Do you find appendectomies objectionable? What about vaccination? Glasses? Every major advance in medicine has been making us steadily better, healthier, and more capable. Indeed, it is in our very nature to improve ourselves, through our technological know-how, or through the natural tools of evolution. We are not the same humans from 10,000 years ago at a genetic level, because our ancestors survived and passed on their genes (and memes, we can't neglect the value of strong ideas) to make us, and our world. Our imperfections are regularly sanded down by time and technology, your own included.
To be honest I do find going to the hospital objectionable. I believe that if we're meant to die before we reach old age so be it. Anything that can't be cured naturally shouldn't be remedied. Sure, I've been vaccinated, but that was before these thoughts developed. Same with glasses. Although I was born with good sight and it was watching television in close proximity as a child that caused my eyes to go bad. So I'd say that case is a little different in that the cause of my poor sight wasn't natural.
Do you feel this way about yourself only, or people in general? I suspect that you're not the kind of person to force your beliefs on others, especially recognizing that those beliefs are of a minority (although, I am always surprised by the size of this minority). I understand you can feel confident and comfortable with your own death and time, and many people have been able to get to that point. I guess what I want to know, is do you consider it moral to avoid medicine or other kinds of drugs or means of modifying your body and mind? Or is it merely a lifestyle choice, like what sport you choose to play or what your job is? We've heard news of children who have died of the flu this season - if one were in your charge, would you leave an ill child's life to fate, or would you do everything you could to keep that child healthy and alive? They don't have the capacity to understand or consent to a lifestyle which abstains from medical treatment for moral or ethical reasons, wouldn't it be unfair to leave them in the dark on medical treatment? They might not share your belief in destiny or an appointed "time" to die.
I do understand many don't agree with my view so I often keep it to myself because it is so controversial. I think that it is moral to avoid unnatural forms of medicine. To me, going to a hospital or taking unnatural medicine is like giving the finger to nature. It's like saying "I'm going to take matters into my own hands and neglect you telling me it might be my time." I don't know about this. Sickness is a form of population control. But we no longer live in a world where that seems to be important to anyone. I wound't want to force others to believe the same way so I won't stop someone from trying to save their own life. Will this view change when I have children of my own? To be completely honest, I don't know. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. In this regard my views aren't fully formulated.
Yes, it's hard to know what one would do in a trying situation, especially with children, until you face it yourself. One thing to consider, from my perspective -- humans are part of nature. Medicine is our tool to stay alive, which is an urge encoded onto our very genes, as is the urge to keep our genetic descendants alive and reproductive. Why is it giving a middle finger to nature, to do that which nature explicitly programmed us to do?
During winter months, when growing seasons are shorter and humans aren't able to get as much food, women become naturally infertile. These seasons of infertility aid in a stable population. But since we've been able to produce food when it doesn't naturally grow, we've changed the natural rate of population increase. "Advanced medicines" are only a way of going against stable populations.
No offense, but I've never heard of that theory before, do you have a source? Population control and stabilization seems to be a reoccurring theme of your posts. Did you know this is already happening across the world? People are having fewer children because of advances in medicine and science, among other reasons. It seems to me that following your view could actually increase population as child mortality increases, people would have more children fearing some would die of sickness or infection.
I just read about it in the book Changes In The Land for my American Environmental History class. It was one of the pioneering books in the field of environmental history. How are there fewer children now? And I don't know that that's how it would play out that people would end up having more kids. If you look at tribes in Tanzania, they have a very sustainable population in which there aren't too many children.
It is a fact that more developed (i.e. more medically advanced) countries have a lower birth rate: (http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-end-of-popul...) As we gain more technological freedom to control our own fertility, and as having children becomes a bigger economic disadvantage, the population growth rate has slowed considerably in countries with access to medicine. The countries that do not have advanced medicine available to the public - China, India, other developing countries - are the ones with enormous population booms that are damaging to the planet. Our ability to remain fertile at any time of year due to food production is greatly offset by our ability to control our birth rates. In fact, if you're concerned about our longevity, our replacement rate (the rate at which old people die and new people are born) is extremely tight, last I've heard, I'm not sure what the ratio is at now. I find it totally untenable to blame medicine for world overpopulation or "giving the middle finger to nature" when it's provable that medicine is a direct, causal link to population growth slowing.
