23 Comments
User's avatar
Aidan Barrett's avatar

As you bluntly state in your book, the essence of being a conservative is believing that "We Are Doomed"

Still, swallowing a pill to cure cancer is quite impressive. I only wish it could have been available to a couple beloved relatives ten years earlier.

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CC's avatar

I’ve read there has been good progress correcting macular degeneration as well..

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FluffyDunlop's avatar

Still no cure for Autism though. Or migraine.

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Little known history's avatar

Good post although I will believe the cure for schizophrenia when I see it, some cures for various diseases in the past have been exaggerated.

For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_metalloproteinase#Inhibitors

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Ed West's avatar

thank you.

I don't know how accurate investors in new tech have been in the past, and whether their current optimism suggests they're onto something. Hope so at any rate.

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JonF311's avatar

Re: I believe that it won’t be too long before we’re all living to 300

I assume this is hyperbole. We've done a very good job of preventing premature death and of extending health and vigor into the later decades of life, at least for people who are willing to put forth the effort. But we have accomplished absolutely zilch in preventing the natural, and it would seem, inevitable, aging of the body.

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Ed West's avatar

only half, I think life extension technology is not totally out of our reach. I would certainly be up for it - reckon I might get a bit jaded by about my 500th birthday though.

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Tony Buck's avatar

Or terrified. A precious, comfortable life lasting for centuries would be an intolerable thing to lose.

Even the thought of losing it, would drive people mad.

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Aivlys's avatar

Just you wait until A.I. maps out the entire genetic and molecular codes for the Greenland shark.

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Keith's avatar

Really quite amazing and uplifting. The video of the man suffering from Parkinson's was especially astonishing.

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Ed West's avatar

yes, incredible stuff!

the reaction of the baby's parents was heartwarming but also amusingly British - 'bonkers'!

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Kevin Morrison's avatar

Yes, astonishing and also humbling. 'Big Pharma' - rightly - has its critics, but the team that developed this are all heroes.

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Keith's avatar

'Big' is nearly always used as a synonym for 'rapacious' by a certain kind of person. For others 'big' just means 'successful', in a way that small companies aren't.

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Henry Cotton's avatar

Happy new year to all the fellow doomsters and occasional optimists.

What's even more mind blowing about the above is that hardly anyone in the past worried about stuff like this because everyone was dying in infancy, or from cholera, or other infections etc. We cured this, then met a whole host of new illnesses that came with increasing years, and now we're well on our way to solving these.

Things can only get better! (Cries into drink remembering Labour have over 400 seats...)

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Greg's avatar

Yes, amazing things happening in haematology, immunology and genetics. I wish our leaders would show as much enthusiasm with mental problems, which are the biggest cause of death from the teens to retirement. A secure childhood is a big help, I believe.

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Finn's avatar

And a Happy New Year to you too, Ed!

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Ed West's avatar

Happy New Year to you too again!

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Aidan Barrett's avatar

"Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, I believe that it won’t be too long before we’re all living to 300 - and spending most of it drooling into our phones as we gaze at TikTok reels featuring utter cretins."

Will the "Idiocracy " scenario come true, perhaps?

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Ed West's avatar

alas, I am increasingly starting to believe it. All the data on reading proficiency, and the fact that so few people read anymore, seems to suggest it!

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Aidan Barrett's avatar

At least in Idiocracy, the machines keep the stupid, useless human beings alive for some reason. Not like in the Matrix where they capture them and enslave them for energy.

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Aidan Barrett's avatar

Maybe some should imitate the Chinese method of celebrating university acceptance to incentivize more effort:

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/cc6W5WmB9SI

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Gnasher's avatar

Great news, Ed. I really miss eating peanuts on a plane

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Tony Buck's avatar

Obviously, these medical triumph are only available to the wealthy or those living in wealthy countries.

And as these medical advances offer near-immortality, in good health, they will much intensify the already hurricane-force Migration Revolution.

Thus destroying the affluence making the medical advances possible.

Except perhaps for a small minority living in gated communities, guarded by young bravos with machine guns, with food, water and medicines helicoptered in.

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