6 ms·

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

by 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
  Agreed. I find it hard to believe that so many people can be so ignorant of the very basics of healthy eating despite all the public health initiatives and mandatory classes in schools (at least in my country). I think people have the knowledge but just not the incentives to eat healthily. Convenience generally trumps everything else.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    Convenience generally trumps everything else. And taste. Pizza is really good.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  Careful, this is a very dangerous path you're walking down. This is the same thing as "why don't those homeless people just get jobs?!" - it's a failure to understand the complexities of the situation. It feels nice though, because their failure is not on us (society as a whole), but wholly on them. Moral responsibility defeated! swombat nailed it on the head: crap food is way cheaper than good food, to the point where a lot of this country does not have reasonable access to healthy foods. There are also other angles - e.g., single mother of two juggling two jobs - do you find something microwaveable or do you cook something healthy with the time you don't have? In any case, this whole thing is way more complicated than just "hurr durr stupid plebes".
  - finnw 15y ago
    But swombat specifically referred to obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods. If you are already eating too many pies, you can afford to replace some of them with cabbage or sprouts (at least here in England; Maybe it's not as cheap/easily available in other parts of the world?) Don't confuse it with malnutrition, which is a real (but different) problem.
    - potatolicious 15y ago
      > "obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods." It suggests no such thing. The obesity epidemic is all about eating the wrong things.
      - ekianjo 15y ago
        Obesity is not only a problem of quality of food, it also IS linked to quantity. You will never get obese if you only get a small amount of crap food everyday, but eating lots of it will surely put you on the right way. There are some genetic exceptions (some people get fat even when eating reasonably) but this is a tiny minority. Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related (no or not enough exercise / too much food ). There's no way you can get away from personal responsibility there. It is nothing like homeless unable to find jobs. You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it.
hyko 15y ago
Living a healthy lifestyle has many benefits, but there's obviously an upper bound to this as a life extension approach. Who was it who said "Eat right, Exercise Regularly, Die Anyway"? :)
- swombat 15y ago
  Sure, but if you take all the people who will die before 60 because of their weight (what's that, 1/3 of the population in the US?) you can basically add 15-20 years to their lifespans just by having them eat properly. That's the equivalent of adding 5 years to the US's average life expectancy.
  - rhino42 15y ago
    I frankly don't understand why you were downvoted. I agree with this opinion...
  - losvedir 15y ago
    No, that can't be right. Do you have sources to those statistics, as they seem way more drastic than I would have thought. E.g., after looking around online for a bit, I found this[1] which indicates 300,000 deaths each year are attributable to obesity, which is 12.5% of deaths[2]. Furthermore, the magnitude of the the effect doesn't seem to be 15-20 years. This wikipedia section[3] indicates that being "obese" lowers life expectancy by 2-4 years. Being "severely obese" lowers it by 10 years. But according to these statistics[4], "severely obese" is ~10% of the population. So I think 1/3 of the US population dying before age 60 because of obesity is way, way off the mark. More like 10% dying at 68 and maybe half the population dying at 75 because of obesity rather than 78. [1] http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm [2] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#Mortality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#Mortality [4] http://www.nber.org/papers/w13181 http://www.nber.org/papers/w13181
icegreentea 15y ago
Yes, everything you say there is true. But in the context of the article, and the parent post, we are not talking about preventative healthcare, or first lines of treatment, or stuff that can generally fall under the umbrella of "treating people right". The context of the article is about extraordinary actions at the end of life. This is not about keeping people healthy, it is about making very ill people live a bit longer. We clearly have a responsibility to keep people healthy. There is no excuse for allowing malnutrition to just happen (though there is an 'excuse' for it to continue while we try to rid it). Those are failures. We are responsible for those. Those responsibilities are very different from the situations being discussed by the article, and what I thought that mistercow was talking about (which would be death in general).
wpietri 15y ago
I'm entirely in favor of extending healthy life worldwide, but I worry that you're missing the point: death will still come. We are certainly responsible for not doing the best we can with what paltry time and resources we have. This may seem like I'm belaboring a meaningless distinction, but it has practical implications. We spend extraordinary sums on futile end-of-life care instead of on the things you name. And people who are unprepared for death, their own or that of loved ones, suffer immensely. Deciding that every death is a failure is denying a reality that we must confront if we really want to make the most of what we have.

