8 ms·
If you want to make the case that being less conservative will be better in the long run, you have to make the case that you're definitely on the right track, a
by 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
If you want to make the case that being less conservative will be better in the long run, you have to make the case that you're definitely on the right track, and doing it in a riskier way will speed up the eventual solution. You might accidentally go down the wrong path full steam and cost more lives, or just plateau in a dangerous way.
If I offer you an untested unreliable cancer cure, on the grounds that moving slowly kills more in the long run, I'm likely to make things worse by putting out a non-cure. We could do some really fucked up human experimentation to save more lives in the long run, but that's not the ethics we've collectively agreed on.
- Retric 6y agoWe do some rather twisted things in medical research. Handing out placebo’s is a critical part of research, but consider what that means for a serious medical condition. Informed consent is a really big deal, but not a blanket exception for anything. Compensated participation for example is tricky. That’s the kind of issues that make medical ethics a complex subject and there are often difficult choices to be made.