11 ms·

Failure implies responsibility. Which is the entire point of the article. We've shifted death from something that just happens, to something that we're responsi

Failure implies responsibility. Which is the entire point of the article. We've shifted death from something that just happens, to something that we're responsible for. We've come to believe that we are somehow above death, and that every death is due to a human failure. Which is nonsense. Similarly taking your position, we could say that computer science's inability to factor numbers in polynomial time is a failure. Clearly the fact that solving the problem may actually be impossible should play a role in assigning the label 'failure'.

swombat 15y ago
Failure implies responsibility. And I think that's a fair point, actually. Death is a responsibility. Ascribing it solely to medicine is unfair, but it is our responsibility. Could we extend the average lifespan of adults by 10 years by spending money? Easily. Most people live thoroughly unhealthy lives, many of them because they simply don't know better. Consider the whole "obesity epidemic". A large number of people will die comparatively young because of a complete failure of our society to teach them how to eat decent food. Beyond simply curing gross mistakes in self-care, what about positives? Could we find ways to get the average healthy person to treat their body even better, and squeeze out some more life expectancy? I'm sure we could. More thorough study of the effects of nutrients and toxins, more efforts to reduce the amount of crap in people's food and other items that they come into daily contact with, etc, those would probably net another few years of improvement. And that's only looking at western society. If you look at poorer countries, there are countless avoidable deaths there. Some organisations, like the Gates foundation, are trying to address some of the more obvious killers, like Malaria, which have been neglected for decades (if we'd really wanted to get rid of Malaria in the 50s, we would have done so). Overall, I think it's fair to state that we could raise the life expectancy of almost every human on this earth by 10 years if we really tried. But we choose not to. There are 7 billion humans on this planet, and every day, we, as a society, make a choice, to not bother to create 70 billion man-years of life-expectancy. It is a choice, or rather a lack of choice, and so yes, it is a responsibility. We all (me included) choose to give up on 70 billion years of human life, every day.
- finnw 15y ago
  Not at all. We do teach people how to eat decent food, but many choose not to.
  - swombat 15y ago
    We do? Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg Most people have no clue what constitutes a healthy meal. Moreover, they are strongly incentivised to eat crap by the fact that crap food is (much) cheaper than healthy food. Combine the two, and you have vast numbers of people who basically eat sausage rolls, pizzas, burgers, chips and chinese takeaways (probably not the worst of the bunch), along with epic-size sugary sodas and mega-calorie coffees on a pretty much daily basis.
    - warfangle 15y ago
      I had to stop watching this show after 4 or 5 episodes. It was just too depressing.
    - zacharycohn 15y ago
      Many people complain that healthy food is "too expensive." However, a more accurate explanation is "crappy food is cheap." There's definitely an important difference.
      - xyzzyz 15y ago
        What do you suggest, making them both expensive?
        zacharycohn 15y ago
        Er, no. But there's an important psychological difference between "X is expensive." and "Y is cheap." Honda Civic's aren't cheap. A Lexus is expensive.
  - lunarscape 15y ago
marshallp 15y ago
We are responsible for death. We as a worldwide society have enough resources to seriously tackle death but because of our inability to coordinate effectively we don't apply those resource. NIH budget $30 billion Defense budget $700 billion Coordination is the problem web startups exist to solve, and so readers of hackers news are a particularly culpable in failing to address death.
- Avshalom 15y ago
  We as a worldwide society MAY MAY have enough resources, that's assuming it's even a solvable problem. Also "web startups" as a class don't exist to solve anything other than maybe the question "why don't I have more money".
  - marshallp 15y ago
    We MAY be able to solve, so why not try it? I'd put avoiding death at the top of any list of priorities. To make money you should be solving a problem (stealing and monopolies being exceptions). Web startups exist to coordinate people, that's the only thing they are capable of - they cannot "physically" do anything else. (the exception is personal data backup such as dropbox).

swombat 15y ago

Failure implies responsibility. And I think that's a fair point, actually. Death is a responsibility. Ascribing it solely to medicine is unfair, but it is our responsibility. Could we extend the average lifespan of adults by 10 years by spending money? Easily. Most people live thoroughly unhealthy lives, many of them because they simply don't know better. Consider the whole "obesity epidemic". A large number of people will die comparatively young because of a complete failure of our society to teach them how to eat decent food. Beyond simply curing gross mistakes in self-care, what about positives? Could we find ways to get the average healthy person to treat their body even better, and squeeze out some more life expectancy? I'm sure we could. More thorough study of the effects of nutrients and toxins, more efforts to reduce the amount of crap in people's food and other items that they come into daily contact with, etc, those would probably net another few years of improvement. And that's only looking at western society. If you look at poorer countries, there are countless avoidable deaths there. Some organisations, like the Gates foundation, are trying to address some of the more obvious killers, like Malaria, which have been neglected for decades (if we'd really wanted to get rid of Malaria in the 50s, we would have done so). Overall, I think it's fair to state that we could raise the life expectancy of almost every human on this earth by 10 years if we really tried. But we choose not to. There are 7 billion humans on this planet, and every day, we, as a society, make a choice, to not bother to create 70 billion man-years of life-expectancy. It is a choice, or rather a lack of choice, and so yes, it is a responsibility. We all (me included) choose to give up on 70 billion years of human life, every day.

finnw 15y ago
Not at all. We do teach people how to eat decent food, but many choose not to.
- swombat 15y ago
  We do? Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGYs4KS_djg Most people have no clue what constitutes a healthy meal. Moreover, they are strongly incentivised to eat crap by the fact that crap food is (much) cheaper than healthy food. Combine the two, and you have vast numbers of people who basically eat sausage rolls, pizzas, burgers, chips and chinese takeaways (probably not the worst of the bunch), along with epic-size sugary sodas and mega-calorie coffees on a pretty much daily basis.
  - warfangle 15y ago
    I had to stop watching this show after 4 or 5 episodes. It was just too depressing.
  - zacharycohn 15y ago
    Many people complain that healthy food is "too expensive." However, a more accurate explanation is "crappy food is cheap." There's definitely an important difference.
    - xyzzyz 15y ago
      What do you suggest, making them both expensive?
      - zacharycohn 15y ago
        Er, no. But there's an important psychological difference between "X is expensive." and "Y is cheap." Honda Civic's aren't cheap. A Lexus is expensive.
- lunarscape 15y ago

marshallp 15y ago

We are responsible for death. We as a worldwide society have enough resources to seriously tackle death but because of our inability to coordinate effectively we don't apply those resource. NIH budget $30 billion Defense budget $700 billion Coordination is the problem web startups exist to solve, and so readers of hackers news are a particularly culpable in failing to address death.

Avshalom 15y ago
We as a worldwide society MAY MAY have enough resources, that's assuming it's even a solvable problem. Also "web startups" as a class don't exist to solve anything other than maybe the question "why don't I have more money".
- marshallp 15y ago
  We MAY be able to solve, so why not try it? I'd put avoiding death at the top of any list of priorities. To make money you should be solving a problem (stealing and monopolies being exceptions). Web startups exist to coordinate people, that's the only thing they are capable of - they cannot "physically" do anything else. (the exception is personal data backup such as dropbox).