Dixie - In Memoriam
New member
I've spoken about this before, but with Apple raging on about nationalized health care, and how gloriously wonderful it will be when we can all go to the doctors for FREE and live long productive lives, I thought this might be a good time to examine something interesting. It was presented to my psych class years ago, and it went something like this....
The year is 2025, and scientists have discovered a revolutionary breakthrough in medicine. They have developed a 'vaccination' which will enable a person to live free of disease, extending their lives to 200 years or more. Once inoculated, you no longer become ill, and it simply extends your lifespan to more than double what it currently is. You are the president, you have the following options available: 1) Allow the vaccine to be produced, marketed and used. 2) Order mandatory vaccinations for all. 3) Ban the vaccine entirely, and forbid it from ever being used.
At first, one might think this is a no-brainer, what a wonderful day, we have discovered the Fountain of Youth, and people can live indefinitely! Imagine the cost of health care it would save? Imagine people living long past 100, getting to experience life with their great-great grandchildren? No sickness to speak of, and very little death for us to have to cope with.... It all sounds splendid, doesn't it?
But what happens over time, as people begin to live longer? We can assume women would still become pregnant and have children, and those children might live to be 300, since they were able to be vaccinated early on. So now we have a world in which more people are living longer, much longer. World population begins to skyrocket in short order. Within 10 years, we begin experiencing problems with food shortages, famines set in, but people still continue to grow in population. At 20 years, we would have decayed into mega-wars, millions of people would be killed each day, as the remaining people fought over resources. In short, our planet could simply not handle the burden of humans who never die. Eventually, our existence would deplete the world entirely, and the planet would become dead.
The scenario is presented as an example of unintended consequence. Even when we believe something to be great and wonderful, it can have a catastrophic down side that we are unable to imagine or realize. While our minds tell us that a 'live forever' vaccine would be the greatest breakthrough in medical history, or the history of mankind, in reality it would ultimately destroy the world. Makes ya think.
The year is 2025, and scientists have discovered a revolutionary breakthrough in medicine. They have developed a 'vaccination' which will enable a person to live free of disease, extending their lives to 200 years or more. Once inoculated, you no longer become ill, and it simply extends your lifespan to more than double what it currently is. You are the president, you have the following options available: 1) Allow the vaccine to be produced, marketed and used. 2) Order mandatory vaccinations for all. 3) Ban the vaccine entirely, and forbid it from ever being used.
At first, one might think this is a no-brainer, what a wonderful day, we have discovered the Fountain of Youth, and people can live indefinitely! Imagine the cost of health care it would save? Imagine people living long past 100, getting to experience life with their great-great grandchildren? No sickness to speak of, and very little death for us to have to cope with.... It all sounds splendid, doesn't it?
But what happens over time, as people begin to live longer? We can assume women would still become pregnant and have children, and those children might live to be 300, since they were able to be vaccinated early on. So now we have a world in which more people are living longer, much longer. World population begins to skyrocket in short order. Within 10 years, we begin experiencing problems with food shortages, famines set in, but people still continue to grow in population. At 20 years, we would have decayed into mega-wars, millions of people would be killed each day, as the remaining people fought over resources. In short, our planet could simply not handle the burden of humans who never die. Eventually, our existence would deplete the world entirely, and the planet would become dead.
The scenario is presented as an example of unintended consequence. Even when we believe something to be great and wonderful, it can have a catastrophic down side that we are unable to imagine or realize. While our minds tell us that a 'live forever' vaccine would be the greatest breakthrough in medical history, or the history of mankind, in reality it would ultimately destroy the world. Makes ya think.
