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Frankly given the MASSIVE corruption in the medical industry, YES!

The medical industry is pretty awful. Just prior to my ill fated research career, I was offered a bloody lucrative post (literally double my stipend) in a pharma company putting a good face on their environmental practices. I was briefly tempted but I like looking myself in the mirror and thinking "Good Job Today, Boss" too much.

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't know how you would get the organelle into the cells to start with though.

It would make sense to place them into the ovum, meaning that while the parents do not get afforded the protection, the children do. Though I suppose it would be possible to introduce new genetic material into a fully grown human, though I can't imagine it would be very effective, or a viable treatment in the near term, given that gene splicing in bacteria can sometimes be quite hit and miss

I seem to recall that some of the gene therapies for cystic fibrosis involving retroviruses replace/repair the genetic structure of cells lining the lung. Unfortunately many gene therapy treatments need to be constantly applied as the replacement/new DNA is not replicated when the cell divides.

Plenty of research ongoing for vectors for that kind of gene therapy, nothing reliable on the horizon though. Engineered virii seem like a candidate until you think about what could go wrong considering the general mutability of their structures.

Da Boss wrote:Plenty of research ongoing for vectors for that kind of gene therapy, nothing reliable on the horizon though. Engineered virii seem like a candidate until you think about what could go wrong considering the general mutability of their structures.

Indeed. The safest way is to work on humans in the single cell stage, where you only need to alter a single cell

love hearing this from people. 99.9% of them would would be dead in a week without someone making sure their water ran and someone else stocking the shelves at the supermarket.

Not having a go at you, specifically, Cannerus. It's just something I've noticed; a lot of people take some pretty vital things for granted.

So what? You can reduce the worlds population without society falling apart. As long as the structure is similar and the balance between people in different parts of society is dramatically altered it doesn't matter if you have 10 million or 100 million.

Da Boss wrote:Plenty of research ongoing for vectors for that kind of gene therapy, nothing reliable on the horizon though. Engineered virii seem like a candidate until you think about what could go wrong considering the general mutability of their structures.

I've only ever heard engineers and medical research types say vector. I want to get to say vector too!

The number of people that would have to go would be sufficient to qualify as social breakdown.

We could still function with a lot less people. As long as the balance between people providing and people using remains the same. We don't have to lose water/ food / ect.. We survived fine in the past and the population was much lower. It would be different but it wouldn't be as hard as your suggesting.

You can't know who the ones going were unless you specifically selected who to cull, which I'm not really comfortable with.

Also, people involved with the distribution of goods would be among the first people to be affected by something like a pandemic, along with medical workers.

It would be pretty bad.

4M2A wrote:We could still function with a lot less people.

Function is a pretty generic sentiment. How many would be willing to give up the internet, cell phones, grocery stores, and motor transportation to attain those goals? How many want to go back to a mainly agrarian, sustenance level of survival?

I'm not suggesting any kind of cull. Just slowing our birth rate would reduce the population over time. With less people there is a lower requiredment for services/utilities. Some will still require a large number of people but others (food, energy, policing, healthcare) will decrease with the population. There is a balance between having an unneccessarily large population and one that can't sustain itself. With less people and the same amount of resources it's also possible to equip everyone with the most effecient equipment to fulfil their roles making it easier to have less people.

Kilkrazy wrote:How does one justify the cure for any disease?

^^This.

Also, "Cancer" is not a singular condition or affliction, there are many types and a singular cure sounds a little unlikely, unless it is euthanasia (sp).

4M2A wrote:I'm not suggesting any kind of cull. Just slowing our birth rate would reduce the population over time. With less people there is a lower requiredment for services/utilities. Some will still require a large number of people but others (food, energy, policing, healthcare) will decrease with the population. There is a balance between having an unneccessarily large population and one that can't sustain itself. With less people and the same amount of resources it's also possible to equip everyone with the most effecient equipment to fulfil their roles making it easier to have less people.

And how would you suggest slowing the birth rate, besides the natural curve of society? I am completely on board with educating people, but I would not go for a fine on more than X number of kids, a la China.

