Quote:
Originally Posted by hal
Would you purchase a pill or treatment, that would basically enhance your ability to avoid infectious diseases, if it cost say, 10% of your income per year? It wouldn't even be a cybernetic enhancement right? GURPS CLASSIC ULTRATECH called it Panimmunity available at TL 9 (old tech tree) while GURPS ULTRATECH (for 4e) calls it "Tailored Immune Machines" at TL 10. There is already discussions about tailoring a bodychemistry to recognize cancer cells and use the body's immune system to hunt and destroy that specific cancer. That they don't do it for other cancers seems to have to do with how the body's white blood cells attack infections in the form of fevers etc that might be dangerous (a simplification I'm sure, as I'm no doctor!).
As a whole, the final cost for various things might be expensive, but for each "itemized" thing that improves life, they may be relatively inexpensive. What would be interesting is to identify those things that improve the lives of people in an Ultratech campaign, and figure out what the final cost per year might be and tack it on to the cost of living.
To my never ending frustration with the new "cost of living" issues that crop up in GURPS discussions - having the ability (like CP2020 did) to itemize expenses like where you live, what clothes you wear, what food you eat etc, was a GOOD thing for those who want to track it. Some just don't like tracking it. On the other hand, the simple thing to do is track it once, and never revisit it again - a TAILOR made cost of living if you will.
Ah well, your point about your own immune system is well taken. How much will an improvement to any given lifestyle be seen as a trade off between what is natural, and what is artificial?
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Note: My objection to changing my subconscious was not a matter of natural vs. artificial, but rather a matter of becoming someone else being a matter that would require some serious consideration (not something I'd never do, but I'd think hard, and the default answer leans towards 'no' before additional data becomes available).
As for the immune system:
I already underwent some modification thereof this year (a trick to get used to some allergens), but it cost me more like 0.01% of yearly income (
hopefully this will be a one-time payment, but I'd be willing to repeat it regularly if it reverts within, say, a year or two). Given my current lifestyle and health status, I find an ongoing 10%-of-income cost for Immunity to Disease to be too expensive for the benefit it provides. For a one-time 10%-of-yearly-income cost and a benefit that will stay for me till the end of the the body's life, sure, I'd buy it. My note about the immune system being recognizable is orthogonal to the willingness to improve it.