Oath. Thus they will continue to try and repair everyone that is "broken." Doctors who try to provide mercy killings for those who are terminally ill are shunned and put in jail, like Dr Kervorkian. Thus it seems to me that our species wants very much to make sure that every instance A) lives as long as possible and B) does not have to suffer from diseases that we might be able to find a cure for. Quality of Life only comes into play when someone is beyond repair.
Our past history indicates the trend that will continue for the indefinite future, in my opinion. We created vaccines for polio, measles, mumps, tetanus, chicken pox, et al. It is only a natural extension to try and include vaccines for the diseases that plague modern man. At some point in the future, there will probably be an HIV vaccine administered to young children by the time they are 5 years old... this is where drug companies will continue to make their money.
On the tangent to this in regards to our position within the history of the Earth. Like all other species on this planet, our primal objective is to procreate and spread our genes as much as possible. Our domination and control over the planet will likely mean that we are going to do ourselves in through overbreeding. The Earth's ecosystem cannot possibly sustain an overabundance of any one species. This has happened in the past (and continues to happen) on much smaller scales, and it will happen to us in the future on a global scale. When that will happen, who knows. Perhaps it will be when we use up the last of our fossil fuels and man has to find alternate methods of transportation and energy. Lack of a major transportation grid could spell the doom for areas of our planet wholly dependent on the import of food and supplies to survive.
Speculating here, and please forgive the divergence from the main topic, but I find this interesting to mention. A race will be on to capture as much fertile land as possible. Wars over the land will ensue, and we'll end up killing each other fighting for farmable land (for many years, decades, or even centuries) until a symbiosis is reached. Food is a necessity to survive, and man will do whatever it takes to survive. Those wars could be very interesting from a technical standpoint... it is interesting to speculate about what kinds of weapons would be used. It could be very medieval, or even barbaric. All of this of course depends on whether we survive long enough to see the exhaustion of our non-renewable natural resources.
The interesting question to me is whether we as a species will have a change in outlook and realize our true significance in the history of the Earth. This will take some kind of revolution in multiple areas: science, politics, and of course the really big one, religion. This revolution could happen within our lifetimes, as our population continues to grow while our natural resources continue to dwindle.
On one hand, I have to agree with <a href='http://www.esp.org/books/malthus/population/malthus.pdf' target='_blank'>Thomas Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population</a>(careful, big pdf), in that our planet isn't going to sustain human population growth much longer. And the longer you keep people alive, the more they're gonna wanna have sex, which inevitably leads to...more ppl->more sex, a great cycle. I really don't want to see this world consumed. Death needs to happen to complete the cycle of life,
If you contract a disease or crappy illness, it really sucks, but somehow it happened. Over time, those of us who die for these reasons should diminish in representation of the total population, thus being gradually selected against. But the speed at which we are developing medical technology we are effectively staving off a large portion of natural selection.
But, on the other hand, I want to live longer than Louis Wu
Although, remeber, with that many people the standard of living would be really low...
And the #1 natural-killer to overpopulation will be war in the future, probably not diesease.
<3
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
maybe if everyone only eats algae, and somehow i think MonsE will prevent such a hippy idea from ever happening. Not even IronChefPR can cook green goop to perfection.
Don't worry. Besides, the world is supposed to be hit by a meteor in the year 2014 anyway. <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
I want a front-row seat to <i>that.</i> Can you even imagine what that would be like? If you were a couple hundred miles away from the impact area, you'd at least get to see something before the first shock waves annihilate you.
<a href='http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2459903.stm' target='_blank'>Famine and the GM Debate</a>
-
As for the matter at hand - morally I cannot accept the idea that it would be better for people to die than for them to live.
What good would it be for the human race to survive if we lost our humanity in the process? (Suspicious similar to a Jesus quote but thats what years of a Catholic education will do to you - the point still remains valid though)