[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

spike spike66 at att.net
Fri Jan 25 21:24:49 UTC 2008


> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Transhumanism and Politics
> 
> On Jan 25, 2008 5:17 PM, spike wrote:
> > Bill, you do realize that Michael Moore is a comedian, ja?...
> > ...We can judge any country (or company) by the ratio of 
> people wanting 
> > in divided by the number of people wanting out.
> >
> 
> You must be thinking about a different film.
> <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0386032/>
> It was nominated for an Oscar in the documentary section and 
> has gained other awards as a documentary...

Ja.  By Hollyweird.  Unimpressed am I.  (I am a big fan of Moore's earlier
work by the way, and his TV Nation was a kick.  I laughed my ass off at
Roger and Me, and Pets Or Meat.  The multi-level meta-humor there was
extremely entertaining.)

> It is not a political thesis about how wonderful Cuba is. He 
> just points out that Americans denied medical treatment in US 
> can get free good-quality treatment in Cuba... BillK

Thanks for these observations, BillK.  

Why do you suppose that Moore and his friends received such good quality
treatment in Cuba?  Fidel saw a terrific propaganda opportunity there, so he
grabbed it.  I am sure the Cuban medical establishment spared no expense
treating their American visitors.  

Secondly, the Cubans surely used technologies made in America to treat their
American guests, technologies developed by companies motivated by profit,
which were in turn funded by investors motivated by profit.  Has Cuba
developed any life-saving medical technology?  What?  Cuba is in that sense
enjoying a most wonderful parasitic relationship with the US medical
establishment.

Of those patients treated in Cuba, where are they now?  Did they stay in
Cuba?  Or return to the states?  Why?  Did Michael Moore move to Cuba?  Why?

Imagine the US goes for Michael Moore's idea and removes all profit motive
from all things medical.  All the medical technology stocks plummet,
investors take the cash elsewhere.  How then does progress come about?  From
government?  Governments don't pay much for this kind of thing, and even if
they do, there are strings attached.  A good example of that is the recent
stem cell research.  The government would only fund that which did not
require the use of embryos.  So the privately funded research found an end
run.  A recent news story had stem cells cloned from skin cells.

My reasoning goes thus.  Stem cells may someday be used to clone organs
which may be transplanted into a patient.  This will obviate the use of
destructive anti-rejection medications, because the stem cell derived organ
will be perfectly genetically compatible with the patient.  But only if the
original cell came from that patient.  So if we could make stem cells only
from embryos, looks to me as though most of the benefit of these
technologies could only used on those whose parents froze their stem cells.
My son Isaac has this benefit, but I don't, and I don't suppose anyone
reading this message has their own embryonic stem cells in a dewar.

But if the privately funded medics manage to create stem cells from any
patient's existing cells, then stem cell technology benefits all of us.
Futhermore, the government's restriction of the use of embryonic stem cells
a few years ago caused a ton of private money to be dumped into research in
cloning non-embryonic stem cell creation.

Profits are our friends.

spike



 





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