[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Samantha Atkins]

On Jan 26, 2008, at 10:52 PM, spike wrote:

>
>
>> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
> ...
>>
>> Until the US finds a way to better deliver their excellent
>> medical services to *everyone* in the US, then their overall
>> health metrics will continue to lag behind the rest of the world.  
>> BillK
>
>
> BillK we are facing a huge medical problem that is getting worse  
> every day.
> The latino population is known to be particularly susceptible to the  
> high
> fat diet that is so popular in the states, and the resulting  
> diabetes.  That
> population is growing quickly, both from high birth rates and from  
> illegal
> immigration from Central and South America.  Diabetes is an example  
> of a
> disease which costs a ton of money to keep under control, and even  
> then the
> sufferer has crummy health and a lot of related problems.  I can  
> easily
> imagine a time in the near future when average life expectancy in  
> the US
> starts dropping because of diabetes within the growing Latino  
> community,
> regardless of how much money we dump into treating it.

You could say that about a lot of health issues across all  
populations, especially aging boomers.   An answer is to pour adequate  
parts of the money spend into research to cure these and all such  
problems once and for all instead of continually fighting a rearguard  
battle.    I do not expect that the problem overwhelms us regardless  
of how much money we spend if we spend it a bit more wisely.   Now if  
we don't get the needed breakthroughs we will be in substantial  
trouble.  So we have strong motivation.

- samantha