Clarification: When I write, I don't prepare or organize my ideas, I just write what I would say if I was talking to you in person, so sometimes my blogs end up a little messy. I don't even proof-read what I write before posting it so you may find grammatical mistakes and poorly written sentences. Sometimes I'll read my blogs a day or two after publishing them and I may re-write things that weren't too clear and any embarrassing grammatical mistake. Also, English is not my first language, so I apologize if reading my blogs become a struggle. Of course, if this is the case, I would imagine you wouldn't continue reading.


May 20, 2014

Medicine's Goal & The Natural Way (Ethics Of Immortality)



What is medicine's goal? To help us live a healthy natural life? We already live well past our evolutionary natural lifespan. Chimps, for example, share over 98% of our DNA and they live between 40 and 50 years in the wild, which is about what we used to live a few hundred years ago. My grandad was 99 when he died and there was a French woman who lived for 123 years. That's 3 times of what we are supposed to live.


We're also immune to all kinds of diseases that we are not naturally immune to, and we're able to treat and cure conditions that would naturally kill us if it wasn't for modern medicine. We are able to see clearly after our vision deteriorates, and we can replace parts of our bodies with man made versions. We are able to transplant all kinds of organs, and now we can even "grow" our own organs. This may be an speculation, but I'm certain we'll soon find a true cure to some types of cancers, AIDS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and more. And all of those victories have been victories against nature, plain and simple.

So, what's medicine's goal? To me it's rather clear: to give us the choice to live as long as we want to live in a healthy and non-aging body. Yes, immortality.

Now, when you tell people about being able to live forever, some of them look at you like you were crazy and kinda evil. "Life would be meaningless", "it would become a huge problem", "[insert any other reason]". And they all end with "I'd rather die when I'm supposed to". Really? If that's the case, if they really favored the "natural" way, then many of them shouldn't be alive. Hell, half of their kids shouldn't have survived childhood. I think they believe that choosing to live 500 or 1000 years is unethical, yet there's nothing wrong with all the unnatural life extension and higher survival rate modern medicine has provided them and their loved ones. They may not be aware they are being hypocritical, but that's the only way to describe their position.

In the end, how long would you like to be alive should be a personal choice, and if the people who prefer the "natural way" want to die at 80, that's fine with me. I'd choose to stick around for a little longer, I'm ready for the new adventures.

Bonus:

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