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Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

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121–130 of 293 posts

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#121
post #3

“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…

fwiw, biological heart valves, as opposed to metallic valves, are already quite commonly used today. biological ones are typically made from either cows, or pigs (bovine, porcine respectively). but this is on another level altogether.

But why cows and pigs and not chimps?

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a system level - in Singapore it is. HDB (public) for affordable, private for everything else. 75+% of housing is part of the HDB system.

Has no real democracy and the govt is able to plan decades ahead. It seems much better than the typical Western political system to me. But then again gays were only very recently accepted there, right?

The west doesn’t have real democracy either.

For the gay stuff, like the west?

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#124
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Housing can be affordable or an investment. It can't be both

Hoarding land and land speculation is really the root problem.

It's not bad for society if it was used to make building to provide rentable space to industries and business or to provide homes, or quite often both, but it doesn't provide easy money to investors.

Now sitting on land and seeing it appreciate with no hard work from you? That's easy money.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#125
How about the donor piggy though?

If this becomes commonplace and animals are bred/raised just for their organs, we get into murky ethical territory. (Yes, people already eat the organs for food, that's murky too. But industrial scale organ farming sounds even worse somehow.)

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#126

How about the donor piggy though? If this becomes commonplace and animals are bred/raised just for their organs, we get into murky ethical territory. (Yes, people already eat the organs for food, that's murky too. But industrial scale organ farming sounds even worse somehow.)

The donor pig is turned into bacon. Normally the liver goes in the trash.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#127
post #7
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fwiw, biological heart valves, as opposed to metallic valves, are already quite commonly used today. biological ones are typically made from either cows, or pigs (bovine, porcine respectively). but this is on another level altogether.

I had heart surgery 2 months ago to repair my mitral valve. In the lead-up to that, I had to make a decision what to do if it turned out replacement was needed instead of repair. Choices were metallic valves requiring me to be on warfarin the rest of my life or pig-derived valves. I chose the latter, mostly to avoid warfarin for life, but also because my surgeon was a PhD for work on creating biological-derived valve…

Pig and cow valves will calcify and fail eventually. But it’s a slow process so you have time to plan and make decisions for replacement. Mechanical values are great until one day the clicking sound stops and you need to get to a hospital ASAP.

Back in the 90’s there were a series of values where the flipping plate shattered-sending shrapnel into the heart and beyond. Typical failure mode is stuck open which is survivable. Stuck closed is very bad.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't believe most in the US would live in Japanese style housing at all.

Why not?

Aren't Japanese homes super tiny? Even smaller than the already small homes and apartments in Europe? That's one reason. In the US, it seems that people live in bigger places, with higher ceilings.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The US can’t. This has long been solved in other countries, to varying degrees.

Very few examples of this. None in democratic countries.

Re: Man still alive six months after pig kidney transplant

#130
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Housing can be affordable or an investment. It can't be both

It can be sort of both. What you need is more housing built at affordable prices. But dont oberbuild. In that situation housing should act as store of value to avoid inflation loss, but not something that you get rich buy borrowing and buying up dozens. You need socialism to do this efficiently. There isn't room for a profiteer. You need the government to invest (in the for people sense) in allocating land and buildi…

> housing should act as store of value

Why? Housing should act as a means to live decently. If my house depreciated to 0 once I'd built it, I wouldn't mind at all.

> You need socialism to do this efficiently

No you don't, you need to heavily tax empty and secondary residences and the issue solves itself in capitalism just fine.

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