Yale professor suggesting ‘mass suicide’ of elderly 'inappropriate' but understandable: Japanese commentator
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
It's morbid but this is an important conversation we need to have as a society and we need to move beyond certain organizations that mandate an absolute prohibition on suicide because every one of us, everyone we love and know, will die.
I think America’s obesity problem will take care of things.
Life expectancy has been pretty much unchanged even in the face of the obesity problem.
It's a medical condition that should be treated as a disease. Probably 90% of diseases, heart disease, Alzheimer's, diabetes, Parkinsons, etc. are rarely unseen in people under 35. Cure or reduce aging and those debilitating diseases will never occur .
Those diseases exist because in the entirety of human history, on average we never lived past 50 until 100 years ago. Said another way, 100 years ago and for the preceding 100,000 years that modern humans have existed, those diseases were rare because infection/trauma killed you long before those diseases manifested. We are already "cheating" death as a society and there are tens of millions of people who are alive today that 100 years ago would've been dead. Those diseases are diseases of old age that happen to old worn out bodies of people who were usually long gone.
Yes, but life expectancy in Japan is over 7 years longer than in the US.
“This low mortality is mainly attributable to a low rate of obesity, low consumption of red meat, and high consumption of fish and plant foods such as soybeans and tea.”
100 or even 50 years ago we didn't have the medical science or technology we have today, but we still don't fully understand the cause of aging in organisms. If someone with a chronological age of 90 had the biological age of 30, he wouldn't have those diseases either.
The obese population is still too young to have an effect.
I guess what I'm saying is aging is "natural". Every living thing has a finite lifespan and dies. Can you imagine the problems we'd have with population and resource allocation if life expectancy went from the world average of 72 to 120? Most people have a hard time working 30 years - can you imagine having to work for 60 years? It's totally unrealistic. The average life expectancy in ancient Rome was 30 and during the Bronze age, it was 26. This wasn't that long ago in evolutionary time. No one cheats death and the best you can hope for is a temporary stay execution.
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It's "natural" because that's all we know. No reason it can't be manipulated. How do you think the aliens survive the thousands of years of space travel to get here? Population can be controlled by birth rates as well. Imagine what more discoveries to benefit mankind Einstein would have made if was still alive.
The epidemic started in the early 80's - we're getting close. I was recently thinking about my kids and their friends and the patients I see every day. Not one of my kids or their friends are even close to being overweight and in my area of Massachusetts obesity in adults and kids is actually pretty rare.
Lol...Einstein once said, "A person who has not made his great contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so." The current age for a physicist's "best work" is 48 - that is the average age at which Noble prize-winning physicists did the work that got them the Noble. That kind of creativity seems to peak and then decline well before physical health becomes an issue.
CleanSump
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Alfred Nobel willed the "Noble" Prize to the world?
Que? It's not lost on me that autocorrect likes Noble vs Nobel but what's your point?
Controversial was this professor's word not mine and note that my above said published and well known. Regardless, I would say controversial is more likely to get eyeballs on you, enraging someone(s) is a great way to get attention in the dialogue that exists today.
I think the word, in particular to the topic of the OP, represents perfectly how some people feel they can get themselves out there. Just my $.02.
It's Yale - what do you expect?
They riding that eugenics gravy train for 100 years now.
Yale undergrads explore University’s ties to eugenics
Three Yale students spoke at a panel on Wednesday about Yale’s relationship with eugenics.
yaledailynews.com
GUO & GARCIA: 100 years later: eugenics at Yale
In late September 1921, 100 years ago, Yale economics professor Irving Fisher traveled from his home on Prospect Street to attend a prestigious academic conference […]
yaledailynews.com
this. not far-fetched at all.Japanese culture about abandoning aging population is called Ubasute
Ubasute - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
It stopped in the last couple hundred years but you bet it is something people knew from historical texts and folklore. I wouldn't be surprised it came out of Japan.
Back then in Greece they "sacrifice" slaves who aged pass their useful lives. Honestly for Japanese population the best they can do is actually to send them to rural area and build affordable nursing homes for them, and hire 3rd world workers to help them with the lowest cost available.
i spent 11 years in japan after 2 years of 40 hr/week of language training. add to ubasute the imperative of sacrificing (gisei ni suru) the few for the good of the many. japan’s socialized medicine reimburses providers for contact-frequency over results. so, the argument goes: if the government needs to cut its costs then the least useful members of society should be sacrificed for the good of the rest.
the concept of “useless eaters” has surfaced with tragic effect in the west. https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=7019
you may dismiss the yale professor’s views as irrelevant and nutty because “we are better than that” but i outright cannot, especially after the public health events of the past 3 years.
Take me out to the Everglades on an airboat and throw me into alligator infested waters is my choice so I don’t rot away for years trapped in my body.
