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I've never once thought to myself "I'd really love to perform some neurosurgery, if only it weren't illegal!" The reason people don't perform neurosurgery is be

I've never once thought to myself "I'd really love to perform some neurosurgery, if only it weren't illegal!" The reason people don't perform neurosurgery is because people don't have a need to perform neurosurgery - why think of the consequences of something you never think about in the first place?

kragen 7y ago
Maybe you think that there aren't any humans out there who really enjoy cutting open their fellow humans' heads with knives, and that neurosurgeons only do what they do because they're motivated by altruism or money. If so, you are profoundly mistaken, and probably a lot more optimistic about human nature than is rationally justifiable.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  I can't remember the last time someone called me an optimist. So where are some examples of these people that slice up people's brains for fun? If the law exists for good reason, there must be at least one example of an offender.
  - kragen 7y ago
    Most of them, if it's a real passion rather than something they could do without, have enough self-discipline and concern for others to go through medical school first, but there's also Jeffrey Dahmer and soldiers. There are intermediate outlets; Body Worlds, for example, and a friend of mine does taxidermy as a hobby. On non-human animals he doesn't have to kill because they're already dead.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      I feel like that was murder and the exploration of bodies was secondary to that. And other times he was just torturing them because he wanted to torture them. I meant something more like a person pretending to be a neurosurgeon so they could attempt to perform surgeries, like removing a tumor. Murderers desecrating bodies isn't what I would call neurosurgery.
      - kragen 7y ago
        Dahmer also performed neurosurgery on some of his victims while they were still alive, but not in order to torture them, more for power reasons. There have also been numerous cases of people faking medical abilities (including, roughly, every doctor before 1800) but I don't think we can unambiguously attribute any one of them to a strong desire to cut apart human bodies.
        bjornsing 7y ago
        Yea, it’s worth remembering in this context that 1949’s Nobel prize in medicine was awarded to the doctor who invented the medical intervention we now call lobotomy.

kragen 7y ago

Maybe you think that there aren't any humans out there who really enjoy cutting open their fellow humans' heads with knives, and that neurosurgeons only do what they do because they're motivated by altruism or money. If so, you are profoundly mistaken, and probably a lot more optimistic about human nature than is rationally justifiable.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
I can't remember the last time someone called me an optimist. So where are some examples of these people that slice up people's brains for fun? If the law exists for good reason, there must be at least one example of an offender.
- kragen 7y ago
  Most of them, if it's a real passion rather than something they could do without, have enough self-discipline and concern for others to go through medical school first, but there's also Jeffrey Dahmer and soldiers. There are intermediate outlets; Body Worlds, for example, and a friend of mine does taxidermy as a hobby. On non-human animals he doesn't have to kill because they're already dead.
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    I feel like that was murder and the exploration of bodies was secondary to that. And other times he was just torturing them because he wanted to torture them. I meant something more like a person pretending to be a neurosurgeon so they could attempt to perform surgeries, like removing a tumor. Murderers desecrating bodies isn't what I would call neurosurgery.
    - kragen 7y ago
      Dahmer also performed neurosurgery on some of his victims while they were still alive, but not in order to torture them, more for power reasons. There have also been numerous cases of people faking medical abilities (including, roughly, every doctor before 1800) but I don't think we can unambiguously attribute any one of them to a strong desire to cut apart human bodies.
      - bjornsing 7y ago
        Yea, it’s worth remembering in this context that 1949’s Nobel prize in medicine was awarded to the doctor who invented the medical intervention we now call lobotomy.