Understanding the one flaw with saving lives

Why we need to open our eyes

If I were to give you the superpower to cure cancer, would you take it? Well duh, I mean obviously, you’re getting rid of the second leading cause of death in the world.

But let’s say curing cancer isn’t your thing, what about increasing human lifespan, stopping cardiovascular diseases, or saving people from car accidents?

I’m sure out of the many, many causes that lead to death, you would at least stop one, especially if you didn’t even have to do anything.

The logic seems simple, all these causes lead to death which we need to eliminate at all costs. The goal would be to stop as many people as possible from dying. This means whichever causes of death are the highest, we have to tackle them first.

These are some of the leading causes of death in the world. Just think of one thing you would change if you could.

I mean we have done a fairly good job at that as well. Cardiovascular diseases and cancer have been at the top of our priority list ever since they became really big issues.

So what’s the issue then?

There isn’t a specific issue, but when you go really deep into the world's biggest problems and understand everything about it, it’ll make sense as to why we’re not ready to solve these problems.

Let’s take gene-editing as an example. Gene-editing is without a question one of the most controversial technologies that we’ve ever seen. There are upsides and downsides.

When we edit genes, there could be really bad side effects. It’s also the idea that a lot of people would consider it unethical to edit something like a human's body just because we have the power.

At the same time, we could theoretically cure any genetically related disease if we wanted to. However, to the people in general, the cons outweigh the pros. That’s why you’ll never see you’re local doctor use CRISPR-Cas9 to edit the gene of a human.

The key thing to note is that we’ve all been so focused on solving these huge problems and reducing the number of people that die.

But how many times have we ever stopped to think of what would happen after that?

What most people don’t see is that if we cure cancer or increase the human lifespan, there are going to be so many issues that all stem from one idea:

The inevitable truth is that by saving a large number of lives, we’re contributing to this problem. Every solution we create that saves lives also will also increase our population by an exponential amount.

So the question might be, what’s the big deal with having a couple billion more people on the planet? I mean humans live on only 0.05% of it. Why can’t we just use more land than we’re currently using?

The Facts

There are two reasons for that, first of all, it’s easier said than done, but the more important one is the amount of land we have isn’t the only issue with overpopulation.

The average growth rate in agricultural yields has almost halved since 1990 and is set to decline to a fraction of 1% in the next decade. This is what Robert Bailey, Oxfam’s senior climate advisor said:

“The food system must be transformed. By 2050, there will be 9 billion people on the planet and demand for food will have increased by 70 percent. This demand must be met despite flatlining yields, increasing water scarcity, and growing competition over land. And agriculture must rapidly adapt to a changing climate and slash its carbon footprint”

That’s only for food production, let’s think about another thing that drives our economy forward, fossil fuels.

“Abundant supplies of fossil fuels will end, bringing down the economic order with it. After all, she argued, at current rates of production, oil will run out in 53 years, natural gas in 54, and coal in 110. We have managed to deplete these fossil fuels — which have their origins somewhere between 541 and 66 million years ago — in less than 200 years since we started using them.”

That’s all not to mention that the current efficiency rate that society operates at is not going to be sustainable. An example is that 44% of harvested crops are lost prior to human consumption.

Or the fact that it takes around 2,400 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat. That means you could save more water by not eating 1 single pound of meat than you could by not showering for six months straight!

Keep in mind this is the size of one pound of meat. That much meat can be consumed by eating just 5 big macs. So yeah, by eating 5 big macs, you indirectly used 2400 gallons of water.

It’s clear that on top of being short of resources, the way we use them is also terrible and won’t get us far.

What’s mind-blowing is that for everything I just said, that’s just as it is right now. Just try to imagine if we increase human lifespan and cure something like cancer! Cancer alone takes the lives of 1 in every 4 Canadians.

Just think to yourself after hearing all these facts, how the hell are we going to survive when we add even more people. Overpopulation is already an issue, by adding more people we’re just putting the nail in the coffin (that coffin is our planet society by the way).

But what makes it even worse is that more people are going to cause things like climate change which will make the planet even worse. More people are going to litter and more fossil fuels are going to be burned.

Ethics

I hope by now you’ve seen why overpopulation is an issue and how curing things like cancer are going to affect it.

But one point that always seems to come up in this discussion is we’re dealing with people's lives that are being lost. Is it not unethical to not save people's lives and just leave them to die?

It definitely is. One thing I understand is there’s no right side to this argument. No matter how you look it, overpopulation is a really big issue already. But at the same time, it’s only right that we help other people who are dying because of things like heart disease and cancer.

However, I do want to dive into one thing in specific…

Human Longevity

The idea of human longevity is to enhance the human lifespan. One thing I’ve been thinking about is while increasing lifespan is something that might be fun to do, is it worth it?

More resources being used, overpopulation, etc. In my opinion, no. However it’s not just for these reasons, it also to do with the fundamental idea of increasing lifespan.

If editing someone's gene is considered unethical because it tampers with things that have stayed the same for centuries, how is increasing someone's lifespan any different?

Not to mention, what’s the point in increasing the time someone lives if all they’re going to do is be old and extremely susceptible to diseases. This is while they are consuming lots of resources.

And I think this happens with a lot of different technologies. We often get caught up in the hype of the idea without fully understanding the implications.

TL;DR

• While curing a disease like cancer would be something we all want to do, it doesn’t mean there are no side effects, the biggest one being overpopulation.
• As it is, we already are slowly losing resources, imagine when so many people get added on to the current population.
• The debate is whether we should prioritize helping people who are dying of diseases because it’s ethically correct or mitigating overpopulation because of the effects it has on society.
• There is no answer to that, it’s more about the perspective that you look at it from.
• What’s interesting is that as it is, we aren’t even close to success on either end.