Monster Rain wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've brought up this point several times. The fewer people we have, the better the rest of us live, honestly.

I love hearing this from people. 99.9% of them would would be dead in a week without someone making sure their water ran and someone else stocking the shelves at the supermarket.

Not having a go at you, specifically, Cannerus. It's just something I've noticed; a lot of people take some pretty vital things for granted.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Logically, I can see the argument for putting a cap on the human life span.

It's going to be a tough sell, though.

Beside that it is utterly wrong, that fewer people means better conditions for everyone.

Mr Mystery wrote:One of two things will have to come to a stop whilst we are earthbound. The advance of medical science, or the propagation of the species.

Developed countries have populations that are either declining or would be declining without immigration. When people don't need to have lots of kids as a retirement plan and to keep the farm going, they cut back.

We simply cannot have an immortal (or incredibly long lived) populace that keeps breeding. Hell, without modern medicine, life expectancy is what, 50ish years on a good innings? We're not far off doubling that in the western world for the majority

Life expectancy is mostly affected by infant mortality rates, not by being 'long lived'. While life expectancy has jumped a lot in the last century, 'life expectancy for people who live to retirement age' has only increased by about 3 years.

"Doctors haven't cured gak since polio. There's no money in curing, there's a fortune in managing the symptoms." - Chris Rock.

I don't think I can put it more eloquently than him.

Oh, and to anyone claiming that we're overpopulated, we're really not. You could stand every living person on this planet and they'd all fit on the Isle of Wight - with enough room shuffle around a little.

Overpopulation is a huge myth. It's just that we concentrate in very popular areas. Canada, which is about the size of the Moon, has half the population of the UK, which is about the size of an American sandwich...


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Dark Scipio wrote:Beside that it is utterly wrong, that fewer people means better conditions for everyone.

No it doesn't. It also means that the mass farming and production we enjoy today would be much reduced or lost. No cheap TVs, no bountiful food... less people equals more work and, critically, more physical work. There'd be less cushy office jobs, more hard manual labour. Quality of life is a very difficult thing to define, but it is not directly and inversely proportional to the global population.

Hell when there were half a billion people on the planet, you'd be lucky to get to 45 before dying of diseases which can be treated by a simple course of penicillin or being eaten by a wolf...

Monster Rain wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:I've brought up this point several times. The fewer people we have, the better the rest of us live, honestly.

I love hearing this from people. 99.9% of them would would be dead in a week without someone making sure their water ran and someone else stocking the shelves at the supermarket.

Not having a go at you, specifically, Cannerus. It's just something I've noticed; a lot of people take some pretty vital things for granted.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Logically, I can see the argument for putting a cap on the human life span.

It's going to be a tough sell, though.

For me personally: I run/walk everyhwere I can, try to eat as much fresh produce as I can and grow a little of my own (which could be more if necessary), and try to have as little environmental impact as I can. If the apocalypse happened tomorrow I'd be a lot more prepared than 90% of America. I'm not trying to say that we wouldn't have some of the luxuries with fewer people, but we don't actually need them. anyone who thinks we need cars for the general public or supermarkets to provide the food is ultimately just lazy IMO.

Oh, I'm not talking about badass mountaineers and survivalists.

I'm talking about all those other people who take a lot of vital things for granted that are in trouble in the event of some sort of societal collapse.

Dentists! Plumbers! Technicians and engineers of all stripes!

4M2A wrote:We could still function with a lot less people. As long as the balance between people providing and people using remains the same. We don't have to lose water/ food / ect.. We survived fine in the past and the population was much lower. It would be different but it wouldn't be as hard as your suggesting.

You first.

If your method of controlling the population is to help out developing countries, lower the infant mortality rate, and make the world a better place, then I'm all for it.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:For me personally: I run/walk everyhwere I can, try to eat as much fresh produce as I can and grow a little of my own (which could be more if necessary), and try to have as little environmental impact as I can. If the apocalypse happened tomorrow I'd be a lot more prepared than 90% of America. I'm not trying to say that we wouldn't have some of the luxuries with fewer people, but we don't actually need them. anyone who thinks we need cars for the general public or supermarkets to provide the food is ultimately just lazy IMO.

