----- Original Message ---- From: Somebody Somebody <philos_case at yahoo.com>
Somebody: In other words, a modicum of suffering is (currently) necessary to prevent still greater suffering. No disagreement there. The disagreement is that you're apparently more pessimistic about the prospects for medicine in the future to change that than I am. We're only a matter of centuries from the age of blood-letting and Bezoar stones. Assuming we don't destroy ourselves, the best days of humanity are probably ahead. Even in our lifetimes, I expect to win this bet.
In the meantime, we should be pushing governments to drastically increase public funding for basic research. There's this pernicious nonsense being spread in the U.S. currently that we're spending too much on health care, and that Medicare is unsustainable. We're simply spending too much for the health outcomes we're receiving. But on health generally? What *should* we be prioritizing instead? Real estate? Designer clothes? Video games?
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