by Dukasaur on Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:43 pm
This has become a very interesting thread. There's a lot of different things I'd like to respond to here. Confed, 2d, JD, mookie, jim, all have raised points I'd like to respond to but it would become one of those messy omnibus replies with a thousand quotes. I think I'll try to sum up the gist of what I'd like to say without specific line-by-line responses.
The idea that our species is getting weaker because we are making life easier is a seductive idea. It's partially true, but too simple. A little nuance is needed.
The key, I think, is that there are things we've done which have both an upside and a downside. But there are also things which are almost pure upside or almost pure downside. There's no blanket statement that you can make which is true of all technological advances. They each have to be considered separately and their pluses and minuses measured.
Let's take the invention of the elevator. It's definitely a big time saver and makes life a lot easier. It also robs us of a great opportunity to improve our cardiovascular systems. Traditionally mountain tribes have had better health than lowland tribes. Part of that is due to better diet, cleaner air, etc., but a large part of it is that walking up steep inclines is excellent cardiovascular conditioning. If people who live on the 40th floor of a high-rise apartment were to walk up the stairs every day, they would have vastly improved cardiovascular health. In that sense, the invention of the elevator has weakened our species. We would be better off without it.
On the other hand, if a person with a broken leg lived on the 40th floor, walking up the stairs would be a devastating blow. They might not make it home, even once. If they did make it home, it might take the whole day. They might become shut-ins and get on a downward spiral in life. So there is some upside to balance against the downside.
So, elevators are a bad thing for most of us, but a very good thing for a few. The trick is, if your legs are fine, how do you train yourself to avoid the temptation of taking the easy way out? How do you build the habit of taking the stairs whenever possible? There's a lot of opportunities for exercise in everyday life which we turn down. It's really ironic to see people who fire up the car to go to the corner store, but then spend money on a gym membership! I don't think there's anything you can do on a societal level to change this. It just has to be a personal decision to seize those opportunities. You just have to be aware that yes, the elevator is bad for your heart. It's making you softer and setting you up for a heart attack ten years from now.
Which brings us to the problem of blood pressure pills. High blood pressure kills. Blood pressure pills do sometimes work, and do save some lives. On the other hand, by far the most effective ways to lower your blood pressure are to lose weight, stop smoking, stop eating sugar, stop drinking, and exercise more.. Obesity, nicotine, sugar, lack of exercise, alcohol. Attack those five aggressively, and 98% of the time you will lower your blood pressure far more reliably than any blood pressure pill. For most people, taking blood pressure pills (and you could say the same about diabetes medications and cholesterol medications) becomes a dodge. They take their pills, their blood pressure comes down a bit, and it lets them live in denial and avoid the hard work that losing weight or quitting smoking can be. I think here is a case where definitely the downside of the technology is greater than the upside. Our society would be far better off if doctors would just speak honestly and say, "look buddy -- stop smoking, stop drinking, walk up the stairs, stop eating all the time, and especially stop eating sugar, or you will for sure soon die," instead of writing prescriptions to cover up the problem.
Of course, there are a tiny number of people -- about 2% -- whose high blood pressure is genetic and not caused by lifestyle factors. For those people, having blood pressure pills is a life saver akin to the elevator for the guy with the broken leg. For everybody else, they're a terrible evil. If you're being prescribed BP pills, unless you know for sure that your BP is genetic, I would very strongly urge you to throw the prescription in the garbage and address the lifestyle changes that you know you should be making.
Vaccines are not in the same category. There really isn't anything good about getting a disease. Walking up the stairs will improve your heart. Being sick will not. Nobody has ever been better off by being sick. Best-case scenario is that you will have a very mild case which won't affect you much, but never will it make you stronger.
Throwing away your cholesterol meds and losing weight instead will make you stronger. Throwing away your vaccines and getting chicken pox will not. Yes, if you get a disease, you will build some immunity to getting it again. Taking the vacccine will also build immunity, but with a much lower risk. Getting a disease and getting the vaccine both come with some risk, but the risks that come from vaccines are generally about a thousand time lower than the corresponding risk that comes from getting the disease.
You cannot say that being vaccinated makes you weaker. At best, it will prevent you from ever being afflicted with the disease. Even if it doesn't prevent it completely, it may give you a partial resistance which will make your bout with the disease significantly easier. At the extreme worst, you may suffer some kind of reaction and you might even die, but those possibilities are vanishingly small.
Elevators hurt most of us, but are essential for a few. BP medications hurt most of us, but save an even tinier few. For vaccines, it's the reverse. Vaccines hurt a very tiny few, while saving very many.
“Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.”
― Voltaire