All men are created equal

[andrewducker]

As some of you know, Erin has PCOS. The solution to this is to basically give her drugs that return her body to normal levels of insulin/glucose so that her testosterone levels drop and she's normal again.

Now, I have insulin problems too. And according to recent statistics a large proportion is ending up with type 2 diabetes because of dietary problems. So it'd be great if we could brute-force a solution to this.

In some ways.

How far from the norm do people have to be before they are considered eligible? Do you allow people to self-medicate away their problems? Do we allow people to use this tech to make themselves thinner (or fatter) than normal by medicating? Is it reasonable to allow people to basically make themselves dependent on this technology so that their hormone levels are constantly monitored and adjusted and tuned to keep them at optimum levels.

More to the point, lets extend that to a general level. We're gaining more and more control over our bodies and brains. Are we going to take control of our bodies on a deep invasive level (eventually redefining what it means to be human) or are we going to decide that only certain changes are to be allowed? This underlies many issues facing modern politics, from cloning to genetic manipulation to human/machine interfaces. At some point this basic issue is going to have to be faced, or the decisions will be taken piece by piece and not in the directions we necessarily want them to.

Comments

[cleodhna.livejournal.com]

These are both very good points, drawing attention to a distinction I failed to make. There are some body modifications which can accomplish certain ends, such as reactive lenses that keep you more comfortable or cosmetic changes that make you happy, and compensating with drugs for doing bad things to your body, such as maintaining an outright destructive diet, which was pretty much the aspect of the problem I meant to address. I would never advocate that people refrain from all sorts of body modifications: abolish penicillin? Preposterous. Our ability to adapt ourselves and our environment, willfully, with the use fo tools, is part of the reason we are where we are today, but I think it potentially damaging to attempt to ight every wrong by compensation rather than by addressing the cause. A lot of people do themselves a fair amount of harm by eating stupidly, and, okay, yeah, medical science can compensate for the fix into which they get themselves when they do, on a lot of fronts, but wouldn't it have been more sensible of them to adopt healthier eating practices-- which is a surprisingly non-painful thing to do-- in the first place?
I take drugs every day to control my rather nasty asthma. I'm a caffeine junkie, and I do like my glass of wine with dinner. I'll take pain killers when I'm sick, and spent many of my formative years under the influence of pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. I have a tattoo. I don't think these are bad things. But I do think that the solution to many of the health problems that are becoming epidemic in Western society is better and more easily reached by behavioural adaptation rather than body modification.

Heh

[allorin.livejournal.com]

I feel dumb posting under such a serious topic with a Spidey pic....