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Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

irishtimes.com

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Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#491

Post by meowface »

ehnto wrote: post #271
tclancy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you ever remove human bias from such a system? This is a non-starter.

Right, imagine someone convicted of possession of marijuana. There are still plenty of people who consider marijuana on par with hard drugs and serious crime. In their eyes, someone convicted of possession may as well be on par with murderers.

For the record, my original comment before I deleted it was exclusively referring to cases of deliberate violent crimes, with a caveat that it should probably be restricted to just homicide.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#492

Post by EugeneOZ »

sweetheart wrote: post #396
EugeneOZ wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why pigs are “impure” (parasites in the meat), but why dogs?

Pigs are no more impure than dogs, fwiw. That belief is merely a result of having been raised in a culture that arbitrarily chooses to love dogs and cats and hate most other animals. Dogs can be infested with parasites just as easily as pigs.

Well, but I don't think they eat dogs.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#493

Post by EugeneOZ »

ashtonkem wrote: post #431
EugeneOZ wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand why pigs are “impure” (parasites in the meat), but why dogs?

“Dogs are pets” is one of those cultural background assumptions that can be pretty jarring when you realize it’s not a universally held belief. There are pretty large chunks of the planet where dogs are mostly unwanted pests at best.

Muslims use dogs as pets, so it's not argument here.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#494

Post by pvaldes »

baldfat wrote: post #388
jostmey wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the FDA will insert itself to regulate medicine wherever it can. For example, the FDA has been pushing to regulate diagnostic tests as medical devices. It’s funny how Americans surrender medical autonomy to the government but draw a strict line in the sand in other issues

I have a weird muscle disease that is treated with just taking over the counter L-Carnitine. The issue, vitamins and supplements are not regulated. So, I will try to take a new brand and after a few days my symptoms will come back because the pills don't have the L-Carnitine like it says and there is no one to make sure it does. It will cost me four to seven days of pain, and no one is held responsible. My best guess…

If there are two brands exposed to the same market rules and one cost half the price there is a fair possibility that will contain less amount of the expensive active stuff and more of the cheaper ingredients. Technically is still carnitine, but one can have 90% of carnitine and the other just a 60%.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#495

Post by ethbr0 »

all2 wrote: post #455
ethbr0 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries. The root of all government problems is "We trust you to make decisions that impact a large amount of monetary value, but also pay you less than the amount of money flowing through you, and also pay you less than private industry would be willing t…

> Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries. The FDA (and the CDC and others) and pharma sectors trade people all the time. There is a revolving door between the two. Medicine isn't the only place this happens. It happens in telecomm, military, manufacturing, and so on. We have experts at…

> Is there a conflict of interest? Only if the appointee was appointed by the other party. I argue that the apparent conflict of interest is only surface level. In the US we don't have "capitalism", we have "crony capitalism" that is verging on technocracy (rule of The Science and unelected bureaucrats).

There is no such thing as capitalism separate from democracy, with a government that performs many functions.

It's not crony capitalism or technocracy. It's just normal capitalism in a democracy. Same way it has been since the founding of the United States.

> The kinds of people who make those decisions are paid very well

Are they? GS tops out at around $170k https://www.generalschedule.org/ . And S/ES at around $220k https://www.federalpay.org/ses/2022 .

That's a good salary. But it's not necessarily something I'd feel comfortable going to sleep with, knowing they had a finger on the scales of millions of dollars, if there weren't watchdog and mitigation measures in place.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#496

Post by dragonwriter »

all2 wrote: post #455
ethbr0 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries. The root of all government problems is "We trust you to make decisions that impact a large amount of monetary value, but also pay you less than the amount of money flowing through you, and also pay you less than private industry would be willing t…

> Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries. The FDA (and the CDC and others) and pharma sectors trade people all the time. There is a revolving door between the two. Medicine isn't the only place this happens. It happens in telecomm, military, manufacturing, and so on. We have experts at…

> In the US we don't have "capitalism", we have "crony capitalism"

The real world system for which the term “capitalism” was coined, was, is, and always has been crony capitalism; the idea of a non-crony capitalism is a utopian fairy tale that was invented to justify real-world capitalism which has never resembled it.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#497

Post by pvaldes »

EugeneOZ wrote: post #387
inglor_cz wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The recipient is a non-Muslim, so no Sharia-related problems in his case. AFAIK it is not forbidden for a Muslim to touch pigs, only to eat them. Pigs and dogs are impure, but you can perform ablution afterwards. Muslims normally own hunting and guarding dogs. That would actually be a common problem for Coalition soldiers in Iraq when they tried to enter a village by stealth - lots of barking. "This impureness nevert…

I understand why pigs are “impure” (parasites in the meat), but why dogs?

This rule was written in an age when rabies was a big problem. It has a lot of sense to avoid scavenger dogs and pigs in those places in the past. Now we have developed a solution to this problem but, as is included as part of a religion is a fossil rule that can't be changed. We have still many of this rules around.

Science welcomes change when we find a better way to do something. Is assumed that humans can be wrong and learn. Religion will fiercely oppose change because god can't be wrong by definition (and nobody has the authority to fix it). Ideology will oppose also changes that see as a menace, but can be more flexible.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#498

Post by voldacar »

threshold wrote: post #305

Is this compassionate use or experimentation on a dying patient for the future benefit of the rest of us? I’m fine with the latter, if consensual. But only if we call it what it is.

>for the future benefit of the rest of us

why does it need to be? What if Mr. Bennett just wants to live longer? What obligation does he have to you or me or anyone?

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#499

Post by zacmps »

Valgrim wrote: post #459
henryw wrote: post #174

This reminds me of the movie The Island where they cloned people as organ backups https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0399201/ .

If you want to explore the concept further, I suggest you watch the movie "Never Let Me Go" (2010). The premise is very similar, apart from the fact there's no secret or conspiracy about it, children are just grown to become sacrificial organ donors, and since it's socially accepted, there's no way out of it. Fair warning: it's pretty depressing.

Based on a book by the same name. I haven't watched the film but I can recommend the book.

Re: Two weeks later David Bennett is alive, his pig’s heart beating soundly

#500

Post by all2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #496
all2 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? Because citizens want an expert-staffed and functional regulatory body, but aren't willing to pay the tax necessary to fund it, at parity with private sector salaries. The FDA (and the CDC and others) and pharma sectors trade people all the time. There is a revolving door between the two. Medicine isn't the only place this happens. It happens in telecomm, military, manufacturing, and so on. We have experts at…

> In the US we don't have "capitalism", we have "crony capitalism" The real world system for which the term “capitalism” was coined, was, is, and always has been crony capitalism; the idea of a non-crony capitalism is a utopian fairy tale that was invented to justify real-world capitalism which has never resembled it.

The idea of "freedom" and inalienable rights are also utopian fairy tales. There's a reason the guys that wrote the Constitution called it "a more perfect union". We aren't perfect, by we may strive for that ideal.
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