Why don't you give up all the luxuries for a year, like cars, the internet, painted toy soldiers, mass-produced clothing, and food bought from supermarkets, then after the year go somewhere with an internet connection and tell us if you still think people who want the 'luxury' of not living a primitive life are just lazy. It's really easy to be smug and self righteous because you hit the farmer's market once in a while, but it's a lot harder to actually spend a year practicing what you preach.

You first.

What?
I don't see what your saying- i'm very much for dropping the population as doing in a controlled way would improve the standard of life and increase the amount of time we can continue to exist on this planet before resources run out.

Micahaphone- I'm not suggesting a way to reduce the population while retaining a decent standard of life, just saying it's possible. While the idea of forcing people to stop having kids sounds bad the alternative is worse. We can only continue stripping this planet of resources for so long. When they run out we will have massive poplulation completely unable to sustain itself. People will die due to lack of food and water and others will die when countries inevtiably fight over what is left.

4M2A wrote:

You first.

What?
I don't see what your saying- i'm very much for dropping the population as doing in a controlled way would improve the standard of life and increase the amount of time we can continue to exist on this planet before resources run out.

I think his point is: if you want to reduce human consumption of resources, you should take the initiative on doing so.

Much like if you were to campaign for people to have fewer children, you shouldn't have 4 kids yourself.

Since Frazzled doesn't know me i'm no sure why he assumes i'm not. I do put effort into showing people the costs of our uncontrolled growth and I have no intention of having kids. I have no desire to be a hypocrite and and i'm not going to tell people how to act if I don't fully believe it myself.

Da Boss wrote:Biccat: Okay, kudos mate, you made me go from RAEG to LOL! (Literally) in two posts. That takes some doing

Also, I am curious why you think capitalism is offensive.

biccat wrote:
People are willing to pay for a cure, this makes it justifiable. If it were a cure for a disease people weren't willing to pay for (like largepenisitis), then no one would develop a cure.

Ah capitalism.

You're confusing what people will try to do with what people should try to do.

Going OT again, did anyone else read the OP's post and think about "I am Legend"?

From what I recall of my pathology courses, the transition to cancer can occur at many diffent steps of cell mitosis, so I am in the camp of cancer not being a single entity . . . so no single cure IMHO.

Pharmacueticals to me are the danger in this scenario rather than the "medical establishment". Even though I work in alternative health care, I still find that most doctors are doing everything they can for their patients and not just lining their wallets. Also most healthcare companies produce better income with healthy patients (like HMOs).

Pharmaceutical companies are the second largest lobby group in the U.S. and are purely about the bottom line (not their researchers obviously, but the companies themselves). I could see an inexpensive medication being covered for a while, but eventually the researchers would want their miraculous discovery available to the public (and them in line for a Nobel prize). I don't think it would remain hidden long.

So I don't think the premise of the OP's book will occur among us self-interested human beings.

Interesting to hear over-population discussion coming up, I thought that great fear ended in the 70's or 80's when ozone layer depletion became the hot button . . . .

Da Boss wrote:Plenty of research ongoing for vectors for that kind of gene therapy, nothing reliable on the horizon though. Engineered virii seem like a candidate until you think about what could go wrong considering the general mutability of their structures.

Thankfully the going wrong part generally isn't to bad, considering that it would be pretty rare for a harmless virus to mutate into a superbug in a short amount of time. And given the potential benefits vs the relatively small risk gm virii are the way forward for quite a few of our problems.

Da Boss wrote:The medical industry is pretty awful. Just prior to my ill fated research career, I was offered a bloody lucrative post (literally double my stipend) in a pharma company putting a good face on their environmental practices. I was briefly tempted but I like looking myself in the mirror and thinking "Good Job Today, Boss" too much.

I'll be facing that dilemma since I want to go into biotechnology. Do I want a fat paycheck or do I want to feel good about what i do