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Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

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Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#21

Post by chickenzzzzu »

SoftTalker wrote: post #5
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

“Xenotransplantation” is pretty #%^*ing metal. It’s pretty wild being alive these days. Lots of big stuff the species is struggling to adapt to and figure out how to exist with. But also… we got the tablets from Star Trek. And now we have the ship’s computer from Star Trek, and the early makings of the holodeck. And we’re making pigmen senior citizens who would otherwise be dead. It’s quite something to stop and thin…

Meanwhile we can’t figure out how to provide a basic level of housing and healthcare to everyone.

We've figured that out, but certain members of society decided that extracting wealth through protectionist zoning/building code behavior is much, much more lucrative.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#22

Post by varispeed »

Waterluvian wrote: post #2

“Xenotransplantation” is pretty #%^*ing metal. It’s pretty wild being alive these days. Lots of big stuff the species is struggling to adapt to and figure out how to exist with. But also… we got the tablets from Star Trek. And now we have the ship’s computer from Star Trek, and the early makings of the holodeck. And we’re making pigmen senior citizens who would otherwise be dead. It’s quite something to stop and thin…

> “how do we handle how this changes what it is like to be human today?”

Progress, invention, is part of being human, so this is natural and normal thing that these thing happen. You can stop, marvel, and then go improve upon your own niche.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#23

Post by ACCount37 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #2

“Xenotransplantation” is pretty #%^*ing metal. It’s pretty wild being alive these days. Lots of big stuff the species is struggling to adapt to and figure out how to exist with. But also… we got the tablets from Star Trek. And now we have the ship’s computer from Star Trek, and the early makings of the holodeck. And we’re making pigmen senior citizens who would otherwise be dead. It’s quite something to stop and thin…

Eh, "figuring out how to deal with it" is the easy part. The hard part is first making it work, and then proving its effectiveness, scaling it and improving it.

Medical advancements in particular are notorious for having a hideously long lead time. This here is an experimental procedure that, if all goes well, will only start becoming commonplace by year 2035. It's not guaranteed to all go well.

You'd think there would be a massive push for new medical technologies that have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives, and you'd be wrong. Healthcare is where innovation goes to die. Most companies that attempt to develop this kind of bleeding edge treatment crash and burn either before or shortly after seeing the first results. Just the cost of early testing of a new treatment option is enough to bankrupt many.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#24

Post by philiplu »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #16
ACCount37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoreTex being the brand of a material that was put into your heart sure sounds amusing.

At heart, he's a GoreTex™ guy. I'll just get my coat...

I’ll have to remember that one

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#25

Post by layoric »

ekianjo wrote: post #12
SoftTalker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we can’t figure out how to provide a basic level of housing and healthcare to everyone.

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

And who is on the other side of that debt? And how did it get there?

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#26

Post by ggm »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #16
ACCount37 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GoreTex being the brand of a material that was put into your heart sure sounds amusing.

At heart, he's a GoreTex™ guy. I'll just get my coat...

> I'll just get my coat

And what fabric is that coat made of?

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#27

Post by MattGaiser »

ekianjo wrote: post #12
SoftTalker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we can’t figure out how to provide a basic level of housing and healthcare to everyone.

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

America spends a greater percentage of government money on healthcare than many systems with universal healthcare. Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Affairs and Military medical spending are about 7% of GDP. Add another 1-3% and you would be ahead of almost everyone.

And that would still be a savings of 7% of GDP.

Not providing universal healthcare is entirely a political cocktail of wasting the money, letting big corporations loot it with tactics like using many partial vials of medicine instead of a full vial, letting the medical professional groups stuff up the pipeline of medical practitioners, and electing members who did all of the above to Congress.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#28

Post by ashdksnndck »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #19
ekianjo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fy-2023-fed-bu...

Defense is only 13% of federal spending: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

Military spending has actually decreased a lot as a % of GDP in the US over time, so old narratives about this have become less true. So the anti-military-spending orgs have to abuse the numbers if they want to keep that narrative going:

https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and...

Though, a reasonable person can still argue that the many billions we still spend on the military can be better used elsewhere. There’s no need to cook the numbers to make that point.

Healthcare spending is now 4x higher than military in the US (across the whole economy, not just government). So it’s hard to claim the problem is we’re prioritizing the military over healthcare. In my opinion, we have a systemic issue where we get poor value for money across a variety of sectors. Healthcare, education, military, housing, transit…

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#29

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ggm wrote: post #26
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At heart, he's a GoreTex™ guy. I'll just get my coat...

> I'll just get my coat And what fabric is that coat made of?

Sheepskin (the “I’ll get my coat” reference is from The Register).

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#30

Post by erentz »

ekianjo wrote: post #12
SoftTalker wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile we can’t figure out how to provide a basic level of housing and healthcare to everyone.

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

Taxing the land and removing zoning limits on it is the big hurdle.
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