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What's the end goal of modern medicine though? Immortality? You can perhaps reduce suffering to nil, but you can't cheat death.
by sh4rks 2y ago
What's the end goal of modern medicine though? Immortality? You can perhaps reduce suffering to nil, but you can't cheat death.
- Panzer04 2y agoWhy can't you cheat death? Excluding accidents and the like.
- mrguyorama 2y agoBecause it will utterly end all societal development. Imagine if fucking Ghengis Khan never had to die. Or Henry Kissinger. Or Carnegie Our system is struggling under the immense weight of old leaders and the best they can do is pump themselves full of weird drug cocktails to have some semblance of being alive. Imagine removing the last roadblock to eternal life for the richest human alive.
- Breza 2y agoPeople would develop in different ways if they could live to be 1000. It would hardly end societal development. I imagine education would be a bigger deal, since you'd be in less of a hurry to get on with life at 18. Families would be larger as more generations were included, which could create more nurturing and supportive environments for at-risk children. You'd also have fewer trust fund babies living off of the inheritance from a dead relative. And the sheer amount of brainpower and life experience we lose every time a 90 year old dies is depressing; science, technology, and literature could all benefit from people living longer.
- kennedywm 2y agoEven if you solve for immortality, that wouldn’t mean you will have solved all of the medical ills of humanity. We might be able to “cheat death” within our lifetimes.
- sircastor 2y agoWouldn't reducing suffering to nil be a worthy goal? Is there any reason we shouldn't pursue this to its end?
- sh4rks 2y agoYou can reduce physical suffering, but what about mental suffering? Would you want everybody to take a drug that will make them perpetually "high"?
- AlwaysRock 2y agoI mean... Let's cure cancer and then worry about the end goal.
- fastball 2y agoWhat is the purpose of this question? "Yeah sure, we're fixing people's problems that cause pain, suffering, loss of productivity, death, etc, but what is the ultimate goal?" Sometimes the ends are the means.
- Brian_K_White 2y agoWhat's the end goal of this remark? What's the end goal of learning to farm and produce food even when the weather and pest gods don't bless you this year? What's the end goal of learning to heat your hut instead of dying every winter?
- icehawk 2y agoWhy does there have to be an end goal? Why cant things just do the thing they do?
- Breza 2y agoThis attitude matches how my friends in medicine think. There's a thing causing suffering. Can we get better at preventing our treating it?