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I am starting this thread with a remark from a "Solar Energy" thread since my response really starts a new discussion and has nothing to do with solar and/or energy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mustangman66
Not saying that we should necessarily reduce population size, but the size of the population definitely plays a part. You could however easily reduce the size of the population down to a few thousand people in my opinion without any side effects as you mention. Technology has allowed the population to grow to the size it is today, we try to outsmart natures population control and now we are faced with growing concerns about the environment due to the increased population size. If the population was significantly smaller we would have very little concern as the smaller the population the fewer negative effects there would all while utilizing an alternate renewable energy source.
I feel strongly that we unnecessarily prolong life at the ending point.
The three relatives in question in question are, and I'll use initials:
RB - My mother;
JA - My mother-in-law; and
GB - My stepmother-in-law
They are, collectively, the tale of what has gone wrong with modern medicine, and why, no matter what Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Ted Cruz, John Kasich or Donald Trump say, we're heading into a brick wall. All (with the limited exceptions of EB and SB) are examples of egregious and largely spending on health care. All except JA, who has suffered from multiple sclerosis for about 45 years developed their illnesses after they turned 75. And even JA's most expensive health crises have developed starting just before she turned 75.
RB – Exhibit “A” for my point. Her situation is the biggest illustration of futility. My mother died in 2014 at age 82. She barely knew a sick day in her life until 2007, when she began experiencing vaginal discharges. The cause was not diagnosed until the summer of 2008 when she had a hysterectomy. The doctors knew that there had been some spread so she went through a tough battery of chemo and x-ray treatments. Those weakened her ankle sufficiently that she experienced a severe break, and after surgery for that, a few weeks of rehabilitation.
During late 2011 she experienced a colon blockage. After the proctoscope examination, where the probe could not be completed because of blockage I asked the doctor if the cause could be metastasis from the earlier uterine cancer. Before I finished my sentence he said “no.” She emerged from surgery with dementia, which waned and then waxed again. She also had another round of chemo. She went on 24 hour home care from fall of 2013 until her death in 2014. Her long-term care insurance paid for this.
The toll on me was severe. I wound up losing my job, partially over the distractions involved. And my wife was diverted from helping her own parents, whose condition was worsening. So, about six and a half not very good years, and lots of money down the drain.
This past May I partially recovered my job, after my previous employer was severed from the firm that we were both at during 2014, the year of my mother's death.
JA – My mother-in-law fought multiple schlerosis for about 45 years, give or take. She was ambulatory till about 1995, and then has been wheelchair bound.
The other health problems began with a leg infection a bit more than four years ago, which ended in the amputation of one of her legs. Last fall, she suffered another infection and hospitalization, which caused some serious depression last fall. After a brief recovery, she was back in the hospital in early April, for e-coli and other infections. During this hospitalization she had a kidney stone removed and a urinary stent installed. She’s recovered from that hospitalization but about the only thing that moved were her lips, digestive tract and lungs. The latter two failed causing her death this past May.
GB – Now 80 years old. Around the first half of Marh my wife's stepmother had a fall and felt dizzy in her second home, a Florida apartment. My father-in-law and my wife's stepmother normally live in New York City. She has been having bouts of dizziness and seizures in the last three or so years. For rest of story Great Train Escape - Or Getting Relative Out of Crooked Rehab Facility. She also has had other seizures and now recurrent melanoma.
The overall theme of this is lots of medical care, and a reduced quality of life. There is nothing any politician is going to do, whether with a return to pre-Obamacare conditions or a single-payer system, that will resolve any of this.
The real problem, then, is that people's life spans have been extended. Their period of productivity and quality life is extended but much less. And it's even worse for blue collar people. How do they keep working in a coal mine or as a pipefitter in their 80's? Does anyone else see a solution?
Such a personal decision to make and a personal opinion. How can one answer this?
I have no interest in living forever or even living an extended life. Given current medical care, I know what my old age will probably be like, as I am over 60, have pretty serious arthritis, with a cancer in remission (NOT curable). If I live long enough and don't get hit by a truck or eaten by the neighborhood bear that cancer will probably show up for an encore. I may well be dependent due to deteriorating joints and mobility. Of course I do what I can now, but I don't choose to linger on endlessly because someone else feels its right.
At some point if we manage to eliminate aging or fatal diseases what will we do with all those people? Space on the planet is limited no matter how we justify those efforts. Do we impose reproductive lotteries on others? Selectively provide care? Crowd out every other species and remodel the earth into some sort of warehouse just so more humans can live?
Such a personal decision to make and a personal opinion. How can one answer this?
I have no interest in living forever or even living an extended life. Given current medical care, I know what my old age will probably be like, as I am over 60, have pretty serious arthritis, with a cancer in remission (NOT curable). If I live long enough and don't get hit by a truck or eaten by the neighborhood bear that cancer will probably show up for an encore. I may well be dependent due to deteriorating joints and mobility. Of course I do what I can now, but I don't choose to linger on endlessly because someone else feels its right.
At some point if we manage to eliminate aging or fatal diseases what will we do with all those people? Space on the planet is limited no matter how we justify those efforts. Do we impose reproductive lotteries on others? Selectively provide care? Crowd out every other species and remodel the earth into some sort of warehouse just so more humans can live?
No. Go to some market-based system so that people have skin in the game with their decisions. Or go to Obama-style "panels." That was about the only part of ACA I supported and it's absence may be why it's imploding.