by swombat 15y ago

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
Agreed. I find it hard to believe that so many people can be so ignorant of the very basics of healthy eating despite all the public health initiatives and mandatory classes in schools (at least in my country). I think people have the knowledge but just not the incentives to eat healthily. Convenience generally trumps everything else.
- orangecat 15y ago
  Convenience generally trumps everything else. And taste. Pizza is really good.
potatolicious 15y ago
Careful, this is a very dangerous path you're walking down. This is the same thing as "why don't those homeless people just get jobs?!" - it's a failure to understand the complexities of the situation. It feels nice though, because their failure is not on us (society as a whole), but wholly on them. Moral responsibility defeated! swombat nailed it on the head: crap food is way cheaper than good food, to the point where a lot of this country does not have reasonable access to healthy foods. There are also other angles - e.g., single mother of two juggling two jobs - do you find something microwaveable or do you cook something healthy with the time you don't have? In any case, this whole thing is way more complicated than just "hurr durr stupid plebes".
- finnw 15y ago
  But swombat specifically referred to obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods. If you are already eating too many pies, you can afford to replace some of them with cabbage or sprouts (at least here in England; Maybe it's not as cheap/easily available in other parts of the world?) Don't confuse it with malnutrition, which is a real (but different) problem.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    > "obesity, which suggests that you eat too much, not just that you eat the wrong foods." It suggests no such thing. The obesity epidemic is all about eating the wrong things.
    - ekianjo 15y ago
      Obesity is not only a problem of quality of food, it also IS linked to quantity. You will never get obese if you only get a small amount of crap food everyday, but eating lots of it will surely put you on the right way. There are some genetic exceptions (some people get fat even when eating reasonably) but this is a tiny minority. Most of the obese epidemic is lifestyle related (no or not enough exercise / too much food ). There's no way you can get away from personal responsibility there. It is nothing like homeless unable to find jobs. You are directly responsible of what you put in your mouth everyday, and how much of it.

hyko 15y ago

Living a healthy lifestyle has many benefits, but there's obviously an upper bound to this as a life extension approach. Who was it who said "Eat right, Exercise Regularly, Die Anyway"? :)

swombat 15y ago
Sure, but if you take all the people who will die before 60 because of their weight (what's that, 1/3 of the population in the US?) you can basically add 15-20 years to their lifespans just by having them eat properly. That's the equivalent of adding 5 years to the US's average life expectancy.
- rhino42 15y ago
  I frankly don't understand why you were downvoted. I agree with this opinion...
- losvedir 15y ago
  No, that can't be right. Do you have sources to those statistics, as they seem way more drastic than I would have thought. E.g., after looking around online for a bit, I found this[1] which indicates 300,000 deaths each year are attributable to obesity, which is 12.5% of deaths[2]. Furthermore, the magnitude of the the effect doesn't seem to be 15-20 years. This wikipedia section[3] indicates that being "obese" lowers life expectancy by 2-4 years. Being "severely obese" lowers it by 10 years. But according to these statistics[4], "severely obese" is ~10% of the population. So I think 1/3 of the US population dying before age 60 because of obesity is way, way off the mark. More like 10% dying at 68 and maybe half the population dying at 75 because of obesity rather than 78. [1] http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm http://www.wvdhhr.org/bph/oehp/obesity/mortality.htm [2] http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#Mortality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obesity#Mortality [4] http://www.nber.org/papers/w13181 http://www.nber.org/papers/w13181

icegreentea 15y ago

Yes, everything you say there is true. But in the context of the article, and the parent post, we are not talking about preventative healthcare, or first lines of treatment, or stuff that can generally fall under the umbrella of "treating people right". The context of the article is about extraordinary actions at the end of life. This is not about keeping people healthy, it is about making very ill people live a bit longer. We clearly have a responsibility to keep people healthy. There is no excuse for allowing malnutrition to just happen (though there is an 'excuse' for it to continue while we try to rid it). Those are failures. We are responsible for those. Those responsibilities are very different from the situations being discussed by the article, and what I thought that mistercow was talking about (which would be death in general).

wpietri 15y ago

I'm entirely in favor of extending healthy life worldwide, but I worry that you're missing the point: death will still come. We are certainly responsible for not doing the best we can with what paltry time and resources we have. This may seem like I'm belaboring a meaningless distinction, but it has practical implications. We spend extraordinary sums on futile end-of-life care instead of on the things you name. And people who are unprepared for death, their own or that of loved ones, suffer immensely. Deciding that every death is a failure is denying a reality that we must confront if we really want to make the most of what we have.