Playing Against the Trend: Non-Villainous Anti-PSR, Reactionary etc. Characters

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Fair enough.

I do hope that further advances in medicine will help you.

Thanks, but it's not just furture but current medical treatments I could benefit from that are denied to me by the encumbrance of the strong moral and customary restraints you mention. For example I have a bad cold that is potentially life-threatening when combined with my sleep apnea, but I could not buy effective cold medicine last night at the store because medications containing pseudoephedrine are only sold during pharmacy hours to control quantities from being used to make crystal meth. This makes TS issues like cloned organs and other parts as topical for me as Star Trek's proxy wars and race episodes were in its time.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

Thanks, but it's not just furture but current medical treatments I could benefit from that are denied to me by the encumbrance of the strong moral and customary restraints you mention. For example I have a bad cold that is potentially life-threatening when combined with my sleep apnea, but I could not buy effective cold medicine last night at the store because medications containing pseudoephedrine are only sold during pharmacy hours to control quantities from being used to make crystal meth. This makes TS issues like cloned organs and other parts as topical for me as Star Trek's proxy wars and race episodes were in its time.

I don't think that's a bioethics issue, so I don't think it really works as an analogy for concerns over human cloning. YMMV

But I do think that it's ludicrous that you can't get cold meds after usual pharmacy hours. That isn't going to stop people from making crank, anyway. Stupid 'but it makes us feel safer' laws...

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

But I do think that it's ludicrous that you can't get cold meds after usual pharmacy hours. That isn't going to stop people from making crank, anyway. Stupid 'but it makes us feel safer' laws...

Megan McArdle describes it as a syllogism:

We must do something!
This is something.
Therefore we must do it.

Bill Stoddard

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

But I do think that it's ludicrous that you can't get cold meds after usual pharmacy hours. That isn't going to stop people from making crank, anyway.

It has the (dubiously useful) effect of pushing the production from individuals in their basement over to organized crime. Its conceivable that they are more professional and thus less likely to create simultaneous hazmat/fire/explosives hazards, but its not like organized crime is prone to caring about problems like that unless they interfere with profits.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Even Mars has little to no place for the happy-go-lucky drifter with no name, no allegiance, and a deck of cards as his most prized possession.

Doing that if you're human isn't very practical anywhere except Earth, because of the life-support issues. But as an infomorph with the right shell, there are quite a lot of places where it's possible, if you're willing to stay off the net.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I don't think that's a bioethics issue, so I don't think it really works as an analogy for concerns over human cloning. YMMV

But I do think that it's ludicrous that you can't get cold meds after usual pharmacy hours. That isn't going to stop people from making crank, anyway. Stupid 'but it makes us feel safer' laws...

The big trouble is, drawing the line between bioethics issues and other issues (particularly ones where the law should step aside) is one of the big points of the bioethics debates.

E.g. this is what Caine has to say about EU's ban on bioroid production and ownership:
'I was made for a purpose, I worked for my makers in exchange. I was better off than not existing. If I were worse off than not existing, I would pick suicide instead. So it is about my creation, my pursuit of happiness. Why does the government want to meddle in my pursuit of happiness, my mutually beneficial interaction with Euphrates? Why would it want to prohibit my existence and my subsequent pursuit of happiness? It is no more a legit concern for the government than what a couple does to each other in their bedroom.'

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I don't think that's a bioethics issue, so I don't think it really works as an analogy for concerns over human cloning. YMMV

A powerful, effective cold medicine is witheld from me because it is feared it will be used for bad ends (erratic behavior, fires, toxic spills, and their expensive remediation by the govt).

A powerful, effective treatment for hypoxia (oxygen) is witheld from me because it is feared people will harm themselves with it if not under a doctor's care, and when I can get it it is several times more expensive than the identical product used by civil aviators.

A powerful, hypothetically effective treatment for restricted mobility (cloned replacement limbs) is witheld from development to the point of actual effectiveness because it is feared that people will clone people and tumor babies and use stem cells from abortions. Of course, people are still allowed to have abortions and take drugs to produce 8 babies at once and to discard electronics that end up producing tumor babies in China, for frivolous reasons or no reason.

A powerful, effective treatment for restricted mobility (bioroid replacement limbs) is witheld from Europeans because someone attempting to make their own biogenesis tank to grow some falls under suspicion of attempting to make complete bioroids, or violating a patent on prosthetic limbs with right-hand-threaded bolts, etc.

Same shinola, different decade.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by jeff_wilson

A powerful, effective cold medicine is witheld from me because it is feared it will be used for bad ends (erratic behavior, fires, toxic spills, and their expensive remediation by the govt).

A powerful, effective treatment for hypoxia (oxygen) is witheld from me because it is feared people will harm themselves with it if not under a doctor's care, and when I can get it it is several times more expensive than the identical product used by civil aviators.

A powerful, hypothetically effective treatment for restricted mobility (cloned replacement limbs) is witheld from development to the point of actual effectiveness because it is feared that people will clone people and tumor babies and use stem cells from abortions. Of course, people are still allowed to have abortions and take drugs to produce 8 babies at once and to discard electronics that end up producing tumor babies in China, for frivolous reasons or no reason.

A powerful, effective treatment for restricted mobility (bioroid replacement limbs) is witheld from Europeans because someone attempting to make their own biogenesis tank to grow some falls under suspicion of attempting to make complete bioroids, or violating a patent on prosthetic limbs with right-hand-threaded bolts, etc.

Same shinola, different decade.

I don't think you want to get me writing about abortion, fertility drugs, Red China, or any of that.

The thread will spiral into Gen Chat territory in a hurry.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I don't think you want to get me writing about abortion, fertility drugs, Red China, or any of that.

The thread will spiral into Gen Chat territory in a hurry.

Let's not. This is why I immediately replied with a piece of in-THS rhetoric above.

[Flyndaran]

I don't think the excessive control of drugs is too volatile for this group.
I know that I hate it when the government rather than doctors decide what does and does not have any medical use.
There was some preliminary studies of ecstasy as a treatment for severe anxiety and social disorder, before politicians decided that it doesn't. There's a good possibility that my legal medication is why I now have type 2 diabetes.

Everything can and will be misused by someone. Isn't it called the Camel's Nose fallacy to assume that one shouldn't allow X because it too easily leads to Y being allowed?