I will only say it should be called Sick Care. This is a huge reason why I work with supplements to maintain my health and I'm 79 soon. The drugs are so toxic. There is so much info TODAY on how to help ourselves.
My sister died this past Dec at 68 with about a 25 yr battle with MS. The last 5 yrs were horrible. She took all the pharma drugs they pushed on her as she was told they will slow the progression. She refused my info. I love her and miss her but no more pain.
Last edited by jaminhealth; 07-07-2017 at 03:33 PM..
A huge generalization that is not accurate. What drugs? Treating what? Under what conditions? Some consider supplements meet the definition of a drug.
There is so much info TODAY on how to help ourselves.
Yes, there is.
My sister died this past Dec at 68 with about a 25 yr battle with MS. The last 5 yrs were horrible.
I'm sure they were.
She took all the pharma drugs they pushed on her as she was told they will slow the progression.
Maybe they did. But the result didn't meet your expectations. I have a friend who also has had MS for a long time and some of the drugs did seem to help. I don't know enough to say which. Each person is an individual organism and not all react the same way to any course of treatment....even supplements.
Yes, she made her choices. But just MAYBE had she worked with adjuncts as well she might be alive. During a conversation with my sis in 2006, she talked about the importance of D3 with MS patients and prevention of MS, she made sure she had her daughter on D3. I'd wager there are mega millions who are deficient and MANY older people. I got my levels tested after our talk and I was deficient and I was in my late 60's and did no more of the beach world.
A friend and I were talking the other day and she has been very holistic for the 20some yrs I've known her, but she ended up with afib and is now taking 5-6 drugs and she was saying how she's aged with the drugs. And I could see it in her face. They are toxic but she says I worry about a stroke. So she's between a rock and a hard place.
At a point a few years ago she was taking high doses of ibuprofen for some joint issues and she believes the ibuprofen caused the afib. I don't know, but that is her thinking. http://www.ehealthme.com/ds/ibuprofe...-fibrillation/
I take ibuprofen on a schedule for OA joint issues but also take adjuncts to keep my heart healthy, I Hope.
We may have gotten OT, but I don't want to be propped up with drugs etc..that's when the "pill" should be available to us.
Last edited by jaminhealth; 07-07-2017 at 04:55 PM..
The post is an interesting theoretical question, but it dissolves upon touching reality.That is, when you are old, when do you say, don't waste medical supplies on me, just let me die? When you get shot at 62, do you just say let me bleed out on the pavement? When you are in a crash at 55, do you just say leave me in the car to die? When you fall at 78 and can't get back up, do you say just leave me here on the ground until I starve to death? When you have heart problems, and the doctor says all you have to do is take this medicine and eat healthy and you can live for another decade, do you say No, I would rather just die?
A terminal illness, might be fairly easy to give up and die on. A cancer that might be beat, is a lot harder to give up on. A disease that can be cured by medicine or surgery, would be very difficult to give up on just so you don't burden younger people and the environment.
Wanting to live, and even at any cost, is a natural desire. If any significant amount of a species did not want to live, we could assume that it would be an evolutionary failure.
In fact, wanting to eliminate ourselves, in order to help the environment is unnatural. Living things consume and reproduce at the highest rate possible. The only reason most organisms don't overpopulate and destroy the environment is because they can't, it has nothing to do with harmony with nature. If the wolves eat too many deer, then the deer population falls. When the deer population falls, the wolf population begins to starve and it falls. When the wolf population falls, the deer have less predators and reproduce more and their population grows. When the deer population grows, the wolves have more food and their population grows, and the cycle repeats infinitely. We have been able to escape the cycle thus far due to our reasoning ability which led to technology. When other animals can, they do so as well. For a famous example, look up the St. Matthew Island reindeer.
If we can't technologically overcome overpopulation, nature will take its course, and we will simply have a population crash. It's really no less harsh than condemning people to death that we don't think should go on living due to age, usefulness, etc.
But just MAYBE had she worked with adjuncts as well she might be alive.[/b]
Alive, but still facing a death due to MS which is horrible, 5 years, 2 years, or 6 months away.
I don't do the whole coulda, woulda, shoulda thing. Never seems to change much in the end.
A friend and I were talking the other day and she has been very holistic for the 20some yrs I've known her, but she ended up with afib
So being holistic didn't necessarily change that lurking reality. Sometimes bad things happen no matter what we do or don't do.
Well obviously you and I think very opposite... I know others who have died and used only pharma drugs and just MAYBE they could be alive if they addressed deficiencies in our bodies and supplemented what could have helped them. Too much faith in toxic pharma drugs.
They already doing that. They want everybody to live and everybody to live forever. The other direction is the proper path, oh yessiree, nobody needs to see a hundred and three. Most of the worlds problems(at least "1st worlds") can be solved with getting rid of people who have no bussiness existing. Criminals that can't be rehibilitated, the elderly collecting dust in nursing homes and assited living facilities, retards, the incurable diseased ones. Taking up too much room, costing too much money, living past their expiration date, on borrowed time, or never needed to exist to begin with. People only need to live as long as they need to...supposed to. That 88 year old man on his fourth stroke, driving the wrong way down the expressway going to pick up his girl for the senior prom that was decades ago, need not live past that moment much less even made it there. Instead we fight nature and fate to defy the only things that can kill us and keep our population in check. Sure in the USA there may be land untouched by man, or hardly occupied by any if at all...well...it's supossed to be that way. Other things live there. There are other things on this planet that need home just like we do.
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