4 ms·
His publishers have the full statement: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks.page http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-b
by zerovox 14y ago
His publishers have the full statement: http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks.page http://www.littlebrown.co.uk/a-personal-statment-iain-banks....
- j_jochem 14y agoDamn, this sounds like a Klatskin tumor, a "rare" cancer. My father hat that kind of tumor as well. He died within 8 weeks of first developing jaundice. Let's stop trying to make people click on cheery-colored buttons and do something about this fucking disease instead.
- bwhite 14y agoGetting rich and improving the economy is almost certainly the best thing you can do to combat disease, pollution, poverty, etc.
- dbpatterson 14y agoOr by doing the actual medical research that will fix these problems. Seriously, not everything is solved by money - most is fixed by smart people figuring stuff out. If all the smart people spend their time trying to make money, who is going to do the research?
- partomniscient 14y agoIndeed. If you stand back far enough the behaviour of humanity seems completely insane. I wish I knew what to do.
- SoftwareMaven 14y agoExcept diseases like cancer are almost exclusive to "western" society. The more affluent we become, the more cancer and other non-contagious diseases we get. We are killing ourselves and it starts with the stuff our mothers eat, is made worse by what we eat, and is topped of by the environment we live in.
- Nursie 14y agoErr.... no. It's more prevalent in some societies because we live longer and we don't any longer die of preventable infections. Our air is cleaner than it's been for a long time. Decent nutrition has never been cheaper or more widely available. Life expectancy has never been longer. We are not killing ourselves. OK so some are by overeating and doing no exercise, but in general you're talking nonsense.
- MrBra 14y agoand we've never ate so many chemical food preservatives, taste modifiers, colourants like we're eating now. we've never been exposed to so much radiations like we are now. mobile phones being the first source. and the list goes on. we definitely are doing something to ourselves.
- Nursie 14y agoand we've never ate so many chemical food preservatives, taste modifiers, colourants like we're eating now. we've never been exposed to so much radiations like we are now. mobile phones being the first source. yes we might be killing ourselves This doesn't change the fact we're living longer, healthier lives than ever before. I'm sure there's a lot more that we could be doing, I'm sure that there are things we do that we should stop doing for our own health BUT none of this supports the notion that cancer is a disease of western privilege and we're doing everything wrong. We're doing more right than we've ever done.
- MrBra 14y agoand yes i forgot sugar and lifestyle
- engtech 14y agoActually, you need to do cohort analysis to see the risks in different age ranges rather than generalizing. People in older baby boomer cohorts are doing better than younger generations. "Decent nutrition has never been cheaper or more widely available." Sugar/fat has also never been cheaper or more widely available.