Curing diseases Created 12 years ago2011-08-12 19:28:22 UTC by Madcow

I read an article about some MIT researchers coming up with a new drug that supposedly is very effective against most virus and could cure anything from a common cold to Polio.

A swedish newspaper even speculated that this new drug might even cure HIV, but I've got my doubts, and this newspaper isn't really what you'd call reliable.

Anyway, this made me wonder, what if we actually could cure everything?
In a humanist perspective this would obviously be a wonderful thing, but in a more realistic perspective we need diseases to keep the earth from overflowing with people. We've got too much people as it is already, we don't have enough resources on this planet!

We know that there is a link between inventing allergy medicine and the present huge increase of people actually having allergies, this because those who would have died because of their allergies lived due to their medicine, and are now reproducing giving their allergy genes to their offspring. If we start curing serious diseases then we're going to have some serious problems in a few generations worth of time.

What are your views on this? Discuss!

People need to continue living, the over population is bull shit, there is enough space for 5x the current population.

Go under water, there is resources, go into space.

Don't be selfish.

I'm not being selfish. I'm being realistic. Obviously if someone closely related to me would get a serious disease I would want them to be cured, but would it really be for the greater good? Perhaps not.

And you won't find much food in space, and in the water I'm not so sure.

We are predators, we take up a lot of land and we kill any animal that gets in our way, sometimes for food but sometimes even just for fun. This distorts the natural balance. Imagine if we had 5x bigger population as you suggest there is room for, what about all the other creatures on earth, which we can't live without? Where do you want to put them? In space?

Overpopulation is not the problem.

Infrastructure and the methods of harvesting energy and foods are the real problem. At least that's my opinion.

Also, technology is supposed to transport us to other planets, making colonies and stuff. Where there are water resources( and there are a few moons in our solar system), the possibility of colonization is extremely probable.

We might get rid of disease but we certainly won't get rid of other dangers, such as vehicular accidents, wars etc etc.

As Striker has already stated, by the time we develop cures and eradicate all disease, we probably will possess the technology and capability to go to other life-sustaining worlds, in our solar system and others. This should, hopefully, lesson our burden.

We are far away from travelling vast distances through space, but we are close to curing everything.
And once we can cure everything, our genetic diseases will pass on to the coming generations who will be dependant of these medicines, and if anyone decides to take them away, or some sort of social collapse occurs, then we are all pretty much doomed.

Even if we manage to get to Mars the next year making the planet properly inhabitable will take a very long time.

What ever happens, life wont end. Advancing in medical science is one step to solving an other step.

Humans are natural vegans, they are not intended to eat meat, but they can.
Humans should raise consciousness about things before they continue to do anything.
Cutting down on military spendings and weapons, increasing spending in education and comfort.
We already have super sonic jets, space craft that go into space like airplanes, transporting materials and assembling them into space is not impossible.

Nothing is impossible. We just need to realize that we can if we want to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

I've heard in popular science that the life expectancy will go up to 110 by 2020

Better medical care, research, and medicine contributes.

Humans are natural vegans, they are not intended to eat meat, but they can.

Not only they can, they're crazy about it.

I've resisted last week to not eat any piece of meat at all. I've eaten food without meat that is as equally delicious as a meal with stakes and stuff like that.
It's just that people don't know how to prepare their foods so they can stop eating so much meat.

There may be enough room to hold a lot more people, but we need that room to hold the food and resources the current population needs. If we use that space in more population, where would we store/harvest food and resources for all?

they are not intended to eat meat

Just a reminder. As soon as you are speaking of intentions, you imply that there is a creator. Evolution has no intentions.

Sure we can survive by only eating vegetables, but there is a reason that we are so crazy about meat and that is because without it surviving is harder. Same reason earwax tastes like shit because to eat it is really not beneficial in any way.

Also, even if we can survive eating nothing but plants, we still need the other animals. We're all familiar with how the circle works, from plants to plant eater to meat eater and back again. And as Stu mentioned, we still need huge amounts of space to grow as much plants needed to feed us.
And building space stations for farming purposes is not a realistic idea.
And as mentioned earlier, creating life support on other places in space but earth and actually start growing things there will take a long time.


@Unbreakable: Not surprising actually. However cancer will always be a problem because everyone gets it if they live long enough. If we could learn how to spot it in time and actually cure all forms of it then we could boost the life expectancy even more.

Personally I believe Diseases is good Population control. Its not crazy, over population would blow. Seems the dumb people Re-Produce faster. So the fact that more people would mean more progress is seriously flawed, seeing ass more dumb asses will come out of it. Plus, the smart people are Very clean, so contracting something deadly is possible, but unlikely.

There may be enough room to hold a lot more people, but we need that room to hold the food and resources the current population needs. If we use that space in more population, where would we store/harvest food and resources for all?

We will need to waste less resources. The sheer amount of food and resources we waste, throw away and misuse would be enough to support a LOT more people if used properly.

Sure we can survive by only eating vegetables, but there is a reason that we are so crazy about meat and that is because without it surviving is harder. Same reason earwax tastes like shit because to eat it is really not beneficial in any way.

Not really. The only thing we need in the meat to survive is the essential amino acids, which we just as easily can get from, say, soybeans.

Also, even if we can survive eating nothing but plants, we still need the other animals. We're all familiar with how the circle works, from plants to plant eater to meat eater and back again. And as Stu mentioned, we still need huge amounts of space to grow as much plants needed to feed us.

Well, yeah, but imagine all the space we use up now to grow food for cows, which we then eat. We could just as easily use that space to grow food directly for humans, skipping a step.

And this comes from a guy who really loves a good steak.'

And once we can cure everything, our genetic diseases will pass on to the coming generations who will be dependant of these medicines, and if anyone decides to take them away, or some sort of social collapse occurs, then we are all pretty much doomed.

If we can cure anything, why wouldn't we be able to cure genetic diseases? And if a social collapse occurs, I think we're pretty much done anyway.

What about cancer?

Yeah Cancer.. its all a bullshit lie. They've cured Cancer. But the government will loose too much money if they reveal it...

Cure; Vitamin D

I don't know how money can "loose", but I think its too loose already.

However, I would get a completely different message out of that, if you were to say "lose" instead of "loose".

Perhaps not a government, but the big pharmaceutical monopolies, sure.

If only it were that simple, Unbreakable..

Yeah Cancer.. its all a bullshit lie. They've cured Cancer. But the government will loose too much money if they reveal it...

Latvia got a cancer cure 20 years ago, but nobody wants to fund it.

The principle with ours is to fight infection with infection, i.e.: make some virus fight against the cancer rather than the organism itself.

Uh... It's not that simple guys. We have absolutely not cured cancer. We've made a few breakthroughs and saved a few lives- but research is very expensive and a very, very high-risk investment that basically guarantees no return for the investor.

These viral infections tend not to kill people, so population control is not really relevant in this discussion. HIV is a rare exception when a viral infection is fatal.

Most viral infections just make the person sick and miserable, but they do not cause death.

The mechanism of action described in the article is plausible. It's clever. I wonder whether this could actually work one day.

Satchmos post just made me laugh out loud. All that discussion rendered pointless by one single post.
But seriously, a cure for the common cold would be brilliant. I hate having a blocked nose.
I shall have to read the article in question when I get home.