I'm not going to pretend you don't have incredible points, because you do. To be honest, I'm not sound enough in my belief to know how to respond to this. Let me think about this some and then I'll get back to you once I've thought it out.
That's fair. I've definitely gotten a closer look at my beliefs -- especially the last point -- as a result of this conversation as well, and it's always worthwhile if you can get a chance to examine your thoughts from all angles.
Oh yes I definitely agree. The beauty of discussion is immense.
Wrong, your bad eyesight is genetic. There is zero correlation between sitting close to the TV and developing bad eyesight. softcore link: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=earth-talk-... Also, I guarantee that if you or another one of your loved ones was on their deathbed, you would not feel this way. That's just naive.
I remember when I was a little kid I'd always sit close by on purpose because I wanted glasses so it was a very prolonged thing. I've thought this way of myself extensively. When my time comes I'll accept it.
You have a good point. I'm not saying that I'm not conflicted about this belief, because I am. But this view's empathy isn't toward humans, but rather the earth. It's more so that I empathize for the earth and how poorly we're treating it, overpopulation included.
I think that for a while we as humans have been viewing ourselves as separate from the Earth and that has led to a variety of actions and habits that are detrimental to Earth. I do believe that living in a hunter/gatherer manner results in little to no entropy. While I believe we are fascinating, I believe there are two flaws in viewing ourselves as the most fascinating. The first of these is that it lends itself to excluding fascination for everything else. I'd argue that trees, oceans, clouds, rain, lions, etc... are just as interesting as we are. The second flaw is that it puts us as the end result. Why do we believe evolution ended with us? If evolution can turn a single cell organism into what we are now, just imagine what we could become in a few billion years. That is assuming we haven't destroyed ourselves entirely by that point.
A hunter/gatherer society could never support a population of our size. So really, the only way for your ideas to be realistic or credible is to kill off a good chunk of Earth's population. Is this what you're proposing? Otherwise, what is the use in dwelling on past forms of society that only led us to where we are today? I would say we are more interesting than any of the things you mentioned simply because we have the capacity to discuss what is the most interesting. Evolution did not end with us by any means, it is ongoing. It would be pretty impressive if we as a species lasted a few billion years. All of the advancements that you are opposed to have only ever served to aid our advancement as a species, so if you find that so fascinating to imagine, why are you so against it?
I'm well aware of what living like that would mean to the world's population. It's not a past form of society. There are still some people who live like that today, and I do plan on joining them the first availability I get. But how do we know that trees don't communicate with one another? Or lions, grass?? We don't know these things so we shouldn't assume one way or another. I'm against these "advancements" because I view a lot of thing as resisting change and not letting natural selection/evolution follow its natural course. If a person is stupid and jumps off a roof and breaks their leg, we mend them up and they go off and have children of their own. In a natural world, this person would not be able to mate thus not passing on his genes of thinking jumping off a roof is a good idea.
How do you know that the advancements we have made are not a form of evolution? Take some microbe for example; lets say that some archaeon is doing well by itself or within its community when all the sudden it picks up the ability to ferment lactose (maybe through horizontal gene transfer (spreading of ideas...)). Should it not use its new found mechanisms for survival? The tools that humanity acquires to sustain itself should be used because it is just another gift of our intellect/ability to adapt to our environment
How would it ever naturally just pick up that ability all of a sudden. Mutations like that don't occur spontaneously and in the same manner I don't believe we were meant to change fundamental processes in ourselves so drastically except through evolution over time.
Question: Are you a creationist? I don't want to step on your beliefs so please let me know.
I believe that the big bang and evolution and everything of that nature was created by God, yes.
Who's to say though that we can judge what the best and most efficient change is?
Exactly. So why should we conclude we are they judges and mess with how we'd naturally progress?
What you're advocating is called Social Darwinism, really just another name for elitism, and would lead to nothing other than a world like the one described by Huxley in Brave New World. This is the type of thinking that leads to racism and eugenics. Scary. All of those things do communicate with each other. What's your point? Your beliefs are incredibly inconsistent and driven purely by emotion.
In what ways is it similar to Brave New World? And to be clear, I am in no way stating that any race is superior to another (I'm Hispanic and I've been discriminated against before). I know that there are inconsistencies and have said that I don't know how fully I believe myself when I say all of these things. They're just thoughts I've had and through this discussion I'm allowed to marinate on them more.