During breakfast, my mother and I were talking about certain things that have happened to our lives recently. She started working again at her primary school, as the summer holidays have finally come to an end and I was preparing myself for my final year in college (a sixth form college that is. I guess it's like the final year at an American high school). We suddenly started talking about Torchwood, a sci-fi program that I started watching recently. I've only seen two episodes of Torchwood, but the Miracle Day theme seems to interest me a lot. It started making me think about how important death and diseases are, and how good they actually are.
Of course, death and illnesses are not that great - morally. I'm sure no one enjoys the sight of a fellow human being suffering from a disease or dying because of one. Adverts of children in third-world begging for food or suffering from a preventable illness, continuously break out hearts.
However, science today has become like a bacteria that it continuously multiplying and coming up with new ideas and inventions. I have read in a few newspapers that human beings could possible become immortal with the help of medicines and cures for diseases. Nowadays, people are reaching ages which would seem unimaginable to our forefathers, all thanks to science. It's actually brilliant how we and the world have developed thanks to science.
But is this really a good thing? Surely, you can argue that many lives have been saved thanks to science. Like it has been shown on Torchwood, death is rather important. In fact, it's vital that we should die. Perfect immune systems and immortality might seem like the ideal dream for most of us, yet it would be destructive. Why?
Firstly, the most obvious reason - the World would not have enough resources for all the immortal human beings and we won't be able to shelter everyone. This problem is happening right now, even though we're mortal! We are running out of scarce resources, which are meant to provide for our needs on a daily basis, e.g. fossil fuels. Of course, science is trying to figure out alternatives for fossil fuels, but that's going to take a while and when immortality is a possibility, 'a while' is not a good thing.
Even if people were not immortal, the fact that medicine has the ability to increase the life span of a human being is good (morally), because people are surviving, but it's also bad, because people aren't dying quickly enough. I know, at the moment I seem like an absolute nutter, but hear me out! In 1500, the world only consisted of 450 million people. That's a bit more that the US population today and a lot less than the population of the People's Republic of China! It has been predicted that in 2083, the world will consist of 10 billion human beings!
Now let's go back to the topic of our resources running out. Another problem is that we won't be able to provide money and shelter for all these people in 2083! Not only would this leave many people unemployed and homeless, it could even result to a great increase in crime.Obviously, the homeless people would resort to crime in order to provide for themselves and/or for the family, but governments might even implement laws which allows murder, in order to decrease the rapid growth in population.
What I was basically trying to explain through this post (and obviously failed), is that even though medicine and science might advance today's society and make everything better, it could also lead to destruction in 2083. Or maybe that's all in my head. I don't know. I have a headache.
Tracy
Of course, death and illnesses are not that great - morally. I'm sure no one enjoys the sight of a fellow human being suffering from a disease or dying because of one. Adverts of children in third-world begging for food or suffering from a preventable illness, continuously break out hearts.
However, science today has become like a bacteria that it continuously multiplying and coming up with new ideas and inventions. I have read in a few newspapers that human beings could possible become immortal with the help of medicines and cures for diseases. Nowadays, people are reaching ages which would seem unimaginable to our forefathers, all thanks to science. It's actually brilliant how we and the world have developed thanks to science.
But is this really a good thing? Surely, you can argue that many lives have been saved thanks to science. Like it has been shown on Torchwood, death is rather important. In fact, it's vital that we should die. Perfect immune systems and immortality might seem like the ideal dream for most of us, yet it would be destructive. Why?
Firstly, the most obvious reason - the World would not have enough resources for all the immortal human beings and we won't be able to shelter everyone. This problem is happening right now, even though we're mortal! We are running out of scarce resources, which are meant to provide for our needs on a daily basis, e.g. fossil fuels. Of course, science is trying to figure out alternatives for fossil fuels, but that's going to take a while and when immortality is a possibility, 'a while' is not a good thing.
Even if people were not immortal, the fact that medicine has the ability to increase the life span of a human being is good (morally), because people are surviving, but it's also bad, because people aren't dying quickly enough. I know, at the moment I seem like an absolute nutter, but hear me out! In 1500, the world only consisted of 450 million people. That's a bit more that the US population today and a lot less than the population of the People's Republic of China! It has been predicted that in 2083, the world will consist of 10 billion human beings!
Now let's go back to the topic of our resources running out. Another problem is that we won't be able to provide money and shelter for all these people in 2083! Not only would this leave many people unemployed and homeless, it could even result to a great increase in crime.Obviously, the homeless people would resort to crime in order to provide for themselves and/or for the family, but governments might even implement laws which allows murder, in order to decrease the rapid growth in population.
What I was basically trying to explain through this post (and obviously failed), is that even though medicine and science might advance today's society and make everything better, it could also lead to destruction in 2083. Or maybe that's all in my head. I don't know. I have a headache.
Tracy
Google the "Malthusian Trap", Trace... t'is essentially what ye' be referring to. An increase in population that decreases the quality of life.
ReplyDeleteBy 2083, we'll be setting up space colonies, populating the moon and potentially even Mars... and you forget that constant advances in technology not only help us live longer, but help us bump the food supply, help us create new materials, help us be more efficient with what we have. The human race will survive. It will continue to populate the universe. we're not at risk of destroying ourselves by sheer numbers, yet.
Things like religion are bigger, more damaging issues